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[Illustration: DOROTHY]
DOROTHY
AND
OTHER ITALIAN STORIES
BY
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
ILLUSTRATED
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1896
By CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON.
MENTONE, CAIRO, AND
CORFU. Ill'd. $1 75.
ANNE. Illustrated. $1 25.
EAST ANGELS. $1 25.
JUPITER LIGHTS. $1 25.
THE FRONT YARD, Etc. Illustrated. $1 25.
HORACE CHASE. $1 25.
CASTLE NOWHERE. $1 00.
RODMAN THE KEEPER. $1 00.
FOR THE MAJOR. Illustrated. $1 00.
PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, New York.
Copyright, 1895, by HARPER & BROTHERS. All rights reserved.
NOTE
Of the stories contained in this volume, "A Florentine Experiment" was
originally published in the _Atlantic Monthly_, and the others in
HARPER'S MAGAZINE.
CONTENTS PAGE
DOROTHY 1
A TRANSPLANTED BOY 60
A FLORENTINE EXPERIMENT 122
A WAITRESS 187
AT THE CHÂTEAU OF CORINNE 237
ILLUSTRATIONS
DOROTHY _Frontispiece_
THE VILLA DORIO _Facing page_ 4
"AND AGAIN SHE LOOKED UP AT HIM" " " 22
"'I MEAN THAT I SHALL SEE HIM VERY SOON NOW'" " " 56
"'OH, HOW EARLY YOU'VE COME UP!' SAID MASO" " " 70
"'MR. TIBER, BEG!'" " " 72
"WE MUST SINK OR SWIM TOGETHER, MASO" " " 90
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN WATERHOUSE " " 96
TEA IN THE GARDEN " " 188
"THE DOG WAS FOLLOWING AT THE EXTREME LENGTH
OF HIS CORD" " " 218
DOROTHY
I
As it was Saturday, many visitors came to the villa, Giuseppe receiving
them at the open door, and waving them across the court or up the stone
stairway, according to their apparent inclination, murmuring as he did
so: "To the garden; the Signora North!" "To the salon; the Signora
Tracy!" with his most inviting smiles. Dorothy probably was with Mrs.
North in the garden. And everybody knew that the tea and the comfortable
chairs were up-stairs. The company therefore divided itself, the young
people as far as possible, the men who like to appear young, and the
mothers who have heavier cares than the effects of open-air light on a
middle-aged complexion, crossing the paved quadrangle to the north hall,
while the old ladies and the ladies (not so old) who detest gardens
ascended the stairs, accompanied by, first, the contented husbands;
second, the well-trained husbands; third, other men, bond or free, who
cherish no fondness for damp belvederes, for grassy mounds, or for
poising themselves on a parapet which has a yawning abyss below.
Giuseppe was the gardener; he became a footman once a week, that is, on
Saturday afternoons, when the American ladies of the Villa Dorio
received those of their friends who cared to come to their hill-top
above the Roman Gate of Florence--a hill-top bearing the appropriate
name of Bellosguardo. For fair indeed is the outlook from that supremely
blessed plateau, whether towards the north, south, east, or west, with
perhaps an especial loveliness towards the west, where the Arno winds
down to the sea. Enchanting as is this Occidental landscape, Mrs. Tracy
had ended by escaping from it.
"When each new person begins: 'Oh, what lovely shadows!' 'Oh, the
Carrara Mountains!' we cannot look at each other, Laura and I," she
explained; "it's like the two Roman what-do-you-call-ems--augurs. I'm
incapable of saying another word about the Carrara Mountains, Laura; and
so, after this, I shall leave them to you."
This was the cause of Giuseppe's indicating the drawing-room, and not
the garden, as Mrs. Tracy's domain.
It was not difficult for Giuseppe to turn himself into a footman;
Raffaello, the butler (or cameriere), could have turned himself into a
coachman, a cook, a laundress, a gardener, or even a parlor-maid, if
occasion had so required; for Italian servants can do anything. And if
Mrs. Sebright sighed, "Ah, but so badly!" (which was partly true from
the English point of view) the Americans at least could respond, "Yes,
but so easily!" In truth, it was not precisely in accordance with the
English standard to be welcomed by smiles of personal recognition from
the footman at the door, nor to have the tea offered by the butler with
an urgent hospitality which was almost tender. But Italy is not England;
radiant smiles from the servants accord perhaps with radiant sunshine
from the sky, both things being unknown at home. As for the American
standard, it does not exist, save as a vacillating pennon.
The Villa Dorio is a large, ancient structure of pale yellow hue; as is
often the case in Tuscany, its façade rises directly from the roadway,
so that any one can drive to the door, and knock by simply leaning from
the carriage. But privacy is preserved all the same by the massive
thickness of the stone walls, by the stern iron cages over the lofty
lower windows, and by an entrance portal which resembles the gateway of
a fortress. The villa, which, in the shape of a parallelogram, extends
round an open court within, is large enough for five or six families;
for in the old days, according to the patriarchal Italian custom, the
married sons of the house, with their wives and children, were all
gathered under its roof. In these later years its tenants have been
foreigners, for the most part people of English and American
birth--members of that band of pilgrims from the land of fog and the
land of haste, who, having once fallen under the spell of Italy, the
sorcery of that loveliest of countries, return thither again and yet
again, sometimes unconscious of their thraldom, sometimes calling it
staying for the education of the children, but seldom pronouncing the
frank word "living." Americans who have stayed in this way for twenty
years or more are heard remarking, in solemn tones, "In case I die over
here, I am to be taken home to my own country for burial; nothing less
could content me." This post-mortem patriotism probably soothes the
conscience.
