christopher, darling,” said the duchessa di corleone in honeyed accents, “i want you to find an artist for me.”
“by all means,” replied christopher. “where did you lose him?”
“my dear christopher,” said the duchessa, “he is not lost, because he has never been found. you are to find him—a pleasant, clever, interesting artist.”
she was sitting in the drawing-room of her house on the embankment. the windows looked on to the river which she loved. the room was full of flowers which she also loved. she arranged them herself in a room off the dining-room, and carried them upstairs in her arms like children. every one who loves and arranges flowers knows that in their transit from one place to another the whole carefully-careless effect of their arrangement may be spoiled. therefore from the moment of entering the strings that tied the great bundles fresh from covent garden, to the moment of placing the vases in the drawing-room, no hand but the duchessa’s touched the flowers. and there was no flower in existence whose colour could jar in the room which was a harmony in pale lavender. to have to exclude a flower on account of its colour would have been to sara di corleone like shutting the door on a child because its face was ugly. and being the very essence of womanhood she could have done neither.
“and when the artist is found,” queried christopher, “may i ask what are your intentions towards him? i have a conscience, sara, though you may not realize the fact, and if you wish to inmesh the young man in your silken toils merely for the pleasure of seeing him wriggle, then i fear duty will oblige me to refrain from helping you in your search.”
sara smiled. “i want him,” she said, “to paint my portrait.”
“it sounds dangerous—for the artist,” said christopher. “may i further ask to whom the portrait is to be presented?”
“to the casa di corleone on the banks of lake como,” said sara quietly.
christopher looked enquiring.
“you have never seen the place,” said sara, “but i have told you about it.”
“you have,” said christopher.
“one day,” pursued sara, “you must come with me to see it. then i think you will understand. i want you to see the courtyard with its orange trees and fountains, the little naked marble fauns and the nymphs who stand among them glistening in the sunlight. i want you to see the rooms full of shadows and great patches of sunshine; and the gallery with its pictured men and women of the house of corleone, the dark-eyed haughty women—beauties every one of them—the gay young men and the courtly old ones. i want my portrait to be among them.”
“yes,” said christopher.
“it isn’t conceit,” said sara. “at least i don’t think it is. i love that place, christopher. it seems as if it belongs to me—had always belonged to me; i mean, long before i knew giuseppe. i want to think that in the years to come my picture will be hanging there, looking down into the old hall, and that when the door is open i shall catch a glimpse of the courtyard bathed in sunlight, see the gleam of golden oranges and white marble figures, and hear the plashing of the fountain. it’s just a fancy.”
“a fancy,” said christopher, with a little gesture, “as charming as yourself.”
sara laughed. “christopher, i love you. and you ought to have lived in the days of queen elizabeth, or, better still, at the court of france.”
“i appreciate your affection,” said christopher. “one day when we are both in a mad mood we will run away together, and pick oranges from the trees in the courtyard of casa di corleone. [pg 96]and we will play at ball with them across the fountain—golden balls tossed through a shower of silver. the idea appeals to me.”
“i am glad casa di corleone is mine,” said sara, “though mine with reservations.”
“there was no entail on the estate?” asked christopher.
“no; i don’t understand the ins and outs of the matter, but it was my husband’s to do with as he pleased.”
“it was thoughtful of the duca to leave it to you,” said christopher. “he might have turned it into a home for stray dogs. there are a good many in italy, aren’t there?”
sara had scarcely heard him.
“i liked giuseppe,” she said pensively. “but,” she added, “better when he was alive. i feel slightly irritable now when i think of him. i dislike feeling irritable. it is a prickly sensation and doesn’t suit me.”
“the will?” asked christopher.
“exactly. the will.”
“but,” asked christopher, “you are not thinking of again entering the holy bonds of matrimony?”
“nothing,” sara assured him, “is further from my thoughts. but—if i wanted to!—think of it, christopher! i lose every centesimo—every single centesimo and casa di corleone. fancy parting with it! besides, there is that ridiculous letter.”
she looked at him, mock-tragedy in her eyes.
“i never heard of any letter,” said christopher.
“didn’t you?” she asked. “it was almost the most provoking thing giuseppe did. it roused my curiosity—i am curious. christopher—with one hand, and took away every possibility of my satisfying it with the other. i can quote the last phrases of the will verbatim.”
she leant back in her chair, her eyes half-closed, and spoke slowly.
“and i further decree that if my wife sara mary di corleone, née de courcy, shall again enter the married state, that she shall immediately forfeit all the money and estates herein willed to her, and shall have no further claim upon them whatsoever. and that they shall, in the case of her marriage, pass into the possession of my nephew, antonio di corleone. and i leave in the hands of my executors—before herein named—a letter, sealed and addressed to my wife the above sara mary di corleone, née de courcy, which letter, in the event of her marriage, shall be given into her hands one hour precisely after the ceremony has taken place. in the event of her demise without re-marriage, the said letter shall be destroyed unopened by and in the presence of the executors above-named. written by me this fourteenth day of january,” etc., etc.
sara opened her eyes and sat up again.
