CHAPTER VIII
A WEDDING JOURNEY
At noon they kneeled before the Cardinal of Milan, in the great white cathedral, speaking the words that welded their bonds. It was an hour of gray skies, and the many-hued sunshine that often had sifted through the great stained glass windows to felicitate a bride did not fall upon Hera. The gay world of Lombardy was there, filling the transept with its silks and jewels, and in the backward parts of the nave and aisles common folk looked on at the famous wedding.
There was to be a breakfast in Villa Barbiondi, and when the ceremony at the altar was over some of the princes and dukes and marquises, with their dames, followed Tarsis and his bride to the main door. In the journals of that evening were the names of the ladies and gentlemen who composed the brilliant procession, with details, more or less accurate, as to the gowns.
Other particulars of the event, within the cathedral and without, were set down minutely by press men and press women. They told of the concourse of people in the square—hundreds of them idle working folk; how they crowded the steps before the church, and how the Civil Guards kept open a lane to the carriages of the bridal party; but no mention was made of the sullen faces bordering that lane.
Nor was there any account of the doings of La Ferita, the woman of the scarred face, who shook her fist at Tarsis. Before he came from the church she had annoyed the Civil Guards by crying out: “Joy to the bridegroom! Death to the children in his factories!” The guards gave her a final warning, which she understood; and when Tarsis passed by her tongue was stilled, but the long scar glowed and her eyes looked savage hatred. Tarsis saw the woman shaking her fist at him, and so did Hera. In after days he was aware of that face, with its deep red mark running across one eyelid from forehead to cheekbone. Another detail overlooked or purposely omitted by the conservative press was the low muttering against the bridegroom that sounded here and there in the crowd.
The nuptial cortege started for the railway station. In Corso Vittorio Emanuele it passed a café where a youthful artist, in satirical mood, was amusing some comrades with his pencil. He threw off a cartoon of the wedding. It depicted the bridegroom receiving a blow on the nose from the brawny fist of a workman; and in the place of blood there flowed—gold pieces! The editor of a revolutionary journal picked it up, and while the merry breakfast at the villa was in progress the thing circulated, filling many of the Milanese with delight and moving others to indignation.
Tarsis and his bride set off for Paris by the night express. The station master at Milan greeted them as they alighted from the train that bore them from the Brianza, and with many a bow and smile conducted them to the private car in which they were to travel as only the King and the Queen travel in Italy. The ceremonious tribute of the conductor and the guards as they passed along the platform tickled the vanity of Tarsis in no small degree. To the keen eye his manner betrayed the pride he felt in this public display of his husbandship to the beautiful daughter of the aristocracy who walked by his side.
That was Hera’s thought when they were seated in their moving drawing-room. Oddly enough she found herself studying his attire. She recalled that hitherto it had never given her any distinct impression; he had always appeared dressed in the height of fashion, with a certain mercantile brilliancy best described, perhaps, as stylish. Now it seemed that he looked a trifle too much like a bridegroom. In this moment she awoke sharply to the truth that he was, irreparably, for better or for worse, her husband. Again she heard the solemn voice of the cardinal proclaiming, “This bond may not be severed so long as you do live.” Before, the fact had not assumed a phase of such vivid actuality; it all had been so utterly opposed to the current of her thoughts and the desire of her heart. Now the trial she had accepted in a sentiment of duty came home to her in its practical aspect. And in the spirit of a gentlewoman she resolved to meet the situation with good grace. As well look the fact in the eye and make the best of it. Then and there she decided that under the chafing of the yoke she would not fret and lose her peace.
It turned out that the wedding journey began with a pleasant surprise for Tarsis. He found his wife a most cheerful companion. She talked with him lightly and let her laughter ripple. Of course, she overplayed the part in her first essay. But Tarsis, in his exultation, was completely hors de critique. This unexpected melting of his iceberg produced cups of vanity which went to his head and intoxicated him to the verge of blindness. All he could see was his own supposed success in making himself agreeable to his wife. After dinner, when the attendant had set out the Marsala and cigars, she bade him smoke, and while he did so she read to him from the Milanese Firefly. Together they laughed over the droll jests and anecdotes told so quaintly in the Lombardian patter. He told her about his career in the money-making world; how success there was once his only aspiration, but that now he was aware of a waning zest in the game. He paused to look into her eyes, while a certain softness, as of meek appeal, showed in his own. Then he said, rising and standing near her chair:
“Life holds only one prize for me to-day. It is your tender regard.”