_ CHAPTER VII
Sabina had been more than two months in Baron Volterra's house, when she at last received a line from her mother. The short letter was characteristic and was, after all, what the girl had expected, neither more nor less. The Princess told her that for the present she must stay with the "kind friends" who had offered her a home; that everything would be right before long; that if she needed any advice she had better send for Sassi, who had always served the family faithfully; that gowns were going to be short next year, which would be becoming to Sabina when she "came out," because she had small feet and admirable ankles; and that the weather was heavenly. The Princess added that she would send her some pocket-money before long, and that she was trying to find the best way of sending it.
In spite of her position Sabina smiled at the last sentence. It was so like her mother to promise what she would never perform, that it amused her. She sat still for some time with the letter in her hand and then took it to the Baroness, for she felt that it was time to speak out and that the interview could not be put off any longer. The Baroness was writing in her boudoir. She wrote her letters on large sheets of an especial paper, stamped with her initials, over which appeared a very minute Italian baron's coronet, with seven points; it was so small that one might easily have thought that it had nine, like a count's, but it was undeniably smart and suggested an assured position in the aristocracy. No one quite remembered why the late King had made Volterra a baron, but he undoubtedly had done so, and no one disputed Volterra's right to use the title.
Sabina read her letter aloud, and the Baroness listened attentively, with a grave expression.
"Your dear mother--" she began in a soothing tone.
"She is not my 'dear mother' at all," said Sabina, interrupting her. "She is not any more 'dear' to me than I am to her."
"Oh!" exclaimed the Baroness, affecting to be shocked by the girl's heartlessness.
"If it were not for my 'dear mother,' I should not be a beggar," said Sabina.
"A beggar! What a word!"
"There is no other, that I know of. I am living on your charity."
"For heaven's sake, do not say such things!" cried the Baroness.
"There is nothing else to say. If you had not taken me in and lodged me and fed me, I should like to know where I should be now. I am quite sure that my 'dear mother' would not care, but I cannot help wondering what is to become of me. Are you surprised?"
"Are you not provided for here?" The question was put in a tone almost of deprecation.
"Provided for! I am surrounded with every sort of luxury, when I ought to be working for my living."
"Working!" The Baroness was filled with horror. "You, my dear, the daughter of a Roman Prince! You, working for your living! You, a Conti!"
Sabina smiled and looked down at her delicate hands.
"I cannot see what my name has to do with it," she said. "It is not much to be proud of, considering how my relatives behave."
"It is a great name," said the Baroness solemnly and emphatically.
"It was once," Sabina answered, leaning back in the low chair she had taken, and looking at the ceiling. "My mother and my brother have not added lustre to it, and I would much rather be called Signorina Emilia Moscetti and be a governess, than be Sabina Conti and live on charity. I have no right to what I do not possess and cannot earn."
"My dear child! This is rank socialism! I am afraid you talked too long with Malipieri the other night."
"There is a man who works, though he has what you call a great name," observed Sabina. "I admire that. He was poor, I suppose--perhaps not so poor as I am--and he made up his mind to earn his living and a reputation."
"You are quite mistaken," said the Baroness drily.
Sabina looked at her in surprise.
"I thought he was a distinguished architect and engineer," she answered.
"Yes. But he was never poor, and he will be very rich some day."
"Indeed!" Sabina seemed rather disappointed at the information.
There was a little pause, and the Baroness looted at her unfinished letter as if she wished that Sabina would go away. She had foreseen that before long the girl would make some protest against her position as a perpetual guest in the house, but had no clear idea of how to meet it. Sabina seemed so very decided.
"We have done our best to make you feel at home, like one of the family," the Baroness said presently, in a rather injured tone.
Sabina did not wish to be one of the family at all, but she knew that she was under great obligations to her hosts, and she did not wish to be thought ungrateful.
"You have been more than kind," she answered gently, "and I shall never forget it. You have taken more trouble with me in two or three months than my mother in all my life. Please do not imagine that I am not thankful for all you have done."
The words were spoken sincerely, and when Sabina was very much in earnest there was something at once convincing and touching in her voice. The Baroness's sallow cheek actually flushed with pleasure, and she was impelled to leave her seat and kiss Sabina affectionately. She was restrained by a reasonable doubt as to the consequences of such demonstrative familiarity, though she would not have hesitated to kiss the girl's mother under like circumstances.
"It was the least we could do," she said, knowing very well that the phrase meant nothing.
"Excuse me," Sabina objected, "but there was no reason in the world why you should do anything at all for me! In the natural course of things I should either have been sent to the country with my sister- in-law, or to the convent with Clementina."
"You would have been very unhappy, my dear child."
"I do not know which would have been worse," said Sabina frankly. "They both hate me, and I hate them."