“it was all signed and witnessed just a year before he died. it’s all horribly correct. fixed up as firmly as yards of red tape can tie it. and if i marry i lose every centesimo and my beloved casa di corleone, and if i don’t marry i shall never see the inside of that letter. did you ever know such a trying situation for a luxury-loving and curious woman in your life?”
“i fancy,” said christopher, “that the curiosity does not trouble you greatly.”
“it does not,” she confessed. “but the will! you must allow that is annoying. it puts my mind and my affections in a kind of mental strait-jacket. every time i see a charming man——”
“me, for instance,” said christopher.
“no, mercifully not you,” said sara. “we are one of the few exceptions that prove the generally accepted rule of the non-existence of platonic friendship between men and women. you are the most delightful combination of friend and father-confessor that ever existed, without—heaven be praised—a trace of the lover. where was i before you interrupted?”
“looking at a charming man,” said christopher.
“oh, yes. whenever i see a charming man i have to tell myself to be careful, to run no risk of my heart getting in the smallest degree involved. i call up mental pictures of coffers upon coffers—thousands of them—crammed with centesimi. i shut my eyes and see the courtyard, the oranges, and the marble fauns, then i open them and look at the charming man and feel more secure. but i daren’t run the tiniest risk for fear of the consequences. i can’t—” she almost wailed the words, “i can’t even flirt.”
“as your father-confessor,” said christopher, “i am glad to hear it.”
“but think,” she protested, “what i lose.”
“i think,” said christopher, “what the man would lose, and have a fellow-feeling for him.”
“you’re very unsympathetic,” said sara.
“on the contrary, i am very sympathetic—towards the man, who, but for the late duca’s will, might be wriggling, as i said before, in your silken toils.”
there was a silence.
“christopher,” said sara, suddenly and quite seriously, “do you think i shall ever marry again?”
“i most certainly hope you will,” replied christopher.
“and lose casa di corleone and the coffers of centesimi!” she exclaimed. then again she was back to the serious mood. “why do you hope so, christopher?”
for a moment christopher was silent. then he spoke.
“because, my dear, i know you and your capabilities. one day you will realize the gift you have in your possession, and in giving it away you will be one of the happiest women on god’s earth.”
she looked at the fire.
“i wonder,” she mused. “i didn’t give very much to giuseppe.”
“you liked him,” smiled christopher.
“he was a dear,” said sara. “he was extraordinarily considerate, and we were always beautifully polite to each other. but——”
“exactly,” said christopher. “but—— one day a force will take you prisoner. gifts will be showered on you, and you will shower gifts, and that little word of three letters, which stands for so much, will have no place in your vocabulary.”
“and i shall give up everything?” she queried below her breath.
“you will give up everything, because you will have gained everything,” he said.
“how do you know all this?” she asked.
christopher lifted his shoulders the tiniest fraction.
“there is some knowledge,” he said, “which is born in one, and of which one need no experience in this incarnation. probably i brought mine with me from the experience of ages long ago.”
again there was a silence.
outside there was a clack of horses’ hoofs, the roll of carriages, the hoot of taxis, all the sounds of london to which one grows so accustomed that one hears them even less than one hears the humming of insects in a sunny garden. and away below the window was the river, gliding grey and noiseless to the sea.
it was a november day with a hint of fog in the atmosphere. a fire was burning in the room in which the two were sitting, and great yellow chrysanthemums like patches of sunlight were in bowls set on the tables.
and in the silence the woman was looking almost for the first time into her heart with a kind of wonder for what she might find hidden there. and the man, whose nature was one of queer self-analysis, was marvelling that his feeling towards the woman near him held nothing but strong affection and a curious interest in her vivid and unusual personality. perhaps the cause lay in the fact that he had known her from childhood, and seen her gradual development. she had never flashed unexpected and meteor-like across his path.
suddenly she looked up at him with one of her individual smiles—a smile that lit up her eyes before it found its way to her lips.
“we have wandered a long way from my request,” she said.
“to find an artist for you?” said christopher. “oh, i know a man.”
“yes?” she asked, all interest. “what is he like?”
“clever,” said christopher, “pleasant, and—yes, i think you’ll find him interesting. i think those were your three requirements.”
“what is his name?”
“his name,” said christopher, “is paul treherne, and he lives at a studio about ten minutes’ walk from here.”
“paul treherne,” she said slowly, dwelling on the words. “i like that name. is he as nice as his name?”
“i shall leave you to judge,” replied christopher.
“you had better bring him to see me,” she said. “to-morrow at tea-time will do. you can ring me up in the morning and tell me if he is coming.”
“very well.” he glanced towards the clock on the mantelpiece, a beautiful little french clock. the hands pointed to half-past three.
“i must go,” he said. “i’ve an appointment at my club. i’ll go round to the studio first.” he got up from his chair.
“then you can telephone from the club,” said sara. “i am not going out again till this evening.”
“very well.” he held out his hand.
“i hope he will be able to come,” said sara. “i like his name.”
“you are not to fall in love with him,” said christopher warningly, “or let him fall in love with you.”
“i wonder,” said sara.
“remember casa di corleone and the golden oranges.”
sara smiled.
“i thought,” she said, “that one day i was to forget them.”
