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 lifting his hat with the somewhat stately and excessive manner, which
he could always substitute at the shortest notice for _brusquerie_ or
inattention, he went his way.
Lucy Foster was left with a red cheek. She watched him till he had passed
into the shadow of the avenue leading to the house; then with an impetuous
movement she took up a book which had been lying beside her on the bench,
and began to read it with a peculiar ardour--almost passion. It was the
life of one of the heroes of the Garibaldian expedition of 1860-61.
For of late she had been surrounding herself--by the help of a library
in Rome to which the Manistys had access--with the books of the Italian
_Risorgimento_, that great movement, that heroic making of a nation, in
which our fathers felt so passionate an interest, which has grown so dim
and far away now, not only in the mind of a younger England, but even in
that of a younger Italy.
But to Lucy--reading the story with the plain of Rome, and St. Peter's in
sight, her wits quickened by the perpetual challenge of Manisty's talk with
Mrs. Burgoyne, or any chance visitor,--Cavour, Garibaldi, Mazzini; all the
striking figures and all the main stages in the great epic; the blind,
mad, hopeless outbreaks of '48; the hangings and shootings and bottomless
despairs of '49; the sullen calm of those waiting years from '49 to '58;
the ecstasy of Magenta and Solferino, and the fierce disappointment of
Villafranca; the wild golden days of Sicily in 1860; the plucking of Venice
like a ripe fruit in '66; of Rome, in 1870; all the deliriums of freedom,
vengeance, union--these immortal names and passions and actions, were
thrilling through the girl's fresh poetic sense, and capturing all her
sympathies. Had Italy indeed been 'made too quick'? Was all the vast
struggle, and these martyred lives for nothing--all to end like a choked
river in death and corruption? Well, if so, whose fault was it, but the
priests'?--of that black, intriguing, traitorous Italy, headed by the
Papacy, which except for one brief moment in the forties, had upheld every
tyranny, and drenched every liberty in blood, had been the supporter of the
Austrian and the Bourbon, and was now again tearing to pieces the Italy
that so many brave men had died to make?
The priests!--the Church!--Why!--she wondered, as she read the story of
Charles Albert, and Metternich and the Naples Bourbons, that Italy still
dared to let the ignorant, persecuting brood live and thrive in her midst
at all! Especially was it a marvel to her that any Jesuit might still walk
Italian streets, that a nation could ever forgive or forget such crimes
against her inmost life as had been the crimes of the Jesuits. She would
stand at the end of the terrace, her hands behind her clasping her book,
her eyes fixed on the distant dome amid the stone-pines. Her book opened
with the experiences of a Neapolitan boy at school in Naples during the
priest-ridden years of the twenties, when Austrian bayonets, after the
rising of '21, had replaced Bourbons and Jesuits in power, and crushed the
life out of the young striving liberty of '21, as a cruel boy may crush and
strangle a fledgling bird. 'What did we learn,' cried the author of the
memoir--'from that monkish education which dwarfed both our mind and body?
How many have I seen in later life groaning over their own ignorance, and
pouring maledictions on the seminary or the college, where they had wasted
so many years and had learnt nothing!'
'That monkish education which dwarfed both our mind and body'--
Lucy would repeat the words to herself--throwing them out as a challenge
to that great dome hovering amid the sunny haze. That old man there, among
his Cardinals--she thought of him with a young horror and revolt; yet not
without a certain tremor of the imagination. Well!--in a few days--Sunday
week--she was to see him, and judge for herself.
* * * * *
Meanwhile visitors were almost shut out. The villa sank into a convent-like
quiet; for in a week, ten days, the book was perhaps to be finished. Miss
Manisty, as the crisis approached, kept a vigilant eye on Mrs. Burgoyne.
She was in constant dread of a delicate woman's collapse; and after the
sittings in the library had lasted a certain time she had now the courage
to break in upon them, and drive Manisty's Egeria out of her cave to rest
and to the garden.
So Lucy, as the shadows lengthened in the garden, would hear the sound of a
light though languid step, and would look up to see a delicate white face
smiling down upon her.
'Oh! how tired you must be!' she would say, springing up. 'Let me make a
place for you here under the trees.'
'No, no. Let us move about. I am tired of sitting.'
And they would pace up and down the terrace and the olive-garden beyond,
while Mrs. Burgoyne leant upon Lucy's arm, chatting and laughing with an
evident relief from tension which only betrayed the mental and physical
fatigue behind.