"Dear me!" exclaimed the Baroness, shocked again, or pretending to be.
"In our family," Sabina answered calmly, "we all hate each other."
"I am sure your sister Clementina is far too religious to feel hatred for any one."
"You do not know her!" Sabina laughed, and looked at the ceiling. "She hates 'the wicked' with a mortal hatred!"
"Perhaps you mean that she hates wickedness, my dear," suggested the Baroness in a moralizing tone.
"Not at all!" laughed the young girl. "She would like to destroy everybody who is not like her, and she would begin with her own family. She used to tell me that I was doomed to eternal flames because I loved my canary better than I loved her. I did. It was quite true. As for my brother, she said he was wicked, too. I quite believe he is, but she had a friendly understanding with him, because they used to make Signor Sassi get money for them both. In the end they got so much that there was nothing left. Her share all went to convents and extraordinary charities, and his went heaven knows where!"
"And yours?" asked the Baroness, to see what she would say.
"I suppose it went to them too, like everything else, and to my mother, who spent a great deal of money. At all events, none of us have anything now. That is why I want to work."
"It is an honourable impulse, no doubt," the Baroness said, in a tone of meditative disapproval.
Sabina leaned forward, her chin on her hand.
"You think I am too young," she said. "And I really know nothing, except bad French and dancing. I cannot even sew, at least, not very well, and I cannot cook." She laughed. "I once made some very good toast," she added thoughtfully.
"You must marry," said the Baroness. "You must make a good marriage."
"No one will marry me, because I have no dowry," answered Sabina with perfect simplicity.
"Some men marry girls who have none. You are very pretty, you know."
"So my mother used to tell me when she was in a good humour. But Clementina always said I was hideous, that my eyes were like a little pig's, quite inside my head, and that my hair was grey, like an old woman's, and that I was as thin as a grasshopper."
"You are very pretty," the Baroness repeated with conviction; "and I am sure you would make a good wife."
"I am afraid not!" Sabina laughed. "We are none of us good, you know. Why should I be?"
The Baroness disapproved.
"That is a flippant speech," she said severely.
"I do not feel flippant at all. I am very serious. I wish to earn my living."
"But you cannot--"
"But I wish to," answered Sabina, as if that settled the question.
"Have you always done what you wished?" asked the Baroness wisely.
"No, never. That is why I mean to begin at once. I am sure I can learn to be a maid, or to make hats, or feed babies with bottles. Many girls of eighteen can."
The Baroness shrugged her shoulders in a decidedly plebeian way. Sabina's talk seemed very silly to her, no doubt, but she felt slightly foolish herself just then. At close quarters and in the relative intimacy that had grown up between them, the descendant of all the Conti had turned out to be very different from what the financier's wife had expected, and it was not easy to understand her. Sometimes the girl talked like a woman of the world, and sometimes like a child. Her character seemed to be a compound of cynicism and simplicity, indifference and daring, gentleness, hardness and pride, all wonderfully amalgamated under a perfectly self-possessed manner, and pervaded by the most undeniable charm. It was no wonder that the poor Baroness was as puzzled as a hen that has hatched a swan.
Sabina had behaved perfectly, so far; the Baroness admitted this, and it had added considerably to her growing social importance to be regarded as the girl's temporary guardian. Even royalty had expressed its approval of her conduct and its appreciation of her generosity, and it was one of the Baroness's chief ambitions to be noticed by royalty. She had shown a good deal of tact, too, for she was woman enough to guess what the girl must feel, and how hard it must be to accept so much without any prospect of being able to make a return. So far, however, matters had gone very well, and she had really begun to look forward to the glory of presenting Sabina in society during the following winter, and of steering her to a rich marriage, penniless though she was.
But this morning she had received a new impression which disturbed her. It was not that she attached much importance to Sabina's wild talk about working for a living, for that was absurd, on the face of it; but there was something daring in the tone, something in the little careless laugh which made her feel that the delicate girl might be capable of doing very unexpected and dangerous things. The sudden conviction came upon her that Sabina was of the kind that run away and make love matches, and otherwise break through social conventions in a manner quite irreparable. And if Sabina did anything of that sort, the Baroness would not only lose all the glory she had gained, but would of course be severely blamed by Roman society, which would be an awful calamity if it did not amount to a social fall. She alone knew how hard she had worked to build up her position, and she guessed how easily an accident might destroy it. Her husband had his politics and his finance to interest him, but what would be left to his wife if she once lost her hold upon the aristocracy? Even the smile of royalty would not make up for that, and royalty would certainly not smile if Sabina, being in her charge, did anything very startlingly unconventional.
Sabina was quite conscious that the Baroness did not understand; indeed, she had not really expected to be understood, and when she saw the shrug of the shoulders that answered her last speech she rose quietly and went to the window. The blinds were drawn together, for it was now late in May, but she could see down to the street, and as she looked she started a little.
