Eleanor

M >> Mrs. Humphry Ward >> Eleanor

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33

And then--people talked so angrily of his quarrel with the Government--and
his resigning. They said he had been foolish, arrogant, unwise. Perhaps.
But after all it had been to his own hurt--it must have been for principle.
So far the girl's secret instinct was all on his side.

Meanwhile, as she dressed, there floated through her mind fragments of what
she had been told as to his strange personal beauty; but these she only
entertained shyly and in passing. She had been brought up to think little
of such matters, or rather to avoid thinking of them.

She went through her toilette as neatly and rapidly as she could, her mind
all the time so full of speculation and a deep restrained excitement that
she ceased to trouble herself in the least about her gown, As for her hair,
she arranged it almost mechanically, caring only that its black masses
should be smooth and in order. She fastened at her throat a small turquoise
brooch that had been her mother's; she clasped the two little chain
bracelets that were the only ornaments of the kind she possessed, and then
without a single backward look towards the reflection in the glass, she
left her room--her heart beating fast with timidity and expectation.

* * * * *

'Oh! poor child--poor child!--what a frock!'

Such was the inward ejaculation of Mrs. Burgoyne, as the door of the salon
was thrown open by the Italian butler, and a very tall girl came abruptly
through, edging to one side as though she were trying to escape the
servant, and looking anxiously round the vast room.

Manisty also turned as the door opened. Miss Manisty caught his momentary
expression of wonder, as she herself hurried forward to meet the new-comer.

'You have been very quick, my dear, and I am sure you must be hungry.--This
is an old friend of ours--Mrs. Burgoyne--my nephew--Edward Manisty. He
knows all your Boston cousins, if not you. Edward, will you take Miss
Foster?--she's the stranger.'

Mrs. Burgoyne pressed the girl's hand with a friendly effusion. Beyond her
was a dark-haired man, who bowed in silence. Lucy Foster took his arm, and
he led her through a large intervening room, in which were many tables and
many books, to the dining-room.

On the way he muttered a few embarrassed words as to the weather and
the lateness of dinner, walking meanwhile so fast that she had to hurry
after him. 'Good heavens, why she is a perfect chess-board!' he thought
to himself, looking askance at her dress, in a sudden and passionate
dislike--'one could play draughts upon her. What has my Aunt been about?'

The girl looked round her in bewilderment as they sat down. What a strange
place! The salon in her momentary glance round it had seemed to her all
splendour. She had been dimly aware of pictures, fine hangings, luxurious
carpets. Here on the other hand all was rude and bare. The stained walls
were covered with a series of tattered daubs, that seemed to be meant
for family portraits--of the Malestrini family perhaps, to whom the
villa belonged? And between the portraits there were rough modern doors
everywhere of the commonest wood and manufacture which let in all the
draughts, and made the room not a room, but a passage. The uneven brick
floor was covered in the centre with some thin and torn matting; many of
the chairs ranged against the wall were broken; and the old lamp that swung
above the table gave hardly any light.

Miss Manisty watched her guest's face with a look of amusement.

'Well, what do you think of our dining-room, my dear? I wanted to clean it
and put it in order. But my nephew there wouldn't have a thing touched.'

She looked at Manisty, with a movement of the lips and head that seemed to
implore him to make some efforts.

Manisty frowned a little, lifted his great brow and looked, not at Miss
Foster, but at Mrs. Burgoyne--

'The room, as it happens, gives me more pleasure than any other in the
villa.'

Mrs. Burgoyne laughed.

'Because it's hideous?'

'If you like. I should only call it the natural, untouched thing.'

Then while his Aunt and Mrs. Burgoyne made mock of him, he fell silent
again, nervously crumbling his bread with a large wasteful hand. Lucy
Foster stole a look at him, at the strong curls of black hair piled above
the brow, the moody embarrassment of the eyes, the energy of the lips and
chin.

Then she turned to her companions. Suddenly the girl's clear brown skin
flushed rosily, and she abruptly took her eyes from Mrs. Burgoyne.

Miss Manisty, however--in despair of her nephew--was bent upon doing her
own duty. She asked all the proper questions about the girl's journey,
about the cousins at Florence, about her last letters from home. Miss
Foster answered quickly, a little breathlessly, as though each question
were an ordeal that had to be got through. And once or twice, in the course
of the conversation, she looked again at Mrs. Burgoyne, more lingeringly
each time. That lady wore a thin dress gleaming with jet. The long white
arms showed under the transparent stuff. The slender neck and delicate
bosom were bare,--too bare surely,--that was the trouble. To look at her
filled the girl's shrinking Puritan sense with discomfort. But what small
and graceful hands!--and how she used them!--how she turned her neck!--how
delicious her voice was! It made the new-comer think of some sweet plashing
stream in her own Vermont valleys. And then, every now and again, how
subtle and startling was the change of look!--the gaiety passing in a
moment, with the drooping of eye and mouth, into something sad and harsh,
like a cloud dropping round a goddess. In her elegance and self-possession
indeed, she seemed to the girl a kind of goddess--heathenishly divine,
because of that mixture of unseemliness, but still divine.

