About six months after the events already related, Signor Andrea
D’Arbino and the Cavaliere Finello happened to be staying with a friend,
in a seaside villa on the Castellamare shore of the bay of Naples.
Most of their time was pleasantly occupied on the sea, in fishing and
sailing. A boat was placed entirely at their disposal. Sometimes they
loitered whole days along the shore; sometimes made trips to the lovely
islands in the bay.
One evening they were sailing near Sorrento, with a light wind. The
beauty of the coast tempted them to keep the boat close inshore. A short
time before sunset, they rounded the most picturesque headland they had
yet passed; and a little bay, with a white-sand beach, opened on their
view. They noticed first a villa surrounded by orange and olive trees on
the rocky heights inland; then a path in the cliff-side leading down
to the sands; then a little family party on the beach, enjoying the
fragrant evening air.
The elders of the group were a lady and gentleman, sitting together
on the sand. The lady had a guitar in her lap and was playing a simple
dance melody. Close at her side a young child was rolling on the beach
in high glee; in front of her a little girl was dancing to the music,
with a very extraordinary partner in the shape of a dog, who was
capering on his hind legs in the most grotesque manner. The merry
laughter of the girl, and the lively notes of the guitar were heard
distinctly across the still water.
“Edge a little nearer in shore,” said D’Arbino to his friend, who was
steering; “and keep as I do in the shadow of the sail. I want to see the
faces of those persons on the beach without being seen by them.”
Finello obeyed. After approaching just near enough to see the
countenances of the party on shore, and to be barked at lustily by the
dog, they turned the boat’s head again toward the offing.
“A pleasant voyage, gentlemen,” cried the clear voice of the little
girl. They waved their hats in return; and then saw her run to the dog
and take him by the forelegs. “Play, Nanina,” they heard her say. “I
have not half done with my partner yet.” The guitar sounded once more,
and the grotesque dog was on his hind legs in a moment.
“I had heard that he was well again, that he had married her lately,
and that he was away with her and her sister, and his child by the
first wife,” said D’Arbino; “but I had no suspicion that their place
of retirement was so near us. It is too soon to break in upon their
happiness, or I should have felt inclined to run the boat on shore.”
“I never heard the end of that strange adventure of the Yellow Mask,”
said Finello. “There was a priest mixed up in it, was there not?”
“Yes; but nobody seems to know exactly what has become of him. He was
sent for to Rome, and has never been heard of since. One report is,
that he has been condemned to some mysterious penal seclusion by his
ecclesiastical superiors--another, that he has volunteered, as a sort of
Forlorn Hope, to accept a colonial curacy among rough people, and in
a pestilential climate. I asked his brother, the sculptor, about him a
little while ago, but he only shook his head, and said nothing.”
“And the woman who wore the yellow mask?”
“She, too, has ended mysteriously. At Pisa she was obliged to sell off
everything she possessed to pay her debts. Some friends of hers at a
milliner’s shop, to whom she applied for help, would have nothing to do
with her. She left the city, alone and penniless.”
The boat had approached the next headland on the coast while they were
talking. They looked back for a last glance at the beach. Still the notes
of the guitar came gently across the quiet water; but there mingled with
them now the sound of the lady’s voice. She was singing. The little girl
and the dog were at her feet, and the gentleman was still in his old
place close at her side.
In a few minutes more the boat rounded the next headland, the beach
vanished from view, and the music died away softly in the distance.
LAST LEAVES FROM LEAH’S DIARY.
3d of June.--Our stories are ended; our pleasant work is done. It is a
lovely summer afternoon. The great hall at the farmhouse, after having
been filled with people, is now quite deserted. I sit alone at my little
work-table, with rather a crying sensation at my heart, and with the
pen trembling in my fingers, as if I was an old woman already. Our
manuscript has been sealed up and taken away; the one precious object
of all our most anxious thoughts for months past--our third child, as we
have got to call it--has gone out from us on this summer’s day, to seek
its fortune in the world.
