CHAPTER VIII
A WEDDING JOURNEY
AT noon they kneeled before the Cardinal of Milan, in the great white cathedral, speaking the words that welded their bonds. It was an hour of gray skies, and the many-hued sunshine that often had sifted through the great stained glass windows to felicitate a bride did not fall upon Hera. The gay world of Lombardy was there, filling the transept with its silks and jewels, and in the backward parts of the nave and aisles common folk looked on at the famous wedding.
There was to be a breakfast in Villa Barbiondi, and when the ceremony at the altar was over some of the princes and dukes and marquises, with their dames, followed Tarsis and his bride to the main door. In the journals of that evening were the names of the ladies and gentlemen who composed the brilliant procession, with details, more or less accurate, as to the gowns.
Other particulars of the event, within the cathedral and without, were set down minutely by press men and press women. They told of the concourse of people in the square—hundreds of them idle working folk; how they crowded the steps before the church, and how the Civil Guards kept open a lane to the carriages of the bridal party; but no mention was made of the sullen faces bordering that lane.
Nor was there any account of the doings of La Ferita, the woman of the scarred face, who shook her fist at Tarsis. Before he came from the church she had annoyed the Civil Guards by crying out: “Joy to the bridegroom! Death to the children in his factories!” The guards gave her a final warning, which she understood; and when Tarsis passed by her tongue was stilled, but the long scar glowed and her eyes looked savage hatred. Tarsis saw the woman shaking her fist at him, and so did Hera. In after days he was aware of that face, with its deep red mark running across one eyelid from forehead to cheekbone. Another detail overlooked or purposely omitted by the conservative press was the low muttering against the bridegroom that sounded here and there in the crowd.
The nuptial cortege started for the railway station. In Corso Vittorio Emanuele it passed a café where a youthful artist, in satirical mood, was amusing some comrades with his pencil. He threw off a cartoon of the wedding. It depicted the bridegroom receiving a blow on the nose from the brawny fist of a workman; and in the place of blood there flowed—gold pieces! The editor of a revolutionary journal picked it up, and while the merry breakfast at the villa was in progress the thing circulated, filling many of the Milanese with delight and moving others to indignation.
Tarsis and his bride set off for Paris by the night express. The station master at Milan greeted them as they alighted from the train that bore them from the Brianza, and with many a bow and smile conducted them to the private car in which they were to travel as only the King and the Queen travel in Italy. The ceremonious tribute of the conductor and the guards as they passed along the platform tickled the vanity of Tarsis in no small degree. To the keen eye his manner betrayed the pride he felt in this public display of his husbandship to the beautiful daughter of the aristocracy who walked by his side.
That was Hera’s thought when they were seated in their moving drawing-room. Oddly enough she found herself studying his attire. She recalled that hitherto it had never given her any distinct impression; he had always appeared dressed in the height of fashion, with a certain mercantile brilliancy best described, perhaps, as stylish. Now it seemed that he looked a trifle too much like a bridegroom. In this moment she awoke sharply to the truth that he was, irreparably, for better or for worse, her husband. Again she heard the solemn voice of the cardinal proclaiming, “This bond may not be severed so long as you do live.” Before, the fact had not assumed a phase of such vivid actuality; it all had been so utterly opposed to the current of her thoughts and the desire of her heart. Now the trial she had accepted in a sentiment of duty came home to her in its practical aspect. And in the spirit of a gentlewoman she resolved to meet the situation with good grace. As well look the fact in the eye and make the best of it. Then and there she decided that under the chafing of the yoke she would not fret and lose her peace.
It turned out that the wedding journey began with a pleasant surprise for Tarsis. He found his wife a most cheerful companion. She talked with him lightly and let her laughter ripple. Of course, she overplayed the part in her first essay. But Tarsis, in his exultation, was completely hors de critique. This unexpected melting of his iceberg produced cups of vanity which went to his head and intoxicated him to the verge of blindness. All he could see was his own supposed success in making himself agreeable to his wife. After dinner, when the attendant had set out the Marsala and cigars, she bade him smoke, and while he did so she read to him from the Milanese Firefly. Together they laughed over the droll jests and anecdotes told so quaintly in the Lombardian patter. He told her about his career in the money-making world; how success there was once his only aspiration, but that now he was aware of a waning zest in the game. He paused to look into her eyes, while a certain softness, as of meek appeal, showed in his own. Then he said, rising and standing near her chair:
“Life holds only one prize for me to-day. It is your tender regard.”
A deep tide of colour dyed Hera’s cheeks, and, without making other reply, she turned her head and gazed upon the sparkling electric lamps of a village that was sailing by. A moment more, and she rose, but only to bid him good-night and withdraw to the compartment prepared for her. Tarsis followed her with his eyes, an amused smile on his lips, and when she had disappeared he took a cigar from the box, lighted it, and threw himself into a long-cushioned chair. For an hour he stayed there, meditative, cheerful, while the train wound and climbed and burrowed its way across the Alps.