Upon the Saturday already mentioned the Villa Dorio had but one tenant;
for Mrs. Tracy had taken the entire place for a year--the year 1881.
She could not occupy it all, even with the assistance of Mrs. North and
Dorothy, for there were fifty rooms, besides five kitchens, a chapel,
and an orange-house; she had selected, therefore, the range of
apartments up-stairs which looked towards the south and west, and the
long, frescoed, echoing spaces that remained were left to the ghosts.
For there was a ghost, who clanked chains. The spectre of Belmonte,
another villa near by, was more interesting; he was a monk in a brown
gown, who glided at midnight up the great stairway without a sound, on
his way to the tower. The American ladies had chosen for their use the
northwestern garden. For the Villa Dorio has more than one garden; and
it has also vineyards, olive groves, and the fields of the podere, or
farm, in the valley below, with their two fountains, and the little
chapel of the Holy Well. The northwestern garden is an enchanting spot.
It is not large, and that adds to the charm, for its secluded nearness,
so purely personal to the occupier, yet overhangs, or seems to, a full
half of Tuscany; from the parapet the vast landscape below rolls towards
the sunset as wide and far-stretching as the hidden shelf, one's
standing-point, is private and small. When one ceases to look at the
view--if one ever does cease--one perceives that the nook has no formal
flower-beds; grass, dotted with the pink daisies of Italy, stretches
from the house walls to the edge; here and there are rose-bushes,
pomegranates, oleanders, and laurel, but all are half wild. The
encircling parapet is breast-high; but, by leaning over, one sees that
on the outside the ancient stones go plunging down, in course after
course, to a second level far below, the parapet being in reality the
top of a massive retaining-wall. At the corner where this rampart turns
northward is perched a little belvedere, or arbor, with vines clambering
over it. It was upon this parapet, with its dizzy outer descent, that
the younger visitors were accustomed to perch themselves when they came
to Villa Dorio. And Dorothy herself generally led them in the dangerous
experiment. But one could never think of Dorothy as falling; her supple
figure conveyed the idea that she could fly--almost--so lightly was it
poised upon her little feet; in any case, one felt sure that even if she
should take the fancy to throw herself off, she would float to the lower
slope as lightly as thistle-down. The case was different regarding the
Misses Sebright; they, too, were handsome girls, but they would
certainly go down like rocks. And as for Rose Hatherbury, attenuated
though she was, there would be, one felt certain, no floating; Rose
would cut the air like a needle in her swift descent. Rose was thin (her
aunts, the Misses Wood, called it slender); she was a tall girl of
twenty-five, who ought to have been beautiful, for her features were
well cut and her blue eyes lustrous, while her complexion was delicately
fair. Yet somehow all this was without charm. People who liked her said
that the charm would come. The Misses Wood, however, spent no time in
anticipation; to them the charm was already there; they had always
believed that their niece was without a fault. These ladies had come to
Florence twenty years before from Providence, Rhode Island; and they had
remained, as they said, "for art" (they copied as amateurs in the Uffizi
Gallery). Of late they had begun to ask themselves whether art would be
enough for Rose.
At five o'clock on this April afternoon the three Misses Sebright, Rose,
Owen Charrington--a pink-cheeked young Englishman, long and
strong--Wadsworth Brunetti, and Dorothy were all perched upon the
parapet, while Miss Maria Wood hovered near, pretending to look for
daisies, but in reality ready to catch Rose by the ankles in case she
should lose her balance. Miss Jane Wood was sitting with Mrs. North in
the aguish belvedere. With remarkable unanimity, the group of men near
by had declared that, in order to see the view, one must stand.
"Your garden is like an opera-box, Mrs. North," said Stephen Lefevre;
"you sit here at your ease, and see the whole play of morning, noon, and
night sweeping over Tuscany."
"A view like this is such a humanizer!" remarked Julian Grimston,
thoughtfully. "One might indeed call it a hauberk."
To this mysterious comparison Miss Jane Wood responded, cheerfully,
"Quite so." She did not ask for explanations (Julian's explanations were
serious affairs); she spoke merely on general principles; for the Misses
Wood considered Julian "such an earnest creature!" Julian, a wizened
little American of uncertain age, was protected by a handsome mother,
who possessed a firm eye and a man-like mouth; this lady had almost
secured for her son an Italian countess of large circumference and
ancient name. Julian so far held back; but he would yet go forward.
"Its most admirable quality, to my mind, is that it's here," Mr.
Illingsworth remarked, after Julian's "hauberk." "Generally, when there
is a noble view, one has to go noble miles to see it; one has to be out
all day, and eat hard-boiled eggs on the grass. You can't think how I
loathe hard-boiled eggs! Or else one has to sleep in some impossible
place, and be routed out at dawn. _Can_ any one admire anything at
dawn?"
[Illustration: THE VILLA DORIO]
"There isn't much dawn in this," answered Daniel Ashcraft. "Up to noon
the view's all mist, and at noon everything looks too near. It doesn't
amount to much before four o'clock, and only shows out all its points as
the sun goes down."
"And have you discovered that, Mr. Ashcraft, on your third day in
Florence?" demanded Illingsworth, with admiration. "But it's only
another instance of the quick intelligence of your wonderful nation. Now
I have lived in the town for twenty-five years, and have never noticed
that this Carrara view was an afternoon affair. Yet so it is--so it is!"
Daniel Ashcraft surveyed the Englishman for a moment. "Oh yes--our quick
intelligence. It makes us feel as though we were being exhibited.
