Behind the Throne Part 35

Mary was already engaged, otherwise neither Morini nor his wife would probably have allowed the two young people to be thrown so constantly into each other's society. Thus, however, the bond of friends.h.i.+p gradually became strengthened between them, he loving her fondly in secret, while she regarded him as a man in whom she might one day confide. She had no friend in whom she could trust, save her father.

Amid her thousand acquaintances in that brilliant world around the throne there was not one who would not betray her confidence at the moment any profit might be made out of it. Therefore she kept herself to herself, and mixed with them only as etiquette or her father's policy demanded.

George Macbean was, on his part, filled with wonder. She was actually to marry Jules Dubard--that man of all men!

Surely her parents were in ignorance of who and what the fellow had been; surely by his clever cunning and shrewd manoeuvring he had misled even the sharp-eyed Minister himself, and induced him to give his consent to his daughter's marriage.

He pitied Mary--pitied her from the bottom of his heart. He knew that there must be some secret which she held and would not divulge; for if not, why should she regard her forthcoming marriage with such a lack of enthusiasm--why, indeed, should she purposely abstain from discussing Dubard? He closely watched her, and recognised how she had sadly changed since those bright days at Orton. Upon her brow was now a settled expression of deep thought and sadness, and when she thought herself un.o.bserved a low sigh would sometimes escape, her, as though her thoughts were bitter ones.

Was it possible that she suspected the truth concerning Jules Dubard?

Was it even possible that she was marrying him under compulsion?

In the silence of his own apartment he sat for hours, smoking his English pipe and wondering, while the babel of sounds of the foreign city came up from the street below. How strange were the ways of the world, how bitter the ironies of life! He loved her--ah yes! He loved her with all the pa.s.sion of his soul, with all the deep and earnest devotion of which an honest man is capable. Yet, poor as he was, merely her father's underling, how could he ever hope to gain her hand? No, he sighed day after day, it was hopeless--utterly hopeless. Hers was to be a marriage of convenience--she was to wed Dubard, and become a countess.

But if he only dared to speak! He might save her--but at what cost?

His own disgrace and ruin.

And he bit his lip to the blood.

Fortune had lifted him out of the drudgery of Morgan-Mason's service and brought him there to Rome, to a position of confidence envied by ten thousand others. Could he possibly sacrifice his future, his very life, just as it had suddenly opened up to him?

And he pondered on, meeting her, talking with her, and each hour falling deeper under the spell of her marvellous grace and beauty.

Mary, on her part, was full of thought. A frightful gulf was opened before her; she could not fly from its brink; she was goaded onwards though she saw it yawning beneath her feet.

While sitting alone with her father in his room one evening she approached the subject of Felice Solaro; but he instantly poured forth such a flood of invectives upon the condemned man that she was compelled to at once change the subject. To her it seemed that for some unaccountable reason he was prejudiced against the imprisoned man, and anything she might say in his favour only served to condemn him the more.

On looking back upon the past, she found that she had regarded love as a matter of everyday occurrence. She heard of it, saw it wherever she moved; every man who approached her either felt or feigned it; and so accustomed was she to homage and devotion that its absence alone attracted her attention. She had considered it part of her state--and yet of the real nature of true affection she had been perfectly unconscious.

She had more than once imagined herself in love, as in the case of Felice Solaro, mistaking gratified vanity for a deeper emotion--had felt pleasure in the presence of its object, and regret in absence; but that was a pastime and no more--until now.

But now! She held within her heart a deep secret--the secret of her love.

And this rendered her future all the more serious--her marriage all the more a fearful undertaking. She had no escape from her fate; she must marry a man who at least was indifferent to her. Could she ever suffer herself to be decked for this unpromising bridal, this union with a man who at heart was the enemy of her family and whom she hated?

One evening she again met George Macbean. He had returned from Naples, where he had executed a commission given him by the Minister, and had reported to his chief his visit to the commandant of the military district. He afterwards sat with Mary and her mother in one of the smaller reception-rooms of the ponderous old mansion. Mary, who was in a black dinner-dress slightly _decollete_, took up her mandoline--the instrument of which he was so fond--and sang the old Tuscan song, in which, with his heart so overburdened, he discerned a hidden meaning--

"Io questa notte in sogno l'ho veduto, Era vest.i.to tutto di broccato; Le piume sul berretto di velluto, Ed una spada d'oro aveva allato.

E poi m'ha detto con un bel sorriso.

Io non posso piu star da te diviso!

Da te diviso non ci posso stare, E torno per mai piu non ti lasciare!"

These words sank as iron into his soul. Did she, he wondered, really reciprocate his concealed and unexpressed feelings? Ah no, it was impossible--all impossible.

And when she had laid aside her instrument, he commenced to describe to them the grand review of troops which he had witnessed outside Naples that morning, and how the general staff had treated him as an honoured guest.

"Ah!" sighed Madame Morini. "If we were to tell the truth, Mr Macbean, both Mary and I are tired of the very sight of uniforms and the sound of military music. Wherever my husband goes in Italy a review is always included in the programme, and we have to endure the heat and the dust of the march past. Once, when I was first married, I delighted in all the glitter and display of armed forces, but nowadays I long and ever long for retirement at dear old Orton."

"And so do I," declared her daughter quickly. "When I was at school in England I used to look forward to the day when I would be presented at the Quirinale and enter Roman society. But oh, the weariness of it all!

