The palace in which Mrs. Vervain had taken an apartment fronted on a
broad campo, and hung its empty marble balconies from gothic windows
above a silence scarcely to be matched elsewhere in Venice. The local
pharmacy, the caffè, the grocery, the fruiterer’s, the other shops with
which every Venetian campo is furnished, had each a certain life about
it, but it was a silent life, and at midday a frowsy-headed woman
clacking across the flags in her wooden-heeled shoes made echoes whose
garrulity was interrupted by no other sound. In the early morning, when
the lid of the public cistern in the centre of the campo was unlocked,
there was a clamor of voices and a clangor of copper vessels, as the
housewives of the neighborhood and the local force of strong-backed
Frinlan water-girls drew their day’s supply of water; and on that sort
of special parochial holiday, called a _sagra_, the campo hummed and
clattered and shrieked with a multitude celebrating the day around the
stands where pumpkin seeds and roast pumpkin and anisette-water were
sold, and before the movable kitchen where cakes were fried in caldrons
of oil, and uproariously offered to the crowd by the cook, who did
not suffer himself to be embarrassed by the rival drama of adjoining
puppet-shows, but continued to bellow forth his bargains all day long
and far into the night, when the flames under his kettles painted his
visage a fine crimson. The sagra once over, however, the campo relapsed
into its habitual silence, and no one looking at the front of the palace
would have thought of it as a place for distraction-seeking foreign
sojourners. But it was not on this side that the landlord tempted his
tenants; his principal notice of lodgings to let was affixed to the
water-gate of the palace, which opened on a smaller channel so near the
Grand Canal that no wandering eye could fail to see it. The portal was a
tall arch of Venetian gothic tipped with a carven flame; steps of white
Istrian stone descended to the level of the lowest ebb, irregularly
embossed with barnacles, and dabbling long fringes of soft green
sea-mosses in the rising and falling tide. Swarms of water-bugs and
beetles played over the edges of the steps, and crabs scuttled side-wise
into deeper water at the approach of a gondola. A length of stone-capped
brick wall, to which patches of stucco still clung, stretched from the
gate on either hand under cover of an ivy that flung its mesh of shining
green from within, where there lurked a lovely garden, stately, spacious
for Venice, and full of a delicious, half-sad surprise for whoso opened
upon it. In the midst it had a broken fountain, with a marble naiad
standing on a shell, and looking saucier than the sculptor meant, from
having lost the point of her nose, nymphs and fauns, and shepherds and
shepherdesses, her kinsfolk, coquetted in and out among the greenery
in flirtation not to be embarrassed by the fracture of an arm, or the
casting of a leg or so; one lady had no head, but she was the boldest
of all. In this garden there were some mulberry and pomegranate trees,
several of which hung about the fountain with seats in their shade, and
for the rest there seemed to be mostly roses and oleanders, with other
shrubs of a kind that made the greatest show of blossom and cost the
least for tendance. A wide terrace stretched across the rear of the
palace, dropping to the garden path by a flight of balustraded steps,
and upon this terrace opened the long windows of Mrs. Vervain’s parlor
and dining-room. Her landlord owned only the first story and the
basement of the palace, in some corner of which he cowered with his
servants, his taste for pictures and _bric-à-brac_, and his little
branch of inquiry into Venetian history, whatever it was, ready to
let himself or anything he had for hire at a moment’s notice, but very
pleasant, gentle, and unobtrusive; a cheat and a liar, but of a kind
heart and sympathetic manners. Under his protection Mrs. Vervain set up
her impermanent household gods. The apartment was taken only from week
to week, and as she freely explained to the _padrone_ hovering about
with offers of service, she knew herself too well ever to unpack
anything that would not spoil by remaining packed. She made her trunks
yield all the appliances necessary for an invalid’s comfort, and then
left them in a state to be strapped and transported to the station
within half a day after the desire of change or the exigencies of
her feeble health caused her going. Everything for housekeeping
was furnished with the rooms. There was a gondolier and a sort of
house-servant in the employ of the landlord, of whom Mrs. Vervain hired
them, and she caressingly dismissed the padrone at an early moment after
her arrival, with the charge to find a maid for herself and daughter.
As if she had been waiting at the next door this maid appeared promptly,
and being Venetian, and in domestic service, her name was of course
Nina. Mrs. Vervain now said to Florida that everything was perfect, and
contentedly began her life in Venice by telling Mr. Ferris, when he
came in the evening, that he could bring Don Ippolito the day after the
morrow, if he liked.
She and Florida sat on the terrace waiting for them on the morning
named, when Ferris, with the priest in his clerical best, came up
the garden path in the sunny light. Don Ippolito’s best was a little
poverty-stricken; he had faltered a while, before leaving home, over
the sad choice between a shabby cylinder hat of obsolete fashion and
his well-worn three-cornered priestly beaver, and had at last put on the
latter with a sigh. He had made his servant polish the buckles of his
shoes, and instead of a band of linen round his throat, he wore a strip
of cloth covered with small white beads, edged above and below with a
single row of pale blue ones.
