WARNINGS AND CONSULTATIONS.
Mrs. Hunstanton lingered after the visitors had gone away. She made a
determined stand even against Mrs. Norton and Sophy, and outstayed them
in spite of all their efforts. She said, with something of that
breathlessness which betrays mental excitement, “I want to say a word to
you, Diana. I want to warn you. Spectators always see more than the
chief actors, and I have been a spectator all the evening. You must not
play with edge-tools.”
“_I_ play with edge-tools?” said Diana; “are there any in my way?”
“My dear,” said the elder lady, who was not addicted to phrases of
affection, “I wish I could let you have a peep from my point of view
without saying a word: but that is a thing which cannot be done.
Diana--I don’t know if you have observed it,--but poor Pandolfini----”
Involuntarily, unawares, Diana raised her hand to stop the warning with
which she had been threatened, and the colour rose in her face, flushing
over cheeks and forehead, to her great distress and shame. But what
could she do? Some women cannot help blushing, and those who are thus
affected generally consider it as the most foolish and unpleasant of
personal peculiarities. She tried to look unconscious, calmly
indifferent, but the effort was entirely destroyed by this odious blush.
“Mr. Pandolfini?” she said, with an attempt at cheerful
light-heartedness. “I hope it is not he who is your edge-tool. It does
not seem to me a happy simile.”
“Oh, Diana,” cried Mrs. Hunstanton, too eager to be careful, “don’t
treat a man’s happiness or misery so lightly! I never questioned you on
such subjects, but a woman does not come to your age without knowing
something of it. Don’t take his heart out of his hand and fling it to
the dogs. Don’t----”
“I?” cried Diana, aghast. She grew pale and then red again, and the
tears came to her eyes. “Am I such a monster? or is it only you who are
rhetorical? What have I to do with Mr. Pandolfini’s heart?”
“You cannot deceive me, Diana,” said her friend. “You blushed--you know
very well what I mean. Men may not see such things--but women, they
understand.”
“We have no right to speak of a gentleman we know so little--or at least
whom _I_ know so little--in this way,” said Diana, very gravely. “It is
an injury to him. You are kind--you mean him well--but even with that we
have no right to discuss----”
“I don’t wish to discuss him, Diana. If there was any chance for him,
poor man--oh no, you need not shake your head; I know well enough there
is no chance for him; but don’t torture him at least,” cried Mrs.
Hunstanton, getting up hastily, “this I _may_ say----”
“It is the thing you ought least to say,” Diana said, accepting her
good-night kiss perhaps more coldly than usual, for though she was
perfectly innocent, she dared not dispute the fact pointed out to her.
“No, I am not angry: but why should you accuse me so? Do I torture any
one? You have made me very uncomfortable. If it is true, I shall have to
break up and leave this nice place, which pleased me, and go back with
you to England.”
“You are afraid of yourself,” cried Mrs. Hunstanton.
“I!”---- Diana did not say any more. Yes; she was too proud. It was not
like a woman to be so determined, so immovable: and yet a woman whose
colour went and came, whose eyes filled so quickly, who was so sensitive
and easily moved, could she be hard? Mrs. Hunstanton did not quite know
what she wished. She was a little proud of Diana--among all the girls
who married, the one unmarrying woman, placed upon a pedestal, a virgin
princess dispensing good things to all, and above the common weaknesses.
One such, once in a way, pleased her imagination and her _esprit de
corps_. And if Diana had willingly stepped down from her pedestal, a
sense of humiliation would have filled her friend’s mind. But then poor
Pandolfini! She was quick of wit and quick of speech, and would have
been as ready as anybody to turn upon him, and ask who was he that he
should have the Una, the peerless woman, he a penniless foreigner with
nothing but a fine name? Probably had Diana melted, all this wilful
lady’s impatient soul would have risen indignant at the idea of the
English lady of the manor consenting to turn herself into a Madame
Pandolfini. But all the same, as Diana had no such intention, her heart
melted over the hopeless lover. Poor fellow! how good he was, how kind,
how friendly! It was hard that by a mere accident, so to speak, because
Diana had taken it into her head so suddenly to come here, that his
whole life should be ruined for him. How hard it was that such things
should be! As Mrs. Hunstanton went upstairs to her own floor she could
not help remembering with some virulence that it was that absurd little
Sophy’s sham cough which had brought Diana here, and done all the
mischief. Little ridiculous creature, whom Diana would spoil so, and
raise altogether out of her sphere! Mrs. Hunstanton was quite sure that
it was entirely Sophy’s fault (and her aunt’s: the aunt was on the
whole, being older, more ridiculous and more to be blamed than Sophy)
that this misfortune had happened; though after all, she added to
herself, how could Pandolfini expect that Diana was to be kept out of
Italy, and shut up, so to speak, in England on his account, lest he
should come to harm? That was out of the question too. Thus it will be
seen the argument on her side was inconsistent, and indeed
contradictory, as most such arguments must always be.
