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Wheat Princess

<h2 class='c009'>CHAPTER XVI</h2></div> Marcia drove to the station with the travellers, leaving the rest of the party to return to the villa in the other carriage. She had a slight feeling of compunction in regard to Paul, and it made her more responsive to his nonsense than she might otherwise have been. In the rôle of cicerone he naïvely explained the story of the ruins they passed on the way, and the entire history of Rome, from Romulus and Remus to Garibaldi, unfolded itself upon that nine-mile stretch of dusty road. Marcia gave herself up gaily enough to the spirit of the play, forgetting for the time any troubling questions lurking in the background. When she bade him good-bye she smiled back, half laughingly, half seriously, at his parting speech—a repetition of the morning’s pretty phrase—‘non-te-scordar-di-me!’ As the carriage turned homeward she smiled to herself over her yesterday’s state at the prospect of meeting Paul. The actuality had not been so disconcerting. She did not quite comprehend his new attitude, but she accepted it as a tacit recognition of her desire to let matters stand, and was grateful. She felt very kindly toward him this evening. He was such a care-free, optimistic young fellow; and 164 even supposing he were too ready to look on the bright side of things, was not Laurence Sybert, she asked herself, too ready also to look on the dark side? Since his words of yesterday, in the old wine-cellar, she had felt an undertone of sadness to her thoughts which she vaguely resented. As she rode along now between the fresh fields, glowing in the soft light of the April sunset, she was dimly conscious of a struggle, a rebellion, going on within her own nature. She seemed pulled two ways. The beautiful sunshiny world of dreams was calling to her. And Paul stood at the crossways—laughing, careless, happy Paul—holding out his hand with a winning smile to show the way to Cytherea. But deep within her heart she felt the weight of the real world—the world which means misery to so many people—dragging on her spirits and holding her back. And in the background she saw Sybert watching her with folded arms and a half-quizzical smile—Sybert making no move either to lure her on or to turn her back—merely watching with inscrutable eyes. Happiness seemed to be her portion. Why could she not accept it gladly, and shut her eyes to all else? If she once commenced seeing the misery in the world, there would be no end. Until a few weeks before she had scarcely realized that any existed outside of books, but she knew it now; she had seen it face to face. She thought of the crowded, squalid little houses of Castel Vivalanti; of the women who went out at sunrise to work all day in the fields, of the hordes of children only half fed. Oh, yes, she knew now that there was misery outside of books, but she asked herself, with an almost despairing cry, why need she know? Since she could do nothing to help, since she was not to blame, why not close her eyes and pretend it was not there? It was the shrinking cry of the soul that for the first time has tasted of knowledge; that with open eyes is hesitating on the threshold of the real world, with a longing backward glance toward the unreal world of dreams. But in life there is no going back; knowledge once gained may not be cancelled, and there was further knowledge waiting for Marcia not very far ahead. Two little boys turning somersaults by the side of the carriage suddenly recalled to her mind the boys at the villa, and her promise to bring them a present from the 165 festa. Not once had she thought of them during the day, and the only possible present now was the inevitable sweet chocolate of Castel Vivalanti. She glanced at her watch; there was still an hour before dinner, and she ordered Giovanni to drive up the hill to the town. Giovanni respectfully begged her pardon, with the suggestion that the horses were tired; they had had a long journey and the hill was steep. Marcia replied, with a touch of sharpness, that the horses could rest all day to-morrow. They wound up the gradual ascent at a walk, in company with the procession coming home for the night. It was a sight which Marcia always watched with fresh interest: field-workers with mattocks on their shoulders trudging wearily back to supper and bed; washerwomen, their clothes in baskets on their heads, calling cheery good-byes to one another; files of ragged little donkeys laden with brush, sheep and pigs and goats, and long-horned oxen—where they were all to be stowed for the night was an ever-recurring mystery. Under the smiling moons of the Porta della Luna the carriage came to a halt, and the crowd of Castel Vivalanti boys, who were in the habit of scouring the highway for coppers, fell upon it vociferously. Marcia had exhausted her soldi in Genazzano, and with a laughing shake of her head she motioned them away. But the boys would not be shaken off; they swarmed about the carriage like little rats, shrilly demanding money. She continued to shake her head, and instantly their cries were transferred to the taunts of the afternoon. ‘Grano! Grano!’ they shouted in chorus; and Giovanni raised his whip and drove them away. Marcia paused with her foot on the carriage-step, puzzling over this new cry which was suddenly assailing her at every turn. ‘What is the matter, Giovanni? Why are they always shouting “Wheat”?’ He waved his whip disdainfully. ‘Chi sa, signorina? They are of no account. Do not listen to their foolishness.’ They were the same children to whom she had given chocolate not many days before. ‘They forget quickly!’ she said to herself, ‘perhaps, after all, Paul was right, and beauty is their strongest virtue.’ The ‘Ave Maria’ was ringing as she turned into the 166 crooked little streets, and the town was buzzing like a beehive over its evening affairs. Copper water-jars were coming home from the well, blue smoke was pouring out of every chimney, and yellow meal was being sifted outside the doors. Owing to the festa, the streets were crowded with loungers, and in the tiny piazza groups of men were gathered about the door of the tobacco-shop, arguing and quarrelling and gesticulating in their excitable Italian fashion. It had been a week or more since Marcia had visited the village, and now, as she threaded her way through the crowd, it struck her suddenly that the people’s usual friendly nods were a trifle churlish; she had the uncomfortable feeling that group after group fell silent and turned to stare after her as the passed. One little boy shouted ‘Grano!’ and was dragged indoors with a box on his ears. ‘Madonna mia!’ cried his anxious mother. ‘Are we not poor enough already, that you would bring down foreign curses upon the house?’ In the bake-shop Domenico served her surlily, answering her friendly inquiries as to the health of his family and the progress of his vineyard with grunts rather than words. Amazed and indignant, she shrank within herself; and with head erect and hotly burning cheeks turned back toward the gate, not so much as glancing at the people, who silently made way for her. ‘Ah, you see,’ they murmured to one another, ‘the foreign signorina played at having a kind heart for amusement. But what does she care for our miseria? No more than for the stones beneath her feet.’ <hr class='c008' /> Laurence Sybert, coming out from the village, was somewhat astonished to find Giovanni drawn up before the gate. Giovanni hailed him with an anxious air. ‘Scusi, signore; have you seen the signorina? She is inside.’ He nodded toward the porta. ‘She has gone to the bake-shop alone. I told her the horses were tired, but she paid no attention; and the ragazzi called “Wheat!” but she did not understand.’ ‘They shouted “Wheat!” did they?’ ‘Si, signore. They read the papers. The Avanti yesterday——’ 167 Sybert nodded. ‘I know what the Avanti said.’ He turned back under the archway and set out for the baker’s—the place, as it happened, from which he had just come. He had been entertained there with some very plain comments on his friends in the villa—as Giovanni suggested, they read their papers, and the truth of whatever was stated in printer’s ink was not to be doubted. It was scarcely the time that Marcia should have chosen for an evening stroll through Castel Vivalanti; and Sybert was provoked that she should have paid so little heed to his warning of the afternoon. The fact that she was ignorant of the special causes for his warning did not at the moment present itself as an excuse. He had not gone far when he heard shouts ahead. The words were unmistakable. ‘Wheat! Wheat! Signorina Wheat!’ The volume of sound sent him hurrying forward in quick anxiety, almost fearing a riot. But his first glance, as he came out into the piazza, showed him that it was scarcely as serious as that. Marcia, looking hurt and astonished and angry, was standing in the midst of a fast-increasing crowd of dirty little street urchins, who were shrieking and jumping and gesticulating about her. She was in no possible danger, however; the boys meant no harm beyond being impudent. For a second Sybert hesitated, with the grim intention of teaching her a lesson, but the next moment he saw that she was already thoroughly frightened. She called out wildly to a group of men who had paused on the outskirts of the crowd; they laughed insolently, and made no move to drive the boys away. She closed her eyes and swayed slightly, while Sybert in quick compunction hurried forward. Pushing into the midst of the tumult, he cuffed the boys right and left out of the way. Marcia opened her eyes and regarded him dazedly. ‘Mr. Sybert!’ she gasped. ‘What’s the matter? What are they saying?’ ‘Can you walk?’ he asked, stretching out a hand to steady her. ‘Come, we’ll get out of the piazza.’ By this time other men had joined the crowd, and low mutterings ran from mouth to mouth. Many recognized Sybert, and his name was shouted tauntingly. ‘Wheat! Wheat!’ however, was still the burden of the cry. One boy jostled against them impudently—it was Beppo of the 168 afternoon—and Sybert struck him a sharp blow across the shoulders with his cane, sending him sprawling on the pavement. Half the crowd laughed, half called angrily, ‘Hit him, Beppo, hit him. Don’t let him knock you down,’ while a half-drunken voice in the rear shouted, ‘Behold Signor Siberti, the friend of the poor!’ ‘Here, let’s get out of this,’ he said. And clearing an opening with a vigorous sweep of his cane, he hurried her down a narrow alley and around a corner out of sight of the piazza. Leading the way into a little trattoria, he drew a chair forward toward the door. ‘Giuseppe,’ he called, ‘bring the signorina some wine.’ Marcia dropped into the chair and leaned her head on the back. She felt dazed and bewildered. Never before had she been treated with anything but friendliness and courtesy. Why had the people suddenly turned against her? What had she done that they should hate her? In the back of the room she heard Sybert explaining something in a low tone to Giuseppe, and she caught, the words, ‘she does not know.’ ‘Poverina, she does not know,’ the woman murmured. Sybert came across with a glass of wine. ‘Here, Marcia, drink this,’ he said peremptorily. She received the glass with a hand that trembled, and took one or two swallows and then set it down. ‘It’s nothing. I shall be all right in a moment. They pressed around me so close that I couldn’t breathe.’ The wine brought some colour back to her face, and after a few minutes she rose to her feet. ‘I’m sorry to have made so much commotion. I feel better now; let’s go back to the carriage.’ Skirting the piazza, they returned to the porta by a narrow side-street, the boys behind still shouting after, but none approaching within reach of Sybert’s stick. They had regained the carriage and reached the bottom of the hill before either of them spoke. Marcia was the first to break the silence. ‘What is it, Mr. Sybert, that I don’t know?’ ‘A good many things, apparently,’ he said coolly. ‘For one, you don’t know how to take a piece of friendly advice. I told you this afternoon that the country-side was too stirred up to be safe, and I think you might have paid 169 just a little attention to my warning. Respectable Italian girls don’t run around the streets alone, and they particularly don’t choose the evening of a festa for a solitary walk.’ ‘If you have quite finished, Mr. Sybert, will you answer my question?—Why do they call me “Signorina Wheat”?’ He was apparently engaged with his thoughts and did not hear. ‘Mr. Sybert, I asked you a question.’ ‘Why do they shout “Wheat”?’ His tone was still sharp. ‘Well, I suppose because just at present wheat is a burning question in Italy, and the name of Copley is somewhat unpleasantly connected with it. Your uncle has just bought a large consignment of American wheat, which is on its way to Italy now. His only object is to relieve the suffering—he loses on every bushel he sells—but, as is usually the case with disinterested people, his motives have been misjudged. The newspapers have had a great deal to say about the matter, and the people, with their usual gratitude toward their benefactors, have turned against him.’ ‘Mr. Sybert, you are not telling me the truth.’ Sybert did not see fit to answer this charge; he folded his arms and leaned against the cushions, with his eyes fixed on the two brass buttons on the back of Giovanni’s coat. And Marcia, the colour back in her cheeks, sat staring at the roadway with angry eyes. Neither spoke again till the carriage came to a stand before the loggia. ‘Well, Miss Marcia, are we friends?’ said Sybert. ‘No,’ said Marcia, ‘we are not.’ She turned up to her room and set about dressing in a very mingled frame of mind. She was still excited and hurt from her treatment in the village—and very much puzzled as to its motive. She was indignant at Sybert’s attitude, at his presuming to issue orders with no reason attached and expecting them to be obeyed. Instead of being grateful for his timely assistance, she was irritated that he should have happened by just in time to see the fulfilment of his warning. His superior ‘I told you so!’ attitude was exasperating to a degree. She ended by uniting her various wounded sensibilities into a single feeling of resentment toward him. The desire that was uppermost in her mind was a wish to pay him back, to make him feel sorry—though for exactly what, she was not quite clear. 170 She hung up in the wardrobe the simple dinner-dress that Granton had laid out on the bed, and chose in its place a particularly dignified gown with a particularly long train. Having piled her hair on the top of her head, she added a diamond star and a necklace with a diamond pendant. She did not often wear jewels, but they were supposedly ‘American’ and irritating to a man of Sybert’s cosmopolitan sensibilities. ‘Quite stately,’ she murmured, critically surveying the effect in the mirror. ‘One might almost say matronly.’ As she started downstairs she was waylaid at the nursery door by a small figure in a white nightgown. ‘Cousin Marcia, what did you bwing me from ve festa?’ ‘Oh, Gerald! I brought you some chocolate and I left it in the carriage. But never mind, dear; it’s too late, anyway, for you to eat it to-night. I will send and get it, and you shall have it with your breakfast to-morrow morning. Be a good boy and go to sleep.’ She went downstairs with her mind bent upon chocolate, and crossed the empty salon to the little ante-room at the rear. She had opened the door and burst in before she realized that any one was inside; then before the apology had risen to her lips she had heard her uncle’s words. ‘Good heavens, Sybert, what can I do? You know my hands are tied. Willard Copley would let the last person in Italy starve if he could make one more dollar out of it!’ Marcia stood still, looking at her uncle in horror while the meaning of his words sank into her mind. He whirled around upon her. His face was whiter and sterner than she had ever seen it. ‘What do you want, Marcia?’ he asked sharply. ‘Why don’t you knock before you come into a room?’ Marcia’s face flushed hotly. ‘I am sorry, Uncle Howard; I was in a hurry, and didn’t know any one was in here.’ ‘Oh, I beg your pardon, Marcia! I spoke hastily.’ She hesitated in the doorway and then faced him again. ‘I heard what you said. Will you please tell me what you mean?’ Copley cast an annoyed glance at Sybert, who was standing in the embrasure by the window with his hands in his pockets and his eyes bent upon the floor. Sybert glanced up with a little frown, and then with a half-perceptible 171 shrug turned away and looked out of the window. ‘I might as well tell you, I suppose—you appear to be hearing it from other sources. Your father has been the originator this spring of a very successful corner in wheat. He is, as you know, a keen judge of markets; and foreseeing that wheat for a number of reasons was likely to be scarce, he and one or two of his friends have purchased the whole of the visible supply. As Italy has had to import more than usual—and pay for it in gold when she hasn’t much but paper at her command—you can readily see that it places her in an awkward position. America is a great country, Marcia, when a single one of her citizens can bankrupt a whole kingdom.’ ‘You don’t mean, Uncle Howard,’ she cried, aghast, ‘that my father has caused the wheat famine?’ ‘There may be one or two minor causes, but I think he is deserving of most of the credit. The name of Copley, I assure you, is not beloved in Italy just now.’ ‘And that is what the boys meant when they shouted “Grano”?’ ‘Oh, it’s no secret. We’re celebrities in our small way. Two continents are ringing with the name of the American Wheat King, and we come in for a share of his fame. When you think about it,’ he added, ‘there is something beautifully fitting about our taking Villa Vivalanti this spring. We appear to be American editions of the “Bad Prince.” I fancy the old gentleman turned in his grave and smiled a trifle when I signed the lease.’ ‘But, Uncle Howard, he doesn’t understand. He does it like a mathematical problem, just to show what he can do, just for the pleasure of winning. Why don’t you write to him? Why didn’t you tell him?’ ‘Tell him!’ Copley laughed. ‘You have not been acquainted with your father for so many years as I have, Marcia. Why should he care for a lot of Italian peasants? There are too many of them in existence already. The food in this world has to be fought for, and those who are beaten deserve to die.’ Marcia’s face turned white as the meaning of a hundred petty incidents flashed through her mind that before had had no significance. She knew now why the people in Rome had stopped talking about the wheat famine when 172 she entered the room. She understood Sybert’s attitude toward her all the year—his quizzical expression once or twice when she spent money over-lavishly. She recalled the newspaper the workman in Rome had thrust in her face—the Grido del Popolo—the Cry of the People. She did not have to ask now what it meant. The very beggars in the street had known of her shame, while she alone was ignorant. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she cried. ‘I did not wish to spoil your pleasure; there is no reason why you shouldn’t be happy. If all goes well, a year from now you will be one of the notable heiresses of America. I only hope, when you’re enjoying your wealth, that you’ll not think of the poor starving wretches in Italy who gave it to you.’ Copley’s tone was as brutal as his words. He had forgotten the girl before him; he was talking to the man in America. Marcia turned away and, with a deep sob, sank down by the table and buried her face in her arms. Sybert threw up his head quickly with a glance of anger, and Copley suddenly came to his senses. He sprang forward and laid his hand on her shoulder. ‘For Heaven’s sake, Marcia, don’t cry about it! I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m nervous and excited and worried. It isn’t as bad as I told you.’ Marcia had a pitiable sense that she was acting like a child when, of all times, she ought to be calm and think. But the sudden revulsion of feeling had swept her away. She had indeed been living in a fools’ paradise the past few months! The poor people Sybert had told her of yesterday—the starving thousands in Naples—her own father was the cause. And the peasants of Castel Vivalanti—no wonder they hated her; while she distributed chocolate with such graceful condescension, her father was taking away their bread. She thought over her uncle’s words, and then, as she realized their content, she suddenly rose, and faced the two men. ‘Uncle Howard,’ she said, ‘I think you’ve done very wrong not to tell me this before. I had a right to know, and I could have helped it. My father loves his business, but he loves me better. It’s true, as I say, he’s just doing 173 it as a sort of problem. He doesn’t see the suffering he causes, and he doesn’t really believe there is any. Of course he knows that some people lose when he gains, but he thinks that they go into it with their eyes open, and that they must accept the chances of war. He’s exactly as good a man as either of you.’ And then, as a sudden recollection flashed across her, she whirled about toward Sybert, her glance divided between indignation and contempt. ‘And you called me the “Wheat Princess” before every one in Paul Dessart’s studio. You knew that it wasn’t my fault; you knew that I didn’t even know about the trouble, and you laughed when I told the story of the Vivalanti ghost.’ Her voice broke slightly, and, turning her back, she drew a piece of paper toward her on the table and began to write. ‘There,’ she said, holding out a scrawled sheet toward her uncle. ‘There is a cablegram. Please see that it is sent immediately.’ Copley ran his eyes over it in silence, and his mouth twitched involuntarily into a smile. ‘Well, Marcia, I’ll see that it goes. I don’t know—it may do some good, after all.’ He paused awkwardly a moment and held out his hand. ‘Am I forgiven?’ he asked. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything against your father; but he’s my brother, remember, and while I abuse him myself I wouldn’t let an outsider do it. You are right; he doesn’t know what he is doing. You must forget what I said. I have thought about it too much. Every one in Italy believes that I have an interest in the deal; and when I am doing my best to help things along, it is a little hard, you know, to be accused—by the very people I am giving to—of being the cause of their distress.’ ‘Yes, Uncle Howard, I understand; I don’t blame you,’ she returned, with a note of weariness in her voice; ‘but—papa is really the kindest man in the world.’ ‘Ah, Marcia, a very kind-hearted man nowadays can do a great deal of harm by telegraph without having to witness the results.’ Sybert crossed the room toward her with a curious deep look in his eyes. He half held out his hand, but 174 Marcia turned away without appearing to notice, and picking up her uncle’s cheque-book from the table, she tore out a leaf and scrawled across the face. ‘There’s some money for the Relief Committee,’ she said, as she tossed the slip of paper across the table toward him. ‘That’s all I have in the bank just at present, but I will give some more as soon as I get it.’ Sybert’s face was equally impassive as he glanced from the paper back to her. ‘Thirteen thousand lire is a good deal. Do you think you ought——’ ‘I do as I please with my own money—this is my own,’ she added in parenthesis. ‘My mother left it to me.’ ‘As you please,’ he returned, pocketing the slip with a half-shrug. ‘I know a village in Calabria that will be very grateful for a little help until the olives ripen again.’ ‘Dinner is served,’ announced Pietro in the doorway. Marcia nodded to the two men. ‘I don’t want any dinner to-night,’ and she turned upstairs to her room. She sat for half an hour staring out at the darkening Campagna; then she rose and lighted the candles, and commenced a letter to her father. Her pen she dipped in blood. She told him everything she had heard or seen or imagined about Italy—of the ‘hunger madness’ in the north and the starving peasants in the south; of the poor people of Castel Vivalanti and little Gervasio. She told him what the people said about her uncle; that they called her the ‘Wheat Princess’; and that the children in the streets taunted her as she went past. She told him that the name of Copley was despised from end to end of Italy. All the crimes that have ever been laid at the door of the government and the church and the ignorance of the people, Marcia heaped upon her offending father’s shoulders, but with the forgiving assurance that she knew he didn’t mean it. And would he please prove that he didn’t mean it, by stopping the corner immediately and sending wheat to Italy? It was a letter to wring a father’s heart—and a financier’s. <div class='chapter'> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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