The Wheat Princess

Paul breathed a meditative ‘Ah!’ Marcia had not mentioned his name. It was not such a bad sign, that: she was thinking about him, then. If there were no other man—and he was vain enough to take her at her word—nothing could be better for his cause than a solitary week in the Sabine hills. He knew from present—and past—experience that an Italian spring is a powerful stimulant for the heart.

On Tuesday of Holy Week Mrs. Royston wakened slightly from her spiritual trance to observe that she had scarcely seen Marcia for as much as a week, and that as soon as Lent was over they must have the Copleys in to luncheon at the hotel.

‘Where’s the use of waiting till Lent’s over?’ Paul had inquired. ‘You needn’t make it a function. Just a sort of—family affair. If you invite them for Thursday, we can all go together to the tenebræ service at St. Peter’s. As this is Miss Copley’s first Easter in Rome, she might be interested.’

Accordingly a note arrived at the villa on Wednesday morning inviting the family—Gerald included—to breakfast the next day with the Roystons in Rome. On Thursday morning an acceptance—Gerald excluded—arrived at the Hôtel de Lourdres et Paris, and was followed an hour later by the Copleys themselves.

The breakfast went off gaily. Paul was his most expansive self, and the whole table responded to his mood. It was with a sense of gratification that Marcia saw her uncle, who had lately been so grave, laughingly exchanging nonsense with the young man. She felt, though she would scarcely have acknowledged it to herself, a certain property right in Paul, and it pleased her subtly when he pleased other people. She sat next to him at the table, and occasionally, beneath his laughter and persiflage, she caught an undertone of meaning. So long as they were not alone and he could not go beyond a certain point, she found their relations on a distinctly satisfying basis.

In spite of Paul’s manœuvres, he did not find himself alone with Marcia that afternoon. There was always a cousin in attendance. Mr. and Mrs. Copley, declining the spectacle of the tenebræ in St. Peter’s—they had seen it before—left shortly after luncheon. As they were leaving, Mr. Copley remarked to Mrs. Royston—

‘I will entrust my niece to your care, and please do not lose sight of her until you put her in my hands for the evening train. I wish no more such escapades as we had the other day.’ And, to Marcia’s discomfort, the adventures involving the rescue of Marcellus and Gervasio were recounted in detail. For an unexplained reason, she would have preferred the story of their origin to remain in darkness.

Paul’s face clouded slightly. ‘My objections to Sybert grow rapidly,’ he remarked in an undertone.

Marcia laughed. ‘If you could have seen him! He never spoke a word to me all the way out in the train. He sat with his arms folded and a frown on his brow, like—Napoleon at Moscow.’

Paul’s face brightened again. ‘Oh, I begin to like him, after all,’ he declared.

Toward five o’clock that evening every carriage in the city seemed to be bent for the Ponte Sant’ Angelo. A casual spectator would never have chosen a religious function as the end of all this confusion. In the tangle of narrow streets beyond the bridge the way was almost blocked, and such progress as was possible was made at a snail’s pace. The Royston party, in two carriages, not unnaturally lost each other. The carriage containing Marcia, Margaret, and Paul, getting into the jam in the narrow Borgo Nuovo, arrived in the piazza of St. Peter’s with wheels locked with a cardinal’s coach. The cardinal’s coachman and theirs exchanged an unclerical opinion of each other’s ability as drivers. The cardinal advanced his head from the window with a mildly startled air of reproof, and the Americans laughed gaily at the situation. After a moment of scrutiny the cardinal smiled back, and the four disembarked and set out on foot across the piazza, leaving the men to sever the difficulty at their leisure. He proved an unexpectedly cordial person, and when they parted on the broad steps he held out of his hand with a friendly smile and after a moment of perplexed hesitation the three gravely shook it in turn.

‘Do you think we ought to have kissed it?’ Marcia inquired. ‘I would have done it, only I didn’t know how.’

Paul laughed. ‘He knew we weren’t of the true faith. No right-minded Catholic would laugh at nearly spilling a cardinal in the street.’

They stood aside by the central door looking for Mrs. Royston and Eleanor and watching the crowd surge past. Paul was quite insistent that they should go in without the others, but Marcia was equally insistent that they wait. She had an intuitive feeling that there was safety in numbers.

