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Wheat Princess

<h2 class='c009'>CHAPTER XV</h2></div> Villa Vivalanti was astir early in the morning—early, that is, for the villa. Castel Vivalanti had been at work two hours and more when Pietro went the rounds of the bedroom doors with his very obsequious, ‘Buon giorno, Excellency; if it suits your convenience, coffee will be served in the ilex grove in half an hour.’ Coffee in the ilex grove was a new departure in accordance with Marcia’s inspiration of the night before. And the ilex grove to-day, as Bianca exclaimed with clasped hands, reminded one of paradise. The week of rain had left it a study in green; the deep, rich tone of ilex leaves arching overhead, the blue green moss on dark tree trunks, the tender tint of young grass sprouting in the paths, and the yellow flickering sunlight glancing everywhere. Out on the terrace the peacock was trailing his feathers over the marble pavement with a conscious air of being in tune with the day. Marcia was first to appear. She stepped on to the loggia with a little exclamation of delight at the beauty of the morning. In a pale summer gown, her hair burnished by the sun, she herself was not out of touch with the scene. She crossed the terrace and stood by the balustrade, looking off through a golden and purple haze to the speck on the 152 horizon of Rome and St. Peter’s. The peacock called her back, strutting insistently with wide-spread tail. ‘You ridiculous bird!’ she laughed. ‘I suppose you have been posing here for two hours, waiting for some one to come and admire,’ and she hurried off to the grove to make sure that Pietro had carried out her orders. The table was spread by the fountain, where the green arched paths converged and the ilexes grew in an open circle. The sunlight flickering through on dainty linen and silver and glass and on little cakes of golden honey—fresh from a farm in the Alban hills—made a feast which would not have been out of place in a Watteau painting. Marcia echoed Bianca’s enthusiasm as her eyes fell upon the scene, and Pietro flew about with an unprecedented ardour, placing rugs and cushions and wicker chairs. ‘It is perfect,’ she cried, as she retreated down one of the paths to get a perspective. ‘But there are no flowers,’ she added. ‘That will never do; we must have some lilies-of-the-valley, Pietro. You fix a bowl in the centre, while I run and pick them,’ and she started off toward the garden borders. Here Paul Dessart found her five minutes later. He greeted her with a friendly, ‘Felicissimo giorno, signorina!’ The transient clouds of yesterday had disappeared from his brow as well as from the sky, and he joined gaily in her task. ‘There!’ said Marcia as she rose to her feet and shook back the stray hair from her eyes. ‘Could anything be more in keeping with a sylvan breakfast than these?’ She held at arm’s length for him to admire a great bunch of delicate transparent bells sheathed in glistening green. ‘Come,’ she cried; ‘the artist must arrange them’; and together they turned toward the fountain. A spray of bluest forget-me-nots hung over one of the garden borders. The young man stooped and, breaking it, presented it with his hand on his heart. ‘Signorina,’ he begged in a tone of mock-Italian sentiment—‘dearest signorina, I am going where duty calls—far, far away to Perugia. Non-te-scordar-di-me!’ She laughed as she put the flowers in her belt, but with a slightly deeper tinge on her cheek. Paul, in a mood like this, was very attractive. 153 As they entered the grove they heard the prattle of childish voices, and presently Gerald and Gervasio appeared down the walk, carrying each a saucer of crumbs for their scaly friends of the fountain. They stopped with big eyes at the sight of the table spread for breakfast. ‘Oh, Cousin Marcia!’ Gerald squealed delightedly, ‘are we doin’ to eat out uv doors? May Gervas’ an’ me eat wif you? Please! Please!’ Marcia feigned to consider. ‘Yes,’ said she finally, ‘this is my party, and if you’ll be good boys and not talk, I’ll invite you. And when you’ve finished your bread and milk, if you’ve been very good, you may have some—’ she paused and lowered her voice dramatically while the two hung upon her words—‘honey!’ Paul Dessart laughed at what struck him as an anticlimax, but the boys received the assurance with acclamation. Gervasio was presented to the young painter, and he acknowledged the introduction with a grace equal to Gerald’s own. He had almost forgotten that he was not born a prince. As Gerald shook hands he invited the guest, with visible hesitancy, to throw the crumbs; but Paul generously refused the invitation, and two minutes later the little fellows were kneeling side by side on the coping of the fountain, while the arching pathways rang with their laughter. The rest of their excellencies soon appeared in a humour to fit the morning, and the usually uneventful ‘first breakfast’ partook of the nature of a fête. Gerald’s and Gervasio’s laughter rang free and unchecked. The two were sitting side by side on a stone garden-seat (the broken-nosed bust of a forgotten emperor brooding over them), engaged for the present with twin silver bowls of bread and milk, but with speculative eyes turned honeyward. The ghost of overnight was resurrected and jeered at, while the ghost himself gravely passed the cups. The sedately stepping peacock, who had joined the feast uninvited, became the point of many morals as he lowered his feathers in the dust to scramble for crumbs. Before the party ended, Sybert and Dessart engaged in a good-natured bout on Sybert’s theme of yesterday concerning Italy’s baneful beauty. 154 ‘Paul has missed his calling!’ declared Eleanor Royston. ‘He should have been a ward politician in New York. It is a pity to see such a gift for impromptu eloquence wasted in private life.’ For a time Paul subsided, but their controversy closed with the laugh on his side. Apropos of riots, his thesis was that they were on the whole very jolly. And he upheld this shockingly barbaric view with the plea that he always liked to see people having a good time, and that next to sleeping in the sun and eating macaroni the Italians were never so happy as when engaged in a row. For his part, he affirmed, he expected to find them tearing up the golden paving-stones of paradise to heave at each other! The image wrung a smile from even Sybert’s gravity; It contained just enough of truth, and not too much, to make it funny. Pietro’s announcement, at this point, that the carriages were ready to drive their excellencies to the festa dissolved the party in a scurry for hats and wraps. Sybert at first had declined the festa, on the plea that he had business in Rome. Marcia had accepted his excuse with the simply polite statement that they would be sorry not to have him, but Eleanor Royston had refused to let him off. ‘I’ve known a great many diplomats,’ she affirmed; ‘and though they are supposed to be engaged with the business of nations, I have never yet seen one who was too busy to attend a party. We shan’t let you off on that score.’ Somewhat to Paul’s secret annoyance, and not entirely to Marcia’s gratification, he finally consented to change his mind. As the carriage started, Marcia glanced back toward the loggia steps, where the two little boys, one with yellow curls and one with black, were standing hand in hand, wistfully watching the departure. ‘Good-bye, Gerald and Gervasio,’ she called. ‘If you are very good, I’ll bring you something nice from the festa.’ The Copley pilgrimage was not the only one bound for Genazzano that day. They passed on the road countless bands of contadini, both on foot and on donkey-back, journeying toward the festa, their babies and provisions in baskets on their heads. Genazzano, on St Mark’s day, wisely unites pleasure and piety, with masses in the cathedral and jugglers in the piazza. The party from 155 the villa devoted the larger share of their time to the piazza, laughing good-naturedly at the ‘Inglese! which was shouted after them at every turn. They lunched on the terrace of the very modest village inn, in company with a jovial party of young Irish students from the Propaganda who seemed to treat the miracles of the wonder-working Madonna in the light of an ecclesiastical joke. The afternoon found the sight-seeing ardour of the two elder ladies somewhat damped. There was to be a function in the cathedral at three, and they stated their intention of stopping quietly in the low-raftered parlour of the inn until it should commence. Eleanor Royston issued a frank invitation to