While he was thus--unknowing--the cause of so many new attractions and
repulsions in his guest's mind, Manisty, after the first shock of annoyance
produced by her arrival was over, hardly remembered her existence. He was
incessantly occupied by the completion of his book, working late and early,
sometimes in high and even extravagant spirits, but, on the whole, more
commonly depressed and discontented.
Eleanor Burgoyne worked with him or for him many hours in each day. Her
thin pallor became more pronounced. She ate little, and Miss Manisty
believed that she slept less. The elder lady indeed began to fidget and
protest, to remonstrate now and then with Manisty himself, even to threaten
a letter to 'the General.' Eleanor's smiling obstinacy, however, carried
all before it. And Manisty, in spite of a few startled looks and
perfunctory dissuasions, whenever his aunt attacked him, soon slipped back
into his normal ways of depending on his cousin, and not being able to work
without her. Lucy Foster thought him selfish and inconsiderate. It gave her
one more cause of quarrel with him.
For she and Mrs. Burgoyne were slowly but surely making friends. The
clearer it became that Manisty took no notice of Miss Foster, and refused
to be held in any way responsible for her entertainment, the more anxious,
it seemed, did Eleanor show herself to make life pleasant for the American
girl. Her manner, which had always been kind, became more natural and gay.
It was as though she had settled some question with herself, and settled it
entirely to Lucy Foster's advantage.
Not much indeed could be done for the stranger while the stress of
Manisty's work lasted. Aunt Pattie braced herself once or twice, got out
the guide-books and took her visitor into Rome to see the sights. But the
little lady was so frankly worn out by these expeditions, that Lucy, full
of compunctions, could only beg to be left to herself in future. Were not
the garden and the lake, the wood-paths to Rocca di Papa, and the roads to
Albano good enough?
So presently it came to her spending many hours alone in the terraced
garden on the hill-side, with all the golden Campagna at her feet. Her
young fancy, however, soon learnt to look upon that garden as the very
concentration and symbol of Italy. All the Italian elements, the Italian
magics were there. Along its topmost edge ran a vast broken wall, built
into the hill; and hanging from the brink of the wall like a long roof,
great ilexes shut out the day from the path below. Within the thickness of
the wall--in days when, in that dim Rome upon the plain, many still lived
who could remember the voice and the face of Paul of Tarsus--Domitian had
made niches and fountains; and he had thrown over the terrace, now darkened
by the great ilex boughs, a long portico roof supported on capitals and
shafts of gleaming marble. Then in the niches round the clear fountains,
he had ranged the fine statues of a still admirable art; everywhere he had
lavished marbles, rose and yellow and white, and under foot he had spread a
mosaic floor, glistening beneath the shadow-play of leaf and water, in the
rich reflected light from the garden and the Campagna outside; while at
intervals, he had driven through the very crest of the hill long tunnelled
passages, down which one might look from the garden and see the blue lake
shining at their further end.
And still the niches and the recesses were there,--the huge wall too along
the face of the hill; all broken and gashed and ruinous, showing the fine
reticulated brickwork that had been once faced with marble; alternately
supported and torn by the pushing roots of the ilex-trees. The tunnelled
passages too were there, choked and fallen in; no flash of the lake now
beyond their cool darkness! And into the crumbling surface of the wall,
rude hands had built fragments of the goddesses and the Cæsars that had
once reigned there, barbarously mingled with warm white morsels from
the great cornice of the portico, acanthus blocks from the long buried
capitals, or dolphins orphaned of Aphrodite.
The wreck was beautiful, like all wrecks in Italy where Nature has had her
way. For it was masked in the gloom of the overhanging trees; or hidden
behind dropping veils of ivy; or lit up by straggling patches of broom and
cytisus that thrust themselves through the gaps in the Roman brickwork and
shone golden in the dark. At the foot of the wall, along its whole length,
ran a low marble conduit that held still the sweetest liveliest water.
Lilies of the valley grew beside it, breathing scent into the shadowed air;
while on the outer or garden side of the path, the grass was purple with
long-stalked violets, or pink with the sharp heads of the cyclamen. And a
little further, from the same grass, there shot up in a happy neglect, tall
camellia-trees ragged and laden, strewing the ground red and white beneath
them. And above the camellias again, the famous stone-pines of the villa
climbed into the high air, overlooking the plain and the sea, peering at
Rome and Soracte.
