In a Winter City/Chapter 8

by Marie Louise de la Ramée

CHAPTER VIII.

The Postiche ball came off, and was a brilliant success. Madame Mila announced the next morning when she got up that she had never enjoyed anything better—not even at the Tuileries.

"And the hostess?" said Lady Hilda.

"I didn't even see her, thank goodness," said Madame Mila, frankly. "I went late, you know, and she'd been standing at the door four hours, and had got tired, and had gone off duty into the crowd somewhere. Of course it wasn't my business to go and look for her."

"Of course not, but you brought off your cotillon things?"

"Yes. There they are," said Madame Mila, unconscious of any satire. " I never saw such luxe—no, not even in the dear old Emperor's time—the things everybody got must have cost hundreds of thousands of francs. Certainly little Dickie managed it beautifully. He ordered the whole affair, you know."

"Little Dickie, or anybody else, could float Medea herself in society if she would brew cotillon toys of a new sort in her cauldron," said the Lady Hilda.

"Medea?" said Madame Mila, who knew about her because she had seen Ristori so often. "Poor thing! it was that horrid Jason that deserved to be put out of society, only men never do get put out of it for anything they do; I don't know how it is—we cut no end of women, but we never cut a man. Well, I assure you, my dear, the ball was charming—charming, though you do look so contemptuous. We had all our own people, and saw nobody else, all night. I don't think I need bow to the woman, do you? I'm not supposed to have seen her, though I do know her by sight, a little podgy sunburnt-looking fat creature with liveries for all the world like what the sheriffs have in England at assize time. No; I'm sure I needn't bow to her. I told Dickie beforehand I shouldn't."

"No doubt Dickie was delighted to have you on any terms."

"Of course; and I'll send a card to-day," said Madame Mila, with the magnanimous air of one who does a very noble thing.

From that time thenceforward she would forget the Joshua R. Postiches and everything concerning them, as absolutely as if she had never heard anything about them; the woman's second ball, if she gave one, would be nothing new, and no sort of fun whatever.

"You're always at me about Maurice," she said, pursuing her own ideas, "Look at Olga with Carlo Maremma!—she did make him go last night, and he was the only Italian there. You talk of Maurice—Olga is twice as careless as I am———"

"Olga is my friend; don't discuss her, please."

"Oh, that's very fine!—when you are always finding fault with me about Maurice!"

"I should not let any third person blame you."

"You are very strange, Hilda," said Madame Mila, eyeing her with a curious wonder, and ruffling herself up in her embroidered pink cashmere dressing-gown, as if she were a little bird in the heart of a big rose, "Why should you defend people behind their back? Nobody ever does. We all say horrible things of one another; but we don't mean half of them, so what does it matter? I don't blame Olga, not in the least; Schouvaloff is a brute, and, besides, he knows it very well, and he doesn't mind a bit; indeed, of course he's glad enough———"

"I do blame Olga; but I can't see how you can," said her cousin, coldly.

Madame Mila ruffled herself more, looking more and more like a little angry bird in the middle of a pink rose.

"I? Pray what can anybody say of me? Spiridion is always with me half the year at least. Spiridion is extremely fond of Maurice, so are all the children. He's at another hôtel, right at the other end of the place; really I can't see why I most rash out of a town because a friend happens to come into it also———"

"My dear Mila, pray don't talk that nonsense to me," said her cousin, serenely. "I daresay ten years hence you will marry your little Lili to M. des Gommeux; people do do that sort of thing, though they find fault with the plots of the old Greek plays. I suppose it "saves society;" at least, it saves appearances. Olga is imprudent, I know, and wrong; but, at least she has the courage of her opinions; she does not talk all that pusillanimous prurient absurdity about 'friendship.'"

"Nobody can understand you, Hilda; and I don't know what you mean about Greek plays," muttered Madame Mila. "Everybody lives in the same way: you talk as if it were only me! Spiridion never says a word to me; what business have you?"

"None in the least, dear; only you will bring up the subject—Qui s'excuse s'accuse. That is all. You are not coming out this morning? Au revoir then; I am going to see a newly-found San Cipriano il Mago outside the gates; they think it is by Il Moretto. The face and dress are Venetian, they say; but you care nothing about all that, do you?"

"Nothing," said Madame Mila, with a yawn. "I suppose if it take your fancy you'll be buying the whole church with it in, if you can't get it any other way. I wish I'd your money, I wouldn't waste it on old pictures, that only make a room dark; and the kind of light they want is horribly unbecoming to people."

"I promise you I shall not hang an altar-piece in a room," said the Lady Hilda. "I leave that for the heretics and the bourgeoisie. Good-bye, my dear."

"Who's going with you?" cried Madame Mila, after her: Lady Hilda hesitated a moment.

"Nina is, and the French artist who has discovered the Moretto, and———M. della Rocca."

Madame Mila laughed, and took up a little mirror to see if all the colour on her face were quite right. One horrible never-to-be-forgotten day—one eyebrow had been higher than the other.

