The Happy End Part 12

They swept smoothly on rubber tires into the Lungarno and rapidly approached her home. The carriage stopped before the familiar white facade, built of marble in the pseudo-severity of the early nineteenth century, and the porter swung open the great iron gate to the courtyard.

Lavinia mounted the square white shaft of the stairs to the Sanvianos'

floor with a deepening sense of injury. She would make it plain to Gheta that she was no longer a child to be casually overlooked.

A small room, used in connection with the dining room for coffee and smoking, gave directly on the hall; there she saw her father sitting, with his hat still on, his face stamped with an almost comical dismay, and holding an unlighted cigar.

"Gheta left me at the Guarinis'," Lavinia halted impetuously. "If it hadn't been for Signor Orsi I shouldn't be here yet; I was completely ignored."

"Heavens!" her father exclaimed, waving her away. "Another feminine catastrophe! Go to your sister and mother. My head is in a whirl."

Her mother, then, had returned. She went forward and was suddenly startled by hearing Gheta's voice rise in a wail of despairing misery.

She hurried forward to her sister's room. Gheta, fully dressed, was prostrate, face down, upon her bed, shaken by a strangled sobbing that at intervals rose to a thin hysterical scream. The Marchesa Sanviano, still in her traveling suit and close-fitting black hat, sat by her elder daughter's side, trying vainly to calm the tumult. In the background the maid, her face streaming with sympathetic tears, was hovering distractedly with a jar of volatile salts.

"Mamma," Lavinia demanded, torn by extravagant fears, "what has happened?"

The marchesa momentarily turned a concerned countenance.

"Your sister," she said seriously, "has found some wrinkles on her forehead."

Lavinia with difficulty restrained a sharp giggle. Gheta's grief and their mother's anxiety at first seemed so foolishly disproportionate to their cause. Then a realization of what such an occurrence meant to Gheta dawned upon her. To an acknowledged beauty like Gheta Sanviano the marks of Time were an absolute tragedy; they threatened her on every plane of her being.

"But when--" Lavinia began.

"They--Anna Mantegazza and she--went to the dressing room at the Guarinis', where, it seems, Anna discovered them--sympathetically, of course."

Gheta's sobbing slowly subsided under the marchesa's urgent plea that unrestrained emotion would only deepen her trouble. She did not appear at dinner; and afterward the marchese, his wife and Lavinia sat wrapped in a gloomy silence. The marchesa was still handsome, in spite of increasing weight. The gray gaze inherited by Lavinia had escaped the parent; her eyes were soft and dense, like brown velvet. She was a woman of decision and now she brought her hands smartly together.

"We have waited too long with Gheta; we should not have counted so confidently on her beauty; time flies so treacherously. She must marry as soon as possible."

"Thank G.o.d, there's Cesare Orsi!" her husband responded.

Lavinia was gazing inward at the secretly enshrined image of the Flower of Spain.

III

Gheta Sanviano often pa.s.sed a night at the Mantegazzas' villa on the Height of Castena, a long mile from the city.

Lavinia, too, knew the dwelling well, for Sanviano and Pier Mantegazza had been intimate from their similar beginnings, and she had played there as a child. However, she had never been regularly asked with Gheta; and when that occurred--Gheta indifferently delivered Anna Mantegazza's message--and her mother acquiesced, Lavinia had a renewed sense of her growing importance.

She went out early, in the heat of midday, a time that fitted best with the involved schedule of the Sanvianos' single equipage--Anna would take her sister directly from a luncheon at the Ginoris'. Lavinia looked with mingled antic.i.p.ation and relief at the approaching graceful facade added scarcely a hundred and fifty years before to the otherwise somber abode of the Mantegazzas, first established in the twelfth century.