Lucy wondered to see how exquisite, how dainty, she would emerge from these
wrestles with hard work. Her fresh white or pale dresses, the few jewels
half-hidden at her wrists or throat, the curled or piled masses of the fair
hair, were never less than perfection, it seemed to Lucy; she was never
more the woman of fashion and the great world than when she came out from
a morning's toil that would have left its disturbing mark on a strong man,
her eyes shining under the stress and ardour of those 'ideas,' as to which
it was good to talk with her.
But how eagerly she would throw off that stress, and turn to wooing and
winning Lucy Foster! All hanging back in the matter was gone. Certain vague
thoughts and terrors were laid to sleep, and she must needs allow herself
the luxury of charming the quiet girl, like all the rest--the dogs, the
servants or the village children. There was a perpetual hunger for love in
Eleanor's nature which expressed itself in a thousand small and piteous
ways. She could never help throwing out tendrils, and it was rarely that
she ventured them in vain.
In the case of Lucy Foster, however, her fine tact soon discovered that
caresses were best left alone. They were natural to herself, and once or
twice as the April days went by, she ventured to kiss the girl's fresh
cheek, or to slip an arm round her waist. But Lucy took it awkwardly. When
she was kissed she flushed, and stood passive; and all her personal ways
were a little stiff and austere. After one of these demonstrations indeed
Mrs. Burgoyne generally found herself repaid in some other form, by some
small thoughtfulness on Lucy's part--the placing of a stool, the fetching
of a cloak--or merely perhaps by a new softness in the girl's open look.
And Eleanor never once thought of resenting her lack of response. There
was even a kind of charm in it. The prevailing American type in Rome that
winter had been a demonstrative type.
Lucy's manner in comparison was like a cool and bracing air. 'And when she
does kiss!' Eleanor would say to herself--'it will be with all her heart.
One can see that.'
Meanwhile Mrs. Burgoyne took occasional note of the Mazzinian literature
that lay about. She would turn the books over and read their titles, her
eyes sparkling with a little gentle mischief, as she divined the girl's
disapproval of her host and his views. But she never argued with Lucy. She
was too tired of the subject, too eager to seek relief in talking of the
birds and the view, of people and _chiffons_.
Too happy perhaps--also. She walked on air in these days before Easter.
The book was prospering; Manisty was more content; and as agreeable in all
daily ways and offices as only the hope of good fortune can make a man.
'The Priest of Nemi'--indeed, with several other prose poems of the same
kind, had been cast out of the text; which now presented one firm and
vigorous whole of social and political discussion. But the Nemi piece was
to be specially bound for Eleanor, together with some drawings that she had
made of the lake and the temple site earlier in the spring. And on the day
the book was finished--somewhere within the next fortnight--there was to be
a festal journey to Nemi--divine and blessed place!
So she felt no fatigue, and was always ready to chatter to Lucy of the most
womanish things. Especially, as the girl's beauty grew upon her, was she
anxious to carry out those plans of transforming her dress and hair,--her
gowns and hats and shoes--the primness of her brown braids, which she and
Miss Manisty had confided to each other.
But Lucy was shy--would not be drawn that way. There were fewer visitors
at the villa than she had expected. For this quiet life in the garden, and
on the country roads, it seemed to her that her dresses did very well. The
sense of discomfort excited by the elegance of her Florentine acquaintance
died away. And she would have thought it wrong and extravagant to spend
unnecessary money.
So she had quietly ceased to think about her dress; and the blue and white
check, to Eleanor's torment, had frequently to be borne with.
Even the promised invitation to the Embassy had not arrived. It was said
that the Ambassador's daughter had gone to Florence. Only Lucy wished
she had not written that letter to Uncle Ben from Florence:--that
rather troubled and penitent letter on the subject of dress. He might
misunderstand--might do something foolish.
* * * * *
And apparently Uncle Ben did do something foolish. For a certain letter
arrived from Boston on the day after the seminarists' invasion of the
garden. Lucy after an hour's qualms and hesitations, must needs reluctantly
confide the contents of it to Miss Manisty. And that lady with smiles and
evident pleasure called Mrs. Burgoyne--and Eleanor called her maid,--and
the ball began to roll.
* * * * *
On Saturday morning early, Mrs. Burgoyne's room indeed was in a
bustle--delightful to all but Lucy. Manisty was in Rome for the day, and
Eleanor had holiday. She had never looked more frail--a rose-leaf pink in
her cheek--nor more at ease. For she was at least as good to consult about
a skirt as an idea.
'Marie!'--she said, giving her own maid a little peremptory push--'just run
and fetch Benson--there's an angel. We must have all the brains possible.