Several times Mrs. Burgoyne addressed her--with a gentle courtesy--and Miss
Foster answered. She was shy, but not at all awkward or conscious. Her
manner had the essential self-possession which is the birthright of the
American woman. But it suggested reserve, and a curious absence of any
young desire to make an effect.

As for Mrs. Burgoyne, long before dinner was over, she had divined a great
many things about the new-comer, and amongst them the girl's disapproval of
herself. 'After all'--she thought--'if she only knew it, she is a beauty.
What a trouble it must have been first to find, and then to make that
dress!--Ill luck!--And her hair! Who on earth taught her to drag it back
like that? If one could only loosen it, how beautiful it would be! What
is it? Is it Puritanism? Has she been brought up to go to meetings and sit
under a minister? Were her forbears married in drawing-rooms and under
trees? The Fates were certainly frolicking when they brought her here! How
am I to keep Edward in order?'

And suddenly, with a little signalling of eye and brow, she too conveyed to
Manisty, who was looking listlessly towards her, that he was behaving as
badly as even she could have expected. He made a little face that only she
saw, but he turned to Miss Foster and began to talk,--all the time adding
to the mountain of crumbs beside him, and scarcely waiting to listen to the
girl's answers.

'You came by Pisa?'

'Yes. Mrs. Lewinson found me an escort--'

'It was a mistake--' he said, hurrying his words like a schoolboy. 'You
should have come by Perugia and Spoleto. Do you know Spello?'

Miss Foster stared.

'Edward!' said Miss Manisty, 'how could she have heard of Spello? It is the
first time she has ever been in Italy.'

'No matter!' he said, and in a moment his moroseness was lit up, chased
away by the little pleasure of his own whim--'Some day Miss Foster must
hear of Spello. May I not be the first person to tell her that she should
see Spello?'

'Really, Edward!' cried Miss Manisty, looking at him in a mild
exasperation.

'But there was so much to see at Florence!' said Lucy Foster, wondering.

'No--pardon me!--there is nothing to be seen at Florence--or nothing that
one ought to wish to see--till the destroyers of the town have been hung in
their own new Piazza!'

'Oh yes!--that is a real disfigurement!' said the girl eagerly. 'And
yet--can't one understand?--they must use their towns for themselves. They
can't always be thinking of them as museums--as we do.'

'The argument would be good if the towns were theirs,' he said, flashing
round upon her. 'One can stand a great deal from lawful owners.'

Miss Foster looked in bewilderment at Mrs. Burgoyne. That lady laughed and
bent across the table.

'Let me warn you, Miss Foster, this gentleman here must be taken with a
grain of salt when he talks about poor Italy--and the Italians.'

'But I thought'--said Lucy Foster, staring at her host--

'You thought he was writing a book on Italy? That doesn't matter. It's the
new Italy of course that he hates--the poor King and Queen--the Government
and the officials.'

'He wants the old times back?'--said Miss Foster, wondering--'when the
priests tyrannised over everybody? when the Italians had no country--and no
unity?'

She spoke slowly, at last looking her host in the face. Her frown of
nervousness had disappeared. Manisty laughed.

'Pio Nono pulled down nothing--not a brick--or scarcely. And it is a most
excellent thing, Miss Foster, to be tyrannised over by priests.'

His great eyes shone--one might even say, glared upon her. His manner was
not agreeable; and Miss Foster coloured.

'I don't think so'--she said, and then was too shy to say any more.

'Oh, but you will think so,'--he said, obstinately--'only you must stay
long enough in the country. What people are pleased to call Papal tyranny
puts a few people in prison--and tells them what books to read. Well!--what
matter? Who knows what books they ought to read?'

'But all their long struggle!--and their heroes! They had to make
themselves a nation--'

The words stumbled on the girl's tongue, but her effort, the hot feeling in
her young face became her.--Miss Manisty thought to herself, 'Oh, we shall
dress, and improve her--We shall see!'--

'One has first to settle whether it was worth while. What does a new nation
matter? Theirs, anyway, was made too quick,' said Manisty, rising in answer
to his aunt's signal.

'But liberty matters!' said the girl. She stood an instant with her hand on
the back of her chair, unconsciously defiant.