For a wonder they presently espied Mrs. Royston bearing down upon them, a small camp-stool clutched to her portly bosom, and Eleanor panting along behind, a camp-stool in either hand.

Mrs. Royston caught sight of them with an expression of relief.

‘My dears, I was afraid I had lost you,’ she gasped. ‘We remembered, just as we got to the bridge, that we hadn’t brought any chairs, and so we went back for them. Paul, you should have thought of them yourself. I suppose we’d better hurry in and get a good place.’

Paul patiently possessed himself of the chairs and followed the ladies, with a glance at Marcia which seemed to say, ‘Is there this day living a more exemplary nephew and gentleman than I?’

The tenebræ service on Holy Thursday is the one time in the year when St. Peter’s may be seen at night. The great church looms vaster and emptier and more solemn then than at any other time. The eye cannot penetrate to the distant dome hidden in shadows. The long nave stretches interminably into space, the chapels deepen and broaden until they are churches themselves. The clustered pillars reach upward till they are lost in the darkness. What the eye cannot grasp the imagination seizes upon, and the vast interior grows and widens until it seems to stretch out arms to inclose all Christendom itself. On this one night it does inclose all Rome—nobility and peasants, Italians and foreigners: those who are of the faith, and those who are merely spectators; those who come to worship; those who come to be amused—St. Peter’s receives them all with the same impartiality.

Standing outside, it had seemed to them that the whole city had flowed through the doors; but within, the church was still approximately empty. As they walked down the broad nave in the dimness of twilight, Marcia turned to the young man beside her.

‘At first I didn’t think St. Peter’s was impressive—that is, compared to Milan and Cologne and some of the other cathedrals—but it’s like the rest of Rome, it grows and grows until–’

‘It comes to be the whole world,’ he supplied.

By the bronze baldacchino Mrs. Royston spread her camp-stools and sat down.

‘This is the best place we could choose,’ she said contentedly as she folded her hands. ‘We shan’t be very near the choir, but we can hear just as well, and we shall have an excellent view of the altar-washing and the sacred relics.’ She spoke in the tone of one who is picking out a stall for a theatrical performance.

From time to time friends of either the Roystons or Marcia drifted up and, having paused to chat a few minutes, passed on, giving place to others. As one group left them with smiles and friendly bows, Marcia turned to Paul, who was standing beside her.

‘It’s really dreadful,’ she said, ‘the way the foreigners take possession of Rome. This might as well be a reception at the Embassy. If I were the pope, I would put up a sign on the door of St. Peter’s saying, “No forestieri admitted.”’

‘Ah, but there are no forestieri in the case of St. Peter’s; it belongs to all nations.’

Marcia smiled at the young man and turned away; and as she turned she caught, across an intervening stream of heads, a face, looking in her direction, wearing about the eyes a curiously quizzical expression. It was the face of a middle-aged woman—an interesting face—not exactly beautiful, but sparkling with intelligence. It seemed very familiar to Marcia, and as her eyes lingered on it a moment the quizzical expression gave place to one of amused friendliness. The woman smiled and bowed and passed on. Marcia bowed vaguely, and then it flashed through her mind who it was—the lady who wrote, the ‘greatest gossip in Rome,’ whom she had met at the studio tea so many weeks before. She had forgotten all about her unknown friend of that day, and now she turned quickly to Paul to ask her identity. Paul was engaged in answering some question of his aunt’s, and before she could gain his attention again a hush swept over the great interior and everything else was forgotten in the opening chorus of the ‘Miserere.’

The twilight had deepened, and the great white dome shone dimly far above the blackness of the crowd. The voices of the papal choir swelled louder and louder in the solemn chant, and high and separate and alone rose the clear, flute-like treble of the ‘Pope’s Nightingale.’ And as an undertone, an accompaniment to the music, the shuffle and murmur of thirty thousand listeners rose and fell like the distant beat of surf.

The candles on the altar showed dimly above their heads. As the service continued, one by one the lights were extinguished. After half an hour or so, the waiting and intensity grew wearing. The crowd was pressing closer, and Margaret Royston craned her neck, vainly trying to discover how many candles remained. Paul, with ready imagination, was answering his aunt’s questions as to the meaning of the ceremonies. Margaret turned to Marcia.

‘Poke this young priest in front of me,’ she whispered, and ask him in Italian how many candles are left.’

