The Wheat Princess

  CHAPTER XX

  THE ball ended, the guests gone, Villa Vivalanti forgot its one burstof gaiety, and settled down again to its usual state of peacefulsomnolence. The days were growing warmer. White walls simmering in thesunshine, fragrant garden borders resonant with the hum of insects, thecool green of the ilex grove, the sleepy, slow drip of the fountain--itwas all so beautifully Italian, and so very, very lonely! During thehot mid-days Marcia would sit by the ruins of the old villa or pace theshady ilex walks with her feelings in a tumult. She had seen neitherPaul Dessart nor Laurence Sybert since the evening of her birthday, andthat moment by the fountain when the three had faced each othersilently was not a pleasant memory. It was one, however, which recurredmany times a day.

  Of Sybert Marcia heard no news whatever. In reply to her casualquestion as to when he would be at the villa again, her uncle hadremarked that just at present Sybert had more important things to thinkof than taking a villeggiatura in the Sabine hills. But of Paul Dessartand the Roystons most unexpected news had come. Paul's father had hadan 'attack' brought on by overwork, and they were all of them goinghome. The letters were written on the train _en route_ for Cherbourg; along letter from Margaret, a short one from Eleanor. The latterafforded some food for reflection, but the reflection did not bringenlightenment.

  'DEAR MARCIA' (it ran):

  'I am sorry not to see you again, and (to be quite frank) I am equally sorry not to have seen Mr. Sybert again. I feel that if I had had more time, and half a chance, I might have accomplished something in the interests of science.

  'Margaret told you, of course, that Paul is going back with us. We hope his father's illness isn't serious, but he preferred to go. There is nothing to keep him in Rome, he says. Poor fellow! you must write him a nice letter. Don't worry too much about him, though; he won't blow his brains out.

  'I _could_ tell you something. I have just the tiniest suggestion of a suspicion which--granted fair winds and a prosperous voyage--may arrive at the dignity of news by the time we reach the other side. However, you don't deserve to hear it, and I shan't tell. Have I aroused your curiosity sufficiently? If so, _c'est tout_.

  'I shall hope to see you in Pittsburg this autumn. That, my dear Marcia, is merely a polite phrase and is not strictly true. I shall hope, rather, to see you in Paris or Rome or Vienna. I am afraid that I have the wander-habit to the end. The world is too big for one to settle down permanently in one place--and that place Pittsburg; is it not so? One can never be happy for thinking of all the things that are happening in all of the places where one is not.

  _'Au revoir_, then, till autumn; we'll play on the Champs-Elysees together.

  'ELEANOR.'

  A letter had come also from Marcia's father, which put her in anuncomfortably unsettled frame of mind. It was written in the Copleyvein of humorous appreciation of the situation; but, for all that, shecould see underneath that she had hurt him. He disavowed all knowledgeand culpability in the Triple Alliance and the Abyssinian war. Heregretted the fact that the taxes were heavy, but he had had no hand inmaking up Italy's financial budget. As to wheat, there were manyreasons why Italy could not afford it, aside from the fact that it wasdear. Marcia could give what she wished to the peasants to make up forher erring father, and he inclosed a blank cheque to her order--surelyan excessive sign of penitence on the part of a business man. Theletter closed with the statement that he was lonely without her, andthat she must come back to America next winter and keep her old fatherout of mischief.

  She read the last few sentences over twice, with a rising lump in herthroat. It was true. Poor man, he must be lonely! She ought to havetried to take her mother's place, and to have made a home for himbefore now. Her duty suddenly presented itself very clearly, and itappeared as uninviting as duties usually do. A few months before shewould not have minded, but now Italy had got its hold upon her. She didnot wish to go; she wished only to sit in the sunshine, happy,unthinking, and let the days slip idly by. A picture flashed over herof what the American life would be--a brownstone house on Fifth Avenuein the winter, a country place in the Berkshires in the summer; an auntof her mother's for chaperon, her father's friends--lawyers and bankersand brokers who talked railroads and the Stock Exchange; for interestsshe would have balls and receptions, literary clubs and charities.Marcia breathed a doleful sigh. Her memories of the New York house weredreary; it was not a life she cared to renew. But nothing of all thisdid she let her father know. She sent a gracefully forgiving letter,with the promise that she would come home for the winter, and not ahint that the home-coming was not her own desire.