The villa stood on an eminence, circled by austere pines, and terraced with innumerable vegetable gardens and frugally planted olives. The road mounted abruptly, turned under a frowning wall incongruously topped with delicately painted urns, and doubled across the ma.s.sive iron-bound door that closed the arched entrance. Within, an immensely high timbered hall was pleasantly cool and dark after the white blaze without. It was bare of furnishing except for a number of rude oak settles against the naked stone walls. It had been a place of fear to Lavinia when a child; and even now she left it with a sense of relief for the modernized interior beyond.

Pier Mantegazza was standing before a high inclined table, which bore a number of blackened and shapeless medallions. He was a famous numismatic--a tall stooping man, slightly lame, and enveloped in a premature gray ill health that resembled clinging cobwebs. He bent and brushed Lavinia's forehead with his crisp mustache, and then returned to the delicate manipulation of a magnifying gla.s.s and a small blue bottle of acid. She left him for a deep chair and a surprising French romance by Remy de Gourmont. At a long philosophical dialogue the book drooped, and she thought of Anna Mantegazza and her husband.

She wondered whether they were happy. But she decided, measuring that condition solely by her own requirement, that such a state was impossible for them. It had certainly been a marriage for money and position; prior to the ceremony the Casa Mantegazza had been closed for years, and Pier Mantegazza occupied a small establishment near the Military Hospital, on the Via San Gallo. Anna Cane had arrived in Rome, without family or credentials, and unknown to the American Emba.s.sy other than by amazing deposits at the best banks. But she did have, in addition to this, a pungent charm and undeniable force and good taste.

It was said that the moment she had seen Mantegazza's villa she had decided to possess it, even at the price of its sere withdrawn holder.

She had gone at once into the best Florentine and Roman society.

That was ten years before, but Lavinia realized that she had never successfully a.s.similated the Italian social formula. She mixed the most diverse elements of their world willfully and found enjoyment in bringing about amusing situations. She seemed devoid of the foundations of proper caution; in fact, she mocked at them openly. And if she had not been a model Catholic, and herself above the slightest moral question, even Mantegazza could not have carried her among his own circles. As it was, people flocked to her elaborate parties, torn between the hope of being amazed and the fear that they should furnish the hub of the occasion.

Gheta and her hostess arrived later. The former, it appeared to Lavinia, looked disconcerted; and it was evident that she had been remonstrating with Anna Mantegazza. The other laughed provokingly.

"Nonsense!" she declared. "It was too good to miss; besides, you're an old campaigner."

A stair of flagging, turning sharply round a stone pillar, led incongruously from the light French furnishings to the chamber where Lavinia was to sleep. A Renaissance bed, made of thick quilting directly upon the floor, was covered with gilt ecclesiastical embroidery; and a movable tub stood in a stone corner. The narrow deep windows overlooked Florence, a somber expanse of roofing; and, coming rapidly toward the villa, Lavinia could see a tall dogcart, with a groom and two pa.s.sengers. They were men; and, as they drew nearer, Lavinia--with a sudden pounding of her heart--realized the cause of the slight friction between the two women. The cart bore Cesare Orsi, and Mochales the bull-fighter, the Flower of Spain. It was a part of Anna Mantegazza's humor that the men, so essentially antagonistic, should arrive together clinging precariously on the high insecure trap.

Tea was served at five on the terrace, and Lavinia dressed with minute care. Gheta, she knew, had brought a new lavender lawn with little gold velvet b.u.t.tons and lace; while she had nothing but the familiar coa.r.s.e white mull. But she had fresh ribbons and she gazed with satisfaction at her firm, faintly rosy countenance. She would have no wrinkles for years to come. However, she thought, with a return to her sense of tragic gloom, such considerations were of little moment, as Abrego y Mochales would scarcely be aware of her existence; he would never know....

Perhaps, years after--

She purposely delayed her appearance on the terrace until the others had a.s.sembled, and then quietly took possession of a chair. Cesare Orsi greeted her with effusive warmth, the Spaniard bowed ceremoniously.

