Джин Уэбстер - The Wheat Princess

When Marcia returned home with the announcement that she had visited Castel Vivalanti, her uncle replied, with an elaborate frown, ‘I suppose you scattered soldi broadcast through the streets, and have started fifty young Italians on the broad road to Pauperism.’

‘Not a single soldo!’ she reassured him. ‘I distributed nothing more demoralizing than a few cakes of chocolate.’

‘You’ll make a scientific philanthropist if you keep on,’ Mr. Copley laughed, but his inner reflections coincided somewhat with those of the blacksmith’s wife.

Marcia’s explorations were likewise extended in other directions, and before the first week was over she had visited most of the villages from Palestrina to Subiaco. As a result, the chief article of diet in the Sabine mountains bade fair to become sweet chocolate; while Domenico, the baker, instead of being grateful for this unexpected flow of custom, complained to his friends of the trouble it caused. No sooner would he send into Rome for a fresh supply than the signorina would come and carry the whole of it off. At that rate, it was clearly impossible to keep it in stock.

By means of largesses of chocolate to the children, or possibly by a smile and a friendly air, Marcia had established in a very short time a speaking acquaintance with the whole neighbourhood. And on sunny mornings, as she rode between the olive orchards and the wheat fields, more than one worker straightened his back to call a pleased ‘ Buona passeggiata , signorina,’ to the fair-haired stranger princess, who came from the land across the water where, it was rumoured, gold could be dug from the ground like potatoes and every one was rich.

All about that region the advent of the foreigners was the subject of chief interest—especially because they were Americani, for many of the people were thinking of becoming Americani themselves. The servants of the villa, when they condescended to drink a glass of wine at the inn of the Croce d’Oro , were almost objects of veneration, because they could talk so intimately of the life these ‘stranger princes’ led—the stranger princes would have been astonished could they have heard some of the details of these recitals.

And so the Copley dynasty began at Castel Vivalanti. The life soon fell into a daily routine, as life in even the best of places will. Three meals and tea, a book in the shadiness of the ilex grove to the tune of the splashing fountain, a siesta at noon, a drive in the afternoon, and a long night’s sleep were the sum of Vivalanti’s resources. Marcia liked it. Italy had got its hold upon her, and for the present she was content to drift. But Mr. Copley, after a few days of lounging on the balustrade, smoking countless cigarettes and hungrily reading such newspapers as drifted out on the somewhat casual mails, had his horse saddled one morning and rode to Palestrina to the station. After that he went into Rome almost every day, and the peasants in the wayside vineyards came to know him as well as his niece; but they did not take off their hats and smile as they did to her, for he rode past with unseeing eyes. Rich men, they said, had no thought for such as they, and they turned back to their work with a sullen scowl. Work at the best is hard enough, and it is a pity when the smile that makes it lighter is withheld; Howard Copley would have been the last to do it had he realized. But his thoughts were bent on other things, and how could the peasants know that while he galloped by so carelessly his mind was planning a way to get them bread?

Marcia spent many half-hours the first few weeks in loitering about the ruins of the old villa. It was a dream-haunted spot which spoke pathetically of a bygone time with bygone ideals. She could never quite reconcile the crumbling arches, the fantastic rock-work, and the grass-grown terraces with the ‘Young Italy’ of Monte Citorio thirty miles away. To eyes fresh from the New World it seemed half unreal.

One afternoon she had started to walk across the fields to Castel Vivalanti, but the fields had proved too sunny and she had stopped in the shade of the cypresses instead. Even the ruins seemed to be revivified by the warm touch of spring. Blue and white anemones, rose-coloured cyclamen, yellow laburnum, burst from every cranny of the stones. Marcia glanced about with an air of delighted approval. A Pan with his pipes was all that was needed to make the picture complete. She dropped down on the coping of the fountain, and with her chin in her hands gazed dreamily at the moss-bearded merman who, two centuries before, had spouted water from his twisted conch-shell. She was suddenly startled from her reverie by hearing a voice exclaim, ‘ Buon giorno , signorina!’ and she looked up quickly to find Paul Dessart.

‘Mr. Dessart!’ she cried in amazement. ‘Where in the world did you come from?’

‘The inn of Sant’ Agapito at Palestrina. Benoit and I are making it the centre of a sketching expedition. We get a sort of hill fever every spring, and when the disease reaches a certain point we pack up and set out for the Sabines.’

‘And how did you manage to find us?’

‘Purely chance,’ he returned more or less truthfully. ‘I picked out this road as a promising field, and when I came to the gateway, being an artist, I couldn’t resist the temptation of coming in. I didn’t know that it was Villa Vivalanti or that I should find you here.’ He sat down on the edge of the fountain and looked about.

‘Well?’ Marcia inquired.

‘I don’t wonder that you wanted to exchange Rome for this! May I make a little sketch, and will you stay and talk to me until it is finished?’

‘That depends upon how long it takes you to make a little sketch. I shall subscribe to no carte-blanche promises.’

He got out a box of water-colours from one pocket of his Norfolk jacket and a large pad from the other, and having filled his cup at the little rush-choked stream which once had fed the fountain, set to work without more ado.

‘I heard from the Roystons this morning,’ said Marcia, presently, and immediately she was sorry that she had not started some other subject. In their former conversations Paul’s relations with his family had never proved a very fortunate topic.

‘Any bad news?’ he inquired flippantly.

‘They will reach Rome in a week or so.’

‘Holy Week—I might have known it! Miss Copley,’ he looked at her appealingly, ‘you know what an indefatigable woman my aunt is. She will make me escort her to every religious function that blessed city offers; it isn’t her way to miss anything.’

Marcia smiled slightly at the picture; it was lifelike.

‘I shall be stopping in Palestrina when they come,’ he added.

She let this observation pass in a disapproving silence.

‘Oh, well,’ he sighed, ‘I’ll stay and tote them around if you think I ought. The Bible says, you know, “Love your relatives and show mercy unto them that despitefully use you.”’

Marcia flashed a sudden laugh and then looked grave.

Paul glanced up at her quickly. ‘I suppose my aunt told you no end of bad things about me?’

‘Was there anything to tell?’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’ve committed the unpardonable sin of preferring art in Rome to coal in Pittsburg.’

He dropped the subject and turned back to his picture, and Marcia sat watching him as he industriously splashed in colour. Occasionally their eyes met when he raised his head, and if his own lingered a moment longer than convention warranted—being an artist, he was excusable, for she was distinctly an addition to the moss-covered fountain. The young man may have prolonged the situation somewhat; in any case, the sun’s rays were beginning to slant when he finally pocketed his colours and presented the picture with a bow. It was a dainty little sketch of a ruined grotto and a broken statue, with the sunlight flickering through the trees on the flower-sprinkled grass.