Sant' Ilario Part 40

"What I say. I will not marry Frangipani--I will not! Do you understand?"

"No. I do not understand such language from my daughter; and as for your determination, I tell you that you will most certainly end by acting as I wish you to act."

"You cannot force me to marry. What can you do? You can put me into a convent. Do you think that would make me change my mind? I would thank G.o.d for any asylum in which I might find refuge from such tyranny."

"My daughter," replied the prince in bland tones, "I am fully resolved not to be angry with you. Your undutiful conduct proceeds from ignorance, which is never an offence, though it is always a misfortune. If you will have a little patience--"

"I have none!" exclaimed Faustina, exasperated by her father's manner. "My undutiful conduct does not proceed from ignorance--it proceeds from love, from love for another man, whom I will marry if I marry any one."

"Faustina!" cried Montevarchi, holding up his hands in horror and amazement. "Do you dare to use SUCH, language to your father!"

"I dare do anything, everything--I dare even tell you the name of the man I love--Anastase Gouache!"

"My child! My child! This is too horrible! I must really send for your mother."

"Do what you will."

Faustina had risen to her feet and was standing before one of the old bookcases, her hands folded before her, her eyes on fire, her delicate mouth scornfully bent. Montevarchi, who was really startled almost out of his senses, moved cautiously towards the bell, looking steadily at his daughter all the while as though he dreaded some fresh outbreak. There was something ludicrous in his behaviour which, at another time, would not have escaped the young girl. Now, however, she was too much in earnest to perceive anything except the danger of her position and the necessity for remaining firm at any cost. She did not understand why her mother was to be called, but she felt that she could face all her family if necessary. She kept her eyes upon her father and was hardly conscious that a servant entered the room. Montevarchi sent a message requesting the princess to come at once. Then he turned again towards Faustina.

"You can hardly suppose," he observed, "that I take seriously what you have just said; but you are evidently very much excited, and your mother's presence will, I trust, have a soothing effect. You must be aware that it is very wrong to utter such monstrous untruths--even in jest--"

"I am in earnest. I will marry Monsieur Gouache or I will marry no one."

Montevarchi really believed that his daughter's mind was deranged.

His interview with Gouache had convinced him that Faustina meant what she said, though he affected to laugh at it, but he was wholly unable to account for her conduct on any theory but that of insanity. Being at his wits' end he had sent for his wife, and while waiting for her he did not quite know what to do.

"My dear child, what is Monsieur Gouache? A very estimable young man, without doubt, but not such a one as we could choose for your husband."

"I have chosen him," answered Faustina. "That is enough."

"How you talk, my dear! How rashly you talk! As though choosing a husband were like buying a new hat! And you, too, whom I always believed to be the most dutiful, the most obedient of my children!

But your mother and I will reason with you, we will endeavour to put better thoughts into your heart."

Faustina glanced scornfully at her father and turned away, walking slowly in the direction of the window.

"It is of no use to waste your breath on me," she said presently.

"I will marry Gouache or n.o.body."

"You--marry Gouache?" cried the princess, who entered at that moment, and heard the last words. Her voice expressed an amazement and horror fully equal to her husband's.

"Have you come to join the fray, mamma?" inquired Faustina, in English.

"Pray speak in a language I can understand," said Montevarchi who, in a whole lifetime, had never mastered a word of his wife's native tongue.

"Oh, Lotario!" exclaimed the princess. "What has the child been telling you?"

"Things that would make you tremble, my dear! She refuses to marry Frangipani--"

"Refuses! But, Faustina, you do not know what you are doing! You are out of your mind!"

"And she talks wildly of marrying a certain Frenchman, a Monsieur Gouache, I believe--is there such a man, my dear?"

"Of course, Lotario! The little man you ran over. How forgetful you are!"

