'Ah! here you are! Don't kill yourselves. Plenty of time--for us!
Listen--there's the bell--eight o'clock--now they open the doors.
Goodness!--Look at the rush--and those little Italian chaps tackling those
strapping priests. Go it, ye cripples!'
Lucy tamed her run to a quick walk, and Mr. Reggie took care of her, while
Manisty disappeared ahead with Mrs. Burgoyne, and Aunt Pattie fell to the
share of a certain Mr. Vanbrugh Neal, an elderly man tall and slim, and
of a singular elegance of bearing, who had joined them at the Piazza, and
seemed to be an old friend of Mr. Manisty's.
Lucy looked round her in bewilderment. Before the first stroke of the bell
the Piazza of St. Peter's had been thickly covered with freely moving
groups, all advancing in order upon the steps of the church. But as the
bell began to speak, there was a sudden charge mostly of young priests and
seminarists--black skirts flying, black legs leaping--across the open space
and up the steps.
'Reminds me of nothing so much'--said Reggie laughing back over his
shoulder at a friend behind--'as the charge of the Harrow boys at Lord's
last year--when they stormed the pavilion--did you see it?--and that little
Harrow chap saved the draw? I say!--they've broken the line!--and there'll
be a bad squash somewhere.'
And indeed the attacking priests had for a moment borne down the Italian
soldiers who were good-naturedly guarding and guiding the Pope's guests
from the entrance of the Piazza to the very door of the church. But the
little men--as they seemed to Lucy's eyes--recovered themselves in a
twinkling, threw themselves stoutly on the black gentry, like sheep dogs on
the sheep, worried them back into line, collared a few bold spirits here,
formed a new cordon there, till all was once more in tolerable order, and a
dangerous pressure on the central door was averted.
Meanwhile Lucy was hurried forward with the privileged crowd going to the
tribunes, towards the sacristy door on the south.
'Let's catch up Mrs. Burgoyne'--said the young man, looking ahead with some
anxiety--'Manisty's no use. He'll begin to moon and forget all about her. I
say!--Look at the building--and the sky behind it! Isn't it stunning?'
And they threw up a hasty glance as they sped along at the superb walls and
apses and cornices of the southern side--golden ivory or wax against the
blue.--The pigeons flew in white eddies above their heads; the April wind
flushed Lucy's cheek, and played with her black mantilla. All qualms were
gone. After her days of seclusion in the villa garden, she was passionately
conscious of this great Rome and its magic; and under her demure and rather
stately air, her young spirits danced and throbbed with pleasure.
'How that black lace stuff does become all you women!'--said Reggie
Brooklyn, throwing a lordly and approving glance at her and his cousin
Eleanor, as they all met and paused amid the crowd that was concentrating
itself on the sacristy door; and Lucy, instead of laughing at the
lad's airs, only reddened a little more brightly and found it somehow
sweet--April sweet--that a young man on this spring morning should admire
her; though after all, she was hardly more inclined to fall in love with
Reggie Brooklyn than with Manisty's dear collie puppy, that had been left
behind, wailing, at the villa.
At the actual door the young man quietly possessed himself of Mrs.
Burgoyne, while Manisty with an unconscious look of relief fell behind.
'And you, Miss Foster,--keep closer--my coat's all at your service--it'll
stand a pull. Don't you be swept away--and I'll answer for Mrs. Burgoyne.'
So on they hurried, borne along with the human current through passages and
corridors, part of a laughing, pushing, chatting crowd, containing all the
types that throng the Roman streets--English and American tourists, Irish
or German or English priests, monks white and brown, tall girls who wore
their black veils with an evident delight in the new setting thus given to
their fair hair and brilliant skins, beside older women to whom, on the
contrary, the dress had given a kind of unwonted repose and quietness of
look, as though for once they dared to be themselves in it, and gave up the
struggle with the years.
Reggie Brooklyn maintained a lively chatter all the time, mostly at
Manisty's expense. Eleanor Burgoyne first laughed at his sallies, then
gently turned her head in a pause of the general advance and searched the
crowd pressing at their heels. Lucy's eyes followed hers, and there far
behind, carried forward passively in a brown study, losing ground slightly
whenever it was possible, was Manisty. The fine significant face was turned
a little upward; the eyes were full of thoughts; he was at once the slave
of the crowd, and its master.
And across Eleanor's expression--unseen--there passed the slightest,
subtlest flash of tenderness and pride. She knew and understood him--she
alone!
