Marietta pointed towards Ventirose.
“Why?” said he.
“The family are away. In the absence of the family, the public are admitted, upon presentation of their cards.”
“Oho!” he cried. “So the family are away, are they?”
“Yes, Signorino.”
“Aha!” cried he. “The family are away. That explains everything. Have--have they been gone long?”
“Since a week, ten days, Signorino.”
“A week! Ten days!” He started up, indignant. “You secretive wretch! Why have you never breathed a word of this to me?”
Marietta looked rather frightened.
“I did not know it myself, Signorino,” was her meek apology. “I heard it in the village this morning, when the Signorino sent me to buy coarse salt.”
“Oh, I see.” He sank back upon his rustic bench. “You are forgiven.” He extended his hand in sign of absolution. “Are they ever coming back?”
“Naturally, Signorino.”
“What makes you think so?”
“But they will naturally come back.”
“I felicitate you upon your simple faith. When?”
“Oh, fra poco. They have gone to Rome.”
“To Rome? You're trifling with me. People do not go to Rome in August.”
“Pardon, Signorino. People go to Rome for the feast of the Assumption. That is the 15th. Afterwards they come back,” said Marietta, firmly.
“I withdraw my protest,” said Peter. “They have gone to Rome for the feast of the Assumption. Afterwards they will come back.”
“Precisely, Signorino. But you have now the right to visit the castle, upon presentation of your card. You address yourself to the porter at the lodge. The castle is grand, magnificent. The Court of Honour alone is thirty metres long.”
Marietta stretched her hands to right and left as far as they would go.
“Marietta,” Peter enquired solemnly, “are you familiar with the tragedy of 'Hamlet'?”
Marietta blinked.
“No, Signorino.”
“You have never read it,” he pursued, “in that famous edition from which the character of the Prince of Denmark happened to be omitted?”
Marietta shook her head, wearily, patiently.
Wearily, patiently, “No, Signorino,” she replied.
“Neither have I,” said he, “and I don't desire to.”
Marietta shrugged her shoulders; then returned gallantly to her charge.
“If you would care to visit the castle, Signorino, you could see the crypt which contains the tombs of the family of Farfalla, the former owners. They are of black marble and alabaster, with gilding--very rich. You could also see the wine-cellars. Many years ago a tun there burst, and a serving man was drowned in the wine. You could also see the bed in which Nabulione, the Emperor of Europe, slept, when he was in this country. Also the ancient kitchen. Many years ago, in a storm, the skeleton of a man fell down the chimney, out upon the hearth. Also what is called the Court of Foxes. Many years ago there was a plague of foxes; and the foxes came down from the forest like a great army, thousands of them. And the lords of the castle, and the peasants, and the village people, all, all, had to run away like rabbits--or the foxes would have eaten them. It was in what they call the Court of Foxes that the King of the foxes held his court. There is also the park. In the park there are statues, ruins, and white peacocks.”
“What have I in common with ruins and white peacocks?” Peter demanded tragically, when Marietta had brought her much-gesticulated exposition to a close. “Let me impress upon you once for all that I am not a tripper. As for your castle--you invite me to a banquet-hall deserted. As for your park, I see quite as much of it as I wish to see, from the seclusion of my own pleached garden. I learned long ago the folly of investigating things too closely, the wisdom of leaving things in the vague. At present the park of Ventirose provides me with the raw material for day-dreams. It is a sort of looking-glass country,--I can see just so far into it, and no farther--that lies beyond is mystery, is potentiality--terra incognita, which I can populate with monsters or pleasant phantoms, at my whim. Why should you attempt to deprive me of so innocent a recreation?”
“After the return of the family,” said Marietta, “the public will no longer be admitted. Meantime--”
“Upon presentation of my card, the porter will conduct me from disenchantment to disenchantment. No, thank you. Now, if it were the other way round, it would be different. If it were the castle and the park that had gone to Rome, and if the family could be visited on presentation of my card, I might be tempted.”
“But that would be impossible, Signorino,” said Marietta.
XV.
