The Wheat Princess

Marcia suddenly interrupted her own light discourse to look at her watch. ‘Gracious! I haven’t much time. Will you please tell him to hurry a little, Mr. Sybert?’

The driver obeyed by giving his horse a resounding cut with the whip, whereupon Marcia jerked him by the coat-tails and told him that if he whipped his horse again she would not give him any mancia.

The fellow shrugged his shoulders and they settled down into a walk.

‘Isn’t there any society for the prevention of cruelty to animals?’ she asked. ‘These Italians are hopeless.’

‘You can scarcely expect them to expend more consideration on animals than they receive themselves,’ Sybert threw off.

‘Oh, dear!’ she complained anew, suddenly becoming aware of their pace; ‘I’m afraid we’ll be late for the train. Don’t you suppose he could hurry just a little without whipping the horse?’

Sybert translated her wishes to the driver again, and they jogged on at a somewhat livelier rate; but by the time they reached the station the train had gone, and there were no Mrs. Copley and Gerald in the waiting-room. Marcia’s face was slightly blank as she realized the situation, and her first involuntary thought was a wish that it had been Paul Dessart instead of Sybert who had come with her. She carried off the matter with a laugh, however, and explained to her companion—

‘I suppose Aunt Katherine thought I had decided to stay in the city with the Roystons. I told her I was going to, but I found they had a dinner engagement. It doesn’t matter, though; I’ll wait here for the next train. There is one for Palestrina before very long—Aunt Katherine went by way of Tivoli. Thank you very much, Mr. Sybert, for coming to the station with me, and really you mustn’t think you have to wait until the train goes. The dog will be company enough.’

Sybert consulted his time schedule in silence. ‘The next train doesn’t leave till seven, and there won’t be any carriage waiting for you. How do you propose to get out to the villa?’

‘Oh, the station-man at Palestrina will find a carriage for me. There’s a very nice man who’s often driven us out.’

Sybert frowned slightly as he considered the question. It was rather inconvenient for him to go out to the villa that night; but he reflected that it was his duty toward Copley to get his niece back safely—as to letting her set out alone on a seven-mile drive with a strange Palestrina driver, that was clearly out of the question.

‘I think I’ll run out with you,’ he said, looking at his watch.

She had seen his frown and feared some such proposition. ‘No, indeed!’ she cried. ‘I shouldn’t think of letting you. I’ve been over the same road hundreds of times, and I’m not in the least afraid. It won’t be late.’

‘The Sabine mountains are infested with bandits,’ he declared. ‘I think you need an escort.’

‘Mr. Sybert, how silly! I know your time is precious, (this was intended for irony, but as it happened to be true, he did not recognize it as such), ‘and I don’t want you to come with me.’

Sybert laughed. ‘I don’t doubt that, Miss Marcia; but I’m coming, just the same. I am sorry, but you will have to put up with me.’

‘I should a lot rather you wouldn’t,’ she returned, ‘but do as you please.’

‘Thank you for the invitation,’ he smiled. ‘There’s about an hour and a half before the train goes—you might run out to the Embassy and have a cup of tea.’

‘Thank you for the invitation, but I think I’ll stay here. I don’t wish to miss a second train, and I shouldn’t know what to do with the dog.’

‘Very well, if you don’t mind staying alone, I will drive out myself and leave a business message for the chief, and then I can take a vacation with a clear conscience. I have a matter to consult your uncle about, and I shall be very glad to run out to the villa.’ He raised his hat in a sufficiently friendly bow and departed.

When he returned, an hour later, he found Marcia feeding the dog with sausage amid an appreciative group of porters, one of whom had procured the meat.

‘Oh, dear!’ she cried. ‘I hoped Marcellus would have finished his meal before you came back. But you aren’t so particular about etiquette as the contessa,’ she added, ‘and don’t object to feeding dogs in the station?’

‘I dare say the poor beast was hungry.’

‘Hungry! I had a whole kilo of sausage, and you should have seen it disappear.’

‘These facchini look as if they would not be averse to sharing his meal.’

‘Poor fellows, they do look hungry.’ Marcia produced her purse and handed them a lira apiece. ‘Because I haven’t any luggage for you to carry, and because you like my dog,’ she explained in Italian. ‘Don’t tell Uncle Howard,’ she added in English. ‘I don’t believe one lira can make them paupers.’