* * * * *
At last the doors are passed. They are in the vast barricaded and
partitioned space, already humming with the talk and tread of
thousands,--the 'Tu es Petrus' overhead. Reggie Brooklyn would have hurried
them on in the general rush for the tribunes. But Mrs. Burgoyne laid a
restraining hand upon him. 'No--we mustn't separate,' she said, gently
peremptory. And for a few minutes Mr. Reggie in an anguish must needs see
the crowd flow past him, and the first seats of Tribune D filled. Then
Manisty appeared, lifting his eyebrows in a frowning wonder at the young
man's impatience;--and on they flew.
At last!--They are in the third row of Tribune D, close to the line by
which the Pope must pass, and to the platform from which he will deliver
the Apostolic Benediction. Reggie the unsatisfied, the idealist, grumbles
that they ought to have been in the very front. But Eleanor and Aunt Pattie
are well satisfied. They find their acquaintance all around them. It is a
general flutter of fans, and murmur of talk. Already people are standing on
their seats looking down on the rapidly filling church. In press the less
favoured thousands from the Piazza, through the Atrium and the Eastern
door--great sea of human life spreading over the illimitable nave behind
the two lines of Swiss and Papal Guards, in quick never-ending waves that
bewilder and dazzle the eye.
Lucy found the three hours' wait but a moment. The passing and re-passing
of the splendid officials in their Tudor or Valois dress; the great names,
'Colonna,' 'Barberini,' 'Savelli,' 'Borghese' that sound about her, as Mrs.
Burgoyne who knows everybody, at least by sight, laughs and points and
chats with her neighbour, Mr. Neal; the constant welling up of processions
from behind,--the Canons and Monsignori in their fur and lace tippets,
the red Cardinals with their suites; the entry of the Guardia Nobile,
splendid, incredible, in their winged Achillean helmets above their Empire
uniforms--half Greek, half French, half gods, half dandies, the costliest
foolishest plaything that any court can show; and finally as the time draws
on, the sudden thrills and murmurs that run through the church, announcing
the great moment which still, after all, delays: these things chase the
minutes, blot out, the sense of time.
Meanwhile, again and again, Lucy, the sedate, the self-controlled, cannot
prevent herself from obeying a common impulse with those about her--from
leaping on her chair--straining her white throat--her eyes. Then a handsome
chamberlain would come by, lifting a hand in gentle protest, motioning to
the ladies--'De grâce, mesdames--mesdames, de _grâce_!--' Or angry murmurs
would rise from those few who had not the courage or the agility to
mount--'_Giù! giù!_--Descendez, mesdames!--qu'est-ce que c'est done que ces
mánières?'--and Lucy, crimson and abashed, would descend in haste, only to
find a kind Irish priest behind smiling at her,--prompting her,--'Never
mind them!--take no notice!--who is it you're harmin'?'--And her excitement
would take him at his word--for who should know if not a priest?
And from these risky heights she looked down sometimes on
Manisty--wondering where was emotion, sympathy. Not a trace of them! Of
all their party he alone was obviously and hideously bored by the long
wait. He leant back in his chair, with folded arms, staring at the
ceiling--yawning--fidgetting. At last he took out a small Greek book from
his pocket, and hung over it in a moody absorption. Once only, when a
procession of the inferior clergy went by, he looked at it closely, turning
afterwards to Mrs. Burgoyne with the emphatic remark: 'Bad faces!--aren't
they?--almost all of them?'
Yet Lucy could see that even here in this vast crowd, amid the hubbub and
bustle, he still counted, was still remembered. Officials came to lean
and chat across the rope; diplomats stopped to greet him on the way to
the august seats beyond the Confession. His manner in return showed no
particular cordiality; Lucy thought it languid, even cold. She was struck
with the difference between his mood of the day, and that brilliant and
eager homage he had lavished on the old Cardinal in the villa garden. What
a man of change and fantasy! Here it was he _qui tendait la joue_. Cold,
distant, dreamy--one would have thought him either indifferent or hostile
to the whole great pageant and its meanings.
Only once did Lucy see him bestir himself--show a gleam of animation.
A white-haired priest, all tremulous dignity and delicacy, stood for a
moment beside the rope-barrier, waiting for a friend. Manisty bent over and
touched him on the arm. The old man turned. The face was parchment, the
cheeks cavernous. But in the blue eyes there was an exquisite innocence and
youth.
Manisty smiled at him. His manner showed a peculiar almost a boyish
deference. 'You join us afterwards--at lunch?'
'Yes, yes.' The old priest beamed and nodded; then his friend came up and
he was carried on.
* * * * *
'A quarter to eleven,' said Manisty with a yawn, looking at his watch.
'Ah!--listen!'