Beatrice walking with a priest--ay, I am not sure it would n't be more accurate to say conspiring with a priest: but you shall judge.
They were in a room of the Palazzo Udeschini, at Rome--a reception room, on the piano nobile. Therefore you see it: for are not all reception-rooms in Roman palaces alike?
Vast, lofty, sombre; the walls hung with dark-green tapestry--a pattern of vertical stripes, dark green and darker green; here and there a great dark painting, a Crucifixion, a Holy Family, in a massive dim-gold frame; dark-hued rugs on the tiled floor; dark pieces of furniture, tables, cabinets, dark and heavy; and tall windows, bare of curtains at this season, opening upon a court--a wide stone-eaved court, planted with fantastic-leaved eucalyptus-trees, in the midst of which a brown old fountain, indefatigable, played its sibilant monotone.
In the streets there were the smells, the noises, the heat, the glare of August of August in Rome, “the most Roman of the months,” they say; certainly the hottest, noisiest, noisomest, and most glaring. But here all was shadow, coolness, stillness, fragrance-the fragrance of the clean air coming in from among the eucalyptus-trees.
Beatrice, critical-eyed, stood before a pier-glass, between two of the tall windows, turning her head from side to side, craning her neck a little--examining (if I must confess it) the effect of a new hat. It was a very stunning hat--if a man's opinion hath any pertinence; it was beyond doubt very complicated. There was an upward-springing black brim; there was a downward-sweeping black feather; there was a defiant white aigrette not unlike the Shah of Persia's; there were glints of red.
The priest sat in an arm-chair--one of those stiff, upright Roman arm-chairs, which no one would ever dream of calling easy-chairs, high-backed, covered with hard leather, studded with steel nails--and watched her, smiling amusement, indulgence.
He was an oldish priest--sixty, sixty-five. He was small, lightly built, lean-faced, with delicate-strong features: a prominent, delicate nose; a well-marked, delicate jaw-bone, ending in a prominent, delicate chin; a large, humorous mouth, the full lips delicately chiselled; a high, delicate, perhaps rather narrow brow, rising above humorous grey eyes, rather deep-set. Then he had silky-soft smooth white hair, and, topping the occiput, a tonsure that might have passed for a natural bald spot.
He was decidedly clever-looking; he was aristocratic-looking, distinguished-looking; but he was, above all, pleasant-looking, kindly-looking, sweet-looking.
He wore a plain black cassock, by no means in its first youth--brown along the seams, and, at the salient angles, at the shoulders, at the elbows, shining with the lustre of hard service. Even without his cassock, I imagine, you would have divined him for a clergyman--he bore the clerical impress, that odd indefinable air of clericism which everyone recognises, though it might not be altogether easy to tell just where or from what it takes its origin. In the garb of an Anglican--there being nothing, at first blush, necessarily Italian, necessarily un-English, in his face--he would have struck you, I think, as a pleasant, shrewd old parson of the scholarly--earnest type, mildly donnish, with a fondness for gentle mirth. What, however, you would scarcely have divined--unless you had chanced to notice, inconspicuous in this sober light, the red sash round his waist, or the amethyst on the third finger of his right hand--was his rank in the Roman hierarchy. I have the honour of presenting his Eminence Egidio Maria Cardinal Udeschini, formerly Bishop of Cittareggio, Prefect of the Congregation of Archives and Inscriptions.
That was his title ecclesiastical. He had two other titles. He was a Prince of the Udeschini by accident of birth. But his third title was perhaps his most curious. It had been conferred upon him informally by the populace of the Roman slum in which his titular church, St. Mary of the Lilies, was situated: the little Uncle of the Poor.
As Italians measure wealth, Cardinal Udeschini was a wealthy man. What with his private fortune and official stipends, he commanded an income of something like a hundred thousand lire. He allowed himself five thousand lire a year for food, clothing, and general expenses. Lodging and service he had for nothing in the palace of his family. The remaining ninety-odd thousand lire of his budget... Well, we all know that titles can be purchased in Italy; and that was no doubt the price he paid for the title I have mentioned.