Sybert to explore the old Colonna castle which surmounted the town, and he accepted with what struck Marcia as a flattering show of interest. In regard to Laurence Sybert she herself was of many minds. A very considerable amount of her old antagonism for him remained, mixed with a curiosity and interest in his movements out of all proportion to the interest he had ever expended upon her. And to-day she was experiencing a fresh resentment in the feeling that his attitude toward Eleanor was more deferential than toward herself. It was a venturesome act for any man to awaken Marcia’s pique. Meanwhile she had Paul; and the slight cloud upon her brow vanished quickly as she and Margaret and the young man turned toward the piazza. Paul was in holiday humour, and the contagion of his fun was impossible to escape. He wore a favour in his hat and a gilt medal of the Madonna in his buttonhole; he laughed and joked with the people in the booths; he offered his assistance to a prestidigitator who called for volunteers; he shot dolls with an air-rifle and carried off the prize, a gaudily decorated pipe, which he presented with a courtly bow to a pretty peasant girl who, with frank admiration, had applauded the feat. Finally he brought to a triumphant close a bargain of Marcia’s. She had expressed a desire for a peculiar style of head-dress—a long silver pin with a closed fist on the end—worn by the women from the Volscian villages. Paul readily agreed to acquire one for her. The spillo was plucked from an astonished woman’s head and the bargaining began. Sell it! But that was impossible. It was an heirloom! 156 it had been in the family for many generations; she could not think of parting with it—not perhaps for its weight in silver?—the money was jingled before her eyes. She wavered visibly. Paul demanded scales. They were brought from the tobacco-shop, the tobacconist importantly presiding. The spillo was placed on one side; lire on the other—six—seven—eight. The woman clasped her hands ecstatically as the pile grew. Nine—ten—the scales hesitated. At eleven they went down with a thud, and the bargain was completed. A pleased murmur rippled through the crowd, and some one suggested, ‘Now is the signorina sposata.’ For, according to Volscian etiquette, only married woman might wear the head-dress. Marcia shook her head with a laugh. She and Paul, standing side by side, made an effective couple, and the peasants noted it with pleased appreciation. Italians are quick to sympathize with a romance. ‘Promessi sposi,’ some one murmured, this time with an accent of delighted assurance. Paul cast a sidewise glance at Marcia to see how she would accept this somewhat public betrothal. She repudiated the charge again, but with a slightly heightened colour, and the crowd laughed gaily. As the two turned up the steep street toward the cathedral, Paul held out his hand. ‘Give me the pin,’ he said. ‘I will carry it in my pocket for you, since you are not entitled—as yet—to wear it.’ Marcia handed it over, trying not to look conscious of the undertone in his voice. He was very convincing to-day; she was reconsidering her problem. In the crowded little piazza before the cathedral they found the rest of the party. They all mounted the steps and stood in a group, watching the processions of pilgrims with votive offerings. They came in bands of fifty and a hundred, bearing banners and chanting litanies. As they approached the church they broke off their singing to shout ‘Ave Marias,’ mounting on their knees and kissing the steps as they came. Marcia, looking down over the tossing mass of scarlet and yellow kerchiefs, compared it with the great function she had witnessed in St. Peter’s. These peasants approaching the Madonna’s shrine on their knees, shouting themselves hoarse, their faces glowing with religious 157 ardour, were to her mind far the more impressive sight of the two. She turned into the church, half carried away by the movement and colour and intensity of the scene. There was something contagious about the simple energy of their devotion. The interior was packed with closely kneeling peasants, the air filled with a blue haze of incense through which the candles on the altar glowed dimly. The Copley party wedged their way through and stood back at the shadow of one of