By the fitful moonlight he had seen enough to make out the shrinking form of a woman, beset by the men who threatened her person or her property, or both; but it was not until they reached the inn, fortunately not many miles distant, that he saw the face of the girl he had saved.
I resemble her only in my coloring—which some might find surprising, for I am fair-haired and blue-eyed. In fact, not all Italians are dark. Those of the northern regions are often fair, and there was some such strain in my mother’s family. My features are more like those of my father, and although he could not be overly modest about his looks without denigrating mine, he would never allow that any woman could equal my mother’s beauty.
Of course the circumstances of their first meeting were romantic enough to dazzle any young man. My mother was in a dead faint when he carried her into the inn and placed her on a settle by the hearth. The firelight turned her tumbled ringlets to red-gold; and this gleaming halo framed a countenance of pure perfection. As he knelt beside her, supporting her head upon his arm. her lashes fluttered and lifted. The first thing she saw was his face—young, hand-some, glowing with emotion; the first sensation she was conscious of feeling was the strength of his arm, tenderly yet respectfully embracing her.
It is no wonder they fell in love at first sight. What is wonderful is that their love should have won out over all obstacles. That first night they were both too young and too bewitched by one another to think sensibly, or they would have realized that their only hope lay in an immediate elopement. But the practical difficulties were great. For one thing, it was virtually impossible for them to be married in a country where Protestants were not even allowed to hold church services. So the authorities were notified of the attack upon the carriage, and Prince Tarconti was informed that his daughter was safe; but not before the lovers had had time to converse for hours in a language more eloquent than Father’s fluent if ungrammatical Italian.
How well I knew each detail of that romantic history! It was my favorite bedtime story in childhood, and if my mother was the saint to whom I addressed my childish prayers, a certain Count Ugo Fosilini was the villain of my youthful nightmares. A remote family connection, he was the suitor destined for Francesca Tarconti by her aristocratic father; she had been on her way to visit his parents in Rome when Fate intervened. It was natural that he should be the emissary sent by Prince Tarconti to recover his daughter. As soon as Count Ugo set eyes on my father he knew he had a rival; and he took care to insult him by offering him money as a reward for the rescue.
Of course Father dashed the gold indignantly to the ground. The gesture was gallant but ill-advised, for it confirmed what the Count had until then only suspected. My mother was at once removed to the Fosilini palazzo in Rome, where she was kept a virtual prisoner. This was not enough for the Count. He was too arrogant to challenge a man whom he considered his social inferior, so he hired assassins, of whom there were plenty to be found in Rome. My father was saved only through the devotion of his friends, struggling young writers and artists like himself. Some of them were members of a revolutionary secret society, so they were more than willing to frustrate the plans of Count Ugo, whose reputation as a cruel landlord was well known. The members of one such group aided my father when he followed Mother to the family estate in the hills of Umbria, and they were instrumental in assisting in the couple’s eventual escape from Italy. That was the most exciting chapter in the story—Mother’s flight from the sleeping castle, accompanied by a devoted maidservant, through whom she had maintained communications with Father; their desperate ride through the night, with Mother in men’s clothing, astride her plunging steed; the fishing boat in Genoa, and the rough patriots who sailed it, carrying, quite often, other cargo than fish; and the triumphant landing in Marseilles.
They were married in London. My mother’s rejection of all she had left was total; she even gave up her religion. At first the young couple lived obscurely, fearing retaliation; but as the months passed they realized that Mother’s family had reacted with the cold arrogance typical of their class. Finally they learned, through friends in Italy, that Prince Tarconti had disinherited his daughter and forbidden her name to be pronounced in his hearing. To her family she was as good as dead.
Alas, in only too short a time she was. She died at my birth; and when Father wrote to Italy, to announce the two events, he received no reply. Since he had acted only out of a sense of common decency, he was not sorry that the correspondence ended there.
The succeeding years—seventeen of them—may be passed over quickly. They were not good years for him; but I did not know that until it was too late. With the selfishness of youth I wore the pretty dresses, played with the expensive toys, and accepted the presence of maids and nurses without wondering where the money came from, or why Father was so often absent from home. He continued to paint and, I assumed, to sell his paintings. It was not until one winter night, when he collapsed in a fit of uncontrollable coughing as he bent to kiss me good night, that I realized he was ill.
I was too young to understand the ominous portent of the attack. He was quick to reassure me; and the action of a lady of his acquaintance, in sending him to the south of France, undoubtedly did prolong his life. I remained in England, in boarding school. I did not realize that my school fees were part of Mrs. Barton’s payment for my father’s services; nor that the term “patroness” was a euphemism for her real role in his life.
She was not the first of his “patrons"—nor the last. I understand that now. I do not judge him. I still believe he did it primarily for me, to give me the comfort and security he could supply in no other way.