"Yes, yes, of course. I know. But you must reason with her, Guendalina--"

"It seems to me. Lotario, that you should do that--"

"My dear, I think the child is insane upon the subject. Where could she have picked up such an idea? Is it a mere caprice, a mere piece of impertinence, invented to disconcert the sober senses of a careful father?"

"Nonsense, Lotario! She is not capable of that. After all, she is not Flavia, who always had something dreadful quite ready, just when you least expected it."

"I almost wish she were Flavia!" exclaimed Montevarchi, ruefully.

"Flavia has done very well." During all this time Faustina was standing with her back towards the window and her hands folded before her, looking from the one to the other of the speakers with an air of bitter contempt which was fast changing to uncontrollable anger. Some last remaining instinct of prudence kept her from interrupting the conversation by a fresh a.s.sertion of her will, and she waited until one of them chose to speak to her. She had lost her head, for she would otherwise never have gone so far as to mention Gouache's name, but, as with all very spontaneous natures, with her to break the first barrier was to go to the extreme, whatever it might be. Her clear brown eyes were very bright, and there was something luminous about her angelic face which showed that her whole being was under the influence of an extraordinary emotion, almost amounting to exaltation. It was impossible to foresee what she would say or do.

"Your father almost wishes you were Flavia!" groaned the princess, shaking her head and looking very grave. Then Faustina laughed scornfully and her wrath bubbled over.

"I am not Flavia!" she cried, coming forward and facing her father and mother. "I daresay you do wish I were. Flavia has done so very well. Yes, she is Princess Saracinesca this evening, I suppose.

Indeed she has done well, for she has married the man she loves, as much as she is capable of loving anything. And that is all the more reason why I should do the same. Besides, am I as old as Flavia that you should be in such a hurry to marry me? Do you think I will yield? Do you think that while I love one man, I will be so base as to marry another?"

"I have explained to you that love--"

"Your explanations will drive me mad! You may explain anything in that way--and prove that Love itself does not exist. Do you think your saying so makes it true? There is more truth in a little of my love than in all your whole life!"

"Faustina!"

"What? May I not answer you? Must I believe you infallible when you use arguments that would not satisfy a child? Is my whole nature a shadow because yours cannot understand my reality?"

"If you are going to make this a question of metaphysics--"

"I am not, I do not know what metaphysic means. But I will repeat before my mother what I said to you alone. I will not marry Frangipani, and you cannot force me to marry him. If I marry any one I will have the man I love."

"But, my dearest Faustina," cried the princess in genuine distress, "this is a mere idea--a sort of madness that has seized upon you. Consider your position, consider what you owe to us, consider--"

"Consider, consider, consider! Do you suppose that any amount of consideration would change me?"

"Do you think your childish anger will change us?" inquired Montevarchi, blandly. He did not care to lose his temper, for he was quite indifferent to Faustina's real inclinations, if she would only consent to marry Frangipani.

"Childis.h.!.+" cried Faustina, her eyes blazing with anger. "Was I childish when I followed him out into the midst of the revolution last October, when I was nearly killed at the Serristori, when I thought he was dead and knelt there among the ruins until he found me and brought me home? Was that a child's love?"

The princess turned pale and grasped her husband's arm, staring at Faustina in horror. The old man trembled and for a few moments could not find strength to speak. Nothing that Faustina could have invented could have produced such a sudden and tremendous effect as this revelation of what had happened on the night of the insurrection, coming from the girl's own lips with the unmistakable accent of truth. The mother's instinct was the first to a.s.sert itself. With a quick movement she threw her arms round the young girl, as though to protect her from harm.

"It is not true, it is not true," she cried in an agonised tone.

"Faustina, my child--it is not true!"

"It is quite true, mamma," answered Faustina, who enjoyed an odd satisfaction in seeing the effect of her words, which can only be explained by her perfect innocence. "Why are you so much astonished? I loved him--I thought he was going out to be killed-- I would not let him go alone--"

"Oh, Faustina! How could you do it!" moaned the princess. "It is too horrible--it is not to be believed--"