  It seemed that, things having once commenced to change, everything wasgoing. Mr. Copley himself exploded the next bombshell. He came backfrom Rome one night with the announcement that the weather was gettingpretty hot, and the family ought to leave next week for Switzerland.

  'Oh, Uncle Howard, not yet!' Marcia cried. 'Let us wait until the endof June. It isn't too hot till then. Up here in the hills it's pleasantall summer. I don't want to leave the villa.'

  'Rome is hot just now in more ways than one,' he returned. 'I'd feelsafer to have you in Switzerland or up in the Tyrol during theexcitement. Goodness only knows what's going to happen next. I'mexpecting to wake up in the middle of a French revolution everymorning, and I should like to have you out of the country before thebeheading begins.'

  'There isn't really any danger of a revolution?' she asked breathlessly.

  'Not in a country where every other man's a soldier and thegovernment's in command. But there have been houses broken into and agood many acts of lawlessness, and we're rather lonely off here.'

  'I hate to think of going away,' Marcia sighed. 'We'll come back in theautumn, won't we, Uncle Howard?'

  'Oh, yes, if you like. I dare say we could manage a month or so outhere before we go into the palazzo for the winter.'

  'And I'll be going back to America for the winter,' she sighed.

  He looked at her with a slight smile.

  'Are you the girl, Marcia, who used to preach sermons to your uncleabout Americans living abroad?'

  Marcia reflected his smile somewhat wanly.

  'And I'm practising my own preaching, am I not?'

  'Oh, well,' he said, 'when the time comes you can do as you please.Your father can get along without you one year more.'

  'No, I think I ought to go, for of course he must be lonely but--Ishould like to stay! It seems more like home than any place I've everbeen in. I've really never _belonged_ anywhere before, and I like somuch to be with you.'

  'Poor little girl! You have had a chequered career.'

  'Yes, Uncle Howard, I have; and it keeps on being chequered! I haven'tbeen in the villa three months, but really I don't remember ever havinglived so long in one place before. It's been nice, hasn't it? I hatedreadfully to have it end. It seems like shutting away a whole part ofmy life that can never come back.'

  'Oh, well, if you feel that way about it, I'll buy the villa and we cancome out every spring. You can bring your father over, and we will diphim in the waters of Lethe, too.'

  'I'm afraid he wouldn't be dipped,' she laughed. 'He'd be running acable connexion out here and setting up a ticker on the terrace, sothat he could watch the stock market as well as the view.'

  Mr. Copley's mouth twitched slightly at the picture.

  'We must all ride our hobbies, I suppose, or the world would be a verydreary world indeed.'

  She looked up at him and hesitated.

  'Uncle Howard, do you and papa--that is--do you mind my asking?--areyou very good friends?'

  Mr. Copley frowned a moment without replying. 'Well Marcia, he's a gooddeal older than I, and we're not particularly congenial.' Hestraightened his shoulder
s with a laugh. 'Oh, well, there's no useconcealing disagreeable truths. It appears they will out in the end. Asa matter of fact, your father and I haven't had anything to do witheach other for the past ten years. The first move was on his part, whenhe wrote about you last fall--you didn't know that you came as anolive-branch, did you?'

  'I didn't know; he didn't tell me anything about it, but I--well, Isort of guessed. I'm sorry about it, Uncle Howard. I'm sure that it'sjust because you don't understand each other.'

  'I'm afraid we never have understood each other, and I doubt if we evercan, but we'll make another effort.'

  'It's so hard to like people when you don't understand them, and soeasy when you do,' said Marcia.

  'It facilitates matters,' he agreed.

  'I think I'm beginning to understand Mr. Sybert,' she added somewhatvaguely. 'He's different, when you understand him, from the way youthought he was when you didn't understand him.'

  'Ah, Sybert!' Mr. Copley raised his head and brought his eyes back fromthe edge of the landscape. 'I thought I knew him, but he's been arevelation to me this spring.'

  'How do you mean?' Marcia asked, striving to keep out of her tone theinterest that was behind it.