'Ah! Liberty!' said Manisty--'Liberty!' He lifted his shoulders
contemptuously.

Then backing to the wall, he made room for her to pass. The girl felt
almost as though she had been struck. She moved hurriedly, appealingly
towards Miss Manisty, who took her arm kindly as they left the room.

'Don't let my nephew frighten you, my dear'--she said--'He never thinks
like anybody else.'

'I read so much at Florence--and on the journey'--said Lucy, while her hand
trembled in Miss Manisty's--'Mrs. Browning--Mazzini--many things. I could
not put that time out of my head!'

CHAPTER II

On the way back to the salon the ladies passed once more through the large
book-room or library which lay between it and the dining-room. Lucy Foster
looked round it, a little piteously, as though she were seeking for
something to undo the impression--the disappointment--she had just
received.

'Oh! my dear, you never saw such a place as it was when we arrived in
March'--said Miss Manisty. 'It was the billiard-room--a ridiculous
table--and ridiculous balls--and a tiled floor without a scrap of
carpet--and the _cold_! In the whole apartment there were just two bedrooms
with fireplaces. Eleanor went to bed in one; I went to bed in the other.
No carpets--no stoves--no proper beds even. Edward of course said it was
all charming, and the climate balmy. Ah, well!--now we are really quite
comfortable--except in that odious dining-room, which Edward will have left
in its sins.'

Miss Manisty surveyed her work with a mild satisfaction. The table indeed
had been carried away. The floor was covered with soft carpets. The rough
uneven walls painted everywhere with the interlaced M's of the Malestrini
were almost hidden by well-filled bookcases; and, in addition, a profusion
of new books, mostly French and Italian, was heaped on all the tables. On
the mantelpiece a large recent photograph stood propped against a marble
head. It represented a soldier in a striking dress; and Lucy stopped to
look at it.

'One of the Swiss Guards--at the Vatican'--said Mrs. Burgoyne kindly. 'You
know the famous uniform--it was designed by Michael Angelo.'

'No--I didn't know'--said the girl, flushing again.--'And this head?'

'Ah, that is a treasure! Mr. Manisty bought it a few months ago from a
Roman noble who has come to grief. He sold this and a few bits of furniture
first of all. Then he tried to sell his pictures. But the Government came
down upon him--you know your pictures are not your own in Italy. So the
poor man must keep his pictures and go bankrupt. But isn't she beautiful?
She is far finer than most of the things in the Vatican--real primitive
Greek--not a copy. Do you know'--Mrs. Burgoyne stepped back, looked first
at the bust, then at Miss Poster--'do you know you are really very like
her--curiously like her!'

'Oh!'--cried Miss Foster in confusion--'I wish--'

'But it is quite true. Except for the hair. And that's only arrangement. Do
you think--would you let me?--would you forgive me?--It's just this band of
hair here, yours waves precisely in the same way. Would you really allow
me--I won't make you untidy?'

And before Miss Poster could resist, Mrs. Burgoyne had put up her deft
hands, and in a moment, with a pull here, and the alteration of a hairpin
there, she had loosened the girl's black and silky hair, till it showed the
beautiful waves above the ear in which it did indeed resemble the marble
head with a curious closeness.

'I can put it back in a moment. But oh--that is so charming! Aunt Pattie!'

Miss Manisty looked up from a newspaper which had just arrived.

'My dear!--that was bold of you I But indeed it _is_ charming! I think I
would forgive you if I were Miss Foster.

The girl felt herself gently turned towards the mirror that rose behind the
Greek head. With pink cheeks she too looked at herself for a moment. Then
in a shyness beyond speech, she lifted her hands.

'Must you'--said Mrs. Burgoyne appealingly. 'I know one doesn't like to
be untidy. But it isn't really the least untidy--It is only
delightful--perfectly delightful!'

Her voice, her manner charmed the girl's annoyance.

'If you like it'--she said, hesitating--'But it will come down!'

'I like it terribly--and it will not think of coming down! Let me show you
Mr. Manisty's latest purchase.'

And, slipping her arm inside Miss Foster's, Mrs. Burgoyne dexterously
turned her away from the glass, and brought her to the large central table,
where a vivid charcoal sketch, supported on a small easel, rose among the
litter of books.

