The Man with the Double Heart Part 36

This was the blood he chose to mix with that proud Maramonte strain!

It seemed to him, at his treachery, a silence fell upon the room; eyes turned with a cold stare, haughty faces sneered at him...

Cydonia's parent!--He saw him there with his bourgeois birth stamped upon him; heard again that grating voice, marked the coa.r.s.e congested face.

For a moment he shrank from the tie.

Then the quick reaction came. What did he owe to this ancient stock?

How had they treated his fair young mother?

He was his father's son as well--an Englishman. Up went his head.

Cydonia should be his wife--the wife of plain Peter McTaggart.

He swung round and marched out, more in love with her than ever!

CHAPTER XVII

A thaw had followed the long frost and from the South, on eager feet, came Primavera, hooded still but clasping pale buds to her breast.

Birds sang as she glided by, anemones peered through the gra.s.s and in the olive trees young leaves danced in the sun like silver coins, tossed up by gay Mother Earth as ransom to the pirate Winter.

Light poured down from the sapphire sky, gilding the ivory city of towers as McTaggart drove through the winding roads, the Marchesa, still m.u.f.fled in furs, beside him.

They had been to the borders of his estate, by vineyards planted on the slopes in terraces like a giant staircase, screened from the north by dark lines of cypresses, warped with the cruel wind; past fields of oranges and lemons, covered with screens of plaited reeds, to the agent's house where they had lunched and tasted later the olive oil, smooth and sweet, stored in huge jars, suggesting those of the "Forty Thieves."

Now they were returning home, drowsy from the long day spent in the open air, happily tired, soothed by the motion of the carriage.

A mischievous breeze played with the veil the Marchesa wore, of heavy c.r.a.pe, and every now and then McTaggart could catch a glimpse of her rounded chin and that flower-like mouth beneath the folds, vivid, alive and tantalizing.

He watched for it, lazily, leaning back against the high, padded cushions, and, conscious suddenly of his gaze, she turned her head and broke the silence.

"You are quite decided then, Pietro?" Her voice was sweetly disconsolate. "You will not come with me to Fiesole?"

"I can't, really. I'm very sorry. I must be getting back to England"--a faint smile curved his lips. "I've important business there just now. I a.s.sure you I'd stay if I could."

His aunt laughed, a trifle sharply.

"That means a woman, I should say!--'Important business'--at your age.

There never yet was a Maramonte who was happy unless he was playing with fire."

Her dark eyes flashed through her veil an inquisitive glance, but he shook his head. He was not in a mood for confidences. Moreover, he knew that Cydonia's birth would hardly fulfil his aunt's requirements and dreaded a possible catechism.

"It's your sister's villa, near Florence, where you are going, isn't it?"

The Marchesa nodded lazily.

"And beautiful..." she stirred herself--"it faces the Arno valley with a wide loggia due south. She's my eldest sister--I was the baby--and her daughter, Bianca, must be sixteen. There's no son--such a grief!

My brother-in-law breaks his heart about it. He is a Florentine himself, with an old palazzo (now shut up) and some fine pictures near the Cascine."

"You will be happy there?" asked Peter.

"But, yes!" She shrugged her shoulders lightly. "For a time, until my mourning's over. It's a quiet spot, Fiesole, and I am very attached to my sister. Then I shall go to live in Rome."

"And your life begins?" He guessed her thought.

"Chi lo sa?" But her eyes were bright. "At any rate, it's farewell to Siena! In Rome one can live as one likes."

"May I come and see you there?"

Impulsively she turned to him.

"Mais je crois bien!--For as long as you can. I shall be proud of my handsome nephew. And then, caro mio, I will find you a wife." She nodded her head with an air of wisdom.

"Some beautiful Roman. Let me think ... There is Princess Doria's only girl--the Principe was my mother's cousin--and Donna Maria Archiveschi...? Well--we shall choose, you and I."

A sudden thought sprang into her brain. Why not Bianca?--her sister's child. What an excellent match it would be for her--as soon as she should leave the convent.

Moreover, it would suit the Marchesa. She would have a double right of entry in the Maramonte family circle and indulge to the full her love of intrigue.

Following up this train of thought, she smiled sweetly at McTaggart.

"You could not spare me one week now?--a little week before you return ...? At Fiesole--just think again. To abandon your poor aunt at once--one sees you do not care for her! ... Just seven days, Pietro mio, to leave me happily settled there?"

She drew back her veil and her velvet eyes, like darkest pansies, pleaded mutely. McTaggart summoned all his strength, conjuring up Cydonia.

"_Please_ don't make it any harder! I'd love to come, you know that.

It's not every day in one's life one ... inherits such a perfect aunt!"

He smiled at her with real affection.

"I'll come back when you're at Rome--(and not alone!" he said to himself). "But I'm bound to return to England first and settle up my business there."

"You talk as if you kept a shop!" She shrugged her shoulders pettishly. "What does the Marquis Maramonte want with commissions on the 'Bourse'?"

He laughed outright with the memory of her disgusted, lovely face when he had told her of his profession.

"Fi donc!" Mischievous, she shook a slender finger at him. "It would make poor Gino turn in his grave."

"And serve him right!" was McTaggart's thought. He could not forgive the dead man for his heartless treatment of his sister. He had the Italian's centuries-deep love of justice and liberty and was not without a strain of revenge, the lingering trace of some far-off "Vendetta."

He sat there moody, his mouth hard; grimly glad that the scales of fate had weighed in favour of his rise into the power denied to her.

The sun, sinking toward the hills, plunged the city walls in shadow as they drove through the Porta Romana and past the great church of the Servites.

Then, winding round the ancient market, they emerged into the open "Campo"--that curious sh.e.l.l-shaped piazza where throbs the heart of old Siena.