the side chapels, watching the scene. Paul dropped on his knees with the peasants, and, sketch-book in hand, set himself surreptitiously to copying the head of a girl in front. Marcia watched him for a few moments with an amused smile; then she glanced away over the sea of kneeling figures. There was no mechanical devotion here: it came from the heart, if any ever did. Ah, they were too believing! she thought suddenly. Their piety carried them too far; it robbed them of dignity, of individuality, of self-reliance. Almost at her feet a woman was prostrate on the floor, kissing the stones of the pavement in a frenzy of devotion. She turned away in a quick revulsion of feeling such as she had experienced in St. Peter’s. And as she turned her eyes met Laurence Sybert’s fixed upon her face. He was standing just behind her, and he bent over and whispered: ‘You’ve seen enough of this. Come, let’s get out,’ and he made a motion toward the sacristy entrance behind them. They stepped back, and the crowd closed into their places. Out in the piazza he squared his shoulders with a little laugh. ‘The church must make itself over a bit before I shall be ready to be received into the fold. How about you, Miss Marcia?’ ‘It seemed so beautiful, their simple faith; and then suddenly—that horrible woman—and you realize the ignorance and superstition underneath. Everything is alike!’ she added. ‘Just as you begin to think how beautiful it is, you catch a glimpse below the surface. It’s awful to begin seeing hidden meanings; you can never stop.’ ‘Look at that,’ he laughed, nodding toward a house where a pig was stretched asleep in the doorway. ‘He’s evidently been left to keep guard while the family are at the festa. I suppose you’ve noticed that every house is 158 Genazzano has a separate door for the chickens cut in the bottom of the big door. It’s rather funny, isn’t it?’ Marcia regarded the pig with a laugh and a sigh. ‘Yes, it’s funny; but then, the first thing you know, you begin to think what a low standard of life the people must have who keep their pigs and their chickens in the house with them, and it doesn’t seem funny any more.’ ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘You’re coming on.’ ‘I’m afraid I am!’ she agreed. As they strolled toward the upper part of the town, they came upon a group of men and boys talking and smoking and throwing dice in a prolonged noonday rest. It was a part of the pilgrimage from the village of Castel Vivalanti, and the group instantly recognized Marcia. The festal spirit of the day, joined to a double portion of wine, had made them more boisterous than usual; and one ragged little urchin, who had been playing the part of buffoon for the crowd, fell upon the two signori as a fresh subject for pleasantries. He set up the usual beggar’s whine, asking for soldi. The two paying no attention, he changed the form of his petition. ‘Signorina,’ he implored, running along at Marcia’s side and keeping a dirty hand extended impudently in front of her, ‘I have hunger, signorina; I have hunger. Spare me, for the love of God, a few grains of wheat.’ ‘That’s a new formula,’ Marcia laughed. ‘It’s usually bread they want; I never heard them ask for wheat before.’ Sybert turned on the boy, with an air of threatening, and he hastily scrambled out of reach, though he still persevered in his petition, to the noisy amusement of the crowd. Marcia spread out empty hands. ‘I have no wheat,’ she said, with a shake of her head. The youngster turned to his following, mimicking her. ‘The signorina has no wheat,’ he cried. ‘Will no one give to the signorina? She is poor and she has hunger.’ Some one tossed a soldo. The boy pounced upon it and extended it toward her. ‘Behold, signorina! This good man is poor, but he is generous. He offers you money to get some wheat.’ Marcia laughed at the play in thorough enjoyment, while Sybert, with an angry light in his eye, seized the boy by the collar and cuffed him soundly. 159 ‘Mr. Sybert,’ she cried, ‘take care; you’ll hurt him!’ ‘I mean to hurt him,’ he said grimly, as with a final cuff he dropped him over the side of the bank. The crowd jeered at his downfall as loudly as they had jeered at his impudence, and the two turned a corner and left them behind. ‘You needn’t have struck him,’ Marcia said. ‘The boy didn’t mean anything beyond being funny. He is one of my best friends; his name is Beppo, and he lives next door to the baker’s shop.’ ‘If that is a specimen of your friends,’ Sybert answered dryly, ‘my advice is that you shake their acquaintance.’ ‘I don’t mind a little impertinence,’ she said lightly. ‘It’s at least better than whining.’ ‘I told you yesterday, Miss Marcia, that I didn’t think you ought to be running about the country alone—I think it even less to-day. It isn’t safe up here in the mountain towns, where the people aren’t used to foreigners.’ ‘Why don’t you suggest to Uncle Howard that he engage a nurse for me?’ ‘I begin to think you need one!’ Marcia laid a light hand on his arm. ‘Mr. Sybert, please don’t speak to me so harshly.’ ‘I’ll speak to your uncle—that’s what I’ll do,’ he retorted. They had by this time reached the castle, and having crossed the drawbridge and the stone courtyard, they came out on the other side, with the noisy little town left suddenly behind. The mountains rose above them, the valley lay beneath, and before them a straight, grassy road stretched into the hills, bordered by the tall arches of an old aqueduct. They strolled along, talking idly, Marcia well in command of the situation. There was a touch of audacity, even of provocation, underneath her glance, and Sybert was amusedly aware of the fact that he was being flirted with. Quite to Marcia’s astonishment, he met her on her own ground; he accepted the half-challenge in her manner and was never the first to lower his eyes. They had come to a bank starred pink with cyclamen and backed by one of the tall arches of the aqueduct. ‘Suppose we sit down and look at the view,’ he suggested. Marcia seated herself on a projecting block of masonry, while Sybert lounged on the grass at her side. 160 ‘Mr. Melville told me the other day,’ he remarked presently, ‘that he remembers having seen your mother when she was a little girl.’ Marcia nodded and laughed. ‘He told me about it—he says she was the worst tom-boy he ever saw.’ ‘It was a very pretty picture he drew—I wonder if you ever rode the colts bareback?’ ‘My mother was brought up on a Southern plantation; I, in a New York house and a Paris convent—there weren’t any colts to ride.’ ‘And your mother died when you were a little girl?’ ‘When I was twelve.’ ‘Ah, that was hard,’ he said, with quick sympathy. She glanced up in half surprise. It was the first time she had ever heard him say anything so kindly. ‘And the convent in Paris?’ he asked. ‘How did that happen?’ ‘Some one suggested it to my father, and I suppose it struck him as an excellent way to dispose of me. Not that he isn’t an appreciative parent,’ she added quickly, in response to an expression on his face; ‘but the education of a daughter is a problem to a business man.’ ‘I should think it might be,’ he agreed. ‘And how did the convent go?’ ‘Not very well. I didn’t learn anything but prayers and French, and I was dreadfully homesick.’ ‘And then?’ ‘Oh, one or two governesses and a boarding-school, and after that college.’ Marcia laughed. ‘You should have seen my father when I suggested the college. He clutched at the idea like a drowning man; it was another four years’ reprieve.’ ‘It’s a pity,’ he remarked, ‘that the French method of marrying one’s daughter offhand as soon as she gets out of school doesn’t prevail in America.’ ‘I really did feel guilty when I graduated, the poor man looked so dazed through it all. He asked me if I would like to take a little trip into Venezuela with him to look into some mines. It would have been fun, wouldn’t it?’ she asked. ‘I should have liked to go.’ ‘But, being charitable, you declined?’ ‘Yes, and having another plan in my head. It had been 161 years since I had seen Uncle Howard, and I thought it would be nice to come over and live with him for a while.’ ‘And so here you are in Genazzano.’ ‘Here I am,’ she agreed. ‘But as soon as papa is ready to settle down respectably like other people, I am going back to keep house for him, and I shall take with me some fourteenth-century Italian furniture, and some nice Italian servants, and give nice little Italian dinners.’ ‘And shall you invite me sometimes?’ ‘Drop in whenever you wish.’ Marcia began to laugh. ‘Well?’ he inquired. ‘What is so funny?’ ‘To be talking to you this way—I shouldn’t have issued that invitation a week ago. You couldn’t help yourself yesterday,’ she added; ‘Aunt Katherine made you come; but really it’s your own fault to-day.’ ‘Is that the impression I gave you? I am afraid I must have very bad manners.’ ‘You have—rather bad,’ she agreed. ‘You hit straight,’ he laughed. ‘No,’ he added presently; ‘Aunt Katherine had nothing to do with our walk to-day. If you care to know, I’ll tell you why I wanted to come. Yesterday afternoon I took a ride with a most charming young woman, and I thought I’d like to renew the acquaintance.’ ‘If that’s intended for a compliment, it’s of a very doubtful nature. You have known this same charming young woman for the last three months, and have never shown any marked desire for her company before.’ ‘I was blind, but I have been made to see.’ He commenced rolling a cigarette in a lazy, half-amused fashion, while Marcia occupied an interval of silence by checking the progress of a black beetle who found himself on the stone beside her, and who seemed in a great hurry to get somewhere else. In whichever way he turned, a mountain of a green leaf sprang up in his path. He ran wildly in a circle, vainly seeking an outlet, his six little legs twittering with anxiety. Sybert stretched out a sympathetic hand and dropped him over the bank to a place of safety. ‘Now why must you do that?’ Marcia inquired. ‘A sense of fellow-feeling—I’ve watched too many women 162 playing with too many men not to know how the poor beast felt. His progress was thwarted at every turn, without his being able to comprehend any underlying motive or reason or law.’ ‘It was good for him,’ she affirmed. ‘I was giving him a new experience—was widening his horizon. When I finally let him go he would have been so thankful to think of the danger he had escaped, that he would have been twice as happy a beetle as ever before.’ ‘That is one way of looking at it,’ Sybert agreed. Marcia watched him a moment speculatively. She was thinking about the Contessa Torrenieri. ‘Mr. Sybert,’ she suggested, ‘there are a lot of things I should like to know about you.’ ‘I can think of nothing in my past that ought to be hidden.’ ‘These are things that you wouldn’t tell me.’ ‘Try me and see.’ ‘Anything I choose to ask?’ ‘I am at your disposal.’ ‘Have you ever been in love with any one?’ He glanced up from his cigarette with an amused stare. ‘What’s this—a confessional?’ ‘Oh, no—only you don’t look as if you’d ever done such a foolish thing, and I just wondered——’ ‘Half a dozen times.’ ‘Really?’ ‘Oh, I dare say not—really,’ he laughed. ‘In my cub days I used to be—well, interested sometimes.’ ‘But you outgrew it?’ ‘It would be a rash man who would affirm that! You never can tell what’s waiting for you around the next corner.’ She would have liked to put a question or so in regard to the contessa, but instead she remarked, ‘There are some other things I’d like to ask you.’ ‘I’m not so sure I’ll answer if that’s a specimen.’ ‘Why were you carrying a revolver yesterday?’ ‘You strike me as a very inquisitive young woman, Miss Marcia.’ ‘You strike me as a very mysterious man, Mr. Sybert.’ ‘Why was I carrying a revolver? For a very simple reason. I have been travelling through the south, helping to quiet the rioters; and as that is not a popular occupation, 163 I thought it wisest to go armed. A revolver is an excellent thing with which to persuade people, though in all probability I shall never have any occasion to use it. I hope you are satisfied.’ ‘Thank you,’ said Marcia. ‘Not that I believe you at all,’ she added with a laugh. He regarded her a moment with a slightly perplexed frown. ‘What on earth do you take me for, Miss Marcia? An anarchist, a bandit, a second Fra Diavolo in disguise? I am nothing so picturesque, I assure you—merely a peaceful private citizen of the United States.’ ‘How do you come to know the baker’s son, Tarquinio, so well?’ ‘I think I’ve answered questions enough. Suppose we have a confession from you, Miss Marcia. Have you ever been in love?’ Marcia rose. ‘It’s a quarter past four, and we ought to be going back. The Roystons have to catch the evening train into Rome.’ <div class='chapter'> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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