So old it was!--and yet so fresh with spring! In the mornings at least the
spring was uppermost. It silenced the plaint of outraged beauty which the
place seemed to be always making, under a flutter of growth and song. Water
and flowers and nightingales, the shadow, the sunlight, and the heat, were
all alike strong and living,--Italy untamed. It was only in the evenings
that Lucy shunned the path. For then, from the soil below and the wall
above, there crept out the old imprisoned forces of sadness, or of poison,
and her heart flagged or her spirits sank as she sat or walked there.
Marinata has no malaria; but on old soils, and as night approaches, there
is always something in the shade of Italy that fights with human life. The
poor ghosts rise from the earth--jealous of those that are still walking
the warm ways of the world.
But in the evenings, when the Fountain Walk drove her forth, the central
hot zone of the garden was divine, with its roses and lilacs, its birds,
its exquisite grass alive with shining lizards, jewelled with every flower,
breathing every scent; and at its edge the old terrace with its balustrade,
set above the Campagna, commanding the plain and the sea, the sky and the
sunsets.
Evening after evening Lucy might have been found perched on the stone
coping of the balustrade, sometimes trying, through the warm silent hours,
by the help of this book or that, to call up again the old Roman life;
sometimes dreaming of what there might still be--what the archæologists
indeed said must be--buried beneath her feet; of the marble limbs and faces
pressed into the earth, and all the other ruined things, small and great,
mean or lovely, that lay deep in a common grave below the rustling olives,
and the still leafless vineyards; and sometimes the mere passive companion
of the breeze and the sun, conscious only of the chirping of the crickets,
or the loudness of the nightingales, or the flight of a hoopoe, like some
strange bright bird of fairy-tale, flashing from one deep garden-shadow to
another.
Yet the garden was not always given up to her and the birds. Peasant folk
coming from Albano or the olive-grounds between it and the villa would
take a short cut through the garden to Marinata; dark-faced gardeners,
in blue linen suits, would doff their peaked hats to the strange lady;
or a score or two of young black-frocked priestlings from a neighbouring
seminary would suddenly throng its paths, playing mild girlish games,
with infinite clamour and chatter, running races as far and fast as their
black petticoats would allow, twisting their long overcoats and red sashes
meanwhile round a battered old noseless bust that stood for Domitian at the
end of a long ilex-avenue, and was the butt for all the slings and arrows
of the day,--poor helpless State, blinded and buffeted by the Church!
Lucy would hide herself among the lilacs and the arbutus when the seminary
invaded her; watching through the leaves the strapping Italian boys
in their hindering womanish dress; scorning them for their state of
supervision and dependence; pitying them for their destiny!
And sometimes Manisty, disturbed by the noise, would come out--pale and
frowning. But at the sight of the seminarists and of the old priest in
command of them, his irritable look would soften. He would stand indeed
with his hands on his sides, laughing and chatting with the boys, his head
uncovered, his black curls blown backward from the great furrowed brow; and
in the end Lucy peering from her nook would see him pacing up and down the
ilex-walk with the priest,--haranguing and gesticulating--the old man in
a pleased wonder looking at the Englishman through his spectacles, and
throwing in from time to time ejaculations of assent, now half puzzled,
and now fanatically eager. "He is talking the book!"--Lucy would think to
herself--and her mind would rise in revolt.
One day after parting with the lads he came unexpectedly past her
hiding-place, and paused at sight of her. "Do the boys disturb you?" he
said, glancing at her book, and speaking with the awkward abruptness which
with him could in a moment take the place of ease and mirth.
"Oh no--not at all."
He fidgeted, stripping leaves from the arbutus tree under which she sat.
"That old priest who comes with them is a charming fellow!"
Her shyness gave way.
"Is he?--He looks after them like an old nurse. And they are such
babies--those great boys!"
His eye kindled.
"So you would like them to be more independent--more brutal. You prefer
a Harvard and Yale football match--with the dead and wounded left on the
ground?"
She laughed, daring for the first time to assert herself.
"No. I don't want blood! But there is something between. However--"
She hesitated. He looked down upon her half irritable, half smiling.
"Please go on."
"It would do them no good, would it--to be independent?"
"Considering how soon they must be slaves for life? Is that what you mean?"