"There is Signor Malipieri!" she cried, and it was clear that she was glad.
The Baroness uttered an exclamation of surprise.
"Are you sure?" she asked.
Yes, Sabina was quite sure. He had just driven up to the door in a cab. Now he was paying the cabman, too, instead of making him wait. The Baroness glanced at the showy little clock set in turquoises, which stood on her writing-table, and she put away her unfinished letter.
"We will ask him to stay to luncheon," she said, in a decided tone.
After sending up to ask if he would be received, Malipieri entered the room with an apology. He said that he had hoped to find the Baron in, and had been told that he might come at any moment. The Baroness thereupon asked the visitor to stay to luncheon, and Malipieri accepted, and sat down.
It had always amused Sabina to watch how the Baroness's manner changed when any one appeared whom she did not know very well. Her mouth assumed a stereotyped smile, she held her head a little forward and on one side, and she spoke in quite another tone. But just now Sabina did not notice these things. She was renewing her impression of Malipieri, whom she had only seen once and in evening dress. She liked him even better now, she thought, and it would have pleased her to look at him longer.
Their eyes met in a glance as he told the Baroness that he had come to see Volterra on a matter of business. He did not explain what the business was, and at once began to talk of other things, as if to escape possible questions. Sabina thought he was paler than before, or less sunburnt, perhaps; at all events, the contrast between his very white forehead and his bronzed face was less strong. She could see his eyes more distinctly, too, than she had seen them in the evening, and she liked their expression better, for he did not look at all bored now. She liked his voice, too, for the slight harshness that seemed always ready to command. She liked the man altogether, and was conscious of the fact, and wished she could talk with him again, as she had talked that evening on the sofa in the corner, without fear of interruption.
That was impossible, and she listened to what he said. It was merely the small talk of a man of the world who knows that he is expected to say something not altogether dull, and takes pains to be agreeable, but Sabina felt all through it a sort of sympathy which she missed very much in the Volterra household, the certainty of fellowship which people who have been brought up in similar surroundings feel when they meet in an atmosphere not their own.
A few minutes after he had come, a servant opened the door and said that the Baron wished to speak to the Baroness at the telephone. She rose, hesitated a moment and went out, leaving the two young people together.
"I have seen Sassi," said Malipieri in a low voice, as soon as the door was shut.
"Yes," answered Sabina, with a little interrogation.
She was very much surprised to hear a slight tremor in her own voice as she uttered the one word.
"I like him very much," Malipieri continued. "He is a good friend to you. He said that if anything of importance happened he would come and see you."
"I shall be glad," Sabina said.
"Something is happening, which may bring him. Be sure to see him alone, when he comes."
"Yes, but what is it? What can possibly happen that can make a difference?"
Malipieri glanced at the door, fearing that the Baroness might enter suddenly.
"Can you keep a secret?" he asked quickly.
"Of course! Tell me!" She leaned forward with eager interest, expecting his next words.
"Did you ever hear that something very valuable is said to be hidden somewhere under the palace?"
Sabina's face fell and the eagerness faded from her eyes instantly. She had often heard the story from her nurses when she had been a little girl, and she did not believe a word of it, any more than she believed that the marble statue of Cardinal Conti in the library really came down from its pedestal on the eve of All Souls' and walked through the state apartments, or the myth about the armour of Francesco Conti, of which the nurses used to tell her that on the anniversary of the night of his murder his eyes could be seen through the bars of the helmet, glowing with the infernal fire. As for any hidden treasure, she was quite positive that if it existed her brother and sister would have got at it long ago. Malipieri sank in her estimation as soon as he mentioned it. He was only a Venetian, of course, and could not be expected to know much about Rome, but he must be very weak-minded if he could be imposed upon by such nonsense. Her delicate lip curled with a little contempt.
"Is that the great secret?" she asked. "I thought you were in earnest."
"The Senator is," observed Malipieri drily.
"If the old gentleman has made you believe that he is, he must have some very deep scheme. He does not like to seem foolish."
Malipieri did not answer at once, but he betrayed no annoyance. In the short silence, he could hear the Baroness's powerful voice yelling at the telephone. It ceased suddenly, and he guessed that she was coming back.
"If I find anything, I wish you to see it before any one else does," he said quickly.
"That would be very amusing!" Sabina laughed incredulously, just as the door opened.
The Baroness heard the light laughter, and stood still with her hand on the latch, as if she had forgotten something. She was not a woman of sudden intuitions nor much given to acting on impulses, and when a new idea crossed her mind she almost always paused to think it over, no matter what she chanced to be doing. It was as if she had accidentally run against something which stunned her a little.