It represented an old old man carried in a chair on the shoulders of a
crowd of attendants and guards. Soldiers in curved helmets, courtiers
in short velvet cloaks and ruffs, priests in floating vestments pressed
about him--a dim vast multitude stretched into the distance. The old man
wore a high cap with three lines about it; his thin and shrunken form was
enveloped in a gorgeous robe. The face, infinitely old, was concentrated
in the sharply smiling eyes, the long, straight, secret mouth. His arm,
supporting with difficulty the weight of the robe, was raised,--the hand
blessed. On either side of him rose great fans of white ostrich feathers,
and the old man among them was whiter than they, spectrally white from head
to foot, save for the triple cap, and the devices on his robe. But into
his emaciation, his weakness, the artist had thrown a triumph, a force
that thrilled the spectator. The small figure, hovering above the crowd,
seemed in truth to have nothing to do with it, to be alone with the huge
spaces--arch on arch--dome on dome--of the vast church through which it was
being borne.--

'Do you know who it is?' asked Mrs. Burgoyne, smiling.

'The--the Pope?' said Miss Foster, wondering.

'Isn't it clever? It is by one of your compatriots, an American artist
in Rome. Isn't it wonderful too, the way in which it shows you, not the
Pope--but the Papacy--not the man but the Church?'

Miss Foster said nothing. Her puzzled eyes travelled from the drawing to
Mrs. Burgoyne's face. Then she caught sight of another photograph on the
table.

'And that also?'--she said--For again it was the face of Leo
XIII.--feminine, priestly, indomitable--that looked out upon her from among
the books.

'Oh, my dear, come away,' said Miss Manisty impatiently. 'In my days the
Scarlet Lady _was_ the Scarlet Lady, and we didn't flirt with her as all
the world does now. Shrewd old gentleman! I should have thought one picture
of him was enough.'

* * * * *

As they entered the old painted salon, Mrs. Burgoyne went to one of the
tall windows opening to the floor and set it wide. Instantly the Campagna
was in the room--the great moonlit plain, a thousand feet below, with the
sea at its further edge, and the boundless sweep of starry sky above it.
From the little balcony, one might, it seemed, have walked straight into
Orion. The note of a nightingale bubbled up from the olives; and the scent
of a bean-field in flower flooded the salon.

Miss Foster sprang to her feet and followed Mrs. Burgoyne. She hung over
the balcony while her companion pointed here and there, to the line of the
Appian Way,--to those faint streaks in the darkness that marked the distant
city--to the dim blue of the Etrurian mountains.--

Presently, however, she drew herself erect, and Mrs. Burgoyne fancied that
she shivered.

'Ah! this is a hill-air,' she said, and she took from her arm a light
evening cloak, and threw it round Miss Foster.

'Oh, I am not cold!--It wasn't that!'

'What was it?' said Mrs. Burgoyne pleasantly. 'That you feel Italy too much
for you? Ah! you must got used to that.'

Lucy Foster drew a long breath--a breath of emotion. She was grateful for
being understood. But she could not express herself.

Mrs. Burgoyne looked at her curiously.

'Did you read a good deal about it before you came?'

'Well, I read some--we have a good town library--and Uncle Ben gave me
two or three books--but of course it wasn't like Boston. Ours is a little
place.'

'And you were pleased to come?'

The girl hesitated.

'Yes'--she said simply. 'I wanted to come.--But I didn't want to leave my
uncle. He is getting quite an old man.'

'And you have lived with him a long time?'

'Since I was a little thing. Mother and I came to live with him after
Father died. Then Mother died, five years ago.'

'And you have been alone--and very good friends?'

Mrs. Burgoyne smiled kindly. She had a manner of questioning that seemed to
Miss Foster the height of courtesy. But the girl did not find it easy to
answer.

'I have no one else--' she said at last, and then stopped abruptly.

'She is home-sick'--said Mrs. Burgoyne inwardly--'I wonder whether the
Lewinsons treated her nicely at Florence?'

Indeed as Lucy Foster leant over the balcony, the olive-gardens and
vineyards faded before her. She saw in their stead, the snow-covered farms
and fields of a New England valley--the elms in along village street,
bare and wintry--a rambling wooden house--a glowing fire, in a simple
parlour--an old man sitting beside it.--

It _is_ chilly'--said Mrs. Burgoyne--'Let us go in. But we will keep the
window open. Don't take that off.'

She laid a restraining hand on the girl's arm. Miss Foster sat down
absently not far from the window. The mingled lights of lamp and moon fell
upon her, upon the noble rounding of the face, which was grave, a little
austere even, but still sensitive and delicate. Her black hair, thanks to
Mrs. Burgoyne's devices, rippled against the brow and cheek, almost hiding
the small ear. The graceful cloak, with its touches of sable on a main
fabric of soft white, hid the ugly dress; its ample folds heightened the
natural dignity of the young form and long limbs, lent them a stately and
muse-like charm. Mrs. Burgoyne and Miss Manisty looked at each other, then
at Miss Foster. Both of them had the same curious feeling, as though a veil
were being drawn away from something they were just beginning to see.