He sprang to his feet. In an instant half the occupants of Tribune D
were on their chairs, Lucy and Eleanor among them. A roar came up the
church--passionate--indescribable. Lucy held her breath.
There--there he is,--the old man! Caught in a great shaft of sunlight
striking from south to north, across the church, and just touching the
chapel of the Holy Sacrament--the Pope emerges. The white figure, high
above the crowd, sways from side to side; the hand upraised gives the
benediction. Fragile, spiritual as is the apparition, the sunbeam refines,
subtilises, spiritualises it still more. It hovers like a dream above the
vast multitudes--surely no living man!--but thought, history, faith, taking
shape; the passion of many hearts revealed. Up rushes the roar towards
the Tribunes. 'Did you hear?' said Manisty to Mrs. Burgoyne, lifting a
smiling brow, as a few Papalino cries--'Viva il Papa Re'--make themselves
heard among the rest. Eleanor's thin face turns to him with responsive
excitement. But she has seen these things before. Instinctively her eyes
wander perpetually to Manisty's, taking their colour, their meaning from
his. It is not the spectacle itself that matters to her--poor Eleanor!
One heart-beat, one smile of the man beside her outweighs it all. And he,
roused at last from his nonchalance, watching hawk-like every movement of
the figure and the crowd, is going mentally through a certain page of his
book, repeating certain phrases--correcting here--strengthening there.
Lucy alone--the alien and Puritan Lucy--Lucy surrenders herself completely.
She betrays nothing, save by the slightly parted lips, and the flutter of
the black veil fastened on her breast; but it is as though her whole inner
being were dissolving, melting away, in the flame of the moment. It is her
first contact with decisive central things, her first taste of the great
world-play, as Europe has known it and taken part in it, at least since
Charles the Great.
Yet, as she looks, within the visible scene, there opens another: the
porch of a plain, shingled house, her uncle sitting within it, his pipe
and his newspaper on his knee, sunning himself in the April morning. She
passes behind him, looks into the stiff leaf-scented parlour--at the
framed Declaration of Independence on the walls, the fresh boughs in the
fire-place, the Bible on its table, the rag-carpet before the hearth.
She breathes the atmosphere of the house; its stern independence and
simplicities; the scorns and the denials, the sturdy freedoms both of
body and soul that it implies--conscience the only master--vice-master
for God, in this His house of the World. And beyond--as her lids sink for
an instant on the pageant before her--she hears, as it were, the voices
of her country, so young and raw and strong!--she feels within her the
throb of its struggling self-assertive life; she is conscious too of the
uglinesses and meannesses that belong to birth and newness, to growth and
fermentation. Then, in a proud timidity--as one who feels herself an alien
and on sufferance--she hangs again upon the incomparable scene. This is St.
Peter's; there is the dome of Michael Angelo; and here, advancing towards
her amid the red of the cardinals, the clatter of the guards, the tossing
of the flabellæ, as though looking at her alone--the two waxen fingers
raised for her alone--is the white-robed triple-crowned Pope.
She threw herself upon the sight with passion, trying to penetrate and
possess it; and it baffled her, passed her by. Some force of resistance
within her cried out to it that she was not its subject--rather its enemy!
And august, unheeding, the great pageant swept on. Close, close to her now!
Down sink the crowd upon the chairs; the heads fall like corn before the
wind. Lucy is bending too. The Papal chair borne on the shoulders of the
guards is now but a few feet distant; vaguely she wonders that the old
man keeps his balance, as he clings with one frail hand to the arm of the
chair, rises incessantly--and blesses with the other. She catches the
very look and meaning of the eyes--the sharp long line of the closed and
toothless jaw. Spirit and spectre;--embodying the Past, bearing the clue to
the Future.
'_Yeux de police!_'--laughed Reggie Brooklyn to Mrs. Burgoyne as the
procession passed--'don't you know?--that's what they say.'
Manisty bent forward. The flush of excitement was still on his cheek, but
he threw a little nod to Brooklyn, whose gibe amused him.
Lucy drew a long breath--and the spell was broken.
* * * * *
Nor was it again renewed, in the same way. The Pope and his cortège
disappeared behind the Confession, behind the High Altar, and presently,
Lucy, craning her neck to the right, could see dimly in the furthest
distance, against the apse, and under the chair of St. Peter, the chair of
Leo XIII. and the white shadow, motionless, erect, within it, amid a court
of cardinals and diplomats. As for the mass that followed, it had its
moments of beauty for the girl's wondering or shrinking curiosity, but also
its moments of weariness and disillusion. From the latticed choir-gallery,
placed against one of the great piers of the dome, came unaccompanied
music--fine, pliant, expressive--like a single voice moving freely in
the vast space; and at the High Altar, Cardinals and Bishops crossed and
recrossed, knelt and rose, offered and put off the mitre; amid wreaths of
incense, long silences, a few chanted words; sustained, enfolded all the
while by the swelling tide of _Gloria_, or _Sanctus_.
