THE ENGLISH LADY IN PISA.
The presence of the Snodgrasses did not make very much difference to the
party in the Palazzo dei Sogni; Mr. Hunstanton introduced them to the
English club, and, as was natural, they established themselves in the
select coterie of the English Church, and were a great godsend to the
chaplain, and attended the choir practices, and soon became very well
known in Pisa. And in the evening receptions, which took place sometimes
at Miss Trelawny’s, sometimes at Mrs. Hunstanton’s, these two black
figures were perpetually apparent, the uncle circulating among the
little society, the nephew standing up in his usual corner. Poor curate!
he did not get very much attention from any one. The Hunstantons
confined their civilities to the necessary number of Good nights and
Good mornings: Sophy flouted him perpetually: and Mrs. Norton made him
alarming little speeches about the parish, and asked him if he felt
better, in a tone which inferred a contemptuous refusal to believe that
he had been ill at all. All this he bore, poor fellow; he was not ill to
speak of. If he could have been left in his corner staring at Diana for
twelve hours at a time, or the whole twenty-four, had that been
possible, he would have been happy--and would have minded none of the
snubs that were freely dispensed on all sides. And Diana herself was
always kind to the poor young man. She did not talk to him, for he could
not talk; but she would give him a kindly smile when she passed him. She
gave him her hand when he came in, and when he went away. Now and then
in heavenly courtesy she would say three words to him. “I hope you are
better, Mr. Snodgrass. I hope you like Pisa. What have you been seeing
to-day?” One of these phrases kept him happy for a day. He did not
expect any more, nor indeed half so much; and with what aim he continued
to haunt and follow her, and put all his existence into the distant
enjoyment of her sight and presence, it would be hard to say. As for
gaining her love, _marrying_ her!--it seemed about as hopeful as that he
should marry the other Diana in the heavens, the moon, that shone with
such warm Italian splendour over the high house-tops. In his brightest
dreams he could not have imagined anything of the kind.
The only other person who took any notice of poor William Snodgrass was
the one other who might have been supposed least likely to notice him.
Pandolfini took the poor young fellow up. Notwithstanding the curate’s
awkwardness and shyness, the kind Italian insisted upon making
acquaintance with him. There is no one so kind as an Italian, endowed
with that _cortesia_ which the old writers speak of as a quality of God.
“The Lord of all Courtesy,” is not that a title which Dante gives to the
Supreme? Pandolfini had this divine quality as much as any man, even an
Italian, ever had; and his heart was touched by the most tender sympathy
for this fellow-in-feeling, whom it was too absurd to think of as his
rival. The poor curate was no one’s rival. He had given up his being to
the most beautiful and noble creature, so far as he knew, who had ever
crossed his horizon; and had not Pandolfini done so too? The sympathetic
Italian gave himself up to the task of cultivating this dull but tender
soul. He took him to private gems of pictures which the public saw only
on rare occasions: he took him through everything that was most worth
seeing: and having his eyes opened by the fact that the heavy young
Englishman had set his affections upon the highest object within his
firmament, saw other glimmers of perception in him which no one else had
found out.
“There, I can’t understand Pandolfini,” said Mr. Hunstanton; “the uncle,
now, is a man of the world. He is a man that knows what he is about. He
has read a little and observed a little--as much as you can expect from
a clergyman. But Bill Snodgrass is a nonentity. He is as dull as
ditch-water. You can’t get a sensible word out of him. The rector can
talk and take his own part like any other man.”
“I do not agree with you, my friend,” said the Italian, “there are some
fine things in the Stupid: there are feelings: I do not mean feelings of
the heart alone. He has nothing to say about it; but he will know a fine
picture when he sees one.”
“When you tell him it is fine--”
“I never tell him anything; but there are things which Mr. Bill, if so
you call him (I admire your monosyllables), can see--and a great many
people cannot see,” said Pandolfini simply, yet with meaning, with a
half-smile at his companion, who laughed, unabashed, and rubbed his
hands.