'You must be very tired, my dear'--said Miss Manisty at last, when she
and Mrs. Burgoyne had chatted a good deal, and the new-comer still sat
silent--'I wonder what you are thinking about so intently?'

Miss Foster woke up at once.

'Oh, I'm not a bit tired--not a bit! I was thinking--I was thinking of that
photograph in the next room--and a line of poetry.'

She spoke with the _naivete_ of one who had not known how to avoid the
confession. 'What line?' said Mrs. Burgoyne.

'It's Milton. I learnt it at school. You will know it, of course,' she
said timidly. 'It's the line about "the triple tyrant" and "the Babylonian
woe"'--

Mrs. Burgoyne laughed.

'Their martyred blood and ashes sow
O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway
The triple tyrant--

Was that what you were thinking of?'

Miss Foster had coloured deeply.

'It was the cap--the tiara, isn't it?--that reminded me,' she said faintly;
and then she looked away, as though not wishing to continue the subject.

'She wonders whether I am a Catholic,' thought Mrs. Burgoyne, amused, 'and
whether she has hurt my feelings.'--Aloud, she said--'Are you very, very
Puritan still in your part of America? Excuse me, but I am dreadfully
ignorant about America.'

'We are Methodists in our little town mostly'--said Miss Foster. 'There
is a Presbyterian church--and the best families go there. But my father's
people were always Methodists. My mother was a Universalist.'

Mrs. Burgoyne frowned with perplexity. 'I'm afraid I don't know what that
is?' she said.

'They think everybody will be saved,' said Miss Foster in her shy deep
voice. 'They don't despair of anybody.'

And suddenly Mrs. Burgoyne saw a very soft and tender expression pass
across the girl's grave features, like the rising of an inward light.

'A mystic--and a beauty both?' she thought to herself, a little scornfully
this time. In all her politeness to the new-comer so far, she had been like
a person stealthily searching for something foreseen and desired. If she
had found it, it would have been quite easy to go on being kind to Miss
Foster. But she had not found it.

At that moment the door between the library and the salon was thrown open,
and Manisty appeared, cigarette in hand.

'Aunt Pattie--Eleanor--how many tickets do you want for this function next
Sunday?'

'Four tribune tickets--we three'--Miss Manisty pointed to the other two
ladies--'and yourself. If we can't get so many, leave me at home.'

'Of course we shall have tribune tickets--as many as we want,' said Manisty
a little impatiently.--'Have you explained to Miss Foster?'

'No, but I will. Miss Foster, next Sunday fortnight the Pope celebrates
his 'Capella Papale'--the eighteenth anniversary of his coronation--in St.
Peter's. Rome is very full, and there will be a great demonstration--fifty
thousand people or more. Would you like to come?'

Miss Foster looked up, hesitating. Manisty, who had turned to go back
to his room, paused, struck by the momentary silence. He listened with
curiosity for the girl's reply.

'One just goes to see it like a spectacle?' she said at last, slowly. 'One
needn't do anything oneself?'

Miss Manisty stared--and then laughed. 'Nobody will see what you do in such
a crowd--I should think,' she said. 'But you know one can't be rude--to an
old old man. If others kneel, I suppose we must kneel. Does it do anyone
harm to be blessed by an old man?'

'Oh no!--no!' cried Miss Foster, flushing deeply. Then, after a moment, she
added decidedly--'Please--I should like to go very much.'

Manisty grinned unseen, and closed the door behind him.

Then Miss Foster, after an instant's restlessness, moved nearer to her
hostess.

'I am afraid--you thought I was rude just now? It's so lovely of you to
plan things for me. But--I can't ever be sure whether it's right to go into
other people's churches and look at their services--like a show. I should
just hate it myself--and I felt it once or twice at Florence. And so--you
understand--don't you?'--she said imploringly.

Miss Manisty's small eyes examined her with anxiety. 'What an extraordinary
girl!' she thought. 'Is she going to be a great bore?'

At the same time the girl's look--so open, sweet and modest--disarmed and
attracted her. She shrugged her shoulders with a smile.

'Well, my dear--I don't know. All I can say is, the Catholics don't mind!
They walk in and out of their own churches all the time mass is going
on--the children run about--the sacristans take you round. You certainly
needn't feel it on their account.'

'But then, too, if I am not a Catholic--how far ought one to be taking
part--in--in what--'

'In what one disapproves?' said Mrs. Burgoyne, smiling. 'You would make the
world a little difficult, wouldn't you, if you were to arrange it on that
principle?'

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33