Sixpence a head."
More visitors appeared; by half-past five there were forty persons in
the garden. Mrs. North received them all very graciously without
stirring from her belvedere. Dorothy, however, was everywhere, like a
sprite; and wherever Dorothy was Owen Charrington soon appeared. As for
Wadsworth Brunetti, his method was more direct--he never left her side.
"They are both her _shadows_," said Beatrice Sebright, in an undertone,
to Rose Hatherbury, as they sat perched side by side on the parapet.
"She is welcome to them," answered Rose. "A burly creature like Owen;
and that Waddy!"
"Waddy?" repeated Beatrice, inquiringly.
"A simpleton," pronounced Rose, with decision.
Honest Beatrice surveyed her companion with wonder, into which crept
something almost like envy; if she, Beatrice, could only think that Owen
was burly; and if it were but possible, by trying hard, to regard
Wadsworth Brunetti as a simpleton, how much easier life would be! As it
was, she was convinced that Owen was not burly at all, but only
athletic. And as to Waddy Brunetti, he was simply Raphael's young St.
John in the Tribune of the Uffizi--the St. John at twenty-two, and in
the attire of to-day. Wadsworth Brunetti's American mother had done her
best to make an American of her only child; Waddy could speak the
language of New York (when he chose); but in all other respects--his
ideas, his manner, his intonations, his hair arranged after the fashion
of King Humbert's, his shoes, his collar and gloves--he was as much a
Florentine as his father. The Misses Sebright were not mistaken in their
estimation of his appearance; he was exceedingly handsome. And the
adverb is used advisedly, for his beauty exceeded that degree of good
looks which is, on the whole, the best for every-day use; one hardly
knew what to do with young Brunetti in any company, for he was always so
much handsomer than the other guests, whether women or men.
"Isn't it enough that he allows himself to be called Waddy?" Rose had
demanded in the same contemptuous undertone. "Waddy--wadding. What a
name!"
"But Madame Brunetti tells us that Wadsworth is one of the very best of
American names?" objected Beatrice, timidly, still clinging to her idol.
"She's mad; there are no best American names--unless one cares for those
attached to the Declaration of Independence. The thing is, the best
American men; and do you call Waddy that?"
Beatrice did. But she dared not confess it.
"Dorothy, I have forgotten my shawl," said Mrs. North, as Dorothy
happened to pass the arbor.
"I'll go for it," said Charrington.
"Is it in the drawing-room?" inquired Julian Grimston. "A blue and
white, with knotted fringe?"
Dorothy, meanwhile, was crossing the grass towards the house; Lefevre
followed her; Waddy accompanied her.
"Nobody can get it but Dorothy--thanks; it is in my own room," said Mrs.
North.
Charrington and Julian paused; Lefevre came back. Mrs. North said to
Lefevre, "Praise my prudence in sending for a shawl." Then she added,
laughing, "You dare not; prudence is so elderly!"
She could afford to make a joke of age; tall, thin, with abundant
drab-colored hair and a smooth complexion, she did not look more than
thirty-five, though she was in reality ten years older. She was a widow;
her husband, Richard North, had been an officer in the American navy,
and Dorothy was her step-daughter.
Dorothy and Waddy had gone on, and were now entering the north hall.
This vacant stone-floored apartment, as large as a ball-room, with a
vaulted ceiling twenty-four feet high, was the home of an energetic
echo; spoken words were repeated with unexpected force, in accents
musical but mocking. It was one thing for Waddy to murmur, "Give me but
a grain of hope, only a grain," in pleading tones, and another to have
the murmur come back like an opera chorus. Dorothy paused demurely, as
if waiting for the conclusion of the sentence. But her picturesque
suitor, still hearing his own roaring "grrrrain," bit his lips and tried
to hasten their steps towards the other door.
"Oh, I thought you had something to say!" remarked Dorothy, innocently,
when they reached the arcade within. "But you never have, have you."
And with this she crossed the quadrangle to welcome four new guests who
were about to ascend the stairway in answer to Giuseppe's "The salon!
Signora Tracy!" Waddy went up the stairs also. But he could not hope to
follow to the remote region of Mrs. North's chamber, so he accompanied
the new guests through the anterooms to the drawing-room at the end of
the suite, where Mrs. Tracy, the second hostess, received them all with
cordial greetings. Mrs. Tracy's years were fifty. She hoped that she was
fine-looking, that epithet being sometimes applied to tall persons who
hold up their heads, even if they are stout; even, too, if their noses
are not long enough for classical requirements. She certainly held up
her head. And she was always very well dressed; so well that it was too
well. After saying a few words to Waddy, she passed him on to Miss
Philipps, who stood near her. Felicia Philipps despised the beautiful
youth. But she was willing to look at him for a few minutes as one looks
at--a statue? Oh no, that would never have been Felicia's word; at
wax-works, that was more like it; Felicia had a sharp tongue. She now
chaffed the wax-works a little, pretending to compliment its voice; for
Waddy could sing.
"As I sing too, Mr. Brunetti, we're companions in soul," she said. "But,
unfortunately, when _I_ sing, my soul does not come to my eyes, as yours
does."
"The comfort of Waddy is that you can make mince-meat of him to his
face, when you feel savage, and he never knows it," she had once
remarked.
