"When I was young," Susanna explained, "I was made by my English governess to learn many of Butler's Lives by heart, and, as an Ilarian, the Life of San Guido interested me particularly. He was canonised, by the way, by Adrian the Fourth—the English Pope. As a consequence of that, the Valdeschi have always had a great fondness for England, and have often married English wives—English Catholics, of course. An Englishwoman was Countess of Sampaolo when the end came, the patchwork end."
"Ah, yes," said Anthony, "the patchwork end—tell me about that."
"The end," Susanna answered, "was an act of shameful treachery on the part of one of the descendants of San Guido towards another, his immediate kinsman, and the rightful head of the family. And now it is melodrama and opera-bouffe as much as ever you will. It is a revolution in a tea-cup. It is the ancient story of the Wicked Uncle."
"Yes?" said Anthony.
"It is perfectly trite," said Susanna, "and it would be perfectly absurd, if it were n't rather tragic, or perfectly tragic, if it were n't rather absurd."
She thought for a moment. Anthony waited, attentive.
"In 1850," she narrated, "Count Antonio the Seventeenth died, leaving a widow, who was English, and an only son, a lad of twelve, who should naturally have succeeded his father as Guido the Eleventh. But Count Antonio had a younger brother, also named Guido, who coveted the succession for himself, and had long been intriguing to secure it—organising secret societies among the people, to further the idea of Italian unity, and bargaining with the King of Sardinia for the price he should receive if he contrived to bring the Sampaolesi to give up their independence. Well," she went on, with a slight effect of effort, "while his brother lay dying, Guido, spying his opportunity, was especially active. 'Now,' he said to the people, 'is the time to strike. If, at my brother's death, his son succeeds him, we shall have a regency, and the regent will be a foreigner and a woman. Now is the time to terminate this petty despotism forever, to repudiate the suzerainty of the Pope, and to join in the great movement of Italia Riunita. To the Palace! Let us seize the Englishwoman and her son, and banish them from the island. Let us hoist the tricolour, and proclaim ourselves Italians, and subjects of the King. To the Palace!' So, while that poor lady"—her voice quavered a little—"while that poor lady was kneeling at the bedside of her dead husband,"—her voice sank,—"a great mob of insurgents broke into the Palazzo Rosso, singing 'Fuori l'Italia lo straniero,' seized her and the little Count, dragged them to the sea-front, and put them aboard a ship that was leaving for Trieste."
She paused for a few seconds.
"Then there was a plebiscite," she proceeded, "and Sampaolo solemnly transformed itself into a province of the Kingdom of Sardinia."
She paused again.