If we don't get the bodice right, it won't suit Miss Foster a bit.'
Marie went in all haste. Meanwhile in front of a large glass stood a rather
red and troubled Lucy arrayed in a Paris gown belonging to Mrs. Burgoyne.
Eleanor had played her with much tact, and now had her in her power.
'It is the crisis, my dear,' Miss Manisty had said in Eleanor's ear, as
they rose from breakfast, with a twinkle of her small eyes. 'The question
is; can we, or can we not, turn her into a beauty? _You_ can!'
Eleanor at any rate was doing her best. She had brought out her newest
gowns and Lucy was submissively putting them on one after the other.
Eleanor was in pursuit first of all of some general conceptions. What was
the girl's true style?--what were the possibilities?
'When I have got my lines and main ideas in my head,' she said pensively,
'then we will call in the maids. Of course you _might_ have the things made
in Rome. But as we have the models--and these two maids have nothing to
do--why not give ourselves the pleasure of looking after it?'
Pleasure! Lucy Foster opened her eyes.
Still, here was this absurd, this most extravagant cheque from Uncle Ben,
and these peremptory commands to get herself everything--everything--that
other girls had. Why, it was demanded of her, had she been economical and
scrupulous before starting? Folly and disobedience! He had been told of
her silly hesitations, her detestable frugalities--he had ferretted it all
out. And now she was at a disadvantage--was she? Let her provide herself at
once, or old as he was, he would take train and steamer and come and see to
it!
She was not submissive in general--far from it. But the reading of Uncle
Ben's letter had left her very meek in spirit and rather inclined to cry.
Had Uncle Ben really considered whether it was right to spend so much money
on oneself, to think so much about it? Their life together had been so
simple, the question had hardly emerged. Of course it was right to be neat
and fresh, and to please his taste in what she wore. But--
The net result of all this internal debate, however, was to give a peculiar
charm, like the charm of rippled and sensitive water, to features that were
generally too still and grave. She stood silently before the long glass
while Mrs. Burgoyne and the maids talked and pinned. She walked to the end
of the room and back, as she was bid; she tried to express a preference,
when she was asked for one; and as she was arrayed in one delicious gown
after another, she became more and more alive to the beauty of the soft
stuffs, the invention and caprice with which they were combined, the
daintiness of their pinks and blues, their greys and creams, their lilacs
and ivories. At last Mrs. Burgoyne happened upon a dress of white crape,
opening upon a vest of pale green, with thin edges of black here and there,
disposed with the tact, the feeling of the artist; and when Lucy's tall
form had been draped in this garment, her three attendants fell back with
one simultaneous cry:
'Oh my dear!' said Mrs. Burgoyne drawing a long breath.--'Now you see,
Marie--I told you!--that's the cut. And just look how simple that is, and
how it falls! That's the green. Yes, when Mathilde is as good as that she's
divine.--Now all you've got to do is just to copy that. And the materials
are just nothing--you'll get them in the Corso in half-an-hour.'
'May I take it off?' said Lucy.
'Well yes, you may'--said Mrs. Burgoyne, reluctantly--'but it's a great
pity. Well now, for the coat and skirt,'--she checked them off on her slim
fingers--'for the afternoon gown, and one evening dress, I think I see my
way--'
'Enough for one morning isn't it?' said Lucy half laughing, half imploring.
'Yes,'--said Mrs. Burgoyne absently, her mind already full of further
developments.
The gowns were carried away, and Aunt Pattie's maid departed. Then as Lucy
in her white cotton wrapper was retiring to her own room, Mrs. Burgoyne
caught her by the arm.
'You remember,'--she said appealingly,--'how rude I was that evening
you came--how I just altered your hair? You don't know how I long to
do it properly! You know I shall have a little trouble with these
dresses--trouble I like--but still I shall pretend it's trouble, that you
may pay me for it. Pay me by letting me experiment! I just long to take all
your hair down, and do it as it ought to be done. And you don't know how
clever I am. _Let_ me!'
And already, before the shamefaced girl could reply, she was gently pushed
into the chair before Mrs. Burgoyne's dressing-table, and a pair of skilled
hands went to work.
'I can't say you look as though you enjoyed it,' said Mrs. Burgoyne by the
time she had covered the girl's shoulders with the long silky veil which
she had released from the stiff plaits confining it. 'Do you think it's
wrong to do your hair prettily?' Lucy laughed uneasily.
'I was never brought up to think much about it. My mother had very strict
views.'