The young priest, overhearing the words, turned around with an amused smile, obligingly stood on his tiptoes to look at the altar, and replied in English that there were three.

‘Thank you,’ said Margaret; ‘I didn’t suppose you could talk English.’

‘I was born in Troy, New York.’

‘Really?’ she laughed, and the two fell to comparing the rival merits of the Hudson and the Tiber.

He proved most friendly, carefully explaining to the party the significance of the service and the meaning of the different symbols. Mrs. Royston looked reproachfully at her nephew, whose stories, it transpired, did not accord with fact.

‘You really couldn’t expect me to know as much as a professional, Aunt Eleanor,’ he unblushingly expostulated. My explanations were more picturesque than his, at any rate; and if they aren’t true, they ought to be.’

The last candle was finally out, and for a moment the great interior remained in darkness. Then a noise like the distant rattle of thunder symbolized the rending of the veil, and in an instant lights sprang out from every arch and pier and dome. A long procession of cardinals, choristers, and acolytes wound singing to the high altar—the ‘Altar of the World.’

Marcia stood by the railing and watched their faces as they filed past. They were such thoughtful, spiritual, kindly faces that her respect for this great power—the greatest power in Christendom—increased momentarily. She felt a sort of shame to be there merely as a spectator. She looked about at the faces of the peasants, and thought what a barren, barren existence would be theirs without this church, which promised the only joy they could ever hope to have.

When the ceremony of washing the altar with oil and wine was ended, the young priest bade them a friendly good evening. He could not wait for the holy relics, he said; they had supper at the monastery at seven o’clock. He hastily added, however, in response to the smile trembling on Margaret’s lips, ‘Not that they are not the true relics and very holy, but I have seen them several times before.’

The relics were exhibited to the multitude from St. Veronica’s balcony far above their heads. Paul whispered to Marcia with a little laugh:

‘Our friend the cardinal would be gratified, would he not, to see his heretics bowing before St. Veronica’s handkerchief? Look,’ he added, ‘at that peasant woman in her blue skirt and scarlet kerchief. She has probably walked fifty miles, with her baby strapped to a board. I suppose she thinks the child will have good fortune the rest of his life If he just catches a glimpse of a splinter of the true cross.’

Marcia looked at the woman standing beside her, a pilgrim from the Abruzzi, judging from her dress. She was raising an illumined face to the little balcony where the priest was holding above their heads the holy relic. In her arms she held a baby whose face she was turning upward also, while she murmured prayers in his ears. Marcia’s glance wandered away over the crowd—the poor pilgrim peasants whose upturned faces, worn by work and poverty, were softened for the moment into a holy awe. Then she raised her eyes to the balcony where the priest in his white robes was holding high above his head the shining silver cross in which was incased St. Peter’s dearest relic, the tiny splinter of the true cross. The light was centred on the little balcony; every eye in the great concourse was fixed upon it. The priest was fat, his face was red, his attitude theatrical. The whole spectacle was theatrical. A quick revulsion of feeling passed over her. A few moments before, as she watched the procession of cardinals, she had been ready to admit the spiritual significance of the scene; now she saw only its spectacular side. It was merely a play, a delusion got up to dazzle the poor peasants. This church was the only thing they had in life, and, after all, what did it do for them? What could St. Veronica’s handkerchief, what could a splinter of the true cross, do to brighten their lives? It was superstition, not religion, that was being offered to the peasants of Italy.

She looked again across the sea of upturned faces and shook her head. ‘Isn’t it pitiful?’ she asked.

‘Isn’t it picturesque?’ echoed Paul.

‘That priest up there knows he’s deluding all these people, and he’s just as solemn as if he believed in the relics himself. The church is still so hopelessly mediaeval!’

‘That’s the beauty of the church,’ Paul objected. ‘It’s still mediaeval, while the rest of the world is so hopelessly nineteenth-century. I like to see these peasants believing in St. Veronica’s handkerchief and the power of the sacred Bambino to cure disease. I think it’s a beautiful exhibition of faith in a world where faith is out of fashion. I don’t blame the priests in the least for keeping it up. It’s a protest against the age. They’re about the only artists left. If I were a priest I’d learn prestidigitation, and substantiate the efficacy of the relics with a miracle or so.’

‘It’s simply fostering superstition.’

‘Take their superstition away and you deprive them of their most picturesque quality.’

