Mae Madden Part 11

The Faun may smile, although life is only one long play-day in green fields and woods, because he is a Faun. The man must sigh, when he has drained his wine-cups and laughed his heartiest laugh, and wakes to another morning, because he is a man. The cry of humanity echoes in our souls. We cannot stifle it; we may hush it, and follow our idle joys, but the day comes when we bend our head with Antinous and Solomon and the rest of them, and sigh out our vanitas, vanitas also, in the great weary chorus.

No need, alas! for a Hawthorne, or Byron, or even a Shakspeare to interpret what the Antinous says for us. Our own hearts do it.

Mae caught the spirit of all this, as her eyes roamed out of the window on the Sabine hills, where woods and springs sang. She saw the aqueducts bounding, even in their ruin, arch after arch, to the treasure house of the waters. "They never can reach it, now," thinks she, "never. Suppose they cannot, is not the spirit the same?" And now Mae is ready for the sudden light that dawns on her soul. She springs to her feet. She is alone in the room with the marble men; and they are quiet; even the Gladiator bites back his last groan once more.

"The Eternal City," shouts Mae; "I know what it means at last. Oh! Rome, Rome, I love you!" and she rests her hand on the windowsill, and looks out on Rome. "Why, it is like a resurrection morn. Ruins? Yes, it is all ruins, dry bones, and great dead in dust; but there is something more. I only saw that graveyard part of it before; now, the spirit of the great men, and great deeds, and words, and thoughts, and prayers," cries Mae, exultantly. "Why, they are here; not dead, like the rest, but alive, all around us. Oh! Rome, Rome, forgive me!"

Now, this might have seemed absurd to the custode, or some other people, if they had put their head in at the door just then. But they didn't; and, really, it was not absurd. I cannot believe that this small Mae Madden is the only being who has had a swift, brilliant awakening from the first surface, depressing thoughts of Rome--an awakening to the living spirits which float proudly over their vacant sh.e.l.ls that lie below the old pavements. Once you do feel the strong, rich Roman life about you, the decay, the ruin float off on the dust of the ages, before the glorified breath of proud matrons and stately warriors, who step over the centuries to walk by your side. And the centuries have improved them,--have left their grandeur, and n.o.bility, and bravery, and civilized them a bit. They form into pageants for you, and fill the baths and the palaces, but never crowd the Coliseum for the dreadful contests, unless, maybe, for an occasional bull-fight--some great, horrid, big bull which would be killed at market to-morrow at any rate--and even that is as you please. It is wonderful, truly, once we discern the spirits around us, to notice what a miraculous place Rome is; how the intervening years of purgatorial flames have turned old Nero himself into a fairly benevolent, soft old gentleman, even though his estates have crumbled to such an extent that he may put his golden palace into the head of his cane, which he always carries now, since his chariots have gone away. Where are they? Caligula has even made it up with his mother-in-law, and you reflect with joy on that fact, as the two flit by your mind's eye, hand in hand. All this nonsense is for those of us who HAVE awakenings. The rest of "our party" may sit at Spillman's and eat coffee-cakes and sip Lachrymae Christi, while we walk alone through the Coliseum, with the crowd of old heathen. They stop, every one, at the iron cross in the middle, reared over their carnage and mad mirth, and press their lips to it now. The centuries have done that. We only, alas! stand gazing mournfully, doubtingly. "Will you have another coffee-cake?" says some one, and we remember that we are at Spillman's also. And, indeed, we might be more sensible to stay with our party always; eat cakes, drink wine, laugh at the old world, vaunt the new, read Baedeker and the Bible, say our orthodox Protestant prayers, with a special "Lead us not into Romanism" codicil, and go to bed, and dream of our own golden houses, Paris dresses, and fat letters of credit.

At any rate, Mae Madden was electrified by a great sudden sweep of love, a surging rush of reverence for Rome, and makes no doubt in her own mind, to this day, that the Faun laughed with her in her joy. In this exalted frame of mind, she wandered down through the long halls. She was pa.s.sing from the room of the Caesars when she heard Norman's voice. So he had come for her with Eric. She had half fancied he would. She paused to listen. It was a ringing elastic voice, in no wise lagging in speech, with a certain measurement in its tones, as if he weighed his words and thoughts, and gave them out generously, pound for pound, a fair measure which our grandmother's recipes approved. Mae smiled to herself. "He has loved Rome always. He caught the spirit of it long ago. He will be glad to know I have found it also. I wish"--and Mae sighed a sc.r.a.p of a sigh, and looked down at the toe of her boot, with which she drew little semi-circles before her.

Mae was truly in a very tender mood to-day. I think if Norman had caught sight of her face at that moment, he would have sent Eric off, and right there and then, before all the Caesars--why what is the matter? The face contracts as if in pain. What was the cause? She had heard Norman say, "I'm afraid I was wrong, but I never meant anything by my attentions to the girl, Eric. It was really on your account. I never liked Miss Rae particularly. I was thrown much with her because you and I have been together constantly, but she does not grow on me. I never expected you should consider me as her necessary cavalier always. As for this evening, I am engaged to Miss Mae, so that settles this matter, but I wish that hereafter you would not get me into such sc.r.a.pes."

