Mae Madden Part 6

And down sank Miss Mae on her knees, with her lips curved, and her hands stretched out imploringly, half-mockingly. No need of words to say: "Save my brother, behold him. Ah, you cannot do it, your power is boast.

Yet, save him, pray."

"A little more yellow in my hair, some pearls and a pink gown, and you might have the sister to study in a living model, Edith," laughed Mae, arising.

Edith and Albert were both struck by Mae's dramatic force, and they talked of her as they drove to the Vatican. "I wish I understood her better," said Edith. "I cannot feel as if travel were doing her good.

She is changing so; she was always odd, but then she was always happy.

Now she has her moods, and there is a look in her eye I am afraid of. It is almost savage. You would think the beauty in Rome would delight her nature, for she craves beauty and poetry in everything. I don't believe the theatre is good for her. Albert, suppose we give up our tickets for Thursday night."

"But you want particularly to see that play, Edith."

"I can easily give it up for Mae's sake. It would be cruel to go without her, and I think excitement is bad for her."

"You are very generous, Edith, and right, too, I dare say. I wish my little sister could see pleasure and duty through your steadier, clearer eyes."

Then the steady, clear eyes dropped suddenly, and the two forgot all about Mae, and rolled contentedly off, behind the limping Italian horse. And the red-cheeked vetturino with the flower in his b.u.t.ton-hole, whistled a love-song, and thought of his Piametta, I suppose.

Meantime, Mae, left to herself, grew penitent and reckless by turns, blushed alternately with shame and with quick pulse-beats, as she remembered Norman Mann's face, or the officer's smile. She wondered where he lived, and whether she would see him soon again. Poor child!

She was really innocent, and only dimly surmised how he would haunt her hereafter. Would he look well in citizen's clothes? How would Norman Mann seem in his uniform? She wished she had a jacket cut like his. And so on in an indolent way. But penitence was getting the better of her, and after vainly trying to read or write, she settled herself down for a cry. To think that she, Mae Madden, could have acted so absurdly. She never would forgive herself, never. Then she cried some more, a good deal more.

About four in the afternoon a very bright sunbeam peeped through her closed blinds, and she brushed away her tears, and peace came back to her small heart, and she felt like a New England valley after a shower, very fresh and clean, and goodly,--just a trifle subdued, however.

She would go to church. She had heard that there was lovely music at vespers, in the little church at the foot of Capo le Case. St. Andrea delle Frate, was it? It wasn't very far away. She could say her prayers and repent entirely and wholly. So she dressed rapidly, singing the familiar old Te Deum joyously all the while, and off she started.

The air was cool and clear and delicious and the street-scenes were pretty. Mae took in everything before her as she left the house, from the Barberini fountain to the groups of models at the corner of the Square and the Via Felice; but she did not see, at some distance behind her, on the opposite side of the street, the sudden start of a motionless figure as she left the house, or know that it straightened itself and moved along as she did, turning on to the pretty Via Sistina, so down the hill at Capo le Case, to the church below.

She was early for vespers, and there was only the music singing in her own happy little heart as she entered the quiet place. The contrast between the spot, with its shrines and symbols and aids to faith, and all that she had a.s.sociated with religion, conspired to separate her from herself and her past, and left her a bit of breathing, wors.h.i.+ping life, praising the great Giver of Life. She fell on her knees in an exalted, jubilate spirit. She was more like a Praise-the-Lord psalm of David than like a young girl of the nineteenth century.

And yet close behind her, a little to the left, was Bero on his knees too, at his pater nosters.

By and by the music began. It was music beyond description; those wonderful male voices, the chorus of young boys, and then suddenly, the organ and some one wild falsetto carrying the great Latin soul-laden words up higher.

All this while Mae's head was bent low and her heart was a-praying.

All this while Bero was on his knees also, but his eyes were on Mae.

The music ceased; the prayers were ended. Mae heard indistinctly the sweep of trailing skirts, the sound of footsteps on the marble floor, the noise of voices as the people went away, but still she did not move.

The selah pause had come after the psalm.

When she did rise, and turn, and start to go, her eyes fell on the kneeling form. She tried to pa.s.s quickly without recognition, but he reached out his hand.

"This is a church," said Mae; "my prayers are sacred; do not disturb me."

He held his rosary toward her, with the cross at the end tightly clasped in his hand. "My prayers are here, too," he said. "Oh, Signorina, give me one little prayer, one of your little prayers."

He knelt before her in the quiet, dim, half light, his hands clasped, and an intense earnestness in his easily moved Italian soul, that floated up to his face. It looked like beautiful penitence and faith to Mae. Here was a soul in sympathy with hers, one which met her harmoniously in every mood, slid into her dreams and wild wishes, sparkled with her enjoyment, and now knelt as she knelt, and asked for one of her prayers.

She stood a minute irresolute. Then she smiled down on him a full, rich smile, and said in English: "G.o.d bless you," The next moment she was gone.

Bero made no movement to follow her, but remained quietly on his knees, his head bowed low.

"I looked in at St. Andrea's, at vespers," said that dear, bungling fellow, Eric, at dinner that night, "and saw you Mae, but you were so busy with your prayers I came away." There was a pause, and Mae knew that people looked at her.

"Yes, I was there; the music was wonderful."

