Oh, the horrors of those long, sleepless nights when I lay staring at the shadows cast by the taper on the painted ceiling, waiting for the first faint gray, for the song of the caged bird outside the opposite window, for the moment when that casement would open and I could see the profile of a young monk in a white habit bending over the bird cage. At long last came a welcome tap at my door and Mariuccia, the merry little maid, tiptoed to my side with a cheery:
“Buon Giorno, Signorina. It will go better to-day. I made a petition for you at mass.”
Relapse followed relapse. The doctor grew graver, the Suora more careful, my mother paler.
“The girl will never recover in this room. She must have sun; she must have fire!” I heard the doctor declare to my aunt.
“It is the truth!” murmured the Sister.
My beautiful Nile-green room was deadly cold; the only heat it ever knew came from a charcoal brazier whose fumes gave me such a headache that I preferred the cold. A few hours later my bed was carried into one of the sunny south drawing-rooms, where an open fire blazed upon the hearth. I was too much absorbed in the fight for life that followed to think much of the trouble I was giving; since then I have grilled in my blood at the memory of that upsetting of the well-ordered existence at the Palazzo Odescalchi. The splendid sunny reception and living rooms opened en suite, one from the other; what happened on the Wednesday afternoon receptions and the more intimate Sunday evenings at home?
In preparation for my first sitting up, my mother went to buy some white cashmere to make a “Nightingale” for me. The clerk had just cut a length from a piece and was folding it up for another purchaser, a lady in whom my mother recognized a friend, whose young daughter had died of the fever the day before; the cashmere was for her last garment! Shuddering, my mother hurried from the shop.
“Not from that piece of cloth, no!” She would find her material elsewhere!
As soon as I could be moved, the doctor suggested change of air. On a mild day of early spring my mother and I, with Marion Crawford for escort, left Rome. I remember that the peach trees were all in bloom.
“Orvieto is the place indicated,” Marion declared. “Has not its wine been prescribed? I have an acquaintance at the Aquila Bianca who has the best rooms and best macaroni in the town.”