At last--the elevation!--and at the bell the whole long double line of
soldiers, from the Pope's chair at the western end to the eastern door,
with a rattle of arms that ran from end to end of the church, dropped on
one knee--saluted. Then, crac!--and as they had dropped, they rose, the
stiff white breeches and towering helmets of the Guardia Nobile, the
red and yellow of the Swiss, the red and blue of the Papal guards--all
motionless as before. It was like the movement of some gigantic toy. And
who or what else took any notice? Lucy looked round amazed. Even the Irish
priest behind her had scarcely bowed his head. Nobody knelt. Most people
were talking. Eleanor Burgoyne indeed had covered her face with her long
delicate fingers. Manisty leaning back in his chair, looked up for an
instant at the rattle of the soldiers, then went back sleepily to his Greek
book. Yet Lucy felt her own heart throbbing. Through the candelabra of the
High Altar beneath the dome, she can see the moving figures of the priests,
the wreaths of incense ascending. The face of the celebrant Cardinal,
which had dropped out of sight, reappears. Since it was last visible,
according to Catholic faith, the great act of Catholic worship has been
accomplished--the Body and Blood are there--God has descended, has
mingled with a mortal frame. And who cares? Lucy looks round her at the
good-humoured indifference, vacancy, curiosity, of the great multitude
filling the nave; and her soul frees itself in a rush of protesting
amazement.
* * * * *
One more 'moment' however there was,--very different from the great moment
of the entry, yet beautiful. The mass is over, and a temporary platform has
been erected between the Confession and the nave. The Pope has been placed
upon it, and is about to chant the Apostolic Benediction.
The old man is within thirty feet of Manisty, who sits nearest to the
barrier. The red Cardinal holding the service-book, the groups of guards,
clergy and high officials, every detail of the Pope's gorgeous dress, nay
every line of the wrinkled face, and fleshless hands, Lucy's eyes command
them all. The quavering voice rises into the sudden silence of St. Peter's.
Fifty thousand people hush every movement, strain their ears to listen.
Ah! how weak it is! Surely the effort is too great for a frame so
enfeebled, so ancient. It should not have been exacted--allowed. Lucy's
ears listen painfully for the inevitable break. But no!--The Pope draws a
long sigh--the sigh of weakness,--('Ah! poveretto!' says a woman, close to
Lucy, in a transport of pity),--then once more attempts the chant--sighs
again--and sings. Lucy's face softens and glows; her eyes fill with tears.
Nothing more touching, more triumphant, than this weakness and this
perseverance. Fragile indomitable face beneath the Papal crown! Under the
eyes of fifty thousand people the Pope sighs like a child, because he is
weak and old, and the burden of his office is great; but in sighing, keeps
a perfect simplicity, dignity, courage. Not a trace of stoical concealment;
but also not a trace of flinching. He sings to the end, and St. Peter's
listens in a tender hush.
Then there seems to be a moment of collapse. The long straight lips close
as though with a snap, the upper jaw protruding; the eyelids drop; the
emaciated form sinks upon itself.--
But his guards raise the chair, and the Pope's trance passes away. He opens
his eyes, and braces himself for the last effort. Whiter than the gorgeous
cope which falls about him, he raises himself, clinging to the chair; he
lifts the skeleton fingers of his partially gloved hand; his look searches
the crowd.
Lucy fell on her knees, a sob in her throat. When the Pope had passed, some
influence made her look up. She met the eyes of Edward Manisty. They were
instantly withdrawn, but not before the mingling of amusement and triumph
in them had brought the quick red to the girl's cheek.
* * * * *
And outside, in the Piazza, amid the out-pouring thousands, as they were
rushing for their carriage, Manisty's stride overtook her.
'Well--you were impressed?'--he said, looking at her sharply.
The girl's pride was somehow nettled by his tone.
'Yes--but by the old man--more than by the Pope,'--she said quickly.
'I hope not,' he said, with emphasis.--'Otherwise you would have missed the
whole point.'