In the late afternoon they rolled into a gloomy terminal station of the French capital. It had been a day of rain clouds with short-lived intervals of clear sky; and while on their way to an obscure but aristocratic hotel on the left bank of the Seine they saw Paris in one of her happiest moments—a period of sunshine between showers. There was an air of gladness about the passing throngs—a momentary lift of spirits imparted by the smiling heavens; the wet pavements glistened, as did the oil-cloths of cabmen and gendarmes, and the moving life everywhere gave forth a lightened resonance. But before they reached the hotel umbrellas were up, and Paris was cross again.
So the weather served them nearly every hour of their week’s stay. Tarsis made no effort to reapproach the theme of “tender regard,” and Hera seemed to enter heartily into the enjoyment of the amusements he provided. The opera had no auditor more pleased than she, and when they drove in the Bois—between showers—she saw so many things in the spring’s unfolding, and talked about them so brightly, that Tarsis found himself interested for once in the wonders of nature’s workshop. She had put on the armour of contentment, believing he would perceive that she wore it not only in kindness but from a sense of duty consequent upon the giving of her hand. She believed that he would comprehend as well that it was meant no less for self-defence than for self-effacement. Upon his keenness of intellect she had counted, and not in vain. He read her declaration as clearly as if she had written it in the plainest of Tuscan words: The lot he had chosen was the one by which he must abide; her armour of contentment was so frail that it might be broken by even an essay on his part at disturbing the status quo to which he had agreed. All this he appreciated and made believe to accept as her immutable law.
The wedding journey took its course over the English Channel. In London Hera found many letters from Italy. From Aunt Beatrice there were four precisely written pages, over which the sage spinster had spread her dictum, with a fine tone of authority, on the amenities of wifehood. The letter from Don Riccardo breathed tenderness and sympathy, but proved a fresh reminder of the frail nature that was her father’s. He charged her that the Barbiondi were not made for slavery. Never must she sink under the burden of her marriage. If ever it became too heavy to bear with honour she must cast it off, come what might. Well he knew the sacrifice she was making. Was the father’s heart to be deceived because the daughter was too brave to come to him with her trouble? Ah, no!
“Beloved Hera,” he went on, “your absence tears my heart. Oh, fate! Why could it not have spared us enough to live in our humble peace? But no—ah, well, why weep over the irreparable? A chi tocca, tocca. Is it not so? With my warmest blessing and prayers most ardent for your happiness, I am your affectionate
“BABBO.”
Hera was able to utter a heartfelt thanksgiving that her father had not urged her to the marriage. She was glad he had done nothing in that affair to lessen the respect for him which she mingled with her love. There was a letter from a comrade of the Brianza—the little Marchioness di Tramonta; she wrote from the eminence of almost a year of married life. Letters from girl friends—dainty missives in cream and lilac—conveyed glowing wishes for a bright future.
Typewritten letters in printed envelopes had haunted Tarsis from the hour of his arrival in Paris. And now they pursued him to London. Thanks to the eclipse of the honeymoon, he found opportunity to read and answer many of them, as well as to spend a part of the day in Lombard street on “urgent matters of business,” as he explained to his bride.
Hera sent her father a most cheerful reply. “To-day,” she said, in closing, “I have had an interesting experience in dreary London. I promised you to pay a visit to the Duchess of Claychester. I did so this afternoon, and I am glad indeed. You did not tell me, babbo, that the Duchess is one of those English ladies of whom we read in Italy because of their work among the poor. We had luncheon in her house in Cavendish Square, then went to a place called a ‘settlement,’ of which she is chief patroness. It is a large modern building in the midst of the most squalid section of Marylebone—a quarter, I am told, that for human wretchedness is worse than the East End one hears so much about in the novels. My heart turned sick at the sights. Is it possible that we have anything so bad in Milan? Signor Forza told me of the poor of our Porta Ticinese quarter and I have heard about them from others. I have never been there, yet I cannot believe it equals the miserable life of this London slum. Now, what I saw gave me an idea. And what do you think it is? That I may be useful in the world! Yes, and in the way that the Duchess of Claychester is; but among our own people in Milan. I learned all that I could about the work.
“They have women called ‘visitors’ who go to the homes of the poor people, and with one of these I went for an hour or more. It was an experience I shall never forget. She told me that she had to employ rare tact sometimes, because there were men and women in the slums who objected to being ‘elevated’ or ‘ameliorated.’ It was so that my guide expressed it. We had a striking proof of the fact in one place. The family consisted of a very small woman, a very large man, and two wee girls. That they were in need anyone could see. As soon as we entered the man acted like a hunted animal at bay. The visitor was a woman of severe manner, and I must say that I did not detect in the way she went about this case any of that ‘rare tact’ which she said was so necessary. ‘Charity!’ the man roared back at her (I give it in his own language), ‘who asks yer bloody charity? What we wants is justice, we do. An’ justice we’ll ’ave some day, yer bet yer boots!’ He shook his fist in the visitor’s face, and his wife tugged at his coat, saying: ‘Be-ive yerself, ’Enry; be-ive yerself!’
“The visitor thought it time to go, and I agreed with her. These English! These English!
“It has rained every day since we left Italy. In France we caught a peep of the sun now and then; here, never. If ever again I stand under our skies I shall rejoice. Before I thought of being useful it seemed that those skies could never be bright, and I dreaded going back. But now, oh, how eager I am to be there! Ever your affectionate daughter, who counts the hours until she shall see you,
“HERA.”