Poor Mae! she leaned against Nero--or was it Caracalla?--surely somebody very hard and cold and cruel,--and stopped breathing for a moment.

For she had heard wrong, had misunderstood Miss Rae for Miss Mae, and supposed it was of herself that he spoke. Her heart stood still for the minutest part of a minute. Then she turned softly and quickly, went back to the Gladiator's room, left word with the custode for Eric that she wasn't well, and had gone home alone, walked off down the Capitol steps, took a cab and drove away.

At home she had a long, earnest talk with Lisetta, after which Lisetta had a short, brisk talk with the padrona. "It means money," she said, "and I can play I did it for the Signorina's safety." Later, Mae wrote a brief, polite note to Norman Mann. She was ill, had gone to bed, and wouldn't be able to go to the Corso with him to-night. She tried to stifle the hot anger and other emotions out of the words, and read and re-read them to a.s.sure herself that they were perfectly easy, natural, and polite. At last she tore them up and sent this instead:

MY DEAR MR. MANN:--Such a pity that we are not to have our fun, after all. Yet, perhaps it is just as well. I should be very speedily without my light, and the cry of "senza moccolo, senza moccola," must be very dispiriting. Have a good time right along. Good-bye--good-bye.

Of course, if Mae had not been beside herself with conflicting emotions, she would never have sent this note, or repeated the good-bye in that echoing, departing sort of way. Norman Mann knit his brow as he read it.

"What is the row now?" he thought. "What a child it is, anyway. She has had the mocoletti fun in her mind since we left America, and now she throws it away. Well, there's no help for it; I'm booked for Miss Rae.

I'll get Eric to see if Mae's really ill. I wonder if she's afraid of me, because she cried last night, afraid I took that big tear for more than it was worth.

"Mae," said Eric, entering her room an hour later, "Norman feels dreadfully that you are not able to go to-night, and so do I. I suppose those wretched marbles did it this morning. Couldn't you possibly come?"

"No," replied Mae, rising on her elbow, "but sit down a moment, Eric."

"How pretty you look," said her brother, seating himself by her side.

Mae's hair was tumbled in brown waves that looked as if they couldn't quite make up their minds to curl, much as they wanted to; her eyes shone strangely; and the little scarlet shawl that she had drawn over her head and shoulders was no brighter than her flushed cheeks. She smiled at her brother, but said hurriedly; "Tell me of your plans for to-night. I suppose you and Mr. Mann are going with your new friends."

"Yes, Norman will go with me and the girls, but he does it with a bad enough grace. He's dreadfully tired of Miss Rae; and, to tell you the truth, Mae, she is rather namby-pamby--very different from Miss Hopkins, and then, besides, he had so set his heart on going with you to-night."

"O, yes," said Mae, scornfully, and bit her lips.

"Why, Mae, what is the matter with you? You seem to doubt every one and everything. You know Norman is truth itself." "Is he?" asked Mae, indifferently.

"I've seen for a long time," continued Eric, "that you two were not the friends you once were, but I don't understand this open dislike. Doesn't it spoil your pleasure? You don't seem to have the real old-fashioned good times, my little girl," and Eric pulled his clumsy dear hand through a twist of the brown hair caressingly.

"O, Eric," cried Mae, "that is like old times again," and a tear splattered down into the big hand. "What, crying, Mae?" "No, dear--that is, yes. I believe I am a little bit homesick. I wish I could go back behind my teens again. Do you remember the summer that I was twelve--that summer up by the lake? I wish you and I could paddle around in one of the old flat-bottomed tubs once more, don't you, Eric? We'd go for lilies and fish for minnows--that is, we'd fish for perch and catch the minnows--and talk about when you should go to college and pull in the race, and I should wear a long dress and learn all the college tunes to sing with you and your Yale friends. Do you remember, Eric? And now, O dear me, you lost your race, and I hate my long gowns.

O--my--dear--brother--do you like it all as well as you thought you would?"

"Why, Mae, you poor little tot, you're sentimental--for you. Yes, I like the future as well as I always did. I never gave much for the present, at any rate."

"But I did, Eric; I always did, till just now, and now I hate it, and I'm afraid of the future, and I'd like to grow backwards, and instead, in a month, I'll have another birth-day, and go into those dreadful twenties." Then Mae was quiet a moment. "Eric, I was sentimental," she said, after a pause. "Really, I do like the future very much. I quite forgot how much for the moment."

"You're a strange child, indeed," replied Eric, the puzzled. "Your words are like lightning. I had just got melted down and ready to reply to your reminiscences by lots of others, and here you are all jolly and matter-of-fact again. I was growing so dreadfully unselfish that I should have insisted on staying home with you this evening to cheer you up a bit."

"And give up the mocoletti! Why, Eric! I shouldn't have known how to take such an offer. No, no, trot off and array yourself, and you may come back and say good-bye."

"I must say good-bye now, dear, for I dine at the Costanzi with the girls and their aunt."

"Now, just now, Eric?"

"Why yes, Mae. You are getting blue again, aren't you? Getting ready for Ash Wednesday to-morrow?"