Her frank blue eyes raised themselves to his. He was instantly conscious of
something cool and critical in her attitude towards him. Very possibly he
had been conscious of it for some time, which accounted for his instinctive
avoidance of her. In the crisis of thought and production through which
he was passing he shrank from any touch of opposition or distrust. He
distrusted himself enough. It was as though he carried about with him
wounds that only Eleanor's soft touch could be allowed to approach. And
from the first evening he had very naturally divined in this Yankee girl,
with her mingled reserve and transparency, her sturdy Protestantisms of all
sorts, elements antagonistic to himself.
She answered his question, however, by another--still referring to the
seminarists.
'Isn't that the reason why they take and train them so young--that they may
have no will left?'
'Well, is that the worst condition in the world--to give up your own will
to an idea--a cause?'
She laughed shyly--a low musical sound that suddenly gave him, as it
seemed, a new impression of her.
'You call the old priest an "idea"?'
Both had the same vision of the most portly and substantial of figures.
Manisty smiled unwillingly.
'The old priest is merely the symbol.'
She shook her head obstinately.
'He is all they know anything about. He gives orders, and they obey. Soon
it will be some one else's turn to give them the orders--'
'Till the time comes for them to give orders themselves?--Well, what is
there to object to in that?' He scanned her severely. 'What does it mean
but that they are parts of a great system, properly organised, to a great
end? Show me anything better?'
She coloured.
'It is better, isn't it, that--sometimes--one should give oneself orders?'
she said in a low voice.
Manisty laughed.
'Liberty to make a fool of oneself--in short. No doubt,--that's the great
modern panacea.' He paused, staring at her without being conscious of it,
with his absent brilliant eyes. Then he broke out--'Well! so you despise
my little priests! Did you ever think of inquiring, however, which wears
best--their notion of human life, which after all has weathered 1900 years,
and is as strong and prevailing as it ever was--or the sort of notion
that their enemies here go to work upon? Look into the history of this
Abyssinian war--everybody free to make fools of themselves, in Rome
or Africa--and doing it magnificently! Private judgment--private aims
everywhere--from Crispi to the smallest lieutenant. Result--universal wreck
and muddle--thousands of lives thrown away--a nation brought to shame.
Then look about you at what's going on--here--this week--on these hills.
It's Holy Week. They're all fasting--they're all going to mass--the people
working in the fields, our servants, the bright little priests. To-morrow's
Holy Thursday. From now till Sunday, nobody here will eat anything but a
little bread and a few olives. The bells will cease to-morrow. If a single
church-bell rang in Rome--over this plain, and these mountains--through the
whole of Italy--from mass to-morrow till mass on Saturday--a whole nation
would feel pain and outrage. Then on Saturday--marvellous symbol!--listen
for the bells. You will hear them all loosed together, as soon as the
Sanctus begins--all over Italy. And on Sunday--watch the churches. If it
isn't Matthew Arnold's "One common wave of thought and joy--Lifting mankind
amain,"--what is it? To me, it's what keeps the human machine running. Make
the comparison!--it will repay you. My little muffs of priests with their
silly obedience won't come so badly out of it.'
Unconsciously he had taken a seat beside her, and was looking at her with
a sharp imperious air. She dimly understood that he was not talking to her
but to a much larger audience, that he was still in fact in the grip of
"the book." But that he should have anyway addressed so many consecutive
sentences to her excited her after these many days of absolute neglect and
indifference on his part; she felt a certain tremor of pulse. Instead,
however, of diminishing self-command, it bestowed it.
'Well, if that's the only way of running the machine--the Catholic way I
mean,'--her words came out a little hurried and breathless--'I don't see
how _we_ exist.'
'You? America?'
She nodded.
'_Do_ you exist?--in any sense that matters?'
He laughed as he spoke; but his tone provoked her. She threw up her head a
little, suddenly grave.
'Of course we know that you dislike us.'
He showed a certain embarrassment.
'How do you know?'
'Oh!--we read what you said of us.'
'I was badly reported,' he said, smiling.
'No,'--she insisted. 'But you were mistaken in a great many things--very,
very much mistaken. You judged much too quickly.'
He rose, a covert amusement playing round his lips. It was the indulgence
of the politician and man of affairs towards the little backwoods girl who
was setting him to rights.
'We must have it out,' he said, 'I see I shall have to defend myself. But
now I fear Mrs. Burgoyne will be waiting for me.'
And lifting his hat with the somewhat stately and excessive manner, which
he could always substitute at the shortest notice for _brusquerie_ or
inattention, he went his way.