After the incident I have mentioned, his health seemed to improve, as it sometimes does with this illness. I saw very little of him, and I was selfish enough to resent his neglect, as I saw it. I cannot completely blame myself for failing to understand why he had to keep me from him. He even managed to delude the innocent ladies who ran the boarding school. It was in Yorkshire, far from the vicious gossip of London, but the dear old Misses Smith would not have believed the gossip if they had heard it. They adored my father, and always hovered over him when he came on his rare visits, accepting him as the gentleman of means he pretended to be.
Yet I loved him; and I ought to have sensed the increasing desperation under his smiling manner.
He had good reason to be desperate that winter before my eighteenth birthday. The precarious pattern of existence he had built was tottering on its foundation—and I, like a dweller in a house riddled with insects, would have lived on in fancied security until the floor collapsed under my feet. Certainly I would never have guessed from his manner, when he came to fetch me for the Christmas holidays, that anything was amiss. He had never looked more handsome, and the dear old ladies fluttered about him, offering him wine and seed cake. He was wearing a magnificent new watch chain of heavy gold, all hung with beautiful little trinkets—carved cameos and lockets and the like—which I longed to examine.
I sat demurely, though, my hands folded in my lap, as the Misses Smith had taught me, while my future was discussed. With beaming pride the ladies told him that my education was complete. I was the star student, the parlor boarder, accomplished in all forms of needlework, from broderie anglaise to cross-stitch. My sampler, a magnificent picture of a lady and gentleman in a grove of trees—with apples as large as the lady’s powdered head—was proudly displayed. My skill on pianoforte and harp was praised, my knowledge of French commended. As I was soon to learn, my father was an accomplished actor, but he found it difficult to dissemble that day. The elder Miss Smith broke off in the midst of her speech to comment with concern on the gray shade of his cheeks, and to press more Madeira on him.
I think it was only in recent weeks that he had begun to face the truth about his condition. Now he was being forced to face another unpalatable truth he had tried to ignore. My schooldays were almost over. I must leave school for…where? That was the problem now, and it must have seemed to him that everything was collapsing at once.
He had played a role for many years. He carried off the rest of the visit in style, and we took our places in the handsome traveling coach, well wrapped in furs and robes against the chill of winter. Snow was beginning to fall as we drove away from the school, but I was too happy to care about the weather. I had not seen my father for almost a year.
I did most of the talking, babbling on about Mary Wentworth’s shocking flirtation with the curate, and Alice Johnson’s cheating at map drawing, while Father listened with a smile. As the afternoon drew on, my tongue slowed; finally I fell asleep.
I woke with a start. The shadows of early evening filled the interior of the coach. Father was bending over me. In the dimness his face shone with a pearly pallor, and something in his expression filled me with alarm.
“What is it?” I cried, struggling against drowsiness.
Instantly he withdrew into the corner of the seat.
“Nothing, my love. I apologize for waking you. I was studying your face. You are so like…”
He turned his face away. I was moved, for I thought I understood his distress.
“Am I really like Mama? I thought—”
“You resemble her more and more as you grow. Do you know, Francesca, that you are the same age she was when I first saw her?”
“If it distresses you to speak of her,” I began, touching his hand.
Roughly he drew it away.
“No! I must speak of her and of other things I have been afraid to face. I was not always such a coward, my darling; but when she died, something died in me too, my manhood, perhaps…”
Then he realized that his mood was alarming me. He took my hand in his and smiled.
“Don’t be upset. I feel the chagrin of a father who sees his daughter growing away from him, who foresees the time when another man will win her smiles. You are a young woman now, my love. Is there no man who has touched your heart?”
This was the sort of talk I found pleasurable, if mildly embarrassing—the sort of talk we girls indulged in late at night, after the lights were out. I believe I blushed.
“Mary Ellen’s brother is very handsome,” I began. “When he came to visit her last year we talked for a while; I found him so pleasant! Mary Ellen said he liked me very much.”
“Did she indeed.” Father’s voice sounded tired. I could not see his features clearly. He went on, as if to himself, “But what opportunity would you have, in that little island of innocence, to meet young men? And which of them would offer, if he knew…What am I to do? What in heaven’s name am I to do with you?”
“But, Father,” I exclaimed. “I don’t want to marry. Why can’t I stay with you?”
My father let out a groan and buried his face in his hands. Now genuinely frightened, I tugged at his fingers.
“What is it? Father, are you ill? Are you in pain?”
A long shudder passed through his body. Then he lowered his hands and smiled at me. His voice was calm when he said,
“No…It is only a little pain, my darling. Of course you must stay with me. We will not be parted again, until…Francesca, have I ever spoken to you of your mother’s family?”
“Often. What cruel people they must have been.”
“I should not have given you that impression,” he said slowly. “I was wrong. I, of all people, should have understood their grief at losing her.”