“He means me! Yes, I know him. The best fellow that ever breathed; but
if he can give you a random cut round the corner! I refused to buy
something once of a friend of his--and it turned out--what did it turn
out, Pandolfini? an enormous prize, you know. How was a man to divine
that? There was nobody to speak up for it, and I don’t pretend to be a
connoisseur. By the way, if you have friends who want to sell anything,
you had better send them to Diana. She is the person. She could buy us
all up and never feel it. To see her so simple as she is, you would
never suppose that she was such a great lady at home.”
“Is she, then, a great lady at home?”
“As great as a princess in other places. You didn’t know? Well, I don’t
suppose it will make much difference to you, but that’s the truth. She
is what we call a great Squire in England. You know what that means?”
“Yes; I know what that means.” Pandolfini looked at him with a
half-smile, yet sigh. What difference could it make to him? He had never
thought of putting himself on a level with that beautiful princess, of
securing her to be his--his housewife, his chief possession. All that he
had thought of was the pleasure of being with her, looking at her, like
poor Snodgrass. Now here was something which put a still greater
difference between them, and removed her out of his sphere. Was it not
an irony of fate that before one woman only the doors of his heart
should have flown wide open? and that she should be so entirely out of
his sphere? A slight vague smile came upon his face, half at himself and
his evil fortune--half with a tremulous and painful pleasure that she
should be so rich, so magnificent, so secure of everything that was
good. Whatever happened, that was always well: that she should be a kind
of queen, regnant, and safe from all straits and contradictions of
fortune in the outer world as well as in the hearts that loved her. But
he sighed. Why was it that the world was so made that the beautiful was
always beyond reach, that love must be never more than a dream? He
murmured over a verse or two of Leopardi, as he went upon his way, with
that smile and sigh.
“O natura, o natura,
Perchè non rendi poi,
Quel che prometti allor? perchè de tanto,
Inganni i figli tuoi.”
Nothing more pathetic or more poignant than that sense of tantalised
anguish and pleasure--supremest good held before the eyes, but ever
inaccessible, giving happiness and suffering together, without blame of
any one, or wrong, can be. And Pandolfini was not the kind of man who
rails at fortune. He went away melancholy along Arno: yet smiled while
he sighed.
Somehow or other this passing and temporary life of the English visitors
in the foreign town had become too serious, too securely established and
certain with all of them, being as it really was an affair of a few
weeks or months at the utmost, and incapable of extension. Perhaps this
was Diana’s fault. Arriving in March, she had no more than six or seven
weeks before her, a mere temporary visit--but the temporary was
uncongenial to her nature. She established herself half unconsciously,
involuntarily as if she had been at home. She made her _piano nobile_ in
the old palace assume a certain resemblance to herself, just as she, on
the other hand, perhaps unconsciously too, perhaps with a touch of that
fine vanity which disguises itself under the semblance of taste, suited
herself to her dwelling-place, and put her dress and all her
surroundings into conformity with it. If Diana had not had the kind of
lofty beauty to which utter simplicity of toilet is becoming, probably
it might not have occurred to her to leave the new dress from Paris,
before which Mrs. Norton and Sophy had rendered homage, hanging in her
wardrobe, and put on the old velvet gown, which, as Sophy indignantly
remarked, “she had worn all last winter!” But this was what she did:
though in some lights the long sweeping folds of the velvet, which was
of a very dark Venetian blue, looked somewhat faded, at least in the
eyes of her friends. “I never thought Diana would be like that: wearing
out her old dresses, when she can afford to have as many new ones as she
pleases!” Sophy cried, almost weeping at the recollections of all M.
Worth’s _poufs_ and _plissés_. “It does not matter for us,” Mrs. Norton
added, with serious vexation, “_we_ know her and look up to her in any
dress; but among strangers!” Thus her friends were annoyed by her
supposed frugality: and perhaps Diana, if her French toilet had been
more becoming to her, would not have felt the necessity of conforming
her dress to the style of those great rooms, so pathetically faded, so
noble and worn, and independent of all meretricious decoration.