Lucy Foster was left with a red cheek. She watched him till he had passed
into the shadow of the avenue leading to the house; then with an impetuous
movement she took up a book which had been lying beside her on the bench,
and began to read it with a peculiar ardour--almost passion. It was the
life of one of the heroes of the Garibaldian expedition of 1860-61.
For of late she had been surrounding herself--by the help of a library
in Rome to which the Manistys had access--with the books of the Italian
_Risorgimento_, that great movement, that heroic making of a nation, in
which our fathers felt so passionate an interest, which has grown so dim
and far away now, not only in the mind of a younger England, but even in
that of a younger Italy.
But to Lucy--reading the story with the plain of Rome, and St. Peter's in
sight, her wits quickened by the perpetual challenge of Manisty's talk with
Mrs. Burgoyne, or any chance visitor,--Cavour, Garibaldi, Mazzini; all the
striking figures and all the main stages in the great epic; the blind,
mad, hopeless outbreaks of '48; the hangings and shootings and bottomless
despairs of '49; the sullen calm of those waiting years from '49 to '58;
the ecstasy of Magenta and Solferino, and the fierce disappointment of
Villafranca; the wild golden days of Sicily in 1860; the plucking of Venice
like a ripe fruit in '66; of Rome, in 1870; all the deliriums of freedom,
vengeance, union--these immortal names and passions and actions, were
thrilling through the girl's fresh poetic sense, and capturing all her
sympathies. Had Italy indeed been 'made too quick'? Was all the vast
struggle, and these martyred lives for nothing--all to end like a choked
river in death and corruption? Well, if so, whose fault was it, but the
priests'?--of that black, intriguing, traitorous Italy, headed by the
Papacy, which except for one brief moment in the forties, had upheld every
tyranny, and drenched every liberty in blood, had been the supporter of the
Austrian and the Bourbon, and was now again tearing to pieces the Italy
that so many brave men had died to make?
The priests!--the Church!--Why!--she wondered, as she read the story of
Charles Albert, and Metternich and the Naples Bourbons, that Italy still
dared to let the ignorant, persecuting brood live and thrive in her midst
at all! Especially was it a marvel to her that any Jesuit might still walk
Italian streets, that a nation could ever forgive or forget such crimes
against her inmost life as had been the crimes of the Jesuits. She would
stand at the end of the terrace, her hands behind her clasping her book,
her eyes fixed on the distant dome amid the stone-pines. Her book opened
with the experiences of a Neapolitan boy at school in Naples during the
priest-ridden years of the twenties, when Austrian bayonets, after the
rising of '21, had replaced Bourbons and Jesuits in power, and crushed the
life out of the young striving liberty of '21, as a cruel boy may crush and
strangle a fledgling bird. 'What did we learn,' cried the author of the
memoir--'from that monkish education which dwarfed both our mind and body?
How many have I seen in later life groaning over their own ignorance, and
pouring maledictions on the seminary or the college, where they had wasted
so many years and had learnt nothing!'
'That monkish education which dwarfed both our mind and body'--
Lucy would repeat the words to herself--throwing them out as a challenge
to that great dome hovering amid the sunny haze. That old man there, among
his Cardinals--she thought of him with a young horror and revolt; yet not
without a certain tremor of the imagination. Well!--in a few days--Sunday
week--she was to see him, and judge for herself.
* * * * *
Meanwhile visitors were almost shut out. The villa sank into a convent-like
quiet; for in a week, ten days, the book was perhaps to be finished. Miss
Manisty, as the crisis approached, kept a vigilant eye on Mrs. Burgoyne.
She was in constant dread of a delicate woman's collapse; and after the
sittings in the library had lasted a certain time she had now the courage
to break in upon them, and drive Manisty's Egeria out of her cave to rest
and to the garden.
So Lucy, as the shadows lengthened in the garden, would hear the sound of a
light though languid step, and would look up to see a delicate white face
smiling down upon her.
'Oh! how tired you must be!' she would say, springing up. 'Let me make a
place for you here under the trees.'
'No, no. Let us move about. I am tired of sitting.'
And they would pace up and down the terrace and the olive-garden beyond,
while Mrs. Burgoyne leant upon Lucy's arm, chatting and laughing with an
evident relief from tension which only betrayed the mental and physical
fatigue behind.