As he mounted the steps with Ferris, Mrs. Vervain came forward a little
to meet them, while Florida rose and stood beside her chair in a sort of
proud suspense and timidity. The elder lady was in that black from which
she had so seldom been able to escape; but the daughter wore a dress
of delicate green, in which she seemed a part of the young season that
everywhere clothed itself in the same tint. The sunlight fell upon
her blonde hair, melting into its light gold; her level brows frowned
somewhat with the glance of scrutiny which she gave the dark young
priest, who was making his stately bow to her mother, and trying to
answer her English greetings in the same tongue.
“My daughter,” said Mrs. Vervain, and Don Ippolito made another low bow,
and then looked at the girl with a sort of frank and melancholy wonder,
as she turned and exchanged a few words with Ferris, who was assailing
her seriousness and hauteur with unabashed levity of compliment. A quick
light flashed and fled in her cheek as she talked, and the fringes of
her serious, asking eyes swept slowly up and down as she bent them upon
him a moment before she broke abruptly, not coquettishly, away from him,
and moved towards her mother, while Ferris walked off to the other end
of the terrace, with a laugh. Mrs. Vervain and the priest were trying
each other in French, and not making great advance; he explained to
Florida in Italian, and she answered him hesitatingly; whereupon he
praised her Italian in set phrase.
“Thank you,” said the girl sincerely, “I have tried to learn. I hope,”
she added as before, “you can make me see how little I know.” The
deprecating wave of the hand with which Don Ippolito appealed to her
from herself, seemed arrested midway by his perception of some novel
quality in her. He said gravely that he should try to be of use, and
then the two stood silent.
“Come, Mr. Ferris,” called out Mrs. Vervain, “breakfast is ready, and I
want you to take me in.”
“Too much honor,” said the painter, coming forward and offering his arm,
and Mrs. Vervain led the way indoors.
“I suppose I ought to have taken Don Ippolito’s arm,” she confided in
under-tone, “but the fact is, our French is so unlike that we don’t
understand each other very well.”
“Oh,” returned Ferris, “I’ve known Italians and Americans whom Frenchmen
themselves couldn’t understand.”
“You see it’s an American breakfast,” said Mrs. Vervain with a critical
glance at the table before she sat down. “All but hot bread; _that_
you _can’t_ have,” and Don Ippolito was for the first time in his life
confronted by a breakfast of hot beef-steak, eggs and toast, fried
potatoes, and coffee with milk, with a choice of tea. He subdued all
signs of the wonder he must have felt, and beyond cutting his meat into
little bits before eating it, did nothing to betray his strangeness to
the feast.
The breakfast had passed off very pleasantly, with occasional lapses.
“We break down under the burden of so many languages,” said Ferris. “It
is an _embarras de richesses_. Let us fix upon a common maccheronic. May
I trouble you for a poco piú di sugar dans mon café, Mrs. Vervain? What
do you think of the bellazza de ce weather magnifique, Don Ippolito?”
“How ridiculous!” said Mrs. Vervain in a tone of fond admiration aside
to Don Ippolito, who smiled, but shrank from contributing to the new
tongue.
“Very well, then,” said the painter. “I shall stick to my native
Bergamask for the future; and Don Ippolito may translate for the foreign
ladies.”
He ended by speaking English with everybody; Don Ippolito eked out his
speeches to Mrs. Vervain in that tongue with a little French; Florida,
conscious of Ferris’s ironical observance, used an embarrassed but
defiant Italian with the priest.
“I’m so pleased!” said Mrs. Vervain, rising when Ferris said that he
must go, and Florida shook hands with both guests.
“Thank you, Mrs. Vervain; I could have gone before, if I’d thought you
would have liked it,” answered the painter.
“Oh nonsense, now,” returned the lady. “You know what I mean. I’m
perfectly delighted with him,” she continued, getting Ferris to one
side, “and I _know_ he must have a good accent. So very kind of you.
Will you arrange with him about the pay?--such a _shame_! Thanks. Then
I needn’t say anything to him about that. I’m so glad I had him to
breakfast the first day; though Florida thought not. Of course, one
needn’t keep it up. But seriously, it isn’t an ordinary case, you know.”
Ferris laughed at her with a sort of affectionate disrespect, and said
good-by. Don Ippolito lingered for a while to talk over the proposed
lessons, and then went, after more elaborate adieux. Mrs. Vervain
remained thoughtful a moment before she said:--
“That was rather droll, Florida.”
“What, mother?”
“His cutting his meat into small bites, before he began to eat. But
perhaps it’s the Venetian custom. At any rate, my dear, he’s a gentleman
in virtue of his profession, and I couldn’t do less than ask him to
breakfast. He has beautiful manners; and if he must take snuff, I
suppose it’s neater to carry two handkerchiefs, though it does look odd.
I wish he wouldn’t take snuff.”
“I don’t see why we need care, mother. At any rate, we cannot help it.”
“That’s true, my dear. And his nails. Now when they’re spread out on a
book, you know, to keep it open,--won’t it be unpleasant?”
“They seem to have just such fingernails all over Europe--except in
England.”
“Oh, yes; I know it. I dare say we shouldn’t care for it in him, if he
didn’t seem so very nice otherwise. How handsome he is!”