‘It would doubtless be difficult to pauperize them any more than they are at present,’ he agreed.

‘You don’t believe in Uncle Howard’s ideas of charity, do you?’ she inquired tentatively.

‘Oh, not entirely; but we don’t quarrel over it.—Perhaps,’ he suggested, ‘we’d better go out and find an empty compartment while the guards are not looking. I fear they might object to Marcellus—is that his name?—occupying a first-class carriage.’

‘Marcellus, because I found him by the theatre.’

‘Ah—I hope he will turn out as handsome a fellow as his namesake. Come, Marcellus; it’s time we were off.’

He picked the dog up by the nape of the neck and they started down the platform, looking for an empty carriage. They had their choice of a number; the train was not crowded, and first-class carriages in an Italian way-train are rarely in demand. As he was helping Marcia into the car, Sybert was amused to see Tarquinio, the proprietor of the Inn of the Italian People, hurrying into a third-class compartment, with a furtive glance over his shoulder as if he expected every corner to be an ambuscade of the secret police. The warning had evidently fallen on good ground, and the poor fellow was fleeing for his life from the wicked machinations of an omniscient premier.

‘If you will excuse me a moment, I wish to speak to a friend,’ Sybert said as he got Marcia settled; and without waiting for her answer, he strode off down the platform.

She had seen the young Italian, weighed down by a bundle tied up in a bed-quilt, give a glance of recognition as he passed them; and as she watched Sybert enter a third-class compartment she had not a doubt but that the Italian was the ‘friend’ he was searching. She leaned back in the corner with a puzzled frown. Why had Sybert so many queer friends in so many queer places, and why need he be so silent about them?

CHAPTER X

Sybert presently returned and dropped into the seat opposite Marcia; the guard slammed the door and the train pulled slowly out into the Campagna. They were both occupied with their own thoughts, and as neither found much pleasure in talking to the other, and both knew it, they made little pretence at conversation.

Marcia’s excited mood had passed, and she leaned forward with her chin in her hand, watching rather pensively the soft Roman twilight as it crept over the Campagna. What she really saw, however, was the sunlit cloister of St. Paul Without the Walls and Paul Dessart’s face as he talked to her. Was she really in love with him, she asked herself, or was it just—Italy? She did not know and she did not want to think. It was so much pleasanter merely to drift, and so very difficult to make up one’s mind. Everything had been so care-free before, why must he bring the question to an issue? It was a question she did not wish to decide for a long, long time. Would he be willing to wait—to wait for an indefinite future that in the end might never come? Patience was not Paul’s way. Suppose he refused to drift; suppose he insisted on his answer now—did she wish to give him up? No; quite frankly, she did not. She pictured him as he stood there in the cloister, with the warm sunlight and shadow playing about him, with his laughing, boyish face for the instant sober, his eager, insistent eyes bent upon her, his words for once stammering and halting. He was very attractive, very convincing; and yet she sighed. Life for her was still in the future. The world was new and full and varied, and experience was beckoning. There were many things to see and do, and she wanted to be free.

The short southern twilight faded quickly and a full moon took its place in a cloudless turquoise sky. The light flooded the dim compartment with a shimmering brilliancy, and outside it was almost dazzling in its glowing whiteness. Marcia leaned against the window, gazing out at the rolling plain. The tall arches of Aqua Felice were silhouetted darkly against the sky, and in the distance the horizon was broken by the misty outline of the Sabine hills. Now and then they passed a lonely group of farm-buildings set in a cluster of eucalyptus trees, planted against the fever; but for the most part the scene was barren and desolate, with scarcely a suggestion of actual, breathing human light. On the Appian Way were visible the gaunt outlines of Latin tombs, and occasionally the ruined remains of a mediaeval watch-tower. The picture was almost too perfect in its beauty; it was like the painted back drop for a spectacular play. Scarcely real, and yet one of the oldest things in the world—the rolling Campagna, the arches of the aqueducts, Rome behind and the Sabines before. So it had been for centuries; thousands of human lives were wrapped up in it. That was its charm. The picture was not inanimate, but pathetically human. As she looked far off across the plain so mournfully beautiful in its desolation, a sudden rush of feeling swept over her, a rush of that insane love of Italy which has engulfed so many foreigners in the waters of Lethe. She knew now how Paul felt. Italy! Italy! She loved it too.

