Nearly an hour passed.
At length the Cardinal came out.
Peter rose, and went forward to meet him.
The Cardinal was smiling; but about his eyes there was a suggestive redness.
“Mr. Marchdale,” he said, “your housekeeper is in great distress of conscience touching one or two offences she feels she has been guilty of towards you. They seem to me, in frankness, somewhat trifling. But I cannot persuade her to accept my view. She will not be happy till she has asked and received your pardon for them.”
“Offences towards me?” Peter wondered. “Unless excess of patience with a very trying employer constitutes an offence, she has been guilty of none.”
“Never mind,” said the Cardinal. “Her conscience accuses her--she must satisfy it. Will you come?”
The Cardinal sat down at the head of Marietta's bed, and took her hand.
“Now, dear,” he said, with the gentleness, the tenderness, of one speaking to a beloved child, “here is Mr. Marchdale. Tell him what you have on your mind. He is ready to hear and to forgive you.”
Marietta fixed her eyes anxiously on Peter's face.
“First,” she whispered, “I wish to beg the Signorino to pardon all this trouble I am making for him. I am the Signorino's servant; but instead of serving, I make trouble for him.”
She paused. The Cardinal smiled at Peter.
Peter answered, “Marietta, if you talk like that, you will make the Signorino cry. You are the best servant that ever lived. You are putting me to no trouble at all. You are giving me a chance--which I should be glad of, except that it involves your suffering--to show my affection for you, and my gratitude.”
“There, dear,” said the Cardinal to her, “you see the Signorino makes nothing of that. Now the next thing. Go on.”
“I have to ask the Signorino's forgiveness for my impertinence,” whispered Marietta.
“Impertinence--?” faltered Peter. “You have never been impertinent.”
“Scusi, Signorino,” she went on, in her whisper. “I have sometimes contradicted the Signorino. I contradicted the Signorino when he told me that St. Anthony of Padua was born in Lisbon. It is impertinent of a servant to contradict her master. And now his most high Eminence says the Signorino was right. I beg the Signorino to forgive me.”
Again the Cardinal smiled at Peter.
“You dear old woman,” Peter half laughed, half sobbed, “how can you ask me to forgive a mere difference of opinion? You--you dear old thing.”
The Cardinal smiled, and patted Marietta's hand.
“The Signorino is too good,” Marietta sighed.
“Go on, dear,” said the Cardinal.
“I have been guilty of the deadly sin of evil speaking. I have spoken evil of the Signorino,” she went on. “I said--I said to people--that the Signorino was simple--that he was simple and natural. I thought so then. Now I know it is not so. I know it is only that the Signorino is English.”
Once more the Cardinal smiled at Peter.
Again Peter half laughed, half sobbed.
“Marietta! Of course I am simple and natural. At least, I try to be. Come! Look up. Smile. Promise you will not worry about these things any more.”
She looked up, she smiled faintly.
“The Signorino is too good,” she whispered.
After a little interval of silence, “Now, dear,” said the Cardinal, “the last thing of all.”
Marietta gave a groan, turning her head from side to side on her pillow.
“You need not be afraid,” said the Cardinal. “Mr. Marchdale will certainly forgive you.”
“Oh-h-h,” groaned Marietta. She stared at the ceiling for an instant.
The Cardinal patted her hand. “Courage, courage,” he said.
“Oh--Signorino mio,” she groaned again, “this you never can forgive me. It is about the little pig, the porcellino. The Signorino remembers the little pig, which he called Francesco?”
“Yes,” answered Peter.
“The Signorino told me to take the little pig away, to find a home for him. And I told the Signorino that I would take him to my nephew, who is a farmer, towards Fogliamo. The Signorino remembers?”
“Yes,” answered Peter. “Yes, you dear old thing. I remember.”
Marietta drew a deep breath, summoned her utmost fortitude.
“Well, I did not take him to my nephew. The--the Signorino ate him.”
Peter could hardly keep from laughing. He could only utter a kind of half-choked “Oh?”
“Yes,” whispered Marietta. “He was bought with the Signorino's money. I did not like to see the Signorino's money wasted. So I deceived the Signorino. You ate him as a chicken-pasty.”