Lucy wondered to see how exquisite, how dainty, she would emerge from these
wrestles with hard work. Her fresh white or pale dresses, the few jewels
half-hidden at her wrists or throat, the curled or piled masses of the fair
hair, were never less than perfection, it seemed to Lucy; she was never
more the woman of fashion and the great world than when she came out from
a morning's toil that would have left its disturbing mark on a strong man,
her eyes shining under the stress and ardour of those 'ideas,' as to which
it was good to talk with her.
But how eagerly she would throw off that stress, and turn to wooing and
winning Lucy Foster! All hanging back in the matter was gone. Certain vague
thoughts and terrors were laid to sleep, and she must needs allow herself
the luxury of charming the quiet girl, like all the rest--the dogs, the
servants or the village children. There was a perpetual hunger for love in
Eleanor's nature which expressed itself in a thousand small and piteous
ways. She could never help throwing out tendrils, and it was rarely that
she ventured them in vain.
In the case of Lucy Foster, however, her fine tact soon discovered that
caresses were best left alone. They were natural to herself, and once or
twice as the April days went by, she ventured to kiss the girl's fresh
cheek, or to slip an arm round her waist. But Lucy took it awkwardly. When
she was kissed she flushed, and stood passive; and all her personal ways
were a little stiff and austere. After one of these demonstrations indeed
Mrs. Burgoyne generally found herself repaid in some other form, by some
small thoughtfulness on Lucy's part--the placing of a stool, the fetching
of a cloak--or merely perhaps by a new softness in the girl's open look.
And Eleanor never once thought of resenting her lack of response. There
was even a kind of charm in it. The prevailing American type in Rome that
winter had been a demonstrative type.
Lucy's manner in comparison was like a cool and bracing air. 'And when she
does kiss!' Eleanor would say to herself--'it will be with all her heart.
One can see that.'
Meanwhile Mrs. Burgoyne took occasional note of the Mazzinian literature
that lay about. She would turn the books over and read their titles, her
eyes sparkling with a little gentle mischief, as she divined the girl's
disapproval of her host and his views. But she never argued with Lucy. She
was too tired of the subject, too eager to seek relief in talking of the
birds and the view, of people and _chiffons_.
Too happy perhaps--also. She walked on air in these days before Easter.
The book was prospering; Manisty was more content; and as agreeable in all
daily ways and offices as only the hope of good fortune can make a man.
'The Priest of Nemi'--indeed, with several other prose poems of the same
kind, had been cast out of the text; which now presented one firm and
vigorous whole of social and political discussion. But the Nemi piece was
to be specially bound for Eleanor, together with some drawings that she had
made of the lake and the temple site earlier in the spring. And on the day
the book was finished--somewhere within the next fortnight--there was to be
a festal journey to Nemi--divine and blessed place!
So she felt no fatigue, and was always ready to chatter to Lucy of the most
womanish things. Especially, as the girl's beauty grew upon her, was she
anxious to carry out those plans of transforming her dress and hair,--her
gowns and hats and shoes--the primness of her brown braids, which she and
Miss Manisty had confided to each other.
But Lucy was shy--would not be drawn that way. There were fewer visitors
at the villa than she had expected. For this quiet life in the garden, and
on the country roads, it seemed to her that her dresses did very well. The
sense of discomfort excited by the elegance of her Florentine acquaintance
died away. And she would have thought it wrong and extravagant to spend
unnecessary money.
So she had quietly ceased to think about her dress; and the blue and white
check, to Eleanor's torment, had frequently to be borne with.
Even the promised invitation to the Embassy had not arrived. It was said
that the Ambassador's daughter had gone to Florence. Only Lucy wished
she had not written that letter to Uncle Ben from Florence:--that
rather troubled and penitent letter on the subject of dress. He might
misunderstand--might do something foolish.
* * * * *
And apparently Uncle Ben did do something foolish. For a certain letter
arrived from Boston on the day after the seminarists' invasion of the
garden. Lucy after an hour's qualms and hesitations, must needs reluctantly
confide the contents of it to Miss Manisty. And that lady with smiles and
evident pleasure called Mrs. Burgoyne--and Eleanor called her maid,--and
the ball began to roll.
* * * * *
On Saturday morning early, Mrs. Burgoyne's room indeed was in a
bustle--delightful to all but Lucy. Manisty was in Rome for the day, and
Eleanor had holiday. She had never looked more frail--a rose-leaf pink in
her cheek--nor more at ease. For she was at least as good to consult about
a skirt as an idea.