'Why?--Mayn't one feel it was pathetic, and touching--'
'No--not in the least!' he said, impatiently. 'What does the man himself
matter, or his age?--That's all irrelevant,--foolish sentiment. What makes
these ceremonies so tremendous is that there is no break between that man
and Peter--or Linus, if you like--it comes to the same thing:--that the
bones, if not of Peter, at any rate of men who might have known Peter,
are there, mingled with the earth beneath his feet--that he stands there
recognised by half the civilised world as Peter's successor--that five
hundred, a thousand years hence, the vast probability is there will still
be a Pope in St. Peter's to hand on the same traditions, and make the same
claims.'
'But if you don't acknowledge the tradition or the claims!--why shouldn't
you feel just the human interest?'
'Oh, of course, if you want to take the mere vulgar, parochial view--the
halfpenny interviewer's view--why, you must take it!' he said, almost with
violence, shrugging his shoulders.
Lucy's eyes sparkled. There was always something of the overgrown,
provoking child in him, when he wanted to bear down an opinion or feeling
that displeased him. She would have liked to go on walking and wrangling
with him, for the great ceremony had excited her, and made it easier
for her to talk. But at that moment Mrs. Burgoyne's voice was heard
in front--'Joy! there is the carriage, and Reggie has picked up
another.--Edward, take Aunt Pattie through--we'll look after ourselves.'
* * * * *
And soon the whole party were driving in two of the little Roman victorias
through streets at the back of the Capitol, and round the base of the
Palatine, to the Aventine, where it appeared they were to lunch at an
open-air _trattoria_, recommended by Mr. Brooklyn.
Mrs. Burgoyne, Lucy and Mr. Vanbrugh Neal found themselves together. Mrs.
Burgoyne and Mr. Neal talked of the function, and Lucy, after a few shy
expressions of gratitude and pleasure, fell silent, and listened. But she
noticed very soon that Mrs. Burgoyne was talking absently. Amid the black
that fell about her slim tallness, she was more fragile, more pale than
ever; and it seemed to Lucy that her eyes were dark with a fatigue that had
not much to do with St. Peter's. Suddenly indeed, she bent forward and said
in a lowered voice to Mr. Neal--
'You have read it?'
He too bent forward, with a smile not quite free from embarrassment--
'Yes, I have read it--I shall have some criticisms to make.--You won't
mind?'
She threw up her hands--
'Must you?'
'I think I must--for the good of the book,'--he said reluctantly. 'Very
likely I'm all wrong. I can only look at it as one of the public. But
that's what he wants,'--what you both want--isn't it?'
She assented. Then she turned her head away, looked out of the carriage and
said no more. But her face had drooped and dimmed, all in a moment; the
lines graven in it long years before, by grief and delicacy, came out with
a singular and sudden plainness.
The man sitting opposite to her was of an aspect little less distinguished
than hers. He had a long face, with a high forehead, set in grizzled hair,
and a mouth and chin of peculiar refinement. The shortness of the chin gave
a first impression of weakness, which however was soon undone by the very
subtle and decided lines in which, so to speak, the mouth, and indeed the
face as a whole, were drawn. All that Lucy knew of him was that he was a
Cambridge don, a man versed in classical archæology who was an old friend
and tutor of Mr. Manisty's. She had heard his name mentioned several times
at the Villa, and always with an emphasis that marked it out from other
names. And she understood from various signs that before finally passing
his proofs for publication, Mr. Manisty had taken advantage of his old
friend's coming to Rome to ask his opinion on them.
How brilliant was the April day on the high terrace of the Aventine
_trattoria_! As Lucy and Aunt Pattie stood together beside the little
parapet looking out through the sprays of banksia rose that were already
making a white canopy above the restaurant tables, they had before them
the steep sides and Imperial ruins of the Palatine; the wonderful group of
churches on the Coelian; the low villa-covered ridges to the right melting
into the Campagna; and far away, the blue, Sabine mountains--'suffused with
sunny air'--that look down with equal kindness on the refuge of Horace, and
the oratory of St. Benedict. What sharpness of wall and tree against the
pearly sky--what radiance of blossom in the neighbouring gardens--what ruin
everywhere, yet what indomitable life!
Beneath on a lower terrace, Manisty and Mr. Vanbrugh Neal were walking up
and down.
'He's such a clever man,' sighed Aunt Pattie, as she looked down upon them.
'But I do hope he won't discourage Edward.'
Whereupon she glanced not at Manisty but at Eleanor, who was sitting near
them, pretending to talk to Reggie Brooklyn--but in reality watching the
conversation below.
Presently some other guests arrived, and amongst them the tall and
fine-faced priest who had spoken to Manisty in St. Peter's. He came in very
shyly. Eleanor Burgoyne received him, made him sit by her, and took charge
of him till Manisty should appear. But he seemed to be ill at ease with
ladies. He buried his hands in the sleeves of his soutane, and would answer
little more than Yes and No.