A half-sob rose in her throat and her eyes filled with tears. She caught herself quickly and shrank back in the corner, with a glance at the man across to see if he were watching her. He was not. He sat rigid, looking out at the Campagna under half-shut eyelids. One hand was plunged deep in his pocket and the other lay on the dog’s head to keep him quiet. Marcia noticed in surprise that while he appeared so calm, his fingers opened and shut nervously. She glanced up into his face again. He was staring at the picture before him as impassively as at a blank wall; but his eyes seemed more deep-set than usual and the under shadows darker. She half abstractedly fell to studying his face, wondering what was behind those eyes; what he could be thinking of.

He suddenly looked up and caught her gaze.

‘I beg your pardon?’ he asked.

‘I didn’t say anything.’

‘You looked as if you did,’ he said with a slight laugh, and turned away from the light. And now Marcia had the uncomfortable feeling that from under his drooping lids he was watching her. She turned back to the window again and tried to centre her attention on the shifting scene outside, but she was oppressively conscious of her silent companion. His face was in the shadow and she could not tell whether his eyes were open or shut. She tried to think of something to talk about, but no relevant subject presented itself. She experienced a nervous sense of relief when the train finally stopped at Palestrina.

The station-man, after some delay, found them a carriage with a reasonably rested-looking horse. As Sybert helped Marcia in he asked if she would object to letting a poor fellow with an unbeautifully large bundle sit on the front seat with the driver.

‘We won’t meet any one at this time of night,’ he added. ‘He’s going to Castel Vivalanti and it’s a long walk.’

‘Certainly he may ride,’ Marcia returned. ‘It makes no difference to me whether we meet any one or not.’

‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ Sybert smiled. ‘I didn’t mean to be disagreeable. Some ladies would object, you know. Tarquinio,’ he called as the Italian with the bed-quilt shuffled past. ‘The signorina invites you to ride, since we are going the same way.’

Tarquinio thanked the signorina with Italian courtesy, boosted up his bundle, and climbed up after it. Marcellus stretched himself comfortably in the bottom of the carriage, and with a canine sigh of content went peaceably to sleep. They set out between moonlit olive orchards and vineyards with the familiar daytime details of farm-buildings and ruins softened into a romantic beauty. Behind them stretched the outline of the Alban mountains, the moonlight catching the white walls of two twin villages which crowned the heights; and before them rose the more desolate Sabines, standing fold upon fold against the sky. It was for the most part a silent drive. Sybert at first, aware that he was more silent than politeness permitted, made a few casual attempts at conversation, and then with an apparently easy conscience folded his arms and returned to his thoughts. Marcia, too, had her thoughts, and the romance of the flower-scented moonlit night gave them their direction. Had Paul been there to urge his case anew, Italy would have helped in the pleading. But Paul had made a tiny mistake that day—he had taken her at her word and let her go alone—and the tiniest of mistakes is often big with consequences.

Once Sybert shifted his position and his hand accidentally touched Marcia’s on the seat between them. ‘Pardon me,’ he murmured, and folded his arms again. She looked up at him quickly. The touch had run through her like an electric shock. Who was this man? she asked herself suddenly. What was he underneath? He seemed to be burning up inside; and she had always considered him apathetic, indifferent. She looked at him wide-eyed; she had never seen him like this. He reminded her of a suppressed volcano that would burst out some day with a sudden explosion. She again set herself covertly to studying his face. His character seemed an anomaly; it contradicted itself. Was it good or bad, simple or complex? Marcia did not have the key. She put together all the things she knew of him, all the things she had heard—the result was largely negative; the different pieces of evil cancelled each other. She knew him in society—he was several different persons there, but what was he when not in society? In his off hours? This afternoon, for example. Why should he be so at home by the Theatre of Marcellus? It was a long distance from the Embassy. And the man on the front seat, who was he? She suddenly interrupted the silence with a question. Sybert started at if he had forgotten she were there.

She repeated it: ‘Is that man on the front seat Tarquinio Paterno who keeps a little trattoria in Rome?’

‘Yes,’ he returned, bringing a somewhat surprised gaze to rest upon her. ‘How do you come to know his name?’

