Dorothy," he answered, in a low tone, just touching her hair in the
shadow. "A year ago--do you remember? That same song, on the terrace? It
expressed what I felt; for then I had no hope. But now--"
Here a voice from the group of ladies said, "Mr. Mackenzie will know;
ask him." And Mackenzie, returning to the light, was the attentive host
again. Waddy, meanwhile, crossed the grass quickly to the honeysuckle
path.
He was the last to take leave; when Mackenzie returned, after escorting
Mrs. North and Mrs. Tracy to the Villa Dorio, he was still in the garden
with Dorothy.
Fifteen minutes later, through the open windows of Mrs. North's chamber
there came the sound of steps.
"Waddy," said Charlotte Tracy, peeping through the closed blinds, and
recognizing his figure. "He has outstayed everybody."
"You are no longer afraid of him, I trust?" inquired Mrs. North.
"Certainly not," said the older lady with decision. After a moment she
added, "She must always amuse herself, I suppose."
"She has the very best of safeguards."
"Now there you go, with your cold-blooded judgments, Laura! Dorothy has
as deep feelings as anybody. I don't know where you get your knowledge
of her; you are her step-mother, it is true; but I have been with her as
constantly as you have for years."
"Quite so. May I ask how well you knew her father?"
"I don't care!" was Charlotte's reply. She left the room with majesty.
The majesty lasted through the hall, and into her own chamber, as she
reflected, "_I_ have feelings. And Dorothy has feelings. But Laura is a
stone!" At this moment she caught a glimpse of herself in the
full-length mirror, and majesty collapsed. "Do I look like that? Do I?
Stout, short-nosed?" And she sank down on a sofa overwhelmed. But
presently a laugh broke through her discomfiture. "The very next
crumpled little old man I see, I'll be nice to him! I'll ask who is his
favorite poet, and I'll get him to quote--yes, even if it's Byron!" Mrs.
Tracy's favorite author was Ibsen.
"You will do it if I wish, won't you, Alan?" said Dorothy the next day.
"Why, if you really wish it--if you think it best--" began Mackenzie.
"She doesn't in the least," interposed Mrs. North. "Don't indulge her
so; you will spoil her."
Mackenzie's eyes turned towards his wife.
"Don't look at me to see whether mamma is right," said Dorothy,
laughing; "invent an opinion of your own about me--do! But let us have
something striking; consider me capable of murder, for instance, not of
mere commonplace selfishness. Every woman is capable of murder once; I
am perfectly sure of it."
"My dear," said Mackenzie, expostulatingly.
"I don't know whether I could quite do it with my own hands," Dorothy
went on, stretching out her palms and looking at them. "But Felicia
Philipps could; yes, with her long fingers. Brrrr!" And she rushed to
her husband and hid her face on his arm.
She had her way, which was not a murder, but a ball. Soon afterwards
there was a summer-night party at Belmonte, with music and dancing; the
tower and the garden, illuminated, were visible for miles roundabout,
like a fairy-land on the dark hill. Then followed excursions, long
drives, and, more frequently, long rides; for Dorothy had taken to
riding. Mackenzie accompanied the riding-parties cheerfully. But Dorothy
was often far in advance with one of the younger cavaliers.
"I believe I should come back from the dead, Alan, to see you pounding
along, always at the very end of the procession, with Miss Jane Wood,"
said the young wife one day. "I know you don't care much about riding.
But why do you always escort Miss Jane? She must weigh one hundred and
eighty."
"She is a little timid, I think," answered Mackenzie; "at least, I have
fancied so. She only goes to see to Miss Hatherbury."
"As you see to me?"
Mackenzie liked long walks.
"But walking is so dull. And the people who take long walks have such an
insufferable air of superiority," commented Dorothy. "Not that you have
come to that, Alan; with you it's just simple vanity."
And making the motion of turning up trousers at the bottom, she crossed
the garden, holding her riding-whip like a cane, with her shoulders put
back, her head run out a little, and a long step with a dip in the
middle of it--the whole an amusing caricature of her husband's gait when
starting on a long excursion. Mackenzie had taught himself that gait; he
had even been a little proud of it. But now he joined irrepressibly in
his wife's merriment, as she loped down the broad walk, and then came
running back to him with her own light swiftness.