There was, however, another side to this: Waddy did not know, very
possibly, but the reason was that he never paid sufficient heed to Miss
Felicia Philipps to comprehend what she might be saying, good or bad; to
his mind, Felicia was only "that old maid." Mrs. Tracy, for the moment
not called upon to extend her tightly gloved hand to either arriving or
departing guests, expanded her fingers furtively, in order to rest them,
and glanced about her. Her rooms were full; there was a steady murmur of
conversation; the air was filled with the perfume of flowers and the
aroma of tea, and there were suggestions also of the _petits fours_, the
_bouchées aux confitures_, and the delicate Italian sandwiches which
Raffaello was carrying about with the air of an affectionate younger
brother. Waddy, who cherished a vision of Dorothy coming to get a cup of
tea for her mother (Waddy had noticed upon other Saturdays that "my
shawl" meant tea), detached himself as soon as he could from Felicia,
and made his way towards the tea-table in the opposite corner. Here Nora
Sebright was standing behind a resplendent samovar. Mrs. Tracy had
purchased this decorative steam-engine in Russia; but she had not dared
to use it until Nora, seeing it at the villa one day, had offered to
teach her its mysteries. Mrs. Tracy never learned them; but Nora came up
every Saturday, and made the tea in her neat, exact way. She was number
one of the Misses Sebright. Six sisters followed her. But this need not
have meant that Nora was very mature, because hardly more than a year
separated the majority of the Sebright girls (one could say the
majority of them or the minority, there were so many). As it happened,
however, Nora was twenty-nine, although Peggy, the next one, was barely
twenty-five; for the six younger sisters were between that age and
sixteen. These younger girls were tall, blooming, and handsome. Nora was
small, insignificant, and pale; but her eyes were charming, if one took
the trouble to look at them, and there was something pretty in her soft,
dark hair, put back plainly and primly behind her ears, with a smooth
parting in front; one felt sure that she did not arrange it in that way
from a pious contentment with her own appearance, but rather from some
shy little ideal of her own, which she would never tell.
"Do you think they have all had tea?" she was saying anxiously as Waddy
came up. She addressed a gentleman by her side who had evidently been
acting as her assistant.
"I think so," he answered, looking about the room with almost as much
solicitude as her own.
Her face cleared; she laughed. "It's so kind of you! You have carried
cups all the afternoon."
"I only hope I haven't broken any," responded her companion, still with
a trace of responsibility in his tone.
"It is terribly dangerous, with so many people pushing against one. How
you can do it so cleverly, I can't think. But indeed, Mr. Mackenzie, I
do not believe you _could_ let anything drop," Nora went on, paying him
her highest compliment. "This is the fourth Saturday you have given to
these teacups; I am afraid it has been tiresome. Raffaello ought to do
it all; but Italian servants--"
"They are not like yours in England; I can understand that. But
Raffaello, now-- Raffaello has seemed to me rather a good fellow," said
Mackenzie.
At this moment Dorothy, carrying a shawl, appeared at the door; she made
her way to the table. "May I have some tea, Miss Sebright, please, for
mamma?"
"I will carry it for you," said Waddy, eagerly.
"Won't you take some tea yourself, Miss Dorothy, before you go back to
the garden?" suggested Mackenzie, in his deferential tones.
"I? Do you think I take tea? And how can you like it, Mr. Mackenzie?
You're not an Englishman."
Waddy thanked fate that his mother had entered human existence in New
York. Charrington, who was now near the table also, only laughed
good-naturedly. On the whole he was of the opinion that Dorothy liked
him. Her ideas about tea, or about other English customs, were not
important; he could alter them.
"I am afraid I must acknowledge that I do like it," Mackenzie had
answered.
"Do you take it in the morning--for breakfast?" inquired Dorothy, with
the air of a judge.
Mackenzie confessed that he did.
"Then you are lost. Oh, coffee, lovely coffee of home!" Dorothy went on.
"Coffee that fills the house at breakfast-time with its delicious
fragrance. Not black, as the Italians make it. Not drowned in boiled
milk, as the French drink it. As for the English beverage-- But ours, the
American--brown, strong, and with real cream! I wish I had a cup of it
now--three cups--and six buckwheat cakes with maple syrup!"
The contrast between this evoked repast and the girl herself was so
comical that the Americans who heard her broke into a laugh. Dorothy
was very slight; there was something ethereal in her appearance,
although the color in her cheeks, the brilliancy of her hazel eyes, and
the bright hue of her chestnut hair indicated a vivid vitality. As a
whole, she was charmingly pretty. The Americans who had laughed were but
two-- Mackenzie himself and Stephen Lefevre, who had now joined the
group. Lefevre wished that his adorable little countrywoman would not
say "lovely coffee." But Lefevre was, no doubt, a purist.
Felicia Philipps now came to the table with out-stretched hands. "_Poor_
Nora, I have only just observed how tired you are! You must have one of
your fearful headaches?"
"Oh dear, no," answered Nora, surprised. "I haven't a headache in the
least."
"Fancy! But you are overtired without knowing it; you must be, or you
would not look so pale. I am sure Mr. Mackenzie sees it. Don't you
think, Mr. Mackenzie, that Miss Sebright has been here quite long
enough? I'm so anxious to relieve her."
"It's very good of you, I'm sure," replied Mackenzie.
And then Felicia, pulling off her gloves, came round behind the table
and took possession of the place with an amiability and a rearrangement
of the cups that defied opposition.
"I am afraid this tea will be cold," Waddy meanwhile had suggested to
Dorothy.
"Yes, do take it down to mamma, Mr. Brunetti. And take this shawl too,
won't you?"
"Aren't you coming?" said Waddy, in a discomfited voice, as, shawl in
one hand and teacup in the other, he stood waiting.
"In five minutes; I have taken a fancy for spending just five minutes in
that big yellow chair."