"Mae," asked Mrs. Jerrold, "Do you have to go to a Roman Catholic Church to say your prayers?" For Mrs. Jerrold was a Puritan of the Puritans, and had breathed in the shorter catechism and the doctrine of election with the mountain air and sea-salt of her childhood. Possibly the two former had had as much to do as the latter with her angularity and severe strength.

"Indeed," cried Mae, impulsively, "I wish I could always enter a church to say my prayers. There is so much to help one there."

"Is there any danger of your becoming a Romanist?" enquired Mrs.

Jerrold, pus.h.i.+ng the matter further.

"I wish there were a chance of my becoming anything half as good, but I am afraid there isn't. Still, I turn with an occasional loyal heart-beat to the great Mother Church, that the rest of you have all run away from." "Yes, you have," Mae shook her head decidedly at Edith. "She may be a cruel mother. I know you all think she's like the old woman who lived in a shoe, and that she whips her children and sends them supperless to bed, and gives them a stone for bread, but she's the mother of all of us, notwithstanding."

"What a dreadful mixture of Mother Goose and Holy Bible," exclaimed Eric, laughingly, while Mae cooled off, and Mrs. Jerrold stared amazedly, wondering how to take this tirade. She concluded at last that it would be better to let it pa.s.s as one of Mae's extravagances, so she ended the conversation by saying: "I hope, Eric, you will wait for your sister, if you see her alone, at church. It is not the thing for her to go by herself."

"No," added Albert, "we shall have to buy a chain for you soon."

"If you do," said Mae quietly, "I'll slip it." And not another prayer did she say that night.

CHAPTER VII.

It was the first day of Carnival. The determination to enjoy herself was so strong in Mae, that her face fairly shone with her "good time coming." She popped her head out of the doorway, and flung a big handful of confetti right at Eric, but he dodged, and Norman Mann caught it in his face. Then, seeing a try-to-be-dignified look creeping upon Mae, he seized the golden moment, gathered up such remnants of confetti as were tangled in his hair and whiskers, and flung them back again, shouting: "Long live King Pasquino! So his reign has begun, has it?"

"Yes; King Pasquino is lord, now, for ten whole days," and she slowly edged her right hand about, to take aim again at Norman. He saw her, and frustrated the attempt by catching it and emptying the contents out upon the floor. The little white b.a.l.l.s rolled off to the corners and the little hand fell slowly by Mae's side. "Why not go down to the Corso, you and I, and see the beginning of the fun?" suggested Norman.

"Come along," cried Mae, "you, too, Eric," and the three started off like veritable children, in a delightful, familiar, old-time way.

Arrived at their loggia, they found an old woman employed in filling, with confetti, a long line of boxes, fastened to the bal.u.s.trade of the balcony. Little shovels, also, were provided, for dealing out the tiny missals of war upon the heads below. There were masks in waiting, some to be tied on, while others terminated in a handle, by a skilful use of which they could be made as effective as a Spanish lady's fan. Mae chose one of these latter.

The Corso was alive with vendors of small bouquets and bon-bons and little flying birds tied in live agony to round yellow oranges. The fruit in turn was fastened to a long pole and so thrust up to the balconies as a tempting bait. If bought, the birds and flowers were tossed together into the streets to a pa.s.sing friend. As Mae was gazing rapturously over the balcony, laughing at the few stragglers hurrying to the Piazza del Popolo, admiring the bannered balconies and gay streamers, several of these little birds were thrust up to her face, some of them peeping piteously and flapping their poor wings. She put up her hands and caught the oranges, one--two--three--four. In a moment she had freed the fluttering birds and tossed the fruit back into the street. "Pay them, Eric," she cried indignantly; "Why, what is this?"

for one of the little creatures, after vainly flapping its wings, had fallen on the balcony. Mae picked it up. It half opened its eyes at her and then lay still in her hands.

"It is dead," said Mae, quietly, going up to Norman. "Oh! Mr. Mann, I thought Carnival meant real fun, not cruelty. Isn't there anywhere in this big world where we can get free from such dreadful things? Well!"

she added, impatiently, as Norman paused.

"Give a slow fellow who likes the world better than you do, time to apologize for it," replied Norman, as familiarly as Eric would have done. The tone pleased Mae. She looked up and laughed lightly. "At any rate," suggested he, "let's forget the cruelty now and take the fun.

Three of them are safe and very likely this sc.r.a.p," and he touched the dead bird in her hand, "is flying to rejoin his brothers in hunting-grounds that are stocked with angle-worms, and such game. We are to have a good time to-day, you and I."

At this moment Eric rushed up. "Say, Mann," he cried, "here they come.

They have taken the balcony just opposite, after all. And Miss Hopkins looks perfectly in a white veil. And oh! here are the rest of our own party."

Mae lifted her eyes to the opposite side of the street, but they did not fall to the level of the Hopkins-Rae party, being stopped by something above. At a high, fourth-story window, beyond the circle of flying fun and frolic, confetti and flowers, Mae saw a wonderful woman's face, a face with great dark eyes and raven hair. A heavily-figured white lace veil was pulled low over her brow, and fell in folds against her cheeks.

Her skin was white, the scarlet of her face concentrating in her lips.

There was a strange consonance between the creamy heavy lace and its flowing intertwined figures, and the face it encircled. A mystery, a grace, a subtle charm, that had the effect of a vivid dream, in its combination of clearness and unreality. There was life, with smothered pa.s.sion and pride and pain in it, Mae was sure. So near to her that her voice could have arched the little distance easily, and yet so far away from her life and all that touched it.