Inevitable

XXXIV

URANIA ASKED CORNÉLIE to come in, as it was not healthy outside, with the mist rising from the lake after sunset. The marchesa’s greeting was cool, stiff and she narrowed her eyes as if she could not quite remember Cornélie.

“I can quite imagine that,” said Cornélie, with an acerbic smile. “You see lodgers in your pensione every day, and I stayed for a much shorter time than you’d counted on. I hope that my rooms were quickly relet and that you did not suffer any loss as a result of my departure, marchesa?”

The marchesa looked at her dumbfounded. Here, at San Stefano, she was in her element as a marchioness; she, the sister-in-law of the old prince, never spoke about her pensione for foreigners here; she never met guests from Rome, who only visited the castle occasionally as tourists at certain times, while she, the marchioness spent several weeks here for her summer vacation. Here she had left behind her dexterity in extolling chilly rooms, her business acumen in charging as much for them as she dared. Here she carried her coiffeured mane with great dignity and though she still wore her glass jewellery in her ears, a shiny new spencer covered her ample bosom. She could not help it if she, born a countess, she the Marchesa Belloni — the marquess had been a brother of the late princess — lacked distinction, in spite of all the quarters on her coat-of-arms, she still felt what she was, an aristocrat. Her acquaintances, the monsignori, whom she sometimes met at San Stefano, glossed over the Pensione Belloni, and called it Palazzo Belloni.

“Oh yes,” she said finally, with a distinguished blinking of the eyes, very coolly. “Now I remember you … although I have forgotten your name … A friend of Princess Urania’s, are you not? Pleased to meet you again … very pleased.”

“And what do you say to your friend’s marriage?” she asked as she walked up the stairs side by side with Cornélie for a moment, between the marble candelabras of Mino de Fiesole. Gilio, still angry and flushed, and not calmed by the kiss, had withdrawn and Urania had quickly gone on ahead.

The marchesa knew of Cornélie’s initial opposition, of her previous advice to Urania, and she was certain that Cornélie had acted in this way because she had fancied Gilio for herself. There was irony and triumph in her question.

“That it was made in heaven,” replied Cornélie, equally ironically. “I believe this marriage is truly blessed.”

“By His Holiness,” said the marchesa naively, not understanding.

“Of course; the blessing of His Holiness … and the blessing of Heaven …”

“I did not think you were religious?”

“Sometimes … When I think of their marriage, I become religious again. What a comfort for the soul of Princess Urania that she should have become a Catholic. What a joy in her life that she should have married caro Gilio. There is still happiness and peace in life.”

The marchesa had a vague inkling of her mockery, and thought her a dangerous woman.

“And you, does our religion have no attraction for you?”

“A great deal! I have a great feeling for beautiful churches and paintings. But that is an artistic view. You probably won’t understand that, because I don’t believe you are artistic, are you, marchesa? And marriage too has an attraction for me, a marriage like Urania’s. Couldn’t you help me, marchesa? I could stay a whole winter at your pensione, and who knows, I might become a Catholic myself … You could try Rudyard for me, or if that fails, the two monsignori … Then I would be bound to convert … And it would certainly be profitable.”

The marchesa looked at her haughtily, white with rage.

“Profitable …”

“If you arrange an Italian title for me, with money that is, it would definitely be profitable.”

“How do you mean?”

“Just ask the old prince and the monsignori, marchesa …”

“What do you know? What are you thinking?”

“I? Nothing!” replied Cornélie coolly. “But I have second sight. Sometimes I suddenly see things … So stay on the good side of me, and don’t pretend to forget your old lodgers any more … Is this Princess Urania’s room? After you, marchesa …”

The marchesa went in shivering: witchcraft crossed her mind. How did that woman know anything about her negotiations with the old prince and the monsignori? How did she suspect that Urania’s marriage and her conversion had brought her some tens of thousands of lire?