‘You don’t care for anything but what’s picturesque!’ she exclaimed in a tone half scornful.

Paul did not answer. The ceremony was over and the crowd was beginning to pour out. They turned with the stream and wedged their way toward the right-hand entrance, near which their carriages were waiting. Paul manœuvred very adroitly so that the crowd should separate them from the rest of the party at the door.

‘I will tell you what I care for most,’ he said in her ear as they pushed out into the portico. ‘I care for you.’

She perceived his drift too late and looked back with an air of dismay. The others were lost in the moving mass of heads.

Paul saw her glance and laughed. ‘You’re going to take good care that we shan’t be alone together, aren’t you?’

Marcia echoed his laugh. ‘Yes,’ she acknowledged frankly; ‘I’m trying to.’

‘It doesn’t matter. My time’s coming; you can’t put it off.’ His hand touched hers hanging at her side and he clasped it firmly. ‘Come here; we’ll get out of this crowd,’ and he pushed on outside and drew back into a corner by one of the tall columns. The crowd surged past, flowing down the steps like a river widening to the sea. Below them the piazza was black with a tossing, moving mass of carriages and people. The mass of the Vatican at their left loomed a black bulk in the night, its hundreds of windows shining in the reflected lights of the piazza like the eyes of a great octopus. At another time Marcia might have looked very curiously toward the palace. She might have wondered if in one of those dark windows Leo was not standing brooding over the throng of worshippers who had come that day. How must a pope feel to see thirty thousand people go out from under his roof—go out freely to their homes—while he alone may not step across the threshold? At another time she would have paused to play a little with the thought, but now her attention was engaged. Paul still held her hand.

He squared himself in front of her, with his back to the crowd. ‘Have you been thinking about what I asked you?’

Had she been thinking! She had been doing nothing else. She looked at him reproachfully. ‘Let’s not talk about it. The more I think, the more I don’t know.’

‘That’s an unfortunate state to be in. Perhaps I can help you to make up your mind. Are you going to be in love with me some day, Marcia—soon?’ he persisted.

‘I—I don’t know.’

He leaned toward her, with his face very close to hers. She shrank back further into the shadow. ‘There they are!’ she exclaimed, as she caught sight of Eleanor’s head above the crowd, and she tried to draw her hand away.

‘Never mind them. They won’t be here for three minutes. You’ve got time enough to answer me.’

‘Please, not now—Paul,’ she whispered.

‘When?’ he insisted, keeping a firm hold of her hand. ‘The next time I see you?’

‘Yes—perhaps,’ and she turned away to greet the others.

CHAPTER XII

The week following Easter proved rainy and disagreeable. It was not a cheerful period, for the villa turned out to be a fair-weather house. The stone walls seemed to absorb and retain the moisture like a vault, and a mortuary atmosphere hung about the rooms. Mr. Copley, with masculine imperviousness to mud and water, succeeded in escaping from the dampness of his home by journeying daily to the ever-luring Embassy. But his wife and niece, more solicitous on the subject of hair and clothes, remained storm-bound, and on the fourth day Mrs. Copley’s conversation turned frequently to malaria.

Marcia, who had taken the villa for better, for worse, steadfastly endeavoured to approve of it in even this uncheerful mood. She divided her time between romping through the big rooms with Gerald, Gervasio, and Marcellus, and shivering over a brazier full of coals in her own room, to the accompaniment of dripping ilex trees and the superfluous splashing of the fountain. Her book was the Egoist, and the Egoist is an illuminating work to a young woman in Marcia’s frame of mind. It makes her hesitate. She knew that Paul Dessart in no wise resembled the magnificent Sir Willoughby, and that it was unfair to make the comparison, but still she made it.

As she stood by the window, gazing down on the rain-swept Campagna, she pondered the situation and pondered it again, and succeeded only in working herself into a state of deeper indecision. Paul was interesting, attractive—as her uncle said, ‘decorative’; but was he any more, or was that enough? Should she be sorry if she said ‘no’? Should she be sorrier if she said ‘yes’? So her mind busied itself to the dripping of the raindrops; and for all the thought she spent upon the question, she wandered in a circle and finished where she had started.