"That is wise; I'm very pleased to hear you say it," remarked Nora, who,
though dispossessed, still lingered near. "We come up here, stay awhile,
and then go away; but you are kept on your feet for three or four hours
at a time."
"_You_ don't go away, do you, Nora?" said Felicia. "You are so kind. I
dare say you have been here since noon?"
"The samovar--" began Nora.
"Dear samovar!" commented Felicia, smiling.
And then Nora, at last understanding the sarcasm of the tone, left the
table and crossed the room, her cheeks no longer colorless. Alan
Mackenzie, who had heard this little dialogue, thought that the two
ladies had been very kind to each other.
Mrs. Tracy, on her way back from the anteroom, whither she had gone to
escort Julian Grimston's mother, who was taking leave, now stopped at
the tea-table. She drew Felicia aside. "Stay and dine with us, won't
you? We are always tired on Saturday evenings, and it will be delightful
to hear you sing. The carriage shall take you home."
"You're awfully good," Felicia answered. "But don't trouble to send out
the carriage. Ask Mr. Mackenzie too. He will be enchanted to stay, and
then we can go down together on foot, and nobody need be bothered."
"You don't mind?"
"At _my_ age!" answered Felicia, smiling. Felicia's smile always had a
slightly hungry look.
"_We_ shouldn't think of it. But then we're Americans," responded Mrs.
Tracy. "Over here no woman seems to be safely old."
"Is that why so many of you come over?" demanded Felicia, who at heart
detested all American women, especially those who, like the tenants of
Villa Dorio, had plenty of money at their disposal. Then curbing her
tongue, she added, "What you say is true of wives and widows. But I
assure you that old maids are shelved over here as soon and as
completely as they are with you in Oregon."
"In Oregon!" repeated Mrs. Tracy. "You English are too extraordinary."
And she went away, laughing.
During this conversation Dorothy was leaning back in the gold-colored
easy-chair; Charrington and Stephen Lefevre were standing beside her,
and presently Julian Grimston joined the group, rubbing his dry little
hands together gleefully, and murmuring to himself something that
sounded like "Aha! aha!"
"Is it the pure joy of living, Mr. Grimston?" Dorothy inquired. For this
was said to have been Julian's answer when an acquaintance, upon passing
him in the street one day and overhearing him ahaing, had asked what it
meant.
At this moment Waddy came from the anteroom. "And mamma's tea?" Dorothy
asked.
"Raffaello was just going down; I gave it to him."
"Oh, thanks. I'm thinking how little mamma will like that." And Dorothy
played thoughtfully a soundless tune with her right hand upon the arm of
the easy-chair.
Waddy pursed up his lips in an inaudible whistle. Then with swift step
he left the room.
Five minutes later he was back again. "It's all right. I caught up with
him," he said, briefly.
"Now mark that," began Charrington. "This impostor gave those things to
Mrs. North, I'll warrant, with rolling eyes that seemed to say that even
to have touched them had been a huge joy." Waddy did not defend himself.
"I wouldn't be a cherub, as you are, even if I could," went on
Charrington. "You belong to Christmas-cards--your chin on your clasped
hands. What is a cherub out of business--a cherub going about clothed,
and with an umbrella? It's ghastly."
Mrs. Tracy to Miss Jane Wood: "How do you do, Miss Wood?"
To Miss Maria: "_How_ do you do?"
Behind the Misses Wood came Rose Hatherbury and three of the Misses
Sebright, who were tired of sitting on the wall. Felicia, very busy,
sent tea to them all, Mackenzie carrying the cups. Raffaello presented
himself at the table to assist. Felicia did not know much Italian, but
she did know her own mind, and she wished for no second assistant; she
therefore said to Raffaello, in an undertone, but with decision, "Andate
via!" Raffaello, astounded by this unexpected "Clear out!" gazed at her
for a moment with wild eyes, and then escaped from the room.
The tea was not good--so the Misses Wood thought as they tried to sip
it; Nora Sebright, who was now walking with quick steps through the Via
Romana on her way home, would have been distressed to see how bad it
was.
"I wonder if there is any one in the garden now?" said Dorothy.
"There are fifty-seven persons," answered Rose, who had seated herself
on a sofa near. "I know, because I counted them."
"Then I must go down," said Dorothy, rising.
She nodded to Rose and to the others and left the room, Waddy following
as usual. Two minutes later, Charrington, Julian Grimston, and Stephen
Lefevre had also disappeared.
Miss Jane Wood (having given up the tea) now began, graciously, "Did you
get your ride this morning, Mr. Charrington?"
"Aunt Jane, Mr. Charrington is not here now," said Rose, in her distinct
tones.
"Oh," said Miss Jane, bewildered, and fumbling quickly for her
eye-glasses, which she had removed when she took her teacup. "He was
here a moment ago; I saw him."
"What wonderful elocutionary powers Miss Hatherbury has!" said Felicia,
in an aside, to Mackenzie. "I really think she could be heard in the
largest hall."
"Upon my word, now that you mention it, I believe she could," answered
Mackenzie, admiringly.
Rose divined that she was the subject of Felicia's aside. She said to
her aunt, in an interested tone, "How well one sees the Belmonte tower
from here!"
Miss Jane came to look, and then (in order that she should see to
advantage) her niece pulled the cord and rolled the window-shade up to
the top, letting in a broad shaft of sunset light, which fell directly
across the tea-table and the persons in attendance there. Rose took this
moment to carry her aunt's cup back to the table; and, having put it
down, she remained standing by Felicia's side while she began,
composedly, a conversation with Alan Mackenzie. Mackenzie responded:
his head immediately assumed the little bend which with him signified
devoted listening; he stood, meanwhile, exactly where Rose had intended
that he should stand--namely, in front of the two ladies, facing them.
