Days had lengthened into weeks, and it was already the end of February. In Florence, as in London, February is not the most enjoyable time of the year, and those who travel south to the Winter City expecting the sunshine and warmth of the Riviera are usually sadly disappointed. At the end of March Florence becomes pleasant, and remains so till the end of May; while in autumn, when the mosquitoes cease to trouble, the sun has lost its power, and the Lungarno is cool, it is also a delightful place of residence. But February afternoons beside the Arno are very often as dark, as dreary, and as yellow as beside the Thames; and as Gemma sat after luncheon in her cosy room, the smallest in the great old palazzo in the Borgo d’Albizzi which bore her name, she shuddered and drew a silken shawl about her shoulders. It was one of the show-places of Florence; one of those ponderous, prison-like buildings built of huge blocks of brown stone, time-worn, having weathered the storms of five centuries, and notable as containing a magnificent collection of works of art. Its mediaeval exterior, a relic of ancient Florence, was gloomy and forbidding enough, with its barred windows, over-hanging roof, strange lanterns of wonderfully worked iron, and great iron rings to which men tied their horses in days bygone. Once beyond the great courtyard, however, it was indeed a gorgeous palace. The Funaros had always been wealthy and powerful in the Lily City, and had through ages collected within their palace quantities of antiquities and costly objects. Every room was beautifully decorated, some with wonderful frescoes by Andrea del Sarto, whose work in the outer court of the Annunziata is ever admired by sight-seers of every nationality, while the paintings were by Ciro Ferri, Giovanni da Bologna, Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, and Fra Bartolommeo, together with some frescoes in grisaille with rich ornamentation by Del Sarto’s pupil Franciabigio, and hosts of other priceless works.
It was a magnificent residence. There were half a dozen other palaces in the same thoroughfare, including the Altoviti, the Albizzi, and the Pazzi, but this was the finest of them all. When Gemma had inherited it she had at once furnished half a dozen rooms in modern style. The place was so enormous that she always felt lost in it, and seldom strayed beyond these rooms which overlooked the great paved courtyard with its ancient wall and curious sculptures chipped and weather-worn. The great gloomy silent rooms, with their bare oaken floors, mouldering tapestries, and time-blackened pictures, were to her grim and ghostly, as, indeed, they were to any but an art enthusiast or a lover of the antique. But the Contessa Funaro lived essentially in the present, and always declared herself more in love with cleanliness than antiquarian dirt. She had no taste for the relics of the past, and affected none. If English or American tourists found anything in the collections to admire, they were at liberty to do so on presenting their card to the liveried hall-porter. At the door the man had a box, and the money placed therein was sent regularly each quarter to the Maternity Hospital.
She spent little time in her grim, silent home; for truth to tell, its magnificence irritated her, and its extent always filled her with a sense of loneliness. The housekeeper, an elderly gentlewoman who had been a friend of her dead mother’s, was very deaf, and never amusing; therefore, after a fortnight or so, she was generally ready to exchange the Funaro Palace for the Hotel Cavour at Milan, the Minerva at Rome, or the hospitality of some country villa. Hotels, or even small houses, were not so grim and prison-like as her own great palazzo, the very walls of which seemed to breathe mutely of the past—of those troublous times when the clank of armour echoed in the long stone corridors, and the clink of spurs sounded in the courtyard below where now the only invaders were the pigeons.
The furniture of the small elegant room in which she sat was entirely modern, upholstered in pale-blue silk, with her monogram in gold thread; the carpets were thick, the great high Florentine stove threw forth a welcome warmth, and the grey light which filtered through the curtains was just sufficient to allow her to read. She was lying back in her long chair in a lazy, negligent attitude, her fair hair a trifle disordered by contact with the cushion behind her head; and one of her little slippers having fallen off, her small foot in its neat black silk stocking peeped out beneath her skirt. On the table at her elbow were two or three unopened letters, while in a vase stood a fine bouquet of flowers, a tribute from her deaf housekeeper.
Since the day she had parted from Count Castellani in the hall of the Embassy in Grosvenor Square she had travelled a good deal. She had been down to Rome, had had an interview with the Marquis Montelupo, and a week ago had unexpectedly arrived at the palazzo. As she had anticipated, when she broke her journey at Turin, on her way from London to Rome, and signed her name in the visitors’ book at the hotel, a police official called early on the following morning to inform her that she must consider herself under arrest. But the words scribbled by Montelupo upon his visiting-card had acted like magic, and, having taken the card to the Questura, the detective returned all bows and apologies, and she was allowed to proceed on her journey.
Nearly nine months had elapsed since she last set foot within her great old palazzo, and as she sat that afternoon she allowed her book to fall upon her lap and her eyes to slowly wander around the pretty room. She glanced at the window where the rain was being driven upon the tiny panes by the boisterous wind, and again she shuddered.
With an air of weariness she raised her hand and pushed the mass of fair hair off her brow, as if its weight oppressed her, sighing heavily. The events of the past month had been many and strange. In Rome she had found herself beset by a hundred pitfalls, but she had kept faith with the Marquis, and the terms she had made with him were such as to give her complete satisfaction. A crisis, however, was, she knew, imminent; a crisis in which she would be compelled to play a leading part. But to do so would require all her ingenuity, all her woman’s wit, all her courage, all her skill at deception.
Suddenly, as she was thus reflecting, Margherita, her faithful but ugly woman, who had been with her at Livorno, opened the door, and, drawing aside the heavy portière, said—
“The signore!”
“At last I at last!” she cried, excitedly jumping up instantly. “Show him up at once.” Then, facing the great mirror, she placed both hands to her hair, rearranging it deftly, recovered her lost slipper, cast aside the wrap, and stood ready to receive her visitor.