The Monday following Easter week dawned clear and bright again. Marcia opened her eyes to a bar of sunlight streaming in at the eastern window, and the first sound that greeted her was a joyful chorus of bird-voices. She sat up and viewed the weather with a sense of re-awakened life, feeling as if her perplexities had somehow vanished with the rain. She was no nearer making up her mind than she had been the day before, but she was quite contented to let it stay unmade a little longer. The sound of horses’ hoofs beneath her window told her that her uncle had started for the station. When he was away and there were no guests in the house, Marcia and Mrs. Copley usually had the first breakfast served in their rooms. Accordingly, as she heard her uncle gallop off, she made a leisurely toilet, and then ate her coffee and rolls and marmalade at a little table set on the balcony. It was late when she joined her aunt on the loggia.

Mrs. Copley looked up from an intricate piece of embroidery. ‘Good morning, Marcia,’ she said, returning her niece’s greeting. ‘Yes, isn’t it a relief to see some sunshine again!—I have a surprise for you,’ she added.

‘A surprise?’ asked Marcia. ‘My birthday isn’t coming for two weeks. But never mind; surprises are always welcome. What is it?’

‘It isn’t a very big surprise; just a tiny one to break the monotony of these four days of rain. I had a note from Mrs. Royston this morning. It should have come yesterday, only it was so wet that Angelo didn’t go for the mail.’ She paused to rummage through the basket of silks. ‘I thought it was here, but no matter. She says that owing to these dreadful riots they have changed all their plans. They have entirely given up Naples, and are going north instead, on a little trip of a week or so to Assisi and Perugia. She wrote to say good-bye and to tell me that they would get back to Rome in time for your party; though they are afraid they can’t spend more than two or three days with us then, as the change of plan involves some hurry. They leave on Wednesday.’

‘That is too bad,’ said Marcia, and with the words she uttered a sigh of relief. Paul would go with them, probably; or, at any rate, she need not see him; it would postpone the difficulty. ‘But where is the surprise?’ she inquired.

‘Oh, the surprise!’ Mrs. Copley laughed. ‘I entirely forgot it. I was afraid they might think it strange that I hadn’t answered the note—though I really didn’t get it in time—so I asked your uncle to stop at their hotel and invite them all to come out to the villa for the night. I thought that since we were planning to drive to the festa at Genazzano to-morrow, it would be nice to have them with us. I am sure they would be interested in seeing the festa.’

Marcia dropped limply into a chair and looked at her aunt. ‘Is Mr. Dessart coming too?’

‘I invited him, certainly. What’s the matter? Aren’t you pleased? I thought you liked him.’

‘Oh, yes, I do; only—I wish I’d got up earlier!’ And then she laughed. The situation was rather funny, after all. She might as well make the best of it. ‘Suppose we send over to Palestrina and invite M. Benoit for dinner,’ she suggested presently. ‘I think he is stopping there this week, and it would be nice to have him. I suspect,’ she added, ‘that he is a tiny bit interested in Eleanor.’

A note was sent by a groom, who returned with the information that he had found the gentleman sitting on a rock in a field, painting a portrait of a sheep; that he had delivered the note, and got this in return.

‘This’ was a rapid sketch on bristol-board, representing the young Frenchman in evening clothes making a bow, with his hand on his heart, to the two ladies, who received him on the steps of the loggia, while a clock in the corner pointed to eight.

Marcia looked at the sketch and laughed. ‘Here’s an original acceptance, Aunt Katherine.’

Mrs. Copley smiled appreciatively. ‘He seems to be a very original young man,’ she conceded.

‘Naturellement. He’s a prix de Rome.’

‘When Frenchmen are nice they are very nice,’ said Mrs. Copley; ‘but when they are not–’ Words failed her, and she picked up her embroidery again.

At the mid-day breakfast Marcia announced rather hopefully that she did not think the Roystons would come.

‘Why not?’ her aunt inquired.

‘They’ve lost their maid, and there won’t be anybody to help them pack. If they come out to the villa to-night they won’t be ready to start for Perugia on Wednesday. Besides, Mrs. Royston never likes to do anything on the spur of the moment. She likes to plan her programme a week ahead and stick to it. Oh, I know they won’t come,’ she added with a laugh. ‘M. Benoit will be the only guest, after all.’

‘And I’ve ordered dinner for eight!’ said Mrs. Copley, pathetically. ‘I am thinking of driving over to the contessa’s this afternoon—I might invite her to join us.’