She did other things, which perhaps were less justifiable still, and
which excited the displeasure of another section of her friends. In a
country practically unconverted to the laws of political economy, she
was but too glad to forget them, and gave alms with a largeness and
liberality which, I suppose, is quite indefensible. She was even so
misled as to allow the shameless beggars about to come to her for weekly
pensions, putting them on their honour, and talking to them in friendly,
if somewhat solemn Italian--slow as Pandolfini’s English, and from the
same cause. “Giving to all those beggars,--I can’t imagine what Miss
Trelawny can be thinking of,” cried the rector; “surely she must know
that she is helping to demoralise them: destroying all the safeguards of
society.” “So far as that goes, I don’t think Diana will do _them_ much
harm; but I object to have the staircase haunted by Peppino and
Company,” said Mr. Hunstanton. “I must talk to her, and you had better
talk to her, Snodgrass. As for demoralising, you know, they’re past
that. I defy you to demoralise Peppino. You can’t blind a man who has no
eyes; can you, now?” But this will be enough to show that Diana gave
dissatisfaction on both sides: only Pandolfini and the curate stood by
with silent adoration, and thought everything she did and was, the
noblest and the fairest that ever were made visible to eyes of men.
It must be allowed, however, that neither the disapproval nor the
adoration affected Diana. She went on her way calmly, indifferent to
what was said, laughing, though gently, at Mr. Snodgrass’s serious
remonstrance, and at the half-crying appeal of Sophy. And everything
seemed to conspire around her to give the air of stability and
everlastingness which seemed natural to her life. She acquired for
herself, without knowing it, a distinct position, which was partly by
her beauty, no doubt, partly even by her height and dignity of person,
and partly from the individuality about her, and her modest indifference
to ordinary rule. There is an immodest indifference which gives
distinction of a totally different kind; but Diana--who did not come for
pleasure as commonly so called, who appeared seldom at public places,
and whose enjoyment of her strange habitation was that of an inhabitant,
not of a tourist--Diana became known in Pisa as scarcely ever
_forestiera_ had been before. Pandolfini felt that he could divine why,
believing, as was natural at once to a patriot and a lover, that his
race was quick to recognise supreme excellence, and that it was natural
that all who knew her should bow down before her. But anyhow, in her
retirement, in her quietness, she became known as if by an instinct of
sympathy. The beggars in the piazzas asked nothing of her, but blessed
her with bold extravagance as she passed. The people uncovered right and
left. _Quant’ è bella!_ they said, with that unfeigned and heartfelt
admiration which is pure Italian, not loudly, to catch her ear, nor yet
in whispers, as if they were ashamed of it, but in their ordinary tones,
all being natural, both the popular worship and its object. The curate
when he became aware of this grew red, and clenched his fist, with an
English impulse “to knock down the fellow;” but Pandolfini, who knew
better what it meant, followed her steps at a distance with glowing
eyes, and was proud and happy in the universal homage. He quoted lines
out of the “Vita Nuova” to his stupid faithful companion. Not always to
his listener’s edification. “How do you suppose I can understand that
stuff?” growled the Rev. William through the beard he was growing, and
the Italian ceased to throw about such pearls.
But it may be imagined what a thunderbolt fell into this peaceful little
society when there began to be consultations among the leaders of the
party about going away. “Our time will soon be up, you know,” Mr.
Hunstanton said one evening, rubbing his hands; “May is a very nice
month to get home in. A week or two in Switzerland; perhaps a week or
two in London, if my wife has good accounts of the children. That’s what
I like. After May it’s sultry here and uncomfortable, eh, Pandolfini?
Off in November, home in May, that’s my rule--and if you like to take it
old style, you know, as they do in Russia, so much the better. That’s
my regular rule.”
“W--what?” said Mrs. Norton, who sometimes tried to persuade herself
that she was rather deaf, and would not hear anything that was
unpleasant; but she had scarcely self-possession for this little trick,
being too much aghast at the idea thus presented to her mind, which it
seemed incredible they should all have ignored till now.