Occasionally, however, she went with him for a stroll. One day late in
the afternoon they passed Villa Dorio together. The sun, low in the
west, was shining on all the square Tuscan towers that dot the hill-tops
in every direction. May was now more than half spent, and the air was
like that of July in Northern countries. The ladies of Villa Dorio saw
them go by; Dorothy's straw hat was hanging by its ribbons from her arm.
"He hates to have her out without her hat," remarked Mrs. Tracy, leaning
forward to watch them for a moment.
"Well, in that dress, she doesn't look more than fourteen," answered
Mrs. North.
Mr. and Mrs. Mackenzie went on down the hill. When they came to the
first zigzag, they left the main road, and, turning, crossed a grassy
little piazza; beyond, clinging to the side of the hill, with a cluster
of cypresses before it like tall green candles, is the small church of
San Vito, commanding a magnificent sweep of the valley below. As they
passed, San Vito's chimes rang the Angelus, swinging far out from the
open belfry against the sky with all the abandon of Italian bells, which
seem forever joyous--almost intoxicated--even for the dead. San Vito's
has a path of its own which follows a narrow shelf overhanging the
valley; the two pedestrians turned down this path. As the bells ceased,
Dorothy began to sing:
"Ring out across the sunset sky, Angelus--"
"Go on; go on," said Mackenzie, delightedly. "Oh, _I_ can't sing."
"Dear, I think you could; your voice is so sweet. If you would take
lessons--"
"Well, by-and-by. We have lots of time for everything, Alan." When they
came to the turn where there is a rustic shrine she paused. "I won't go
any farther, I think. But don't stop because I do; you like your walk.
Go on, and come back through the olive groves just beyond Belmonte; I
will be waiting for you at our wall."
"I don't like to leave you here alone."
"Not under the shrine? What's more, here is the priest."
The priest of San Vito's was coming down the path. He was an old man,
with a large, sensible face, and a somewhat portly person dressed in
well-brushed black. He aided his steps with a cane. His bearing was
serene and dignified. As he passed, Mackenzie saluted him, raising his
hat.
"For a Unitarian," said Dorothy, after the worthy man had gone by,
"aren't you showing a good deal of courtesy? But you would be courteous
to any religion; you would respect the fetish of a South Sea Islander.
Do you know, Alan, that you have too many respects? Please go now, so
that you can be back the sooner." Mackenzie, who had been leaning
against the parapet, turned and began to go down the descent. His wife
followed him for a step or two, in order to brush some mortar from his
sleeve. "You see it is I that must keep you respectable--in spite of
your respects."
How pretty she was! They were alone under the high wall. "My darling,"
he murmured. And Dorothy, laughing, raised herself on tiptoe to kiss
him.
Half an hour later, when he reached the wall near Belmonte, there was
no Dorothy. He went within. The signora had gone to Villa Dorio, the
servant said. He came out and followed her thither. Yes, Dorothy had
been there; but Waddy Brunetti had happened in, and they had strolled
down as far as San Vito's.
Mackenzie did not say, "But she has just been to San Vito's." He sat
talking with the ladies for twenty minutes or more; then he remarked,
offering it as a suggestion for their approval, "I think I will walk on
to San Vito's and meet them."
"Yes, do," said Mrs. North. "And make that foolish Dorothy put on her
hat."
"It is as warm as midsummer. And the air is perfectly dry, I think; no
dew," Mackenzie answered.
"He defends her even when she vexes him," commented Charlotte Tracy,
after he had gone.
"He might as well be amiable, seeing that he cannot be interesting,"
Mrs. North responded.
Dorothy was not at San Vito's. And she had not gone down the zigzags of
the carriage-road; he went down to see. He returned to Belmonte. It was
now late twilight. But there was still a band of orange light in the
west, and, outlined against it, on the top of the tower, were two
figures. He recognized them instantly--Dorothy and young Brunetti.
Dorothy waved her hand to him through one of the embrasures. "Send up
some one with candles," she called.
"With what?"
"Can-dles; it's too dark now to come down without lights. But don't send
immediately; wait fifteen minutes more, so that we can see the moon
rise. And, Alan!"
"Yes?"
"Please tell them that Mr. Brunetti will stay and dine with us."
IV
On the 29th of December of this same year, 1882, Reginald Illingsworth
was paying a visit to Mrs. Sebright.
"What a career that little girl will have!" he said, with deep gustatory
appreciation.