I have already become sick of its glare, its uncharitableness, and its intrigues. England--yes--give me dear England, or else the quiet of San Donato. You have never been there yet, Mr Macbean," she added, looking into his face. "When you do go, you will find it more quiet and more beautiful than Orton."

"I have no doubt," he said. "If it is in the Arno valley, I know how beautiful the country is there, having pa.s.sed up and down from Pisa many times. Those are photographs of it in madame's boudoir--are they not?"

"Oh yes. Ah! then you've noticed them," she exclaimed. "It is a delightful old place, is it not?" His eyes were fixed upon hers, and he read in their dark depths the burden of sorrow that was there. Dubard was due back in Rome, but he had not returned, nor had she mentioned the reason. He wished to meet him--to observe what effect his presence would have upon that man who had robbed him of all the happiness of life.

The chiming of the little French clock reminded him that it was the hour to take his leave, therefore he rose, grasped the hands of the grave, kind-faced Englishwoman and her daughter, and went forth into the old-world street, striding blindly on towards his own rooms.

"Really a delightful fellow," remarked her mother when the door had closed behind him. "His English manners are refres.h.i.+ng after those of all the apeish young fools whom we are compelled for the sake of policy to entertain. But," she added, with a laugh, suddenly recollecting, "I ought not to say that, my dear, now that you are to marry a Frenchman.

I married an Italian, and as far as my choice of a husband has gone, I am thankful to say I have never regretted it--even though our natures and our religions are different."

"I will never become a Catholic--never!" declared Mary decisively. "I do not, and I shall never, believe in the confessional."

"Nor do I," responded her mother. "But there is no need for you to change your religion. The count has already told me that he has no such desire. By the way, he was due back the day before yesterday. Why has he not returned?"

"I heard from him yesterday. He has gone down to the Pyrenees--on business connected with the estate, he says;" and then, after some further gossip regarding a charity bazaar at the German Emba.s.sy, at which they were to hold a stall on the morrow, the unhappy girl rose, and with uneven steps went along the gloomy, echoing corridors to her own room.

Teresa brushed her long brown tresses as she sat before her long mirror looking at the reflection of her pale face and wondering if the young Englishman guessed the truth. Then as soon as possible she dismissed her faithful serving-woman, and still sat in her chair, her mind occupied by a thousand thoughts which chased each other in quick succession.

One thought, in spite of all her efforts, she was unable to banish; it returned again and again, and would intrude in spite of her struggles to suppress it--the image of George Macbean, the man who had so suddenly become her friend.

The night wore on, and in the silence of her pretty chamber she wept for some time, abandoning herself to melancholy fancies; at length, reproaching herself for thus permitting sorrow to usurp the place of that resignation which the pure faith she had adopted ought to inspire, she threw herself upon her knees and offered to Heaven the homage of an afflicted and innocent heart.

As she rose from her knees the church bells of Rome were chiming one.

She shuddered at the solemn stroke, for every hour seemed to bring her nearer the terrible self-sacrifice which she was compelled to make for her father's sake. Her fears had risen almost to distraction, and she had wept and prayed alternately in all the agonies of anxiety.

The truth that had now forced itself upon her held her aghast, immovable. She loved George Macbean. Yes, she murmured his name aloud, and her words sounded weird and distinct in the silence of the night.

Yet if she withdrew from her unholy agreement with the man who had forced her to give her promise, then the hounds of destruction would be let loose upon her house.

And her father? She had discovered in the drawer of his carved writing-table at San Donato that tiny tube of innocent-looking tabloids; and though she kept the secret to herself, she had guessed his intention.

Could she deliberately allow him to sacrifice his life when there was still a means open whereby to save him?

She sank again upon her knees by the bedside, and greyed long for Divine help and deliverance.

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.

MRS FITZROY'S GOVERNESS.

Mrs Charles Fitzroy was delighted with her new Italian governess.

She had contemplated engaging a Frenchwoman or a Swiss to teach little Bertha, but most fortunately, General Borselli, whom she had met during a season spent with her husband in Rome, came to her aid and recommended the daughter of the deceased Colonel Nodari. She came, and her slight, rather tall figure in neat black, her well-cut, handsome features, and her plainly dressed hair, almost black, had attracted her mistress from the first. She was refined, un.o.btrusive, merry-eyed, and just the kind of bright companion and governess she required for her child. She noticed that although her dresses were well made there were tokens, in more ways than one, that since her father's death she and her mother had fallen upon evil days.

Fitzroy himself liked her. There was something interesting in her quaint broken English and in her foreign gestures that commended itself to him in preference to the angular blue-stocking Miss Gardener, who had recently left his wife's service. So "Mademoiselle," as they called her in preference to the rather ugly word "Signorina," quickly became as one of the family, and within a week of her arrival she met that pompous millionaire of eggs and bacon, Mr Morgan-Mason.

The latter became as much attracted by her as were the others, but she exerted no effort to captivate or to gain admiration, merely acting her part modestly as became the humble governess in a wealthy family.

Nevertheless she recollected the general's instructions, and more than once, in the secrecy of her room, wrote to that address in Genoa reporting her progress.

Mrs Charles Fitzroy, a pretty and rather extravagant woman, still on the right side of forty, moved in a very good set, and entertained a good deal at her house in Brook Street. Her husband was a magnate in the city, and the fact that Morgan-Mason was her brother gave her the _entree_ to houses which would have otherwise been closed to her.