The Wheat Princess

‘Let the dead past bury its dead!’ he pleaded. ‘I go to an English tailor on the Corso now.’

‘Marcia Copley wrote that she was very much pleased with you, but she didn’t tell us how good-looking you were,’ said Margaret, still frank.

Paul reddened a trifle as he repudiated the charge with a laughing gesture.

‘Don’t you think Miss Copley’s nice?’ pursued Margaret. ‘You’d better think so,’ she added, ‘for she’s one of our best friends.’

Paul reddened still more, as he replied indifferently that Miss Copley appeared very nice. He hadn’t seen much of her, of course.

‘I hope,’ said his aunt, ‘that you have been polite.’

‘My dear aunt,’ he objected patiently, ‘I really don’t go out of my way to be impolite to people,’ and he took the Baedeker from her hand and sat down beside her. ‘What places do you want to see first?’ he inquired.

They were soon deep in computations of the galleries, ruins, and churches that should be visited in conjunction, and half an hour later, Paul and Margaret in one carriage, with Mrs. Royston and Eleanor in a second, were trotting toward the Colosseum; while Paul was reflecting that the path of duty need not of necessity be a thorny one.

During the next week or so Villa Vivalanti saw little more of Marcia than of her uncle. She spent the greater part of her time in Rome, visiting galleries and churches, with studio teas and other Lenten relaxations to lighten the rigour of sight-seeing. Paul Dessart proved himself an attentive cicerone, and his devotion to duty was not unrewarded; the dim crypts and chapels, the deep-embrasured windows of galleries and palaces afforded many chances for stolen scraps of conversation. And Paul was not one to waste his opportunities. The spring was ideal; Rome was flooded with sunshine and flowers and the Italian joy of being alive. The troubles of Italy’s paupers, which Mr. Copley found so absorbing, received, during these days, little consideration from his niece. Marcia was too busy living her own life to have eyes for any but happy people. She looked at Italy through rose-coloured glasses, and Italy, basking in the spring sunshine, smiled back sympathetically.

One morning an accident happened at the villa, and though it may not seem important to the world in general, still, as events turned out, it proved to be the pivot upon which destiny turned. Gerald fell over the parapet, landing eight feet below—butter-side down—with a bleeding nose and a broken front tooth. He could not claim this time that Marietta had pushed him over, as it was clearly proven that Marietta, at the moment, was sitting in the scullery doorway, smiling at François. In consequence Marietta received her wages, a ticket to Rome, and fifty lire to dry her tears. A new nurse was hastily summoned from Castel Vivalanti. She was a niece of Domenic, the baker, and had served in the household of Prince Barberini at Palestrina, which was recommendation enough.

As to the broken tooth, it was a first tooth and shaky at that. Most people would have contented themselves with the reflection that the matter would right itself in the course of nature. But Mrs. Copley, who perhaps had a tendency to be over-solicitous on a question involving her son’s health or beauty, decided that Gerald must go to the dentist’s. Gerald demurred, and Marcia, who had previously had no thought of going into Rome that afternoon, offered to accompany the party, for the sake—she said—of keeping up his courage in the train. As they were preparing to start, she informed Mrs. Copley that she thought she would stay with the Roystons all night, since they had planned to visit the Forum by moonlight some evening, and this appeared a convenient time. In the Roman station she abandoned Gerald to his fate, and drove to the Hôtel de Londres et Paris.

She found the ladies just sitting down to their midday breakfast and delighted to see her. It developed, however, that they had an unbreakable engagement for the evening, and the plan of visiting the Forum was accordingly out of the question.

‘No matter,’ said Marcia, drawing off her gloves; ‘I can come in some other day; it’s always moonlight in Rome’; and they settled themselves to discussing plans for the afternoon. The hotel porter had given Margaret a permesso for the royal palace and stables, and being interested in the domestic arrangements of kings, she was insistent that they visit the Quirinal. But Mrs. Royston, who was conscientiously bent on first exhausting the heavier attractions set forth in Baedeker, declared for the Lateran museum. The matter was still unsettled when they rose from the table and were presented with the cards of Paul Dessart and M. Adolphe Benoit.

Paul’s voice settled the question: the city was too full of pilgrims for any pleasure to be had within the walls; why not take advantage of the pleasant weather to drive out to the monastery of Tre Fontane? But the matter did not eventually arrange itself as happily as he had hoped, since he found himself in one carriage and Marcia in the other. At the monastery the monks were saying office in the main chapel when they arrived, and they paused a few minutes to listen to the deep rise and fall of the Gregorian chant as it echoed through the long, bare nave. The dim interior, the low, monotonous music, the unseen monks, made an effective whole. Paul, awake to the possibilities of the occasion, did his best to draw Marcia into conversation, but she was tantalizingly unresponsive. The guide-book in Mrs. Royston’s hands and the history of the order appeared to absorb her whole attention.

Fortune, however, was finally on his side. Mrs. Royston elected to stop, on their way back to the city, at St. Paul’s without the Walls, and the whole party once more alighted. Within the basilica, Mrs. Royston, guide-book in hand, commenced her usual conscientious inspection, while Eleanor and the young Frenchman strolled about, commenting on the architecture. Margaret had heard that one of the mosaic popes in the frieze had diamond eyes, and she was insistently bent on finding him. Marcia and Paul followed her a few minutes, but they had both seen the church many times before, and both were at present but mildly interested in diamond-eyed popes.

The door of the cloisters stood ajar, and they presently left the others and strolled into the peaceful enclosure with its brick-flagged floor and quaintly twisted columns. It was tranquil and empty, with no suggestion of the outside world. They turned and strolled down the length of the flagging, where the shadow of the columns alternated with gleaming bars of sunshine. The sleepy, old-world atmosphere cast its spell about them; Marcia’s tantalizing humour and Paul’s impatience fell away. They walked on in silence, until presently the silence made itself awkward and Marcia began to talk about the carving of the columns, the flowers in the garden, the monks who tended them. Paul responded half abstractedly, and he finally broke out with what he was thinking of: a talk they had had that afternoon several weeks before in the Borghese gardens.

‘Most men wouldn’t care for this,’ he nodded toward the prim little garden with its violets and roses framed in by the pillared cloister and higher up by the dull grey walls of the church and monastery. ‘But a few do. Since that is the case, why not let the majority mine their coal and build their railroads, and the very small minority who do care stay and appreciate it? It is fortunate that we don’t all like the same things, for there’s a great variety of work to be done. Of course,’ he added, ‘I know well enough I’m never going to do anything very great; I don’t set up for a genius. But to do a few little things well—isn’t that something?’

They had reached the opposite end of the cloisters, and paused by one of the pillars, leaning against the balustrade.

‘You think it’s shirking one’s duty not to live in America?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Marcia smiled vaguely. ‘I think—perhaps I’m changing my mind.’

‘I only know of one thing,’ he said in a low tone, ‘that would make me want to be exiled from Italy.’

Marcia had a quick foreboding that she knew what he was going to say, and for a moment she hesitated; then her eyes asked: ‘What is that?’

Paul looked down at the sun-barred pavement in silence, and then he looked up in her face and smiled steadily. ‘If you lived out of Italy.’

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