"What is it?" asked Sabina, very naturally.
The Baroness beckoned silently to her, and she rose.
"Only one moment, Signor Malipieri," said the Baroness, apologizing for leaving him alone.
When she and Sabina were out of the room, she shut the door and went on a few paces before speaking.
"My husband has telephoned that he cannot leave the Senate," she said.
"Well?" Sabina did not understand.
"But Malipieri has come expressly to see him."
"He can see him at the Senate," suggested Sabina.
"But I have asked Malipieri to stay to luncheon. If I tell him that my husband is not coming, perhaps he will not stay after all."
"Perhaps not," echoed Sabina with great calmness.
"You do not seem to care," said the Baroness.
"Why should I?"
"I thought you liked him. I thought it would amuse you if he lunched with us."
Sabina looked at her with some curiosity.
"Did you tell the Baron that Signor Malipieri is here?" she asked carelessly.
"No," answered the Baroness, looking away. "As my husband said he could not come to luncheon, it seemed useless."
Sabina understood now, and smiled. This was the direct consequence of the talk which had preceded Malipieri's coming; the Baroness had at once conceived the idea of marrying her to Malipieri.
"What shall we do?" asked the Baroness.
"Whatever you think best," answered Sabina, with sudden meekness. "I think you ought at least to tell Signor Malipieri that the Baron is not coming. He may be in a hurry, you know. He may be wasting time."
The Baroness smiled incredulously.
"My dear," she said, "if he had been so very anxious to see my husband, he would have gone to the Senate first. It is near the palace."
She said no more, but led the way back to the morning room, while Sabina reflected upon the possible truth of the last suggestion, and wondered whether Malipieri had really made his visit for the sake of exchanging a few words with her rather than in order to see Volterra. The Baroness spoke to him as she opened the door.
"My husband has not come yet," she said. "We will not wait for him."
She rang the bell to order luncheon, and Malipieri glanced at Sabina's face, wondering what the Baroness had said to her, for it was not reasonable to suppose that the two had left the room in order to consult in secret upon the question of waiting for Volterra. But Sabina did not meet his look, and her pale young face was impenetrably calm, for she was thinking about what she had just discovered. She was as certain that she knew what had passed in the Baroness's thoughts, as if the latter had spoken aloud. The knowledge, for it amounted to that, momentarily chased away the recollection of what Malipieri had said.
It was rather amusing to be looked upon as marriageable, and to a man she already knew. Her mother had often talked to her with cynical frankness, telling her that she was to make the best match that could be obtained for her, naming numbers of young men she had never seen and assuring her that likes and dislikes had nothing to do with matrimony. They came afterwards, the Princess said, and it generally pleased Providence to send a mild form of aversion as the permanent condition of the bond. But Sabina had never believed her mother, who had cheated her when she was a child, as many foolish and heartless women do, promising rewards which were never given, and excursions which were always put off and little joys which always turned to sorrows less little by far.
Moreover, her sister Clementina had told her that there was only one way to treat the world, and that was to leave it with the contempt it deserved; and she had heard her brother tell his wife in one of his miserable fits of weakly brutal anger that marriage was hell, and nothing else; to which the young princess had coldly replied that he was only where he deserved to be. Sabina had not been brought up with the traditional pious and proper views about matrimony, and if she did not think even worse of it, the merit was due to her own nature, in which there was much good and hardly any real evil.
But she could not escape from a little inherited and acquired cynicism either, and while Malipieri chatted quietly during luncheon, an explanation of the whole matter occurred to her which was not pleasant to contemplate. The story about the treasure might or might not be true, but he believed in it, and so did Volterra. The Baron was therefore employing him to discover the prize. But Malipieri showed plainly that he wished her to possess it, if it were ever found, and perhaps he meant it to be her dowry, in which case it would come into his own hands if he could marry her. This was ingenious, if it was nothing else, and though Sabina felt that there was something mean about it, she resented the idea that he should expect her to think him a model of generosity when she hardly knew him.
She was therefore very quiet, and looked at him rather coldly when he spoke to her, but the Baroness put this down to her admirably correct manners, and was already beginning to consider how she could approach Malipieri on the subject of his marrying Sabina. She was quite in ignorance of the business which had brought him and her husband together, as Sabina now knew from many remarks she remembered. Volterra was accustomed to tell his wife what he had been doing when the matter was settled, and she had long ago given up trying to make him talk of his affairs when he chose to be silent.
On the whole, so far as Sabina was concerned, the circumstances were not at first very favourable to the Baroness's newly formed plan on this occasion, though she did not know it. On the other hand, Malipieri discovered before luncheon was over, that Sabina interested him very much, that she was much prettier than he had realized at his first meeting with her, and that he had unconsciously thought about her a good deal in the interval. _