At the same time a very different sort of conversation was going on in
another room in this same Palazzo dei Sogni. As they went out, Mr.
Hunstanton had seized Pandolfini by the arm. “Come upstairs and smoke a
cigar with me: the night is young,” he said; “and there are lots of
things I want to talk to you about. Now there are so many ladies on
hand, I never see you. Come, you shall have some syrup or other, and
I’ll have soda--and something--and a friendly cigar. What a business it
is to be overdone with ladies! One never knows the comfort of a
steady-going wife of one’s own--that is acquainted with one’s tastes and
never bothers one--till a lot of women are let loose upon you. Diana
there, Sophy here--a man does not know if he is standing on his head or
his heels.”
“Pah! you like it,” said the Italian with a smile.
“Do I? Well, I don’t know but what I do. I like something going on. I
like a little commotion and life, and I am rather fond, I confess, of
helping things forward, and acting a friend’s part when I can. Yes, I’m
very glad to be of use. You now, my dear fellow, if I could help you to
a good wife.”
Pandolfini turned pale. Was it sacrilege this good easy Englishman was
talking? The idea seemed too profane, too terrible to be even
contradicted. He pretended not to have heard, and took up the
“Galignani” which lay in Mr. Hunstanton’s private room--the room where
he was supposed to write business letters, and do all his graver duties,
but in which there was always a limp novel in evidence, from the press
of Michel Levy, or Baron Tauchnitz, and where “Galignani” was the
tutelary god.
“Sit down, and let us talk. You should come over to England, Pandolfini.
The change would do you good. I like change, for my part. What is the
good of staying for ever in one corner of the world, as if you were a
vegetable and had roots? We say it is a grievance that we have to leave
home every winter on Reginald’s account, and I suppose I grumble like
other people; but no doubt, on the whole, I like it. There’s the
hunting--of course one misses all that; but then I don’t hunt, so it
matters less: change is always agreeable. And then you have got used to
our little society. One abuses the women; but they are always pleasant
enough. The worst is, one has a little too much of them in the country.
Well, not so constantly as here; but they are our nearest neighbours,
and _toujours perdrix_, you know.”
“Is it that you mean to persuade me to come, or not to come?” said
Pandolfini, laughing.
“My dear fellow, how can you doubt? Of course we shall be delighted to
see you, both I and my wife. We always feel together, she and I. Of
course you will think me an old fool and all that for speaking with so
little enthusiasm. I am past the age of _les grandes passions_; but a
good wife is a very good thing, I can tell you, Pandolfini. It is
astonishing how many worries a man is spared when he has somebody always
by him who knows his ways, and sees that he is comfortable. Many a great
calamity is easier put up with than having your tastes disregarded, and
your customs broken in upon.”
“This may be very true, my good Hunstanton, but why to me--why say it to
me? I have no--wife.” His voice changed a little, with a tone which
would have been very instructive to the lady spoken of, but which
conveyed no particular information to her husband. Mr. Hunstanton rubbed
his hands: then he took his cigar out of his mouth in his energy, and
puffed a large mouthful of smoke into his companion’s face.
“That is exactly the question--exactly the question. My dear fellow,
that is just what I wanted to say to you. You ought to have a wife.”
Pandolfini gave a quick look up into his friend’s eyes. What he thought
or hoped he might find there who can tell? Many things were possible to
his Italian ideas that no Englishman would have thought possible. From
whom might this suggestion come? His heart gave a wild leap upward, then
sank with a sudden plunge and chill. What a fool, what a miserable vain
fool he was! She to hold out a little finger, a corner of her
handkerchief, to him or any man! His eyes fell, and his heart; he shook
his head.