'There'll be a great fuss about him soon,' whispered Aunt Pattie in
Lucy's ear--'I don't quite understand--but he's written a book that's
been condemned; and the question is, will he submit? They give you a year
apparently to decide in. Edward says the book's quite right--and yet they
were quite right to condemn him. It's very puzzling!'
When Manisty and Mr. Neal answered to the call of luncheon, Mr. Neal
mounted the steps leading to the open-air restaurant, with the somewhat
sheepish air of the man who has done his duty, and is inclined to feel
himself a meddler for his pains. The luncheon itself passed without gaiety.
Manisty was either moodily silent, or engaged in discussions with the
strange priest, Father Benecke, as to certain incidents connected with a
South German University, which had lately excited Catholic opinion. He
scarcely spoke to any of the ladies--least of all to Eleanor Burgoyne. She
and Aunt Pattie must needs make all the greater efforts to carry off the
festa. Aunt Pattie chattered nervously like one in dread of a silence,
while Eleanor was merry with young Brooklyn, and courteous to the other
guests whom Manisty had invited--a distinguished French journalist for
instance, an English member of Parliament and his daughter, and an Italian
senator with an English wife.
Nevertheless when the party was breaking up, Reggie who had thrown her
occasional glances of disquiet, approached Lucy Foster and said to her in a
low voice, twirling an angry moustache--
'Mrs. Burgoyne is worn out. Can't you look after her?'
Lucy, a little scared by so much responsibility, did her best. She
dissuaded Aunt Pattie from dragging Mrs. Burgoyne through an afternoon
of visits. She secured an early train for the return to Marinata, and so
earned a special and approving smile from Mr. Reggie, when at last he had
settled the three ladies safely in their carriage, and was raising his hat
to them on the platform. Manisty and Mr. Neal were to follow by a later
train.
No sooner were they speeding through the Campagna than Eleanor sank back in
her corner with a long involuntary sigh.
'My dear--you are very tired!'--exclaimed Miss Manisty.
'No.--'
Mrs. Burgoyne took off the hat which had by now replaced the black veil of
the morning, and closed her eyes. Her attitude by its sad unresistingness
appealed to Lucy as it had done once before. And it was borne in upon her
that what she saw was not mere physical fatigue, but a deep discouragement
of mind and heart. As to the true sources of it Lucy could only guess. She
guessed at any rate that they were somehow connected with Mr. Manisty and
his book; and she was indignant again--she hardly knew why. The situation
suggested to her a great devotion ill-repaid, a friendship, of which the
strong tyrannous man took advantage. Why should he behave as though all
that happened ill with regard to his book was somehow Mrs. Burgoyne's
fault? Claim all her time and strength--overstrain and overwork her--and
then make her tacitly responsible if anything went amiss! It was like the
petulant selfishness of his character. Miss Manisty ought to interfere!
* * * * *
Dreary days followed at the Villa.
It appeared that Mr. Vanbrugh Neal had indeed raised certain critical
objections both to the facts and to the arguments of one whole section of
the book, and that Manisty had been unable to resist them. The two men
would walk up and down the ilex avenues of the garden for hours together,
Mr. Neal gentle, conciliating, but immovable; Manisty violent and excited,
but always submitting in the end. He would defend his point of view with
obstinacy, with offensiveness even, for an afternoon, and then give way,
with absolute suddenness. Lucy learnt with some astonishment that beneath
his outward egotism he was really amazingly dependent on the opinions of
two or three people, of whom Mr. Neal seemed to be one. This dependence
turned out indeed to be even excessive. He would make a hard fight for his
own way; but in the end he was determined that what he wrote should please
his friends, and please a certain public. At bottom he was a rhetorician
writing for this public--the slave of praise, and eager for fame, which
made his complete indifference as to what people thought of his actions
all the more remarkable. He lived to please himself; he wrote to be read;
and he had found reason to trust the instinct of certain friends in this
respect, Vanbrugh Neal among them.
To do him justice, indeed, along with his dependence on Vanbrugh Neal's
opinion, there seemed to go a rather winning dependence on his affection.