Felicia, even in her youth, had had no beauty; now all the faults of her
sharp features were pitilessly magnified by the same clear light which
brought out the fine-grained purity of Rose's complexion and turned her
golden hair into glittering glory. Felicia was too intelligent to
cherish illusions about her appearance; she quivered under the radiance
in which the golden motes danced; she too had color now, but it was an
ugly vermilion in spots and streaks. She glanced at Mackenzie; he was
listening to Rose; now he was offering one of his civil little
questions--those attentive, never-failing small interrogatories for
which he was celebrated.
"I should like to strangle him!" thought the older woman, bitterly. "I
believe he would keep up those everlasting little questions on his
death-bed. In reality, he doesn't care the turn of his finger for that
screaming popinjay. Yet he stands there and listens to her, and will do
it unflinchingly as long as she talks, if it's all night."
The popinjay at this moment turned, and fired back at Felicia her own
gun. "You are tired, Miss Philipps. Doesn't she look tired, Mr.
Mackenzie?"
Mackenzie turned obediently; he inspected Felicia's flushed face.
"Yes--ah, really, I am afraid you are tired," he said, kindly.
Felicia, unable to bear his gaze, seized her gloves and fled.
But the popinjay could not sing, and had no invitation to stay. Alan
Mackenzie loved music. As he never spoke of the love, but few persons
had discovered it; Felicia was one of the few.
It was nearly eleven o'clock before the song began. They had gone out,
after dinner, to the small stone terrace that opened from the
drawing-room, in order to look at the valley by the light of the moon.
"For we really like our view when we don't have to talk about it," Mrs.
Tracy explained. After a while, "Come, Felicia," she said.
Felicia went within and opened the piano; Mrs. Tracy, following, sank
into the easiest chair; Mrs. North placed herself in the doorway, with
her face towards the moonlight. Dorothy remained outside, using the
hammock as a swing, pushing herself to and fro slowly by a touch on the
parapet now and then. On the other side of the terrace, in a
garden-chair, sat the second guest.
Felicia's voice was a contralto which had not a range of many notes, but
each one of the notes was perfect. Her singing was for a room only; it
was intimate, personal; perhaps too personal sometimes. The words were,
for her, a part of it as much as the melody.
"Through the long days and years
What will my loved one be,
Parted from me.
Through the long days and years?"
The music upon which these words were borne was indescribably sweet.
Dorothy had stopped swinging. But it was the melody that held her
vaguely given attention; she paid no heed to the spoken syllables.
"Never on earth again
Shall I before her stand,
Touch lip or hand,
Never on earth again,"
sang the voice, the strains floating out to the moonlight in a passion
of sorrow. Dorothy was now looking at the tower of Belmonte, near by. "I
wish our villa had a tower," was the thought in her mind. As her gaze
turned, she saw that Mackenzie's eyes were resting upon her, and she
smiled back at him, making a mute little gesture of applause.
"But while my darling lives,
Peaceful I journey on,
Not quite alone,
Not while my darling lives."
And now the music rose to that last courage, that acceptance of grief as
the daily portion of one's life, which is the highest pathos. Then there
was a silence.
Dorothy made her little motion of applause again, save that this time
the applause was audible; the words on her lips, ready to utter, were,
"How pretty that is!" Perhaps Mackenzie divined what these words would
be, for, with a quick movement, he rose and went to the end of the
terrace, where he stood with his back towards her, looking down the
valley. But Dorothy had accomplished her duty; she was perfectly willing
to be silent; she sank lazily back in the hammock again, and resumed her
swinging.
"Mr. Mackenzie, wasn't that exquisite?" said Mrs. Tracy's voice within.
Mackenzie, thus summoned, crossed the terrace and re-entered the
drawing-room. Felicia kept her seat at the piano; as Mrs. Tracy was
standing behind her, and as Mrs. North's head was turned away, she was
freed for the moment from feminine observation, and she therefore gave
herself the luxury of letting all the pathos and passion with which she
had sung remain unsubdued in her eyes, which, met his as he came up.
"Lovely, wasn't it? But so sad," continued Mrs. Tracy.
"Yes," Mackenzie answered; "it _is_ rather sad." Then, "What song is it,
Miss Philipps?" he inquired. "I do not remember having heard it before."
"'Through the long days,'" answered Felicia, who was now looking at the
piano keys.
"Ah! And the composer?"
"Francis Boott."
"Ah! Francis Boott, yes. And the words?" His head had now its attentive
little bend.
"They are by John Hay." To herself she added: "You _shall_ stop your
little questions; you _shall_ say something different!" And again she
looked up at him, her eyes strangely lustrous.
And then at last he did say, "May I take the music home with me? You
shall have it again to-morrow. It is a very beautiful song."
Felicia rolled up the sheet and gave it to him, her hand slightly rigid
as she did so from repressed emotion.
At midnight the two guests took leave, Mrs. Tracy accompanying them down
to the entrance portal. The irregular open space, or piazza, before the
house had a weird appearance; the roadway looked like beaten silver; the
short grass had the hue and gleam of new tin; the atmosphere all about
was as visibly white as it is visibly black on a dark night.
[Illustration: "AND AGAIN SHE LOOKED UP AT HIM"]
"It's the moment exactly for our ghost to come out and clank his
chains," said the lady of the house. "This intensely white moonlight is
positively creepy; it is made for hobgoblins and sheeted spectres; the
Belmonte monk must certainly be dancing on the top of his tower."