“Come, come, Pandolfini! that is the way with all you foreign fellows.
You are as afraid of marriage as if it were purgatory. You have had full
time to have your fling surely. I don’t mean to insinuate anything
against you. So far as I know, you have always been the most
irreproachable of men. But supposing that you hadn’t, why, you have had
time enough to have your fling. How old are you, forty? Well, then, it
is time to range yourself as the French say. An English wife would be
the making of you----”
“Hunstanton,” cried the Italian, “all this that you are saying is as
blasphemy. Is it to me you speak of ranging myself, of accepting
unwillingly marriage, of having an English wife offered to me like a
piece of useful furniture? It is that you do not know me--do not know
anything about me--notwithstanding _buon amico_, that you are my best
friend.”
Mr. Hunstanton looked at him with complacent yet humorous eyes. “Aha!”
he said, “didn’t I divine it! I knew, of course, how the wind was
blowing. Bravo, Pandolfini! so you are hit, eh? I knew it, man! I saw it
sooner than you did yourself.”
Pandolfini looked at the light-hearted yet sympathetic Englishman with a
glow upon his dark face of more profound emotion than Mr. Hunstanton
knew anything about. He held out his hands in the fulness of his heart.
Instinct told him that this was not the man to whom to speak of
Diana--although the Englishman was fond of Diana too in his way. But his
heart melted to the friend who had divined his love. Mr. Hunstanton,
too, was touched by a confession so frank yet so silent. He got up and
patted his friend on the shoulder. “To be sure,” he said, his voice even
trembling a little, “you mustn’t have any shyness with an old man. I
divined it all the time.”
There was a little pause, during which this delightful and effusive
confidant resumed his seat. He kept silence by sheer force of the
emotion which he saw in the other’s face, though it was almost
unintelligible to him. Why should he take it so very seriously? Mr.
Hunstanton was on the very eve of bursting forth when Pandolfini himself
began--
“But to what good? She is more young, more rich, more highly gifted than
I. What hope have I to win her! She with all the world at her feet!
I--nobody. Ah, it is not want of seeing. I see well--not what you say,
my good friend, but what all your poets have said. That is what a woman
is--a woman of the English. But, _amico mio_, do not let us deceive
ourselves. What hope is there for such a one as I?”
“Hope! why, every hope in the world,” cried the cheerful counsellor.
“Talk about the poets: what is it that Shakespeare says? Shakespeare,
you know, the very chief of them--
‘She is a woman, therefore to be wooed;
She is a woman, therefore to be won.’
Tut! why should you be discouraged. Don’t you know our proverb, that
‘Faint heart never won fair lady’? Cheer up, man, and try. You can but
lose at the worst, and then if you win----”
Pandolfini sat and looked at him with glowing eyes. He was gazing at
Hunstanton; but he seemed to see Diana: not as she had been that
evening, seated calmly, like a queen, in the centre of so many people
who looked up to her--but as she appeared when he saw her first, when
she shone upon him suddenly, with her black veil about her head, and
when all the bells chimed Diana. What a revelation that had been to him!
he did not even know her, nor did he know how, without knowing, he could
be able to divine her as he felt he had done. He fell into a musing, his
eyes all alit with the glow of passion and visionary happiness. He knew
there was no hope for him: who was he that she should descend from her
heights, and take him by the hand? The idea was too wonderful, too
entrancing, to have any possibility in it; but it brought such a gleam
of happiness to his mind as made him forget everything--even its folly.
He paid no attention to Hunstanton gazing at him,--the substantial
Englishman became as a mist, as a dream, to Pandolfini,--what he really
saw was Diana, the revelation of that new unthought-of face rising upon
him suddenly out of dimness and nothing! What a night that had
been!--what a time of strange witchery ever since! He did not know how
it had passed, or what he had done in it--was it not all Diana from
beginning to end?