Mr. Neal was apparently a devout Anglican, of a delicate and scrupulous
type. His temper was academic, his life solitary; rhetoric left him
unmoved, and violence of statement caused him to shiver. To make the State
religious was his dearest wish. But he did not forget that to accomplish
it you must keep the Church reasonable. A deep, though generally silent
enthusiasm for the Anglican _Via Media_ possessed him; and, like the Newman
of Oriel, he was inclined to look upon the appearance of Antichrist as
coincident with the Council of Trent. In England it seemed to him that
persecution of the Church was gratuitous and inexcusable; for the Church
had never wronged the State. In Italy, on the contrary, supposing the State
had been violent, it could plead the earlier violences of the Church. He
did not see how the ugly facts could be denied; nor did a candid unveiling
of them displease his Anglican taste.
'You should have made a study--and you have written a pamphlet,' he would
say, with that slow shake of the head which showed him inexorable. 'Why
have you given yourself to the Jesuits? You were an Englishman and an
outsider--enormous advantages! Why have you thrown them away?'
'One must have information!--I merely went to headquarters.'
'You have paid for it too dear. Your book is a plea for superstition!'
Whereupon a flame in Manisty's black eyes, and a burst in honour of
superstition, which set the garden paths echoing.
But Neal pushed quietly on; untiring, unappeasable; pointing to a
misstatement here, an exaggeration there, till Manisty was in a roar of
argument, furious half with his friend, half with himself.
Meanwhile if the writer bore attack hardly, the man of piety found it still
harder to endure the praise of piety. When Manisty denounced irresponsible
science and free thought, as the enemies of the State, which must live,
and can only live by religion; when he asked with disdain 'what reasonable
man would nowadays weigh the membership of the Catholic church against
an opinion in geology or exegesis'; when he dwelt on the _easiness_
of faith,--which had nothing whatever to do with knowledge, and had,
therefore, no quarrel with knowledge; or upon the incomparable social power
of religion;--his friend grew restive. And while Manisty, intoxicated with
his own phrases, and fluencies, was alternately smoking and declaiming,
Neal with his grey hair, his tall spare form, and his air of old-fashioned
punctilium, would sit near, fixing the speaker with his pale-blue eyes,--a
little threateningly; always ready to shatter an exuberance, to check an
oratorical flow by some quick double-edged word that would make Manisty
trip and stammer; showing, too, all the time, by his evident shrinking, by
certain impregnable reserves, or by the banter that hid a feeling too keen
to show itself, how great is the gulf between a literary and a practical
Christianity.
Nevertheless, from the whole wrestle two facts emerged:--the pleasure which
these very dissimilar men took in each other's society; and that strange
ultimate pliancy of Manisty which lay hidden somewhere under all the surge
and froth of his vivacious rhetoric. Both were equally surprising to
Lucy Foster. How had Manisty ever attached himself to Vanbrugh Neal? For
Neal had a large share of the weaknesses of the student and recluse; the
failings, that is to say, of a man who had lived much alone, and found
himself driven to an old-maidish care of health and nerves, if a delicate
physique was to do its work. He had fads; and his fads were often
unexpected and disconcerting. One day he would not walk; another day he
would not eat; driving was out of the question, and the sun must be avoided
like the plague. Then again it was the turn of exercise, cold baths,
and hearty fare. It was all done with a grace that made his whims more
agreeable than other men's sense. But one might have supposed that such
claims on a friend's part would have annoyed a man of Manisty's equally
marked but very different peculiarities. Not at all. He was patience and
good temper itself on these occasions.
'Isn't he _bon enfant_?' Mr. Neal said once to Mrs. Burgoyne in Lucy's
presence, with a sudden accent of affection and emotion--on some occasion
when Manisty had borne the upsetting of a cherished plan for the afternoon
with quite remarkable patience.
'He has learnt how to spoil _you_!' said Eleanor, with a fluttering smile,
and an immediate change of subject. Lucy looking up, felt a little pang.
For nothing could he more curious than the change in Manisty's manner
towards the most constant of companions and secretaries. He had given up
all continuous work at his book; he talked now of indefinite postponement;
and it seemed as if with the change of plan Mrs. Burgoyne had dropped out
of the matter altogether. He scarcely consulted her indeed; he consulted
Mr. Neal. Mr. Neal often, moved by a secret chivalry, would insist upon
bringing her in to their counsels; Manisty immediately became unmanageable,
silent, and embarrassed. And how characteristic and significant was that
embarrassment of his! It was as though he had a grievance against her;
which however he could neither formulate for himself nor express to her.
On the other hand--perhaps inevitably--he began to take much more notice
of Lucy Foster, and to find talking with her an escape. He presently found
it amusing to 'draw' her; and subjects presented themselves in plenty. She
was now much less shy; and her secret disapproval gave her tongue. His
challenges and her replies became a feature of the day; Miss Manisty and
Mr. Neal began to listen with half-checked smiles, to relish the girl's
crisp frankness, and the quick sense of fun that dared to show itself now
that she was more at home.