She had not only been taught a lesson: she was trembling, she was afraid. Was the woman the devil then? Did she have the evil eye? And in the folds of her dress the marchesa made the sign of the gettatura with her little finger and index finger, and murmured, “Get thee behind me, Satan …”

Urania poured tea in her own drawing-room. The room looked out through three-pointed arch windows on the town and the ancient cathedral, which in an orange reflection of the last rays of sunlight emerged for a moment from its grey dust of ages with the indistinct swirl of its saints, prophets and angels. The room, hung with beautiful arazzi, an allegory of abundance — nymphs with gushing cornucopias — was half antique, half modern, not in uniformly good taste or pure in tone, with some ghastly banal modern ornaments, a few jarring examples of modern convenience, but still comfortable, lived-in, and Urania’s home. A young man rose from his chair and Urania introduced him as her brother. Young Hope was a sturdy, fresh-faced young man of eighteen; he was still wearing his cycling suit: she would let him, said his sister, just to have a cup of tea. She stroked his short-haired round head, and with the permission of the ladies gave him his cup first: then he would go and change. He looked so odd sitting there, so new, and so healthy, with his fresh pink complexion, his broad chest, his strong hands and firm calves, the youthfulness of a young Yankee farmer who, despite the millions of Hope Senior, was working on his farm way out West, to make his own fortune; he looked so odd there in old San Stefano, with a view of that severely symbolic cathedral, against that background of antique arazzi, and suddenly Cornélie found the new young princess even stranger … Her name, her American name of Urania, sounded good: Princess Urania suddenly acquired a very nice ring … But the young woman, a little pale, a little melancholy, with her Yankee English between her teeth, suddenly did not look so at home amid this tarnished glory of the San Stefanos … Cornélie kept forgetting that she was the Princess di Forte-Braccio: she still saw her as Miss Hope. And yet Urania had tact, ease of manner and the ability to assimilate; a very considerable ability. Gilio had come in, and the few words that she addressed to her husband, natural, dignified almost, and yet to Cornélie’s ear with a tone of resigned disillusion, made her pity the princess. From the outset she had felt a vague sympathy for Urania. Gilio was cool with her in an offhand way, the marchesa condescending and protective. And then the terrible loneliness around her of all that dilapidated grandeur. She stroked her young brother’s head. She spoiled him, asked if the tea were nice and stuffed him full of sandwiches, as he was hungry after his cycle trip. In him she had something of home, something of Chicago: she almost clung to him … But apart from that she was surrounded by the oppressive melancholy of the huge castle, the neglected glory of its classical artistic splendour, the superciliousness of aristocratic pride, which had no need of her, though it did need her millions. And for Cornélie she lost all her ridiculousness as an American parvenue; and on the contrary acquired something tragic as a youthful victim. How strange they looked sitting there, she, the young princess and her brother, with his muscular calves!

Urania showed them her portfolio of pictures and drawings: ideas of a young architect from Rome for the restoration of the castle. And Urania became excited, colour came into her cheeks when Cornélie asked whether so much restoration would be aesthetically pleasing. She defended her architect. Gilio smoked cigarettes without showing any interest and was out of humour. The marchesa sat there like an idol, with her lion’s mane, in which the crystal earrings glittered. She was afraid of Cornélie and resolved to be on her guard. A steward came to tell the princess that dinner was ready. And Cornélie recognised him as old Giuseppe from Pensione Belloni, the old archducal steward, who had dropped a spoon, as Rudyard had told her. She looked at Urania with a smile and Urania blushed.

“Poor man!” she said when Giuseppe had left. “Yes, I took him over from Auntie. He was so busy at the Pensione Belloni. He has very little to do here, and he has a young steward under him. We needed more staff anyway. He is enjoying his old age here: poor dear old Giuseppe … Bob, you haven’t changed!”

“What a kind heart!” thought Cornélie, as they all got up and Urania very gently reproached her brother for being a spoiled brat and coming to table with bare thighs.