A little before twelve o’clock last night, my husband dictated to me
the last words of “The Yellow Mask.” I laid down the pen, and closed the
paper thoughtfully. With that simple action the work that we had wrought
at together so carefully and so long came to a close. We were both
so silent and still, that the murmuring of the trees in the night air
sounded audibly and solemnly in our room.
William’s collection of stories has not, thus far, been half exhausted
yet; but those who understand the public taste and the interests of
bookselling better than we, think it advisable not to risk offering too
much to the reader at first. If individual opinions can be accepted as
a fair test, our prospects of success seem hopeful. The doctor (but
we must not forget that he is a friend) was so pleased with the two
specimen stories we sent to him, that he took them at once to his
friend, the editor of the newspaper, who showed his appreciation of what
he read in a very gratifying manner. He proposed that William should
publish in the newspaper, on very fair terms, any short anecdotes and
curious experiences of his life as a portrait-painter, which might not
be important enough to put into a book. The money which my husband
has gained from time to time in this way has just sufficed to pay our
expenses at the farmhouse up to within the last month; and now our
excellent friends here say they will not hear anything more from us on
the subject of the rent until the book is sold and we have plenty of
money. This is one great relief and happiness. Another, for which I feel
even more grateful, is that William’s eyes have gained so much by their
long rest, that even the doctor is surprised at the progress he has
made. He only puts on his green shade now when he goes out into the sun,
or when the candles are lit. His spirits are infinitely raised, and he
is beginning to talk already of the time when he will unpack his palette
and brushes, and take to his old portrait-painting occupations again.
With all these reasons for being happy, it seems unreasonable and
ungracious in me to be feeling sad, as I do just at this moment. I can
only say, in my own justification, that it is a mournful ceremony to
take leave of an old friend; and I have taken leave twice over of the
book that has been like an old friend to me--once when I had written the
last word in it, and once again when I saw it carried away to London.
I packed the manuscript up with my own hands this morning, in thick
brown paper, wasting a great deal of sealing-wax, I am afraid, in my
anxiety to keep the parcel from bursting open in case it should be
knocked about on its journey to town. Oh me, how cheap and common it
looked, in its new form, as I carried it downstairs! A dozen pairs of
worsted stockings would have made a larger parcel; and half a crown’s
worth of groceries would have weighed a great deal heavier.
Just as we had done dinner the doctor and the editor came in. The first
had called to fetch the parcel--I mean the manuscript; the second had
come out with him to Appletreewick for a walk. As soon as the farmer
heard that the book was to be sent to London, he insisted that we should
drink success to it all round. The children, in high glee, were mounted
up on the table, with a glass of currant-wine apiece; the rest of us had
ale; the farmer proposed the toast, and his sailor son led the cheers.
We all joined in (the children included), except the editor--who, being
the only important person of the party, could not, I suppose, afford
to compromise his dignity by making a noise. He was extremely polite,
however, in a lofty way, to me, waving his hand and bowing magnificently
every time he spoke. This discomposed me a little; and I was still more
flurried when he said that he had written to the London publishers that
very day, to prepare them for the arrival of our book.
“Do you think they will print it, sir?” I ventured to ask.
“My dear madam, you may consider it settled,” said the editor,
confidently. “The letter is written--the thing is done. Look upon the
book as published already; pray oblige me by looking upon the book as
published already.”
“Then the only uncertainty now is about how the public will receive it!”
said my husband, fidgeting in his chair, and looking nervously at me.
“Just so, my dear sir, just so,” answered the editor. “Everything
depends upon the public--everything, I pledge you my word of honor.”
“Don’t look doubtful, Mrs. Kerby; there isn’t a doubt about it,”
whispered the kind doctor, giving the manuscript a confident smack as he
passed by me with it on his way to the door.
In another minute he and the editor, and the poor cheap-looking brown
paper parcel, were gone. The others followed them out, and I was left in
the hall alone.
Oh, Public! Public! it all depends now upon you! The children are
to have new clothes from top to toe; I am to have a black silk gown;
William is to buy a beautiful traveling color-box; the rent is to be
paid; all our kind friends at the farmhouse are to have little presents,
and our future way in this hard world is to be smoothed for us at the
outset, if you will only accept a poor painter’s stories which his wife
has written down for him After Dark!