Sybert presently returned and dropped into the seat opposite Marcia; the guard slammed the door and the train pulled slowly out into the Campagna. They were both occupied with their own thoughts, and as neither found much pleasure in talking to the other, and both knew it, they made little at conversation.
Marcia’s excited mood had passed, and she leaned forward with her chin in her hand, watching rather the soft Roman as it crept over the Campagna. What she really saw, however, was the sunlit of St. Paul Without the Walls and Paul Dessart’s face as he talked to her. Was she really in love with him, she asked herself, or was it just—Italy? She did not know and she did not want to think. It was so much pleasanter merely to drift, and so very difficult to make up one’s mind. Everything had been so care-free before, why must he bring the question to an issue? It was a question she did not wish to decide for a long, long time. Would he be willing to wait—to wait for an indefinite future that in the end might never come? Patience was not Paul’s way. Suppose he refused to drift; suppose he insisted on his answer now—did she wish to give him up? No; quite , she did not. She pictured him as he stood there in the cloister, with the warm sunlight and shadow playing about him, with his laughing, boyish face for the instant sober, his eager, eyes upon her, his 88 words for once and halting. He was very attractive, very convincing; and yet she sighed. Life for her was still in the future. The world was new and full and , and experience was . There were many things to see and do, and she wanted to be free.
The short southern twilight faded quickly and a full moon took its place in a cloudless sky. The light flooded the dim with a brilliancy, and outside it was almost dazzling in its glowing whiteness. Marcia leaned against the window, gazing out at the rolling plain. The tall arches of Aqua Felice were darkly against the sky, and in the distance the horizon was broken by the outline of the Sabine hills. Now and then they passed a lonely group of farm-buildings set in a cluster of trees, planted against the fever; but for the most part the scene was barren and , with scarcely a suggestion of actual, breathing human light. On the Appian Way were visible the gaunt outlines of Latin tombs, and occasionally the ruined of a mediaeval watch-tower. The picture was almost too perfect in its beauty; it was like the painted back drop for a spectacular play. Scarcely real, and yet one of the oldest things in the world—the rolling Campagna, the arches of the aqueducts, Rome behind and the Sabines before. So it had been for centuries; thousands of human lives were wrapped up in it. That was its charm. The picture was not inanimate, but pathetically human. As she looked far off across the plain so mournfully beautiful in its desolation, a sudden rush of feeling swept over her, a rush of that insane love of Italy which has so many foreigners in the waters of Lethe. She knew now how Paul felt. Italy! Italy! She loved it too.
A half- rose in her throat and her eyes filled with tears. She caught herself quickly and shrank back in the corner, with a glance at the man across to see if he were watching her. He was not. He sat , looking out at the Campagna under half-shut . One hand was deep in his pocket and the other lay on the dog’s head to keep him quiet. Marcia noticed in surprise that while he appeared so calm, his fingers opened and shut . She glanced up into his face again. He was 89 staring at the picture before him as impassively as at a blank wall; but his eyes seemed more deep-set than usual and the under shadows darker. She half abstractedly fell to studying his face, wondering what was behind those eyes; what he could be thinking of.
He suddenly looked up and caught her gaze.
‘I beg your pardon?’ he asked.
‘I didn’t say anything.’
‘You looked as if you did,’ he said with a slight laugh, and turned away from the light. And now Marcia had the uncomfortable feeling that from under his lids he was watching her. She turned back to the window again and tried to centre her attention on the shifting scene outside, but she was oppressively conscious of her silent companion. His face was in the shadow and she could not tell whether his eyes were open or shut. She tried to think of something to talk about, but no relevant subject presented itself. She experienced a nervous sense of relief when the train finally stopped at Palestrina.
The station-man, after some delay, found them a carriage with a reasonably rested-looking horse. As Sybert helped Marcia in he asked if she would object to letting a poor fellow with an unbeautifully large bundle sit on the front seat with the driver.
‘We won’t meet any one at this time of night,’ he added. ‘He’s going to Castel Vivalanti and it’s a long walk.’
‘Certainly he may ride,’ Marcia returned. ‘It makes no difference to me whether we meet any one or not.’
‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ Sybert smiled. ‘I didn’t mean to be disagreeable. Some ladies would object, you know. Tarquinio,’ he called as the Italian with the bed-quilt past. ‘The signorina invites you to ride, since we are going the same way.’
Tarquinio thanked the signorina with Italian courtesy, boosted up his bundle, and climbed up after it. Marcellus stretched himself comfortably in the bottom of the carriage, and with a sigh of content went peaceably to sleep. They set out between moonlit olive and vineyards with the familiar daytime details of farm-buildings and ruins into a romantic beauty. Behind them stretched the outline of the Alban mountains, the moonlight the white walls of two twin 90 villages which crowned the heights; and before them rose the more desolate Sabines, fold upon fold against the sky. It was for the most part a silent drive. Sybert at first, aware that he was more silent than politeness permitted, made a few casual attempts at conversation, and then with an easy conscience folded his arms and returned to his thoughts. Marcia, too, had her thoughts, and the romance of the flower-scented moonlit night gave them their direction. Had Paul been there to urge his case anew, Italy would have helped in the pleading. But Paul had made a tiny mistake that day—he had taken her at her word and let her go alone—and the tiniest of mistakes is often big with consequences.