'Marie!'--she said, giving her own maid a little peremptory push--'just run
and fetch Benson--there's an angel. We must have all the brains possible.
If we don't get the bodice right, it won't suit Miss Foster a bit.'
Marie went in all haste. Meanwhile in front of a large glass stood a rather
red and troubled Lucy arrayed in a Paris gown belonging to Mrs. Burgoyne.
Eleanor had played her with much tact, and now had her in her power.
'It is the crisis, my dear,' Miss Manisty had said in Eleanor's ear, as
they rose from breakfast, with a twinkle of her small eyes. 'The question
is; can we, or can we not, turn her into a beauty? _You_ can!'
Eleanor at any rate was doing her best. She had brought out her newest
gowns and Lucy was submissively putting them on one after the other.
Eleanor was in pursuit first of all of some general conceptions. What was
the girl's true style?--what were the possibilities?
'When I have got my lines and main ideas in my head,' she said pensively,
'then we will call in the maids. Of course you _might_ have the things made
in Rome. But as we have the models--and these two maids have nothing to
do--why not give ourselves the pleasure of looking after it?'
Pleasure! Lucy Foster opened her eyes.
Still, here was this absurd, this most extravagant cheque from Uncle Ben,
and these peremptory commands to get herself everything--everything--that
other girls had. Why, it was demanded of her, had she been economical and
scrupulous before starting? Folly and disobedience! He had been told of
her silly hesitations, her detestable frugalities--he had ferretted it all
out. And now she was at a disadvantage--was she? Let her provide herself at
once, or old as he was, he would take train and steamer and come and see to
it!
She was not submissive in general--far from it. But the reading of Uncle
Ben's letter had left her very meek in spirit and rather inclined to cry.
Had Uncle Ben really considered whether it was right to spend so much money
on oneself, to think so much about it? Their life together had been so
simple, the question had hardly emerged. Of course it was right to be neat
and fresh, and to please his taste in what she wore. But--
The net result of all this internal debate, however, was to give a peculiar
charm, like the charm of rippled and sensitive water, to features that were
generally too still and grave. She stood silently before the long glass
while Mrs. Burgoyne and the maids talked and pinned. She walked to the end
of the room and back, as she was bid; she tried to express a preference,
when she was asked for one; and as she was arrayed in one delicious gown
after another, she became more and more alive to the beauty of the soft
stuffs, the invention and caprice with which they were combined, the
daintiness of their pinks and blues, their greys and creams, their lilacs
and ivories. At last Mrs. Burgoyne happened upon a dress of white crape,
opening upon a vest of pale green, with thin edges of black here and there,
disposed with the tact, the feeling of the artist; and when Lucy's tall
form had been draped in this garment, her three attendants fell back with
one simultaneous cry:
'Oh my dear!' said Mrs. Burgoyne drawing a long breath.--'Now you see,
Marie--I told you!--that's the cut. And just look how simple that is, and
how it falls! That's the green. Yes, when Mathilde is as good as that she's
divine.--Now all you've got to do is just to copy that. And the materials
are just nothing--you'll get them in the Corso in half-an-hour.'
'May I take it off?' said Lucy.
'Well yes, you may'--said Mrs. Burgoyne, reluctantly--'but it's a great
pity. Well now, for the coat and skirt,'--she checked them off on her slim
fingers--'for the afternoon gown, and one evening dress, I think I see my
way--'
'Enough for one morning isn't it?' said Lucy half laughing, half imploring.
'Yes,'--said Mrs. Burgoyne absently, her mind already full of further
developments.
The gowns were carried away, and Aunt Pattie's maid departed. Then as Lucy
in her white cotton wrapper was retiring to her own room, Mrs. Burgoyne
caught her by the arm.
'You remember,'--she said appealingly,--'how rude I was that evening
you came--how I just altered your hair? You don't know how I long to
do it properly! You know I shall have a little trouble with these
dresses--trouble I like--but still I shall pretend it's trouble, that you
may pay me for it. Pay me by letting me experiment! I just long to take all
your hair down, and do it as it ought to be done. And you don't know how
clever I am. _Let_ me!'
And already, before the shamefaced girl could reply, she was gently pushed
into the chair before Mrs. Burgoyne's dressing-table, and a pair of skilled
hands went to work.