Lady Hilda, descending the hôtel staircase, met the faithful Maurice ascending. That slender and indefatigable leader of cotillons swept his hat to the ground, twisted the waxed ends of his small moustache, and murmured that he was about to inquire of the servants if Madame la Comtesse were "tout-à-fait remise après ses fatigues incroyables."

Lady Hilda, whom he feared very greatly, passed him with a chilly salutation, and he went on up the stairs, and in two minutes' time was assuring Madame Mila that she was "fraiche comme la rosée du matin," which did credit to his ready chivalry of compliments, since he was aware of all the mysteries of those bright cheeks and that small pomegranate-like mouth, and had even once or twice before great balls, given an artistic touch or two to their completion, having graduated with much skill and success in such accomplishments under the tuition of Mademoiselle Rose Thè, and La Petite Boulotte.

The San Cipriano was to be found in a church some five miles out of the city; a lonely church set high on a fragrant hill-side, with sheep amongst the olive boughs, and the ox-plough under the vines that were all about it, and high hedges of wild roses and thickets of arbutus rambling around its old walled graveyard.

The paths close round it were too steep for the horses, and the last half mile had to be climbed on foot.

It was one of those spring days which often fall in February; the ground was blue with violets, and the grass golden with crocus and hepatica; there were butterflies and bees on the air; the mavis and blackbird were singing.

The San Cipriano hung over a side altar in the dark, desolate, grand old church, where no worshipper ever came except a tired peasant, or a shepherd sheltering from a storm.

Della Rocca pulled aside the moth-eaten curtains from the adjacent window, and let the sunshine in. Some little children were sitting on the altar-steps stringing daisies and berries; the light made a halo about their heads; the deep Venetian colours of the forgotten picture glanced like jewels through the film of the dust of ages. Its theme was the martyrdom of the Magician and of S. Justina; beneath were the crowds of Nicomedia and the guards of Diocletian, above were the heavens opened and the hosts of waiting angels. It was a great theme greatly treated by the great Brescian who, although the pupil of Titian and the rival of Veronese is so little known, save in the cities that lie betwixt the Dolomites and the Apennines.

"It is one of the most beautiful legends that we have, to my thinking," said Della Rocca, when they had studied it minutely and in all lights. "It has been very seldom selected by painters for treatment; one wonders why; perhaps because there is too much human passion in it for a sacred subject."

"Yes," said Lady Hilda, dreamily. "One can never divest oneself of the idea that S. Justina loved him with an earthly love."

"Oh, Hilda! how pagan of you," said the Marchesa del Trasimene, a little aghast.

"Not at all. Why should we doubt it?" said Della Rocca, quickly. "Why should we deny that a pure love would have power against the powers of the world?"

Lady Hilda looked at him, and a great softness came into her face; then she stooped to the little children playing with the berries on the altar-steps, and put some money in their little brown hands.

"It is a very fine picture," she said, after a moment's pause. "I do not think I have ever seen brown and gold and crimson so beautifully managed, and fused in so deep a glow of colour save in Palma Vecchio's S. Barbara—you remember—in S. Maria Formosa in Venice?"

"The portrait of Violante Palma—yes. But this subject has a deeper and warmer interest. S. Barbara with her tower and her cannon is too strong to touch one very much. One cannot think that she ever suffered."

"Yet S. Barbara has a very wide popularity, if one may use the word to a saint."

"All symbols of strength have; the people are weak; they love what will help them. It is very singular what deep root and vast fame one saint has, and how obscure remains another; yet both equal in holiness and life, and courage of death. Perhaps the old painters have done it by the frequency of their choice of certain themes."

"Oh, no," said Lady Hilda; "be sure the painters rather followed the public preference than directed it. Poets lead; painters only mirror. I like this San Cipriano very much. They did not say too much of it. It is left to dust and damp. Could I buy it do you think?"

"I dare say,—I will inquire for you to-morrow. We sell anything now. When the public debt is a little heavier, and the salt tax is protested against, we shall sell the Transfiguration—why not?—we have a copy at S. Peter's. Indeed, why keep the S. Cecilia doing nothing in a dark old city like Bologna, when its sale with a few others might make a minister or a senator well off for life?"

"Do not be so bitter, Paolo," said the Marchesa Nina, "you might have been a minister yourself."

"And rebuilt Palestrina out of my commission on the tax on cabbages! Yes, I have lost my opportunities."

The Lady Hilda was gazing at the clouds of angels in the picture, who bore aloft the martyred souls in their immortal union; and from them she glanced at the little fair wondering faces of the peasant children. She had never thought about children ever in any way, save as little figures that composed well in Stothard's drawings, in Sir Joshua's pictures, in Correggio's frescoes. Now, for a second, the thought glanced through her that women were happy who had those tender soft ties with the future of the world. What future had she?—You cannot make a future out of diamonds, china, and M. Worth.

"You really wish to buy the San Cipriano?" he asked her, as they passed over the worn, damp pavement towards the sunlight of the open door.

"Yes—you seem to think it sacrilege?"

"No; I think the moral decadence of feeling which makes it possible for my nation to sell such things is a sacrilege against our past, and a violation of the rights of our posterity;—but that is another matter, and no fault of yours. What will you do with it when you have it?"