Once Sybert shifted his position and his hand accidentally touched Marcia’s on the seat between them. ‘Pardon me,’ he murmured, and folded his arms again. She looked up at him quickly. The touch had run through her like an electric shock. Who was this man? she asked herself suddenly. What was he ? He seemed to be burning up inside; and she had always considered him , indifferent. She looked at him wide-eyed; she had never seen him like this. He reminded her of a suppressed volcano that would burst out some day with a sudden explosion. She again set herself to studying his face. His character seemed an anomaly; it contradicted itself. Was it good or bad, simple or complex? Marcia did not have the key. She put together all the things she knew of him, all the things she had heard—the result was largely negative; the different pieces of evil cancelled each other. She knew him in society—he was several different persons there, but what was he when not in society? In his off hours? This afternoon, for example. Why should he be so at home by the Theatre of Marcellus? It was a long distance from the Embassy. And the man on the front seat, who was he? She suddenly interrupted the silence with a question. Sybert started at if he had forgotten she were there.
She repeated it: ‘Is that man on the front seat Tarquinio Paterno who keeps a little trattoria in Rome?’
‘Yes,’ he returned, bringing a somewhat surprised gaze to rest upon her. ‘How do you come to know his name?’
‘Oh, I just guessed. I know Domenico Paterno, the 91 Castel Vivalanti , and he told me about his son, Tarquinio. It’s not such a very common name; so when you said this man was going to the village, and when I heard you call him Tarquinio, I thought—why were you surprised?’ she broke off. ‘Is there anything more to know about him?’
‘You seem to have his family history pretty straight,’ Sybert .
They into silence again, and Marcia did not attempt to break it a second time.
When they came to the turning where the steep road to Castel Vivalanti branches off from the highway, the driver halted to let Tarquinio get out. But Marcia , that the bundle was too heavy for him to carry up the hill, and she told the man to drive on up to the gates of the town.
They jogged on up the between orchards of olive and almond trees fringed with the airy leafage of spring. Above them the clustering houses of the village clung to the hilltop, tier above tier, the jagged sky-line of roofs and towers cut out clearly against the light.
Marcia had never visited Castel Vivalanti except in the unequivocal glare of day, which shows the dilapidated little town in all its . But the moonlight changes all. The grey stone walls stretched above them now like some grim city of the middle ages. And the old round tower, with its ruined drawbridge, looked as if it had seen dark deeds and kept the secret. It was just such a stronghold as the Cenci was murdered in.
They came to a stand before the tall arch of the Porta della Luna. While Tarquinio was climbing down and the bundle to his shoulder, Marcia’s attention was momentarily attracted to a group of boys quarrelling over a game of morro in the .
Suddenly, in the midst of Tarquinio’s expressions of thanks to the signorina for a poor man on his journey, a frightened rang out in a child’s high voice, followed by a succession of long-drawn screams. The morro-players stopped their game and looked at each other with startled eyes; and then, after a moment of , went on with the play. At the first cry Sybert had leaped from the carriage, and seizing one of the boys by the shoulder, he demanded the cause.
92 The boy himself free with a gesture of unconcern.
‘Gervasio Delano’s mother is beating him. He always makes a great fuss because he is afraid.’
‘What is it?’ Marcia cried as she sprang from the carriage and ran up to Sybert.
‘Some child’s mother is beating him.’
The two, without waiting for any further explanations, turned in under the gate and hurried along the narrow way to the left, in the direction of the sounds. People had gathered in little groups in the , and were shaking their heads and talking excitedly. One woman, as she caught sight of Marcia and Sybert, called out that Teresa wasn’t hurting the boy; he always cried harder than he was struck.
By the time they had reached the low whence the sounds issued, the screams had died down to . They plunged into the room which opened from the street, and then paused. It was so dark that for a moment they could not see anything. The only light came from a oil-lamp burning before an image of the Madonna. But as their eyes became accustomed to the darkness they made out a built peasant woman standing at one end of the room and grasping in her hand an ox- such as the herdsmen on the Campagna use. For a moment they thought she was the only person there, until a low sob proclaimed the presence of a child who was in the farthest corner.
‘What do you want?’ the woman asked, angrily at the intruders.
‘Have you been striking the child with that goad?’ Sybert demanded.
‘I strike the child with what I please,’ the woman retorted. ‘He is a lazy good-for-nothing and he stole the soup.’
Marcia drew the little fellow from the corner where he was with long catches in his breath. His tears had gained such a that he could not stop, but he clung to her convulsively, realizing that a deliverer of some sort was at hand. She turned him to the light and revealed a great red welt across his cheek where one of the blows had chanced to fall.
93 ‘It’s ! The woman ought to be arrested!’ said Marcia, angrily.
Sybert took the lamp from the wall and bent over to look at him.
‘Poor little devil! He looks as if he needed soup,’ he muttered.
The woman broke in again to say that he was eleven years old and never brought in a single soldo. She slaved night and day to keep him fed, and she had children enough of her own to give to.
‘Whose child is he?’ Sybert demanded.
‘He was my husband’s,’ the woman returned; ‘and that husband is dead and I have a new one. The boy is in the way. I can’t be expected to support him forever. It is time he was earning something for himself.’
Marcia sat down on a low stool and drew the boy to her.
‘What can we do?’ she asked, looking helplessly at Sybert. ‘It won’t do to leave him here. She would simply beat him to death as soon as our backs are turned.’
‘I’m afraid ............