Mr. Hunstanton was kind. After a minute or two he saw that the look
which was apparently bent upon himself was a visionary gaze, seeing only
into some land of dreams. He broke up the fascination of that musing by
a hearty honest laugh, full of genuine enjoyment. “Are you so far gone
as that?” he cried; “then, upon my word, Pandolfini, some one must
interfere. If you are afraid to take it into your own hands, I’ll speak
for you if you like. You may be sure I am not afraid. It isn’t our
English way: but I’ll do it in a moment. Is that what you would like?
We’re leaving soon, as I told you, and there is not much time to lose.”
“Oh, my best friend!” cried the Italian, with sudden eagerness. Then he
paused. “No, Hunstanton, I dare not. Let me have the little time that
remains to me. I can at least do as does your curate. I understand him.
He, too, has not any hope; how should he, or I either? but I would not
be sent away from her: banished for the little time that remains. No!
let me keep what I have, lest I should get less and not more.”
“Stuff!” said Mr. Hunstanton. “The curate, Bill Snodgrass! that’s a
different case altogether. Look here now, Pandolfini: you are
ridiculously over-humble; there is no such difference as you suppose.
Now, look here! You have some confidence in me, I know, and if ever one
man wished to help another, I am that man. Will you leave the matter in
my hands? Oh, don’t you fear. I shan’t compromise you if things look
badly. _I’ll feel my way._ I shan’t go a step farther than I see
allowable. You shan’t be banished, and so forth. Though that’s all
nonsense. Will you leave it to me?”
Pandolfini fixed his eyes this time really upon Hunstanton’s face. “You
are too honest to betray me,” he said, wistfully; “you would not ruin me
by over-boldness, by going too far.”
“Who? I? Of course I should not. I have plenty of prudence, though you
may not think so; besides, I know a few things which are not to be
communicated outside my wife’s chamber. Oh, trust to me,--I know what I
am doing! You don’t need to be afraid.”
“But I am,” said the other. “Hunstanton, Hunstanton, my good friend, let
things remain as they are. I have not the courage.”
“Stuff!” said Mr. Hunstanton, getting up and rubbing his hands. “I tell
you I know a thing or two. Betray what my wife tells me--never!--not if
I were drawn by wild horses; but I know what I know. You had better
leave it in my hands.”
Pandolfini searched the cheerful countenance before him with his eyes.
He watched those noddings of the head, those little emphatic gestures of
self-confidence and sincerity. Was it possible that this man could be in
Diana’s confidence? No: but then his wife: that was a different matter:
was it--could it be possible? He got up at last, and went to him with a
certain solemnity. “Hunstanton,” he said, “good friend, if you have the
power to say a word for me, to recommend me, to lay me most humble at
her feet,”--he paused, his voice quivering,--“then I will indeed put
myself in your hands.”
“That’s right--that is exactly what you ought to do. But you must not be
so tremendously humble,” said Mr. Hunstanton. “Yes, yes, my dear fellow,
I’ll undertake it; but don’t be down-hearted. If you are not as happy a
fellow as any in Christendom by this time to-morrow night----”
“You--think so? _Dio mio!_ You--think so?” said the Italian. His heart
was too full to say any more. He wrung his friend’s hand, and snatched
up his hat and went away with scarcely another word, stumbling down the
long staircase, which was as black as night, his mind too distracted to
think of anything. As he passed Diana’s door the glimmer of light which
showed underneath stopped him, as if it had carried a message, a word of
encouragement. He stopped short in spite of himself, and a wild fancy
seized him. It was all he could do to keep himself from rushing into her
presence, confessing everything, asking--ah! what was it that he could
ask? Would she be but favourable--kind--nay, something more? Should he
make the plunge himself without waiting for Hunstanton, and if such an
unimaginable bliss could be, have it a day earlier? The impulse made
him giddy, so strong was it, turning his brain round and round; but as
he stood there, with his hand uplifted almost in the act of ringing the
bell, Diana’s factotum, all unaware of who was standing outside, came to
the door within and began to bar and bolt and shut up for the night.
Pandolfini’s hand dropped as if he had been shot. He turned and made his
way, without once pausing to take breath, into the open air beneath, on
the side of Arno. The lamps twinkled reflected in the water, the stars
from the sky; there was a quiver and tremor in the night itself, a
little soft wistful melancholy breeze. Might this be the last night for
him, the end of all sweet and hopeful days? or was it, could it be, only
the tender beginning of a long heaven to come?