'Ah!'--said Eleanor, with a discreet intonation. 'But you see, at Rome it
is really so much better for the character to do as Rome does. To be out of
the way makes one self-conscious. Your mother didn't foresee that.'
Silence,--while the swift white fingers plaited and tied and laid
foundations.
'It waves charmingly already'--murmured the artist--'but it must be just
a little more _ondule_ in the right places--just a touch--here and there.
Quick, Marie!--bring me the stove--and the tongs--and two or three of those
finest hairpins.'
The maid flew, infected by the ardour of her mistress, and between them
they worked to such purpose that when at last they released their victim,
they had turned the dark head into that of a stately and fashionable
beauty. The splendid hair was raised high in small silky ripples above
the white brow. The little love-locks on the temples had been delicately
arranged so as to complete the fine oval of the face, and at the back the
black masses drawn lightly upwards from the neck, and held in place there
by a pearl comb of Mrs. Burgoyne's, had been piled and twisted into a crown
that would have made Artemis herself more queenly.
'Am I really to keep it like this?' cried Lucy, looking at herself in the
glass.
'But of course you are!' and Mrs. Burgoyne instinctively held the girl's
arms, lest any violence should be offered to her handiwork--'And you must
put on your _old_ white frock--_not_ the check--the nice soft one that's
been washed, with the pink sash--Goodness, how the time goes! Marie, run
and tell Miss Manisty not to wait for me--I'll follow her to the village.'
The maid went. Lucy looked down upon her tyrant--
You are very kind to me'--she said with a lip that trembled slightly. Her
blue eyes under the black brows showed a feeling that she did not know how
to express. The subdued responsiveness, indeed, of Lucy's face was like
that of Wordsworth's Highland girl struggling with English. You felt her
'beating up against the wind,'--in the current, yet resisting it. Or
to take another comparison, her nature seemed to be at once stiff and
rich--like some heavy church stuff, shot with gold.
'Oh! these things are my snare,' said Eleanor, laughing--'If I have any
gift, it is for _chiffons_.'
'Any gift!' said Lucy wondering--'when you do so much for Mr. Manisty?'
Mrs. Burgoyne shrugged her shoulders.
'Ah! well--he wanted a secretary--and I happened to get the place,' she
said, in a more constrained voice.
'Miss Manisty told me how you helped him in the winter. And she and Mr.
Brooklyn--have--told me--other things--' said Lucy. She paused, colouring
deeply. But her eyes travelled timidly to the photographs on Mrs.
Burgoyne's table.
Eleanor understood.
'Ah!--they told you that, did they?'--The speaker turned a little white.
'And you wonder--don't you?--that I can go on talking about frocks, and new
ways of doing one's hair?'
She moved away from Lucy, a touch of cold defensive dignity effacing all
her pliant sweetness.
Lucy followed and caught her hand.
'Oh no! no!'--she said--'it is only so brave and good of you--to be able
still--to take an interest--'
'Do I take it?' said Eleanor, scornfully, raising her other hand and
letting it fall.
Lucy was silenced. After a moment Eleanor looked round, calmly took the
photograph of the child from the table, and held it towards Lucy.
'He was just two--his birthday was four days before this was taken.
It's the picture I love best, because I last saw him like that--in his
night-gown. I was very ill that night--they wouldn't let me stay with my
husband--but after I left him, I came and rocked the baby and tucked him
up--and leant my face against his. He was so warm and sweet always in his
sleep. The touch of him--and the scent of him--his dear breath--and his
curls--and the moist little hands--sometimes they used to intoxicate me--to
give me life--like wine. They did me such good--that night.'
Her voice did not tremble. Tears softly found their way down Lucy's face.
And suddenly she stooped, and put her lips, tenderly, clingingly, to Mrs.
Burgoyne's hand.
Eleanor smiled. Then she herself bent forward and lightly kissed the girl's
cheek.
'Oh! I am not worthy either to have had him--or lost him--' she said
bitterly. There was a little pause, which Eleanor broke. 'Now really we
must go to Aunt Pattie--mustn't we?'
CHAPTER VI
'Ah! here you are! Don't kill yourselves. Plenty of time--for us!
Listen--there's the bell--eight o'clock--now they open the doors.
Goodness!--Look at the rush--and those little Italian chaps tackling those
strapping priests. Go it, ye cripples!'
Lucy tamed her run to a quick walk, and Mr. Reggie took care of her, while
Manisty disappeared ahead with Mrs. Burgoyne, and Aunt Pattie fell to the
share of a certain Mr. Vanbrugh Neal, an elderly man tall and slim, and
of a singular elegance of bearing, who had joined them at the Piazza, and
seemed to be an old friend of Mr. Manisty's.