"Oh no," said Felicia; "it's St. Mark's eve, so we're all under good
protection. Hear the nightingales."
She was in high spirits; her words came out between little laughs like
giggles. Mrs. Tracy watched the two figures cross the grass and turn
down the narrow passage whence the road descends in zigzags to Florence.
"Poor Felicia," she said, when she had returned up the stairs to the
drawing-room; "she is talking about St. Mark's eve, in order, I suppose,
to bring up the idea of St. Agnes's. It's late, isn't it? They must want
to walk!"
"They?" said Mrs. North. "_She._"
"Well, then, I wish she could," responded Mrs. Tracy. Going to the
terrace door, she looked out. "Where is Dorothy?"
"I sent her to bed; she was almost asleep in the hammock. If there is
one thing she likes better than another, it is to curl herself up in
some impossible place and fall asleep. Would you mind closing the glass
doors? The nightingales hoot so."
Mrs. Tracy closed and fastened the terrace entrance for the night.
"What do you mean by saying that you wish she could?" Mrs. North went
on. "You wouldn't have Alan Mackenzie marry that plain-looking,
ill-tempered old maid, would you?"
"Perhaps she is ill-tempered just because she is an old maid, Laura. And
as to looks--if she were happy--"
"Mercy! Are the Mackenzie millions to be devoted to the public charity
of making a Felicia Philipps happy?"
"Why, isn't it as good an object as a picture-gallery? Or even an orphan
asylum? Felicia would be a great deal happier than all the happiness
combined of the whole three hundred orphans out at St. Martin's at a
Christmas dinner," suggested Charlotte Tracy, laughing.
"Absurd! Rose Hatherbury is the one--if it's any one in Florence."
"Oh, Rose is too young for him."
"In years, yes. But Rose's heart can be any age she pleases. Alan isn't
really old in the least; but he was born middle-aged; he is the essence
of middle-age and mediocrity; one always knows beforehand what he will
say, for it will simply be, on every occasion, the most polite and the
most commonplace thing that could possibly be devised under the
circumstances. How came you to ask him to stay to dinner?"
"Felicia made me. Funny, wasn't it, to see Waddy hang on, hoping for an
invitation too."
"You might have given him one. It would have entertained Dorothy."
"Well, to tell the truth, Laura, I am a little afraid of Waddy; he _is_
so handsome!"
"She doesn't care for him."
"She likes him."
"Yes, as she likes a dozen more. If she has a fancy for one over
another, it is, I think, for Owen Charrington," continued the mother.
"She would have to live in England. But I dare say his people would take
to her; they are very nice, you know--his people."
"How can you talk so! Dorothy is thoroughly American; she would be
wretched in England. When she marries--which I hope won't be for five or
six years more--she must marry one of our own countrymen, of course. The
idea!"
"Very well; I've no objection. But in that case we must take her home
again before long," said Laura North, rising. As she spoke she indulged
in a stretch, with her long arms extended first horizontally, and then
slowly raised until they were perpendicular above her head, the very
finger-tips taking part in the satisfactory elongation.
"How I wish _I_ could do that!" said Charlotte Tracy, enviously. "But
you don't say 'Ye-ough' at the end, as you ought to."
They put out the wax-candles and left the room together, Mrs. Tracy
lighting the way with a Tuscan lamp, its long chains dangling. "By this
time Felicia, 'delicately treading the clear pellucid air,' is going
through the Porta Romana," she suggested.
"Never in the world! She has taken him round by the Viale dei Colli; she
won't let him off for two good hours yet," responded Mrs. North.
II
"On Thursday, January 8th, at the English church, Florence, by the
Reverend J. Chaloner-Bouverie, Alan Mackenzie, to Dorothy, daughter of
the late Captain Richard North, United States Navy."--_Galignani's
Messenger_ of January 10, 1882.
III
It was St. Mark's eve again, April 24th, and again there were many
visitors at Bellosguardo. Upon this occasion they were assembled at
Belmonte, the villa with the old battlemented tower, where Mr. and Mrs.
Alan Mackenzie were receiving their Florentine friends for the first
time since their marriage; they had been travelling in Sicily and
southern Italy through the winter months.
"We shall be going home in 1883, I suppose," Mackenzie had said to the
ladies of Villa Dorio; "I shall be obliged to go then; or at least it
would be better to go. In the meanwhile, as Dorothy appears to be rather
fond of Bellosguardo--don't you think so?-- I have had the idea of taking
Belmonte for a time. That is, if you yourselves intend to continue
here?"
"Oh, we shall continue, we shall continue," Mrs. Tracy had answered,
laughing. "For detached American ladies, who haven't yet come to calling
themselves old--for the cultivated superfluous and the intelligent
remainders--there is nothing like Europe!"
The flat highways down in the Arno Valley, west of Bellosguardo, are
deep in dust even as early as April; the villages, consisting for the
most part of a shallow line of houses on each side of the road, almost
join hands, so that it is not the dust alone that afflicts the
pedestrian, but children, dogs, the rinds of fruit and vegetables--all
the far-reaching untidiness of a Southern race that lives in the street.
The black-eyed women sit in chairs at the edge of the dry gutter,
plaiting straw; up to middle-age they are all handsome, with thick hair
and soft, dark eyes. On this April afternoon they laughed (waiting with
Italian politeness until she had passed) as an Englishwoman trudged by
them on her way back to Florence. Her plain dress was short, revealing
long shoes white with dust; her unbeautiful face was mottled by the
heat; she looked tired enough to lie down and die. But to the
straw-plaiting matrons she was simply ridiculous, or else mad; for how
otherwise should a foreigner be toiling along their plebeian highway on
foot, when she could so easily have a carriage? Felicia was finishing
her daily walk of miles--a walk without an object save to tire herself.