"Oh, no, no, dear. Kiss me, Eric, again. You're a good, dear boy. No; I didn't cry that drop at all. Good-bye; and to-morrow is Ash Wednesday.

But we don't sorrow or fast in Paradise, I suppose."

CHAPTER XI.

The Corso was all ablaze. The whole world was there. Under a balcony stood a party of peasants. Of this group, two were somewhat aside. One of these was tall, dark, a fair type of Southern Italian; the other small, agile and graceful, dressed in a fresh contadina costume, with her brown hair braided down her shoulders. She seemed excited, and as the crowd pressed nearer she would draw back half-fearfully. "Lisetta,"

she whispered, "I am spoiling your good time. Talk to your friends; never mind me. I will follow by your side, and soon I shall catch the spirit of it all, too." Saying this, she stepped from under the balcony, held out her feeble little taper and joined in the cries around her, pausing to blow at any lowered bit of wax that came in her way. It was maddening sport; her light was extinguished again and again, but she would plead to have it relit, and there was sure to be some tender-hearted, kindly knight at hand to help her.

She ran on quickly, fearlessly, gliding and creeping and sliding through the crowd, her hair flying, her eyes dancing. Even in the dense throng many turned to look at her, and one tall man started suddenly from the shadow of a side street, where he had been standing motionless, and threw himself before the girl. He put out his arm, grasped her tightly, and drew her a few feet into the shadow. "Signorina!" he said. "Hush, hush," she whispered then in colder tones. "Let me go, Signor; you are mistaken. You, do not know me." He smiled quietly, holding her hands clasped in his. "I do not know you, Signorina? You do not know me. Your face is the picture always before my eyes."

"Yes, yes, forgive me," she fluttered, "I was startled, and indeed I am no Signorina now, but one of your own country peasants. I am with Lisetta. Why, where is Lisetta?"

Where, indeed, was she? There were hundreds of contadine in the great crowd surging by, but no Lisetta. The little peasant wrung her hands quite free from the man's grasp. "I must go home," she said. "I don't want any more Carnival."

"No, no," said the officer, quietly, rea.s.suringly. "Get cool. Tell me how Lisetta looks and is dressed, and if we can not find her here, I will take you up to your friend's balcony."

"O, no, not there. Anywhere else, but not there."

"Why not?" asked Bero.

"Because, because,--yes, I will tell you," said Mae, remembering her wrongs, and suddenly moved by the sympathy and softness of the great eyes above her,--"because they think I am home ill, and here I am, you see," and she laughed a little hurriedly,--"besides, I go away with Lisetta to-morrow morning,--hush, let no one hear,--to Sorrento. You must never, never tell. How do I look? Will I make a good peasant, when once the dear sun has browned my hands and forehead, and I have grown Italianized?" And she lifted her face, into which the saucy gaiety had returned, up to him temptingly.

His warm blood was kindled. "You are a little child of the sun-G.o.d now,"

he exclaimed, pa.s.sionately. "May I share some of your days in heaven? I am ordered to Naples tomorrow night; shall be only twelve hours behind you. May I come on the day after to see you in your new home?"

"O, how delightful! But, perhaps, my lord, our little cottage by the sea isn't grand enough for your spurs and b.u.t.tons and glory. We are simple folks you know,--peasants all,--but our hearts, Signor, they are hospitable, and such as we have we will gladly give you. What do you say to the bay of Naples, and oranges for our luncheon day after tomorrow?"

And Mae laughed lightly and joyously. Her little burnt taper fell to the ground, and she clasped her hands together. "What a happy thing life will be!"

"Will you live there and be a peasant forever?" asked Bero, leaning forward. "There are villas by the sea, too, Signorina."

Mae didn't hear these last words. Her heart had stood still on that "forever." Live there forever, forever, and never see her mother or Eric, or,--or any one again! "I hadn't thought of that," she said, "I hadn't thought of that." She stood still with her hands clasped, thinking. The officer at her side, looking down at her, was thinking also. He was fighting a slight mental struggle, a sort of combat he was quite unused to. Should he let the child go on in this wild freak? He knew the cottage by the sea; the peasant home would be dreadful to her.

He knew that by that same day after to-morrow, life in lower Italy, with the dirty, coa.r.s.e people about her would be a burden. Yet he hesitated.

He fought the battle in this way: Should he not stand a better chance if he let her go? He had his leave of absence for three weeks (this was true; "ordered to Naples," he had called it to Mae). Three weeks away from his world, near this winsome, strange, magnetic little being, with the bay of Naples, and moonlight, and his own glories and her loveliness! He couldn't give up this chance. No, no. He would surely see her in a few hours after her troubles began, and comfort her. So he only smiled quietly down at her again, as she stood troubled by his side, and said: "Lisetta will seek you near your balcony if she knows where it is.

Don't be troubled."

"But where is my balcony?" asked Mae.

"Come here," said Bero, leading her slightly forward. She looked up and saw the quiet side-window, where day after day the officer had flung her the sweet flowers when no one was looking. "I know this place very well," he said meaningly. Mae smiled a little cheerfully. "You have beautiful taste," she replied, "I have never seen such exquisite bouquets before."