Then there was a pause of universal dismay, for they had all enjoyed
themselves very much, and disliked the idea of breaking up. Mrs.
Hunstanton alone went on working placidly, and the murmur of Reginald’s
voice, who was playing patience at a table, and whispering the value of
the cards to himself, became suddenly audible. The impatience of the
whole company with Reginald cannot be described. “My dear boy,” said the
rector sharply (in a tone which meant You odious idiot!), “couldn’t you
just count as well if you did it to yourself?”
“What has the boy done?” said Mr. Hunstanton with surprise. “Yes; we
must bolt. I don’t know how that may affect your plans, Diana.”
“I have no plans,” she said. “I came here by the light of nature,
because you were all here----”
“And you will come away in the same manner,” said Mr. Hunstanton
briskly. Sophy turned round and transfixed him with her eyes, or would
have done so had his middle-aged composure been penetrable, or had he
seen her, which had something also to do with it. But he did not see
her, and, good man, was perfectly easy in his mind.
“Well, I confess I shall be sorry,” said the rector, “and so, I am sure,
will be my dear Bill. We have had a very agreeable visit, nice society,
all centring round the Church in the most delightful way, and so many
charming people! I shall be very sorry to think of breaking up.”
He stopped somewhat abruptly, with unexpected suddenness, and in the
silence, more audible still than Reginald’s whispering, came a sort of
groan from the burdened bosom of the curate, who stood behind-backs in
his usual place, and who had felt himself covered by his uncle’s speech.
This made everybody look up, and there was a faint titter from Reginald,
by way of revenge for the rector’s rebuke. It was Sophy who had the
boldness to take up this titter in the wild stinging of disappointment
and dismay.
“Why should _you_ feel it so much, Mr. Snodgrass?--what does it matter
to you? You will have to go home to the parish whether or not!” she
cried.
“Sophy, hush, hush! Yes, dear Mr. Hunstanton, how pleasant it has been!”
said Mrs. Norton. “What a blow to us all to break it up! I should like
to stay here for ever, winter and summer. It would not be too hot for
me. For I can never be grateful enough to Italy,” she added,
impressively, “for restoring health to my dear child.”
This called the general attention to Sophy, whose blooming countenance,
a little flushed by vexation, looked very unlike any possible failure of
health. Sophy was as near crying as possible. She had to put force upon
herself to keep the tears out of her eyes.
“Let us not make ourselves miserable before the time,” said Diana. “It
is not May yet; there is a week of April left. Let us gather roses while
we may, and in good time here is Mrs. Winthrop and our musical people.
Sophy, come and help to get the songs out. We can talk of this another
time.”
Sophy came, with a sullenness which no one had ever remarked in her
before. She made no reply to what Diana said, but pulled the music about
under pretence of arranging it. As she did so, with her back turned to
the rest of the company, Diana saw a few hot hail-drops of tears
pattering down among the songs. She put her hand kindly upon Sophy’s
shoulder.
“Sophy, dear,” she said, “is it the thought of going away? is this what
you feel so much?”
“Oh, leave me alone, please! I have got a headache,” cried Sophy,
jerking away from her friend’s grasp.
Diana said nothing more. She was grieved and disturbed by this very
strange new development. She put down all the songs and music that were
likely to be wanted, and opened the piano, and greeted with her usual
dignified kindness the new people who came rustling in to the agitated
atmosphere. It did not seem agitated to them. Mrs. Winthrop came in all
smiles and flounces, and there was a gathering round the piano, and much
laughter and talk and consultation, as is customary on such occasions.
Diana herself did not sing except rarely. She helped to set the little
company going, over their madrigals and part-songs, and then she
withdrew, with that sensation of relief which is afforded to the mind of
the mistress of a house and chief entertainer by the happy consciousness
of having set an amusement going, by means of which her guests will
manage to entertain themselves for the rest of the night.