Before this, for half an hour, he had been making remarks of a nature
best described by the following examples: "That excellent fellow,
Mackenzie! You can't think how I miss him!" "There is something so
tragic in such a death--a man who had everything to live for!" "How
could they go to Rome! That pernicious Roman fever is the curse of
Italy." "Those poor ladies! Directly I heard they had returned to
Belmonte, I went up at once to inquire and to leave cards; it is a
stricken house!" Having said everything that decorum required, he now
finally allowed himself to bring out the thought which was in reality
filling his mind: "What a career that little girl will have! Only
nineteen, and so very pretty, so charming. He has left her everything
without a condition (save in the event--most improbable at her age--of
her dying without children, in which case it goes back to his own
relatives), and I am told that he had nearly eight millions of dollars;
that is, one million six hundred thousand pounds! They are shrewd in
their American way--those ladies; Mrs. North is very shrewd. And mark my
words, madam, that little girl will make one of the great matches yet;
not pinchbeck; something really good!" (His "good" had a deeply solid
sound.)
This same afternoon the following words were exchanged in another
quarter of Florence:
"Rose, dear," said Miss Jane Wood, "you will go up again to-morrow,
won't you, to see poor Dorothy?"
"I have been twice--all that is necessary for appearances, Aunt Jane.
Why should I bother Dorothy now?"
"Sympathy--" began Miss Jane.
"Sympathy! She is in a position to extend it to me. I think she is the
very luckiest girl I have ever heard of in my life. All another girl can
do in the face of such luck as that is to keep away from it, and not
think about it--if she can."
Miss Jane Wood: "I am _astonished_!"
Miss Maria: "!!!!"
That evening, at Belmonte, Dorothy walked and walked about the
drawing-room; now she stopped at a table, took up something and put it
down again; now she moved a statuette to another position; now she gazed
at the etchings on the wall as though she had never seen them before;
now she added pine-cones to the already blazing fire, kneeling on the
rug with the hot flame scorching her face; finally she went to the
window, and, parting the curtains, stood looking out. It was a dark
night without stars; in addition to the freezing temperature, the wind
was fierce; it drove furiously against the windows of the villa, it came
round the corner of the tower with a shriek like that of a banshee.
"It's dreadfully cold," said the girl at last, as if speaking to
herself.
"Surely not here?" replied Mrs. Tracy. Dorothy came wandering back to
the fire, and then the aunt drew her down by her side. "Dear child,
don't keep thinking of Rome," she whispered. "He is not there; there is
nothing there but the lifeless clay." And she kissed her.
"Try not to be so restless, Dorothy," said Mrs. North, from her warm
corner. "You have walked about this room all day."
"It's because I'm so tired; I am so tired that I cannot keep still,"
Dorothy answered.
"I think a change would be a good thing for all of us," Mrs. North went
on. "We could go to Cannes for two months; we could be as quiet at
Cannes as here."
Dorothy looked at her with vague eyes, as if waiting to hear more.
"It is warmer there. And then there is the sea--to look at, you know,"
pursued Mrs. North, seeing that she was called upon to exhibit
attractions.
"Egypt would be my idea," said Mrs. Tracy. "A dahabeeyah on the Nile,
Dorothy. Camels; temples."
Dorothy listened, as if rather struck by this idea also.
"But Egypt would be a fearful trouble, Charlotte," objected Mrs. North.
"Who is going to get a good dahabeeyah for us at this time of year?"
"Don't spoil it. I'll get twenty," responded the other lady.
And then there was a silence.
"Well, Dorothy, are you going to leave it to us to decide?"
"Yes, mamma," Dorothy answered. Her eyes had grown dull again; she sat
listening to the wind as if she had forgotten what they were talking
about.
"It's decided, then. We will go to Cannes," remarked Mrs. North,
serenely.
Her Aunt Charlotte's discomfited face drew a sudden laugh from the
niece. And this laughter, once begun, did not cease; peal succeeded
peal, and Dorothy threw herself back on the cushions of the sofa,
overcome with merriment. Mrs. North glanced towards the doors to see if
they were well closed. But Charlotte Tracy was so glad to hear the sound
again that she did not care about comments from the servants; Dorothy's
face, dull and tired, above the dead black of the widow's attire, had
been like a nightmare to her.
They went to Cannes. And Mrs. North's suggested "two months" had now
lengthened, in her plans, to three. But before two weeks, had passed
they were again at Belmonte.
"Now that we have made one fiasco, Charlotte, and taken that horrible
journey, all tunnels, twice within twenty days, we must not make
another; we must decide to remain where we are for the present. If
Dorothy grows restless again, be firm. Be firm, as I shall be."