This time Peter did laugh, I am afraid. Even the Cardinal--well, his smile was perilously near a titter. He took a big pinch of snuff.
“I killed Francesco, and I deceived the Signorino. I am very sorry,” Marietta said.
Peter knelt down at her bedside.
“Marietta! Your conscience is too sensitive. As for killing Francesco--we are all mortal, he could not have lived forever. And as for deceiving the Signorino, you did it for his own good. I remember that chicken-pasty. It was the best chicken-pasty I have ever tasted. You must not worry any more about the little pig.”
Marietta turned her face towards him, and smiled.
“The Signorino forgives his servant?” she whispered.
Peter could not help it. He bent forward, and kissed her brown old cheek.
“She will be easier now,” said the Cardinal. “I will stay with her a little longer.”
Peter went out. The scene had been childish--do you say?--ridiculous, almost farcical indeed? And yet, somehow, it seemed to Peter that his heart was full of unshed tears. At the same time, as he thought of the Cardinal, as he saw his face, his smile, as he heard the intonations of his voice, the words he had spoken, as he thought of the way he had held Marietta's hand and patted it--at the same time a kind of strange joy seemed to fill his heart, a strange feeling of exaltation, of enthusiasm.
“What a heavenly old man,” he said.
In the garden Sister Scholastica and Emilia were still walking together.
They halted, when Peter came out; and Emilia said, “With your consent, Signore, Sister Scholastica has accepted me as her lieutenant. I will come every morning, and sit with Marietta during the day. That will relieve the sister, who has to be up with her at night.”
And every morning after that, Emilia came, walking through the park, and crossing the river by the ladder-bridge, which Peter left now permanently in its position. And once or twice a week, in the afternoon, the Cardinal would drive up in the brougham, and, having paid a little visit to Marietta, would drive Emilia home.
In the sick-room Emilia would read to Marietta, or say the rosary for her.
Marietta mended steadily day by day. At the end of a fortnight she was able to leave her bed for an hour or two in the afternoon, and sit in the sun in the garden. Then Sister Scholastica went back to her convent at Venzona. At the end of the third week Marietta could be up all day. But Gigi's stalwart Carolina Maddalena continued to rule as vicereine in the kitchen. And Emilia continued to come every morning.
“Why does the Duchessa never come?” Peter wondered. “It would be decent of her to come and see the poor old woman.”
Whenever he thought of Cardinal Udeschini, the same strange feeling of joy would spring up in his heart, which he had felt when he had left the beautiful old man with Marietta, on the day of his first visit. In the beginning he could only give this feeling a very general and indefinite expression. “He is a man who renews one's faith in things, who renews one's faith in human nature.” But gradually, I suppose, the feeling crystallised; and at last, in due season, it found for itself an expression that was not so indefinite.
It was in the afternoon, and he had just conducted the Cardinal and Emilia to their carriage. He stood at his gate for a minute, and watched the carriage as it rolled away.
“What a heavenly old man, what a heavenly old man,” he thought.
Then, still looking after the carriage, before turning back into his garden, he heard himself repeat, half aloud
“Nor knowest thou what argument Thy life to thy neighbour's creed hath lent.”
The words had come to his lips, and were pronounced, were addressed to his mental image of the Cardinal, without any conscious act of volition on his part. He heard them with a sort of surprise, almost as if some one else had spoken them. He could not in the least remember what poem they were from, he could not even remember what poet they were by. Were they by Emerson? It was years since he had read a line of Emerson's.
All that evening the couplet kept running in his head. And the feeling of joy, of enthusiasm, in his heart, was not so strange now. But I think it was intensified.
The next time the Cardinal arrived at Villa Floriano, and gave Peter his hand, Peter did not merely shake it, English fashion, as he had hitherto done.
The Cardinal looked startled.
Then his eyes searched Peter's face for a second, keenly interrogative. Then they softened; and a wonderful clear light shone in them, a wonderful pure, sweet light.
“Benedicat te Omnipotens Deus, Pater, et Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus,” he said, making the Sign of the Cross.
XXVII
Up at the castle, Cardinal Udeschini was walking backwards and forwards on the terrace, reading his Breviary.