'And how improved she is! That's like all the Americans--they're so
adaptable,'--Miss Manisty would think, as she watched her nephew in the
evenings teasing, sparring, or arguing with Lucy Foster--she so adorably
young and fresh, the new and graceful lines of the _coiffure_ that Eleanor
had forced upon her, defining the clear oval of the face and framing the
large eyes and pure brow. Her hands, perhaps, would be lightly clasped on
her white lap, their long fingers playing with some flower she had taken
from her belt. The lines of the girlish figure would be full of dignity and
strength. She might have been herself the young America, arguing, probing,
deciding for herself--refusing to be overawed or brow-beaten by the old
Europe.
Eleanor meanwhile was unfailingly gracious both to Lucy and the others,
though perhaps the grace had in it sometimes a new note of distance, of
that delicate _hauteur_, which every woman of the world has at command. She
gave as much attention as ever--more than ever--to the fashioning of Lucy's
dresses; the girl was constantly pricked with compunction and shame on the
subject. Who was she, that Mrs. Burgoyne--so elegant and distinguished a
person--should waste so much time and thought upon her? But sometimes she
could not help seeing that Mrs. Burgoyne was glad of the occupation. Her
days had been full to the brim; they were now empty. She said nothing; she
took up the new books; she talked to and instructed the maids; but Lucy
divined a secret suffering.
* * * * *
One evening, about a week after Mr. Neal's arrival at the Villa, Manisty
was more depressed than usual. He had been making some attempts to
rearrange a certain section of his book which had fallen especially under
the ban of Neal's criticism. He had not been successful; and in the process
his discontent with one chapter had spread to several. In talking about the
matter to Vanbrugh Neal in the salon after dinner he broke out into some
expression of disgust as to the waste of time involved in much of his
work of the winter. The two friends were in a corner of the vast room;
and Manisty spoke in an undertone. But his voice had the carrying and
penetrating power of his personality.
Presently Eleanor Burgoyne rose, and softly approached Miss Manisty. 'Dear
Aunt Pattie--don't move'--she said, bending over her--'I am tired and will
go to bed.'
Manisty, who had turned at her movement, sprang up, and came to her.
'Eleanor! did we walk you too far this afternoon?'
She smiled, but hardly replied. He busied himself with gathering up her
possessions, and lit her candle at the side-table.
As she passed by him to the door, he looked at her furtively for a
moment,--hanging his head. Then he pressed her hand, and said so that only
she could hear--
'I should have kept my regrets to myself!'
She shook her head, with faint mockery.
'It would be the first time.'
Her hand dropped from his, and she passed out of sight. Manisty walked back
to his seat discomfited. He could not defend himself against the charges of
secret tyranny and abominable ill-humour that his conscience was pricking
him with. He was sorry--he would have liked to tell her so. And yet somehow
her very weakness and sweetness, her delicate uncomplainingness seemed only
to develope his own small egotisms and pugnacities.
* * * * *
That night--a night of rain and scirocco--Eleanor wrote in her
journal--'Will he ever finish the book? Very possibly it has been all a
mistake. Yet when he began it, he was in the depths. Whatever happens, it
has been his salvation.
'--Surely he will finish it? He cannot forego the effect he is almost sure
it will produce. But he will finish it with impatience and disgust; he is
out of love with it and all its associations. All that he was talking of
to-night represents what I had most share in,--the chapters which brought
us most closely together. How happy we were over them! And now, how
different!
'It is curious--the animation with which he has begun to talk to Lucy
Foster. Pretty child! I like to feel that I have been the fairy god-mother,
dressing her for the ball. How little she knows what it means to be talked
to by him, to receive courtesies from him,--how many women would like to
be in her place. Yet now she is not shy; she has no alarms; she treats him
like an equal. If it were not ridiculous, one could be angry.
'She dislikes and criticises him, and he can have no possible understanding
of or sympathy with her. But she is a way out of embarrassment. How
fastidious and proud he is with women!--malicious too, and wilful. Often I
have wished him more generous--more kind.
'... In three weeks the anniversary will be here--the ninth. Why am I still
alive? How often have I asked myself that! Where is my place?--who needs
me?--My babe, if he still exists, is alone--there. And I still here. If I
had only had the courage to rejoin him! The doctors deceived me. They made
me think it could not be long. And now I am better--much better. If I were
happy I should be quite well.
'How weary seems this Italian spring!--the restlessness of this eternal
wind--the hot clouds that roll up from the Campagna. "Que vivre est
difficile, ô mon coeur fatigué!"'