'I can't say you look as though you enjoyed it,' said Mrs. Burgoyne by the
time she had covered the girl's shoulders with the long silky veil which
she had released from the stiff plaits confining it. 'Do you think it's
wrong to do your hair prettily?' Lucy laughed uneasily.
'I was never brought up to think much about it. My mother had very strict
views.'
'Ah!'--said Eleanor, with a discreet intonation. 'But you see, at Rome it
is really so much better for the character to do as Rome does. To be out of
the way makes one self-conscious. Your mother didn't foresee that.'
Silence,--while the swift white fingers plaited and tied and laid
foundations.
'It waves charmingly already'--murmured the artist--'but it must be just
a little more _ondulé_ in the right places--just a touch--here and there.
Quick, Marie!--bring me the stove--and the tongs--and two or three of those
finest hairpins.'
The maid flew, infected by the ardour of her mistress, and between them
they worked to such purpose that when at last they released their victim,
they had turned the dark head into that of a stately and fashionable
beauty. The splendid hair was raised high in small silky ripples above
the white brow. The little love-locks on the temples had been delicately
arranged so as to complete the fine oval of the face, and at the back the
black masses drawn lightly upwards from the neck, and held in place there
by a pearl comb of Mrs. Burgoyne's, had been piled and twisted into a crown
that would have made Artemis herself more queenly.
'Am I really to keep it like this?' cried Lucy, looking at herself in the
glass.
'But of course you are!' and Mrs. Burgoyne instinctively held the girl's
arms, lest any violence should be offered to her handiwork--'And you must
put on your _old_ white frock--_not_ the check--the nice soft one that's
been washed, with the pink sash--Goodness, how the time goes! Marie, run
and tell Miss Manisty not to wait for me--I'll follow her to the village.'
The maid went. Lucy looked down upon her tyrant--
You are very kind to me'--she said with a lip that trembled slightly. Her
blue eyes under the black brows showed a feeling that she did not know how
to express. The subdued responsiveness, indeed, of Lucy's face was like
that of Wordsworth's Highland girl struggling with English. You felt her
'beating up against the wind,'--in the current, yet resisting it. Or
to take another comparison, her nature seemed to be at once stiff and
rich--like some heavy church stuff, shot with gold.
'Oh! these things are my snare,' said Eleanor, laughing--'If I have any
gift, it is for _chiffons_.'
'Any gift!' said Lucy wondering--'when you do so much for Mr. Manisty?'
Mrs. Burgoyne shrugged her shoulders.
'Ah! well--he wanted a secretary--and I happened to get the place,' she
said, in a more constrained voice.
'Miss Manisty told me how you helped him in the winter. And she and Mr.
Brooklyn--have--told me--other things--' said Lucy. She paused, colouring
deeply. But her eyes travelled timidly to the photographs on Mrs.
Burgoyne's table.
Eleanor understood.
'Ah!--they told you that, did they?'--The speaker turned a little white.
'And you wonder--don't you?--that I can go on talking about frocks, and new
ways of doing one's hair?'
She moved away from Lucy, a touch of cold defensive dignity effacing all
her pliant sweetness.
Lucy followed and caught her hand.
'Oh no! no!'--she said--'it is only so brave and good of you--to be able
still--to take an interest--'
'Do I take it?' said Eleanor, scornfully, raising her other hand and
letting it fall.
Lucy was silenced. After a moment Eleanor looked round, calmly took the
photograph of the child from the table, and held it towards Lucy.
'He was just two--his birthday was four days before this was taken.
It's the picture I love best, because I last saw him like that--in his
night-gown. I was very ill that night--they wouldn't let me stay with my
husband--but after I left him, I came and rocked the baby and tucked him
up--and leant my face against his. He was so warm and sweet always in his
sleep. The touch of him--and the scent of him--his dear breath--and his
curls--and the moist little hands--sometimes they used to intoxicate me--to
give me life--like wine. They did me such good--that night.'
Her voice did not tremble. Tears softly found their way down Lucy's face.
And suddenly she stooped, and put her lips, tenderly, clingingly, to Mrs.
Burgoyne's hand.
Eleanor smiled. Then she herself bent forward and lightly kissed the girl's
cheek.
'Oh! I am not worthy either to have had him--or lost him--' she said
bitterly. There was a little pause, which Eleanor broke. 'Now really we
must go to Aunt Pattie--mustn't we?'