As she passed the olive-crowned heights of Bellosguardo rising on the
right, she lifted her eyes.
"He is there, seeing everybody. All the same people who were there a
year ago to-day. And what are they thinking--perhaps saying? 'See this
dull, middle-aged man, with that flighty little creature for a wife! She
cares nothing for him; she turns him round her finger, and always will.'
O fool! fool too noble to see or to doubt; simple, generous nature,
never asserting itself, always repressed, that _I_ understood, while all
these other people, that girl at the head of them, only laughed at it!"
She hastened on, passed through the city gate, and made her way down the
dirty, evil-smelling Borgo San Frediano to San Spirito beyond, where,
high up in an old palace, she had a small apartment crowded with
artistic trumpery. After climbing the long stairs, and letting herself
in with a latch-key, she entered her minute drawing-room, and sank into
a chair, her feet, in their dusty shoes, like two blocks of wood on the
matting before her. And the plates and the plaques and the pots, the
bits of silk and tapestry and embroidery, the old sketches and old busts
and old shrines that adorned the walls, looked down upon her with their
usual heterogeneous glimmer. This time the glimmer seemed personally
sarcastic, seemed inhuman.
While she sat there, the people at Belmonte were beginning to take
leave. Rose was to remain (with Miss Jane Wood). As Waddy Brunetti was
to remain also, the Misses Sebright looked at Rose with envy. Six of the
sisters were now united in a single admiration. For Owen Charrington had
gone to Australia before Christmas--it was about the time that Dorothy's
engagement had been announced--and he had not returned; admiration could
not stretch to the antipodes. Waddy, too, had been absent through
January, February, and March; but he was now at home again, so there was
some use in going once more to teas and receptions.
"How lovely Mrs. Mackenzie is looking!" said Miss Maria Wood on the way
down to Florence.
She had accepted a seat in Mrs. Grimston's carriage, and it was that
lady who answered her.
"Yes--fairly; it's her youth more than anything else. Strictly speaking,
there are but two kinds of beauty--dimpled youth like that, and the
noble outline and bearing that come from distinguished birth."
This was a double shot. For Rose certainly had no dimples, and the birth
of distinction pointed of course to the widowed countess. But Julian,
who sat facing his mother, had no longer any courage to resist; his poor
little eyes, like those of a sick monkey, had shed their two slow tears
on Christmas eve, when, at last allowed to retreat to his own (cold)
room, he had accepted drearily the tidings of Dorothy's engagement, and
had given up his struggle against fate.
Mr. Illingsworth walked down the hill with Mrs. Sebright, her girls
following at a little distance, two and two. "Don't I miss one of your
charming daughters?" he said, gallantly, as, happening to look back at
the turn of a zigzag, he caught sight of the procession coming round the
higher bend.
"Dear me! I wish he might miss three or four!" thought the mother. But
this was nothing worse on her part than a natural desire to translate
three or four of them to richer atmospheres--a Yorkshire country-house,
for instance, or a good vicarage; even army life in India would do.
Meanwhile she was replying, "Yes--Nora; Nora has been at St. Martin's
Orphan House, out in the country, since Christmas. She is greatly
interested in the work there; so much so that I have consented to let
her remain."
Nora's secret only one person had discovered, and this one was the
benevolent stranger, Charlotte Tracy, who had happened to see the
expression in the girl's eyes for one instant, when the news of Alan
Mackenzie's engagement had come upon her suddenly, and taken her (as it
took all Florence) by surprise. The American lady, instantly
comprehending, had (while her own face showed nothing) screened Nora
skilfully from observation for several minutes. And ever since she had
kept her knowledge hidden away very closely in a shaded corner of her
heart.
"A true Sister of Charity," Mr. Illingsworth had responded to the
mother's reply about the orphan house. But as he said this he was
thinking, "And if _I_ had married, as I came so near doing, I, too,
might have had at my heels this moment--great heavens!--just such
another red-cheeked, affectionate train!"
That evening the ladies who had dined at Belmonte were taking their
coffee in the garden; there was no moon, but the splendid stars gave a
light of their own as they spangled the dark-blue sky. From the open
door of the boudoir at this end of the house, the light, streaming
forth, fell upon Dorothy as she sat talking to Rose. After a while the
gentlemen joined the ladies; and then Waddy talked to Rose. But while he
talked, his eyes followed the hostess, who was now strolling up and down
the honeysuckle path with one of her guests. Some one asked Waddy to
sing. Nothing loath, he went within, brought out Dorothy's guitar, and
sang one of Tosti's serenades. The song and his voice, a melodious
tenor, accorded so perfectly with the old Italian garden that there was
much applause. And then Waddy, having moved his chair into the shadow of
the trees, sent forth after a while from the darkness, unasked, a second
song, and this time the words were English:
"Through the long days, the long days and the years,
What will my loved one be,
Parted from me, parted from me,
Through the long days and years?"
The lady who had been strolling with Dorothy had stopped to speak to
some one, and for the moment the young wife, who had reached the end of
the honeysuckle path, was alone. Mackenzie came up quietly and stood
beside her as the song went on. When it had ended, she looked up at
him.
"Do you like it so much?" she asked, in surprise, as she saw, in the
starlight, the expression of his face.