Lucy looked round her in bewilderment. Before the first stroke of the bell
the Piazza of St. Peter's had been thickly covered with freely moving
groups, all advancing in order upon the steps of the church. But as the
bell began to speak, there was a sudden charge mostly of young priests and
seminarists--black skirts flying, black legs leaping--across the open space
and up the steps.
'Reminds me of nothing so much'--said Reggie laughing back over his
shoulder at a friend behind--'as the charge of the Harrow boys at Lord's
last year--when they stormed the pavilion--did you see it?--and that little
Harrow chap saved the draw? I say!--they've broken the line!--and there'll
be a bad squash somewhere.'
And indeed the attacking priests had for a moment borne down the Italian
soldiers who were good-naturedly guarding and guiding the Pope's guests
from the entrance of the Piazza to the very door of the church. But the
little men--as they seemed to Lucy's eyes--recovered themselves in a
twinkling, threw themselves stoutly on the black gentry, like sheep dogs on
the sheep, worried them back into line, collared a few bold spirits here,
formed a new cordon there, till all was once more in tolerable order, and a
dangerous pressure on the central door was averted.
Meanwhile Lucy was hurried forward with the privileged crowd going to the
tribunes, towards the sacristy door on the south.
'Let's catch up Mrs. Burgoyne'--said the young man, looking ahead with some
anxiety--'Manisty's no use. He'll begin to moon and forget all about her. I
say!--Look at the building--and the sky behind it! Isn't it stunning?'
And they threw up a hasty glance as they sped along at the superb walls and
apses and cornices of the southern side--golden ivory or wax against the
blue.--The pigeons flew in white eddies above their heads; the April wind
flushed Lucy's cheek, and played with her black mantilla. All qualms were
gone. After her days of seclusion in the villa garden, she was passionately
conscious of this great Rome and its magic; and under her demure and rather
stately air, her young spirits danced and throbbed with pleasure.
'How that black lace stuff does become all you women!'--said Reggie
Brooklyn, throwing a lordly and approving glance at her and his cousin
Eleanor, as they all met and paused amid the crowd that was concentrating
itself on the sacristy door; and Lucy, instead of laughing at the
lad's airs, only reddened a little more brightly and found it somehow
sweet--April sweet--that a young man on this spring morning should admire
her; though after all, she was hardly more inclined to fall in love with
Reggie Brooklyn than with Manisty's dear collie puppy, that had been left
behind, wailing, at the villa.
At the actual door the young man quietly possessed himself of Mrs.
Burgoyne, while Manisty with an unconscious look of relief fell behind.
'And you, Miss Foster,--keep closer--my coat's all at your service--it'll
stand a pull. Don't you be swept away--and I'll answer for Mrs. Burgoyne.'
So on they hurried, borne along with the human current through passages and
corridors, part of a laughing, pushing, chatting crowd, containing all the
types that throng the Roman streets--English and American tourists, Irish
or German or English priests, monks white and brown, tall girls who wore
their black veils with an evident delight in the new setting thus given to
their fair hair and brilliant skins, beside older women to whom, on the
contrary, the dress had given a kind of unwonted repose and quietness of
look, as though for once they dared to be themselves in it, and gave up the
struggle with the years.
Reggie Brooklyn maintained a lively chatter all the time, mostly at
Manisty's expense. Eleanor Burgoyne first laughed at his sallies, then
gently turned her head in a pause of the general advance and searched the
crowd pressing at their heels. Lucy's eyes followed hers, and there far
behind, carried forward passively in a brown study, losing ground slightly
whenever it was possible, was Manisty. The fine significant face was turned
a little upward; the eyes were full of thoughts; he was at once the slave
of the crowd, and its master.
And across Eleanor's expression--unseen--there passed the slightest,
subtlest flash of tenderness and pride. She knew and understood him--she
alone!
* * * * *
At last the doors are passed. They are in the vast barricaded and
partitioned space, already humming with the talk and tread of
thousands,--the 'Tu es Petrus' overhead. Reggie Brooklyn would have hurried
them on in the general rush for the tribunes. But Mrs. Burgoyne laid a
restraining hand upon him. 'No--we mustn't separate,' she said, gently
peremptory. And for a few minutes Mr. Reggie in an anguish must needs see
the crowd flow past him, and the first seats of Tribune D filled. Then
Manisty appeared, lifting his eyebrows in a frowning wonder at the young
man's impatience;--and on they flew.
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