"Surely we ought to be indulgent to her now, Laura?"
"Not too much so. Otherwise we shall be laying up endless bother for
ourselves. For we have a year of hourly employment before us, day by
day. In the way of seeing to her, I mean."
"She will not make us the least trouble," said Mrs. Tracy, indignantly.
"I am not finding fault with her. But she cannot help her age, can she?
She is exceedingly young to be a widow, and she has a large fortune; but
for a year, at any rate, if I know myself, gossip shall not touch my
daughter."
"A year? I'll guarantee ten," said Mrs. Tracy, still indignant.
"I don't care about ten; three will do. Yes, I see you looking at me
with outraged eyes. But there's no need. I liked Alan as much as you
did; I appreciated every one of his good points. With all that, you
cannot pretend to say that you believe Dorothy really loved him. She was
too young to love anybody. The love was on his side, and you were as
much surprised as I was when she took a fancy to accept it."
Mrs. Tracy could not deny this. But she belonged to that large class of
women who, from benevolent motives, never acknowledge unwelcome facts.
"I think you are perfectly horrid!" she said.
Dorothy, back at Belmonte, was troublesome only in the sense of being
always in motion. Having exhausted the garden, she began to explore the
country. She went to Galileo's tower; to the lonely little church of
Santa Margherita; the valley of the Ema knew her slender black figure.
Once she crossed the Greve, and, following the old Etruscan road,
climbed to the top of the height beyond, where stands the long, blank
Shameless Villa outlined against the sky.
"Do you know, I am afraid I am lame," said Mrs. Tracy, the morning after
this long tramp to the Shameless.
"Well, why do you go? One of us is enough," answered Mrs. North.
To the walks Dorothy now added lessons in German and Italian. Mrs. North
drove down to Florence and engaged Fräulein Bernstein and Mademoiselle
Scarletti. Next, Dorothy said that she wished to take lessons in music.
"A good idea. You ought to play much better than you do," said her
mother.
"Piano; but singing too, please," Dorothy answered.
Again Mrs. North descended to Florence; Fräulein Lundborg was engaged
for instrumental music, and Madame Farinelli for vocal. Dorothy wished
to have a lesson each day from each of her teachers. "It's a perfect
procession up and down this hill!" thought Mrs. Tracy. There was a piano
in the billiard-room, and another in the drawing-room; but now Dorothy
wished to have a third piano in her own sitting-room up-stairs.
"But, my dear, what an odd fancy! Are you going to sing there by
yourself?" her mother inquired.
"Yes!" said Dorothy.
"Do you think she is well?" asked Mrs. Tracy, confidentially, with some
anxiety.
"Perfectly well. It is the repressed life she is leading," Mrs. North
answered. "But we must make the best of it. This is as good a place as
any for the next three months."
But again this skilful directress was forced to abandon the "good
place." Early in March, when the almond-trees were in bloom, Dorothy,
coming in from the garden, announced, "I _hate_ Belmonte! Let us go
away, mamma--anywhere. Let us start to-morrow."
"We took you to Cannes, and you did not wish to stay. We shall be
leaving Belmonte in any case in June; that isn't long to wait."
"You like Paris; will you go to Paris?" the girl went on.
"What can you do in Paris more than you do here?"
"I love the streets, they are so bright--so many people. Oh, mamma, if
you could only know how dull I am!" And sinking down on the rug, Dorothy
laid her face on the sofa-cushion at her mother's side.
Mrs. Tracy coming in and finding her thus, bent and felt her pulse.
"Yes, one hundred and fifty!" said Dorothy, laughing. "Take me to Paris,
and to the opera or theatre every night, and it will go down."
"Oh, you don't mean that," said the aunt, assuringly.
"Yes, but I do," Dorothy answered. And then, with her cheek still
resting on the cushion, she looked up at her mother. "You will take me,
mamma, won't you? If I tell you that I _must_?"
"Yes," replies Mrs. North, coldly.
They went to Paris. And then, for four weeks, almost every night at the
back of a box at the opera or at one of the theatres were three ladies
in mourning attire, the youngest of the three in widow's weeds. Mrs.
Tracy was so perturbed during these weeks that her face was constantly
red.
"Why are you so worried?" Mrs. North inquired. "I manage it perfectly;
people don't in the least know."
"Do I care for 'people'? It's--it's--" But she would not say "It's
Dorothy." "It's ourselves," she finally ended.