  'Oh, the way he's taken hold of things. It seems an absurd thing tosay, but I believe he's had almost as much influence as the police inquieting the trouble. He has an unbelievably strong hold on thepeople--how he got it, I don't know. He understands them as well as anItalian, and yet he is a foreigner, which gives him, in some ways, agreat advantage. They trust him because they think that, being aforeigner, he has nothing to make out of it. He's a marvellous fellowwhen it comes to action.'

  'You never would guess it to look at him!' she returned. 'Why does hepretend to be so bored?'

  'Be so bored? Well, I suppose there are some things that do bore him;and the ones that don't, bore other people. His opinions are notuniversally popular in Rome, and being a diplomatist, I dare say hethinks it as well to keep them to himself.'

  'What are his opinions?' she asked tentatively. 'I don't like to accusehim of being an anarchist, since he assures me that he's not. But whena man wants to overthrow the government----'

  'Nonsense! Sybert doesn't want to overthrow the government any morethan I do. Just at present it's under the control of a few corruptpoliticians, but that's a thing that's likely to happen in any country,and it's only a temporary evil. The Italians will be on their feetagain in a year or so, all the better for their shaking-up, and Sybertknows it. He's got more real faith in the government than most of theItalians I know.'

  'But he talks against it terribly.'

  'Well, he sees the evil. He's been looking at it pretty closely, and heknows it's there; and when Sybert feels a thing he feels it strongly.But,' Copley smiled, 'while he says things himself against the country,you'll find he'll not let any one else say them.'

  'What do people think about him now--being mixed up in all these riots?'

  'Oh, just now he's mixed up in the right side, and the officials arevery willing to pat him on the back. But as for the populace, I'mafraid he's not making himself over-liked. They have a most immoraltendency to sympathize with the side that's against the law, and theycan't understand their friends not sympathizing with the same side.It's a pretty hard thing for him to have to tell these poor fellows tobe quiet and go back to their work and starve in silence.' Copleysighed and folded his arms. 'I am sorry, Marcia, you don't like Sybertbetter. There are not many like him.'

  Marcia let the observation pass without comment.

  * * * * *

  The next morning, as Mrs. Copley and Marcia were sitting on the loggialistlessly engaged with books and embroidery, there came whirring downthe avenue the contessa's immaculate little victoria, with the yellowcoronet emblazoned on the sides, with the coachman and footman in theTorrenieri livery, green with yellow pipings. It was a gay littleaffair; it matched the contessa. She stepped out, pretty and debonair,in a fluttering pale-green summer gown, and ran forward to the loggiawith a little exclamation of distress.

  '_Cara signora, signorina_, I am desolated! We must part! Is it notsad? I go with Bartolomeo' (Bartolomeo was the count) 'to plant oliveorchards on his estate in the Abruzzi. Is it not lonely, that--to spendthe summer in an empty castle on the top of a mountain, with only aview for company? And my friends at the baths or the lakes or inSwitzerland, or--oh, everywhere except on my mountain-top!'

  Marcia laughed at the contessa's despair.

  'But why do you go, contessa, if you do not like it?' she inquired.

  'But my husband likes it. He has a passion for farming; after roulette,it it his chief amusement. He is very pastoral--Bartolomeo. He adoresthe mountain and the view and the olive orchards. And in Italy,signorina, the wife has to do as the husband wishes.'

  'I'm afraid the wives have to do that the world over, contessa.'

  'Ah, no, signorina, you cannot tell me that; I have seen. In Americathe husband does as the wife wishes. It is a beautiful country, truly.You have many charming customs. Yes, I will give you good advice: youwill be wise to marry an American. They do not like mountain-tops. Butperhaps you will visit me on my mountain-top?' she asked. 'Theview--ah, the beautiful view! It is not so bad.'

  'I'm afraid not, contessa. We are leaving for the Tyrol ourselves aweek from to-morrow.'

  'So soon! Every one is going. Truly, the world comes to an end nextweek in Rome.'

  Marcia found herself growing unexpectedly cordial toward their guest;even the contessa appeared suddenly dear as she was about to besnatched away. She bade her an almost affectionate farewell, and stoodby the balustrade waving her handkerchief until the carriagedisappeared.

  'Will marvels never cease?' she asked her aunt. 'I think--I reallythink that I like the contessa!'