‘Oh, I just guessed. I know Domenico Paterno, the Castel Vivalanti baker, and he told me about his son, Tarquinio. It’s not such a very common name; so when you said this man was going to the village, and when I heard you call him Tarquinio, I thought—why were you surprised?’ she broke off. ‘Is there anything more to know about him?’

‘You seem to have his family history pretty straight,’ Sybert shrugged.

They lapsed into silence again, and Marcia did not attempt to break it a second time.

When they came to the turning where the steep road to Castel Vivalanti branches off from the highway, the driver halted to let Tarquinio get out. But Marcia remonstrated, that the bundle was too heavy for him to carry up the hill, and she told the man to drive on up to the gates of the town.

They jogged on up the winding ascent between orchards of olive and almond trees fringed with the airy leafage of spring. Above them the clustering houses of the village clung to the hilltop, tier above tier, the jagged sky-line of roofs and towers cut out clearly against the light.

Marcia had never visited Castel Vivalanti except in the unequivocal glare of day, which shows the dilapidated little town in all its dilapidation. But the moonlight changes all. The grey stone walls stretched above them now like some grim fortress city of the middle ages. And the old round tower, with its ruined drawbridge, looked as if it had seen dark deeds and kept the secret. It was just such a stronghold as the Cenci was murdered in.

They came to a stand before the tall arch of the Porta della Luna. While Tarquinio was climbing down and hoisting the bundle to his shoulder, Marcia’s attention was momentarily attracted to a group of boys quarrelling over a game of morro in the gateway.

Suddenly, in the midst of Tarquinio’s expressions of thanks to the signorina for helping a poor man on his journey, a frightened shriek rang out in a child’s high voice, followed by a succession of long-drawn screams. The morro-players stopped their game and looked at each other with startled eyes; and then, after a moment of hesitation, went on with the play. At the first cry Sybert had leaped from the carriage, and seizing one of the boys by the shoulder, he demanded the cause.

The boy wriggled himself free with a gesture of unconcern.

‘Gervasio Delano’s mother is beating him. He always makes a great fuss because he is afraid.’

‘What is it?’ Marcia cried as she sprang from the carriage and ran up to Sybert.

‘Some child’s mother is beating him.’

The two, without waiting for any further explanations, turned in under the gate and hurried along the narrow way to the left, in the direction of the sounds. People had gathered in little groups in the doorways, and were shaking their heads and talking excitedly. One woman, as she caught sight of Marcia and Sybert, called out reassuringly that Teresa wasn’t hurting the boy; he always cried harder than he was struck.

By the time they had reached the low doorway whence the sounds issued, the screams had died down to hysterical sobs. They plunged into the room which opened from the street, and then paused. It was so dark that for a moment they could not see anything. The only light came from a flickering oil-lamp burning before an image of the Madonna. But as their eyes became accustomed to the darkness they made out a stoutly built peasant woman standing at one end of the room and grasping in her hand an ox-goad such as the herdsmen on the Campagna use. For a moment they thought she was the only person there, until a low sob proclaimed the presence of a child who was crouching in the farthest corner.

‘What do you want?’ the woman asked, scowling angrily at the intruders.

‘Have you been striking the child with that goad?’ Sybert demanded.

‘I strike the child with what I please,’ the woman retorted. ‘He is a lazy good-for-nothing and he stole the soup.’

Marcia drew the little fellow from the corner where he was sobbing steadily with long catches in his breath. His tears had gained such a momentum that he could not stop, but he clung to her convulsively, realizing that a deliverer of some sort was at hand. She turned him to the light and revealed a great red welt across his cheek where one of the blows had chanced to fall.

‘It’s outrageous! The woman ought to be arrested!’ said Marcia, angrily.

Sybert took the lamp from the wall and bent over to look at him.

‘Poor little devil! He looks as if he needed soup,’ he muttered.

The woman broke in shrilly again to say that he was eleven years old and never brought in a single soldo. She slaved night and day to keep him fed, and she had children enough of her own to give to.

‘Whose child is he?’ Sybert demanded.

‘He was my husband’s,’ the woman returned; ‘and that husband is dead and I have a new one. The boy is in the way. I can’t be expected to support him forever. It is time he was earning something for himself.’

Marcia sat down on a low stool and drew the boy to her.

‘What can we do?’ she asked, looking helplessly at Sybert. ‘It won’t do to leave him here. She would simply beat him to death as soon as our backs are turned.’