"I will put it in my oratory in Paris."

The answer jarred on him; yet there was no other which he could have expected.

"How naturally you think of buying all you see!" he said, a little impatiently. "I suppose that power of acquisition—that wand of possession—is very dear to you."

"What do you mean? I do not know—it is a habit. Yes; I suppose one likes it."

"No doubt. Your riches are to you as his magic was to San Cipriano yonder: the willingest of slaves."

"What!—an evil, spirit then?"

"Not necessarily. But———"

"But what?"

"A despot, though a slave. One who holds your soul; as the powers of darkness held his, until a great and spiritual love set him free."

They were passing out of the open doorway into the calm golden light of the passing day. Through the fin§ tracery of the olive-boughs the beautiful valley shone like a summer sea. Before them, above the southern mountains, the sun was going down. Her eyes grew dim for a moment as she looked. His hand had closed on hers; she let it lie within his clasp; it was the first gesture of tenderness she had ever allowed to him. Then at a sudden recollection she withdrew it, and she smiled with her old serene indifference.

"You will talk to me in unknown tongues! S. Justina was a holy woman; I am not. I am not sure that I ever did any unselfish thing in all my life. How many violets there are;—gather me some."

The others drew near; he left her and gathered the violets. They were countless; the old church was left alone to perish; no foot of priest or worshipper now ever trod upon their purple glories.

She leaned over the low wall of the grave-yard, and watched the setting sun. She felt that her eyes were full of tears,

"If I had met him earlier———" she thought.

They walked down through the olive thickets, along the grassy slopes of the hill, to the carriage, and drove home in the now waning light.

She was capricious, contemptuous, ironical, arrogant, in everything she said, lying back with the furs covering her from the chill evening winds.

"Does going to a church always make you so caustic, cara mia?" said the Marchesa Nina.

Della Rocca was very silent. The French artist kept up the ball of talk with her and the lovely Marchesa, and played the gay game well. The sun sank quite; the brief twilight came; then darkness; the horses took them down through the walled lanes and the rose hedges into the narrow streets, where here and there the lamps were twinkling, and the glow of the wood fires shone through the grated casements.

The carriage paused first at the Hôtel Murat.

"I shall see you to-night at Princess Fürstenberg's, Hilda, of course?" said the Marchesa.

"Oh, yes," said the Lady Hilda as she descended, drawing her sables closer around her. "You will be there, I suppose?" she added, with a little change of her voice, to Della Rocca, as he held his arm for her to alight. He looked straight down into her eyes.

"I think not," he said, simply. "Good night, Madame."

He stood with his head uncovered, whilst she went up the steps of the hotel; then, as the door closed on her, he walked away to his own old house.

Lady Hilda went up to her own rooms; she had a knot of violets with her. Before she put them in water she touched them with her lips—as any girl of sixteen or any peasant Gretchen might have done.

That night at the Princess Fürstenberg's—one of the pleasantest houses of the winter city—men and women both said to one another that they had never seen her looking more beautiful, or more magnificent in the blaze of her jewels, but they found her colder, and more difficult to converse with than ever, and were more than ever hopelessly impressed with the sense" of their own absolute nullity in her eyes.

He was not there.

She stayed but a brief time; long enough to chill every one there like ice, which was the effect she always produced in society, when it was so unhappy as not to please her; then, having frozen it, she left it,—the ladies who remained breathing freer when her delicate loveliness and her mighty emeralds had ceased to outshine them. She sank back in her carriage with a great sigh.

The homeward streets led past the palace of the Della Rocca. She let the window down, and looked outward as she passed it. She saw a single casement alone lighted in the great black mass of frowning stone, with its machicolated walls and iron stanchions. It was above the entrance; she knew it was his favourite room; where his books were, and his old bronzes, and his favourite weapons.

Her eyes filled with tears again as she looked up at the solitary light. She felt for the little cluster of violets that she had fastened under the great emeralds in her bosom,—his hand had gathered them.

"If anyone had told me I would care!" she thought to herself.

The tears on her lashes stole slowly down, and dimmed the emeralds and refreshed the violets.

She was the most heartless creature in the world; the coldest and most self-engrossed of women, her friends and acquaintances were saying after her departure, in the drawing-rooms of the Princess Fürstenberg; not like her cousin; dear little Madame Mila was all good nature, all kindliness, all heart.

At the Fiera for the orphan children the week before had not dear little Madame Mila slaved herself to death; bustling about in the most bewitching costume; whirling like a little Japanese wind-mill; wearing the loveliest little muslin apron, with huge pockets, into which thousands of francs were poured; turning the lottery-wheel indefatigably for three days, and selling cigars she had lighted, and lilies of the valley she had kissed, at the most fabulous prices for the good of the poor? And had not Lady Hilda contemptuously refused to have anything to do with the Fiera at all?

The almoner of the charities, indeed, had received a fifty-thousand franc note anonymously. But then, how could anybody divine that the Lady Hilda had sent it because a chance word of Della Rocca's had sunk into her mind? "Whereas everybody saw Madame Mila whirling, and saying so prettily, "Pour nos pauvres!—pour nos chers pauvres!"