"Always sentimental," said Laura.
Midway in the first week of April, Dorothy suddenly changed again. "I
can't stay here a moment longer!" she said.
"Perhaps you would like to take a trip round the world?" suggested Mrs.
North, with a touch of sarcasm.
"No. I don't know what you will say, mamma, but I should like to go back
to Belmonte."
"I have a good deal of patience, my dear, but I must say that you wear
it out."
"I know I do; but if you will take me back, I promise to stay there this
time as long as you like."
"_I_ like--" began Mrs. North; but Dorothy, with a frown, had rushed out
of the room.
"What shall we do now?" said the aunt.
"Go back, I suppose; I have always thought Belmonte the best place up to
really hot weather. One good thing: if we do go back we can take the
opportunity to rid ourselves definitely of both of those villas. My idea
is the Black Forest country for August and September. Then we could come
here again for a few weeks. For the winter, what do you say to a long
cruise towards the South somewhere, in a yacht of our own? We could
select the right people to go with us."
They returned to Italy, reaching Bellosguardo again on the 11th of
April.
On the 6th of May Charlotte Tracy said, "Laura, to me this is dreadful!
Waddy is here morning, noon, and night."
"So many people have left Florence that it hardly matters; nobody knows
what is going on up here. He amuses her, and that is something gained."
"I wish he wouldn't be forever singing!" said the aunt, irritably.
"He sings very well. And Dorothy has shown a new interest in singing
lately. Don't you remember that she took lessons herself before we went
to Paris?"
"You don't mean to intimate that Waddy had anything to do with that?"
"Why not? A girl of that age has all sorts of changing interests and
tastes; there will be something new every month or two, probably, for a
long time yet."
In June, Mrs. Tracy demanded, "Is Owen Charrington one of your
something-news?"
"I dare say he is," Mrs. North answered, smiling.
For Owen Charrington had come back from Australia. He found the zigzags
which led to Belmonte very hot and very solitary; there was no Waddy
going up or coming down, either on foot or in a carriage, although his
ascents and descents had been as regular as those of the postman during
the six preceding weeks. Shortly before Charrington's return, Dorothy,
entering the boudoir one evening at ten o'clock, said:
"Mamma--Aunt Charlotte--will you tell the servants, please, that
whenever Mr. Brunetti calls, after this, they are to say that we are
engaged, or not at home? I don't suppose _you_ care to see him?"
"What can have happened?" said Mrs. Tracy, when the girl had gone out
again without explanation.
"There hasn't been time for much to happen. I have been out there with
them all the evening; I only came in for my tea," answered Mrs. North,
sipping that beverage.
"Since then he has been singing. At least, I thought I heard his
voice--not very loud."
"Perhaps she is tired of his voice--not very loud."
Mrs. Tracy threw a lace scarf over her head and went out to the garden.
The long aisles under the trees were flooded with moonlight, the air was
perfumed with the fragrance of the many flowers; but there was no
Dorothy. She entered the house by another door, and, going softly up the
great stairway, turned towards Dorothy's rooms at the south end of the
long villa. Here a light was visible, coming under the door of the
sitting-room; the aunt did not lift the latch, she stood outside
listening. Yes, Dorothy was there, and she was singing to herself in a
low tone, playing the accompaniment with the soft pedal down:
"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?"
"She is up there singing; singing all alone," reported the aunt, when
she came back to the boudoir down-stairs.
"I suppose you like that better than not alone?" suggested Mrs. North.
Waddy came to Belmonte five times without success. Then he left
Florence.
Dorothy did not stroll in the garden with Owen Charrington. If her
mother and aunt were outside when he came, she remained with them there;
but if they were in the drawing-room or the boudoir, she immediately led
her guest within; then she sat looking at him while he talked.
Charrington talked well; all he said was amusing. Dorothy listened and
laughed. If he paused, she urged him on again. This urgency of hers
became so apparent that at last it embarrassed him. To carry it off he
attacked her:
"You force me to chatter, Mrs. Mackenzie--to chatter like a parrot!"
"Yes," answered Dorothy, "you must talk; you must talk all the time."
"'All the time'--awfully funny Americanism!"
"And the French 'tout le temps'?"
"Oh, French; I don't know about French."
"Of course you don't. We are willing to be funny with the French. Are
you 'very pleased' to be here to-day? Answer."
"Of course I am very pleased."
"And you would say, wouldn't you, 'Directly I returned to Florence, I
bought a horse'?"