‘I’m afraid she would,’ he acknowledged. ‘Of course I can threaten her with the police, but I don’t believe it will do much good.’ He was thinking that she might better adopt the boy than the dog, but he did not care to put his thoughts into words.

‘I know!’ she exclaimed as if in answer to his unspoken suggestion; ‘I’ll take him home for an errand-boy. He will be very useful about the place. Tell the woman, please, that I’m going to keep him, and make her understand that she has nothing to do with him any more.’

‘Would Mrs. Copley like to have him at the villa?’ Sybert inquired doubtfully. ‘It’s hardly fair–’

‘Oh, yes. She won’t mind if I insist—and I shall insist. Tell the woman, please.’

Sybert told the woman rather curtly that she need not be at the expense of feeding the boy any longer, the signorina would take him home to run errands.

The woman quickly changed her manner at this, and refused to part with him. Since she had cared for him when he was little, it was time for him to repay the debt now that she was growing old.

Sybert succinctly explained that she had forfeited all right to the child, and that if she made any trouble he would tell the police, who, he added parenthetically, were his dearest friends. Without further parleying, he picked up the boy and they walked out of the house, followed on the woman’s part by angry prayers that ‘apoplexies’ might fall upon them and their descendants.

Curious groups of people had gathered outside the house, and they separated silently to let them pass. At the gateway the morro-players stopped their game to crowd around the carriage with shrill inquiries as to what was going to be done with Gervasio. The driver leaned from his seat and stared in stupid bewilderment at this rapid change of fares. But he whipped up his horse and started with dispatch, apparently moved by the belief that if he gave them time enough they would invite all Castel Vivalanti to drive.

As they rattled down the hill Sybert broke out into an amused laugh. ‘I fear your aunt won’t thank us, Miss Marcia, for turning Villa Vivalanti into a foundling-asylum.’

‘She won’t care when we tell her about it,’ said Marcia, comfortably. She glanced down at the thin little face resting on Sybert’s shoulder. ‘Poor little fellow! He looks hungrier than Marcellus. The woman said he was eleven, and he’s scarcely bigger than Gerald.’

Sybert closed his fingers around Gervasio’s tiny brown wrist. ‘He’s pretty thin,’ he remarked; ‘but that can soon be remedied. These peasant children are hardy little things when they have half a chance.’ He looked down at the boy, who was watching their faces with wide-open, excited eyes, half frightened at the strange language. ‘You mustn’t be afraid, Gervasio,’ he reassured him in Italian. ‘The signorina is taking you home with her to Villa Vivalanti, where you won’t be whipped any more and will have all you want to eat. You must be a good boy and do everything she tells you.’

Gervasio’s eyes opened still wider. ‘Will the signorina give me chocolate?’ he asked.

‘He’s one of the children I gave chocolate to, and he remembers it!’ Marcia said delightedly. ‘I thought his face was familiar. Yes, Gervasio,’ she added in her very careful Italian. ‘I will give you chocolate if you always do what you are told, but not every day, because chocolate is not good for little boys. You must eat bread and meat and soup, and grow big and strong like—like Signor Siberti here.’

Sybert laughed and Marcia joined him.

‘I begin to appreciate Aunt Katherine’s anxiety for Gerald—do you suppose there is any danger of malaria at Villa Vivalanti?’

For the rest of the drive they chatted quite gaily over the adventure. Sybert for the time dismissed whatever he had on his mind; and as for Marcia—St. Paul’s cloisters were behind in Rome. As they turned into the avenue the lights of the villa gleamed brightly through the trees.

‘See, Gervasio,’ said Sybert. ‘That is where you are going to live.’

Gervasio nodded, too awed to speak. Presently he whispered, ‘Shall I see the little principino?’

‘The little principino? what does he mean?’ Marcia asked.

‘The little principino with yellow hair,’ Gervasio repeated.

‘Gerald!’ Sybert laughed. ‘The ‘principino’ is good for a free-born American. Ah—and here is the old prince,’ he added, as the carriage wheels grated on the gravel before the loggia and Copley stepped out from the hall to see who had come.

‘Hello! is that you, Sybert?’ he called out in surprise. ‘And, Marcia! I thought you had decided to stay in town—what in the deuce have you brought with you?’