A wide prospect of countryside flowed away in innumerable hills and valleys, clothed in the silvery smoke of olives and in green-black pines; below, a bank of cherry trees were in bloom. The air was sweet and still and full of a warm radiance.

Lavinia luxuriated in her unhappiness. Mochales, she decided, must be the handsomest man in existence. His unchanging gravity fascinated her--the man's face, his voice, his dignified gestures, were all steeped in a splendid melancholy.

"I am a peasant," he said, apparently addressing them all, but with his eyes upon Gheta, "from Estremadura, in the mountains. The life there was very hard, and that was fortunate for me; the food was scarce, and that was good too. If I ate like the grandees a bull would end me in the hot sun of the first _fiesta_; I'd double up like a pancake. I must work all the time--run for miles and play _pelota_."

Lavinia was possessed by a new contempt for her kind, which she centered upon Orsi, clumsy and stupidly smiling. It was clear that he couldn't run a mile; in fact, he admitted that he detested all exercise. How absurd he looked in his tight plaited jacket! It appeared that he was always perspiring; a crime, she felt sure--with entire disregard of its fatal consequences--that Mochales never committed.

"A friend of ours--it was Bembo--said that he saw you at San Sebastian with your King," Anna Mantegazza put in.

"Why not? But Alphonso is a fine boy; he understands the business of royalty. Every year I dedicate a magnificent bull to the King on his name day."

"Will you dedicate one to me?" Gheta asked carelessly.

"The best in Andalusia," he responded with fire.

Cesare Orsi made a slight sharp exclamation, and Lavinia's heart beat painfully. The former turned to her with sudden determination.

"Were you comfortable in my carriage," he demanded, "and fetched home at a smart pace?" Lavinia thanked him.

"You are always so quiet," he complained. "I'm certain there's a great deal in that wise young head worth hearing."

"Lavinia is still in the schoolroom," Gheta explained brutally.

"Yesterday she put up her hair, to-day Anna Mantegazza invites her, and we have an effect."

Anna Mantegazza turned to the younger with a new veiled scrutiny. Her gaze rested for an instant on Orsi and then moved contemplatively to Gheta and Abrego y Mochales. It was evident that her thoughts were very busy; a faint sparkle appeared in her eyes, a fresh vivacity animated her manner. Suddenly she included Lavinia in her remarks; she put queries to the girl patently intended to draw her out. Gheta grew uneasy and then cross.

"I'm sick of sitting here," she declared; "let's walk about. It's cooler, and Pier Mantegazza's place is always worth investigation."

She rose and waited for Cesare Orsi, then led the small procession from under the striped tea kiosk down the terrace. The way grew steep and she rested a hand on Orsi's arm. Anna, Lavinia and the Flower of Spain followed together, until the first moved forward to join the leaders.

Lavinia's gaze was obscured by a sort of warm mist; she clasped her hands to keep them from trembling. In a narrow flagged turn Mochales brushed her shoulder. He scarcely moved his eyes from Gheta's back. Once he gazed somberly at the girl beside him and she responded with a pale questioning smile. "I have had a great misfortune," he told her.

"Oh, I'm terribly, terribly sorry!"

"I've lost a blessed coin that interceded for me since the first day I went in the bull ring. I'd give a thousand wax candles for its return.

Now--when I need everything," he continued as if to himself. "Your sister is beautiful," he added abruptly. "Everybody thinks so," Lavinia replied in a voice she endeavored to make enthusiastic. "She has had tens of admirers here and at Rome and Lucca." There she knew she should stop; but she continued: "Cesare Orsi is very persistent and tremendously rich."

Mochales made a short unintelligible remark in Spanish. He twisted a cigarette with lightning-like rapidity and only one hand. Together they looked at Orsi's broad ungainly back, and the bull-fighter's lips tightened, exposing a glimmer of his immaculate teeth. They pa.s.sed a neat whitewashed cottage, where an old couple stood bowing abjectly, and came on a series of long pale-brown buildings and walls.

"The stables and barn," Lavinia explained.