"And, Imogene--perhaps--perhaps--Or, no; never mind, now. I must go
away--" She looked at him, frightened but submissive. "But I will be
back to-night, or perhaps to-morrow morning. I want to think--to give
you time to think. I don't want to be selfish about you--I want to
consider you, all the more because you won't consider yourself.
Good-bye." He stooped over and kissed her hair. Even in this he felt
like a thief; he could not look at the face she lifted to his.
Mrs. Bowen sent word from her room that she was not coming to dinner,
and Imogene did not come till the dessert was put on. Then she found
Effie Bowen sitting alone at the table, and served in serious formality
by the man, whom she had apparently felt it right to repress, for they
were both silent. The little girl had not known how to deny herself an
excess of the less wholesome dishes, and she was perhaps anticipating
the regret which this indulgence was to bring, for she was very pensive.
"Isn't mamma coming at _all_?" she asked plaintively, when Imogene sat
down, and refused everything but a cup of coffee. "Well," she went on,
"I can't make out what is coming to this family. You were all crying
last night because Mr. Colville was going away, and now, when he's going
to stay, it's just as bad. I don't think you make it very pleasant for
_him_. I should think he would be perfectly puzzled by it, after he's
done so much to please you all. I don't believe he thinks it's very
polite. I suppose it _is_ polite, but it doesn't seem so. And he's
always so cheerful and nice. I should think he would want to visit in
some family where there was more amusement. There used to be plenty in
this family, but now it's as dismal! The first of the winter you and
mamma used to be so pleasant when he came, and would try everything to
amuse him, and would let me come in to get some of the good of it; but
now you seem to fly every way as soon as he comes in sight of the house,
and I'm poked off in holes and corners before he can open his lips. And
I've borne it about as long as I can. I would rather be back in Vevay.
Or anywhere." At this point her own pathos overwhelmed her, and the
tears rolling down her cheeks moistened the crumbs of pastry at the
corners of her pretty mouth. "What was so strange, I should like to
know, about his staying, that mamma should pop up like a ghost, when I
told her he had come home with us, and grab me by the wrist, and twitch
me about, and ask me all sorts of questions I couldn't answer, and
frighten me almost to death? I haven't got over it yet. And I don't
think it's very nice. It used to be a very polite family, and pleasant
with each other, and always having something agreeable going on in it;
but if it keeps on very much longer in this way, I shall think the
Bowens are beginning to lose their good-breeding. I suppose that if Mr.
Colville were to go down on his knees to mamma and ask her to let him
take me somewhere now, she wouldn't do it." She pulled her handkerchief
out of her pocket, and dried her eyes on a ball of it. "I don't see what
_you've_ been crying about, Imogene. _You've_ got nothing to worry you."
"I'm not very well, Effie," returned the girl gently. "I haven't been
well all day."
"It seems to me that nobody is well any more. I don't believe Florence
is a very healthy place. Or at least this house isn't. _I_ think it must
be the drainage. If we keep on, I suppose we shall all have diphtheria.
Don't you, Imogene?"
"Yes," asserted the girl distractedly.
"The girls had it at Vevay frightfully. And none of them were as strong
afterward. Some of the parents came and took them away; but Madame
Schebres never let mamma know. Do you think that was right?"
"No; it was very wrong."
"I suppose Mr. Colville will have it if we do. That is, if he keeps
coming here. Is he coming any more?"
"Yes; he's coming to-morrow morning."
"_Is_ he?" A smile flickered over the rueful face. "What time is he
coming?"
"I don't know exactly," said Imogene, listlessly stirring her coffee.
"Some time in the forenoon."
"Do you suppose he's going to take us anywhere?"
"Yes--I think so. I can't tell exactly."
"If he asks me to go somewhere, will you tease mamma? She always lets
you, Imogene, and it seems sometimes as if she just took a pleasure in
denying me."
"You mustn't talk so of your mother, Effie."
"No; I wouldn't to _every_body. I know that she means for the best; but
I don't believe she understands how much I suffer when she won't let me
go with Mr. Colville. Don't you think he's about the nicest gentleman we
know, Imogene?"
"Yes; he's very kind."
"And I think he's handsome. A good many people would consider him
old-looking, and of course he isn't so young as Mr. Morton was, or the
Inglehart boys; but that makes him all the easier to get along with. And
his being just a little fat, that way, seems to suit so well with his
character." The smiles were now playing across the child's face, and her
eyes sparkling. "_I_ think Mr. Colville would make a good Saint
Nicholas--the kind they have going down chimneys in America. I'm going
to tell him, for the next veglione. It would be such a nice surprise."
"No, better not tell him that," suggested Imogene.
"Do you think he wouldn't like it?"
"Yes."
"Well, it would become him. How old do you suppose he is, Imogene?
Seventy-five?"
"What an idea!" cried the girl fiercely. "He's forty-one."
"I didn't know they had those little jiggering lines at the corners of
their eyes so quick. But forty-one is pretty old, isn't it? Is Mr.
Waters--"
"Effie," said her mother's voice at the door behind her, "will you ring
for Giovanni, and tell him to bring me a cup of coffee in here?" She
spoke from the _portière_ of the _salotto_.
"Yes, mamma. I'll bring it to you myself."
"Thank you, dear," Mrs. Bowen called from within.
The little girl softly pressed her hands together. "I _hope_ she'll let
me stay up! I feel so excited, and I hate to lie and think so long
before I get to sleep. Couldn't you just hint a little to her that I
might stay up? It's Sunday night."
"I can't, Effie," said Imogene. "I oughtn't to interfere with any of
your mother's rules."
The child sighed submissively and took the coffee that Giovanni brought
to her. She and Imogene went into the _salotto_ together. Mrs. Bowen was
at her writing-desk. "You can bring the coffee here, Effie," she said.
"Must I go to bed at once, mamma?" asked the child, setting the cup
carefully down.
The mother looked distractedly up from her writing. "No; you may sit up
a while," she said, looking back to her writing.
"How long, mamma?" pleaded the little girl.
"Oh, till you're sleepy. It doesn't matter _now_."
She went on writing; from time to time she tore up what she had written.
Effie softly took a book from the table, and perching herself on a
stiff, high chair, bent over it and began to read.
Imogene sat by the hearth, where a small fire was pleasant in the indoor
chill of an Italian house, even after so warm a day as that had been.
She took some large beads of the strand she wore about her neck into her
mouth, and pulled at the strand listlessly with her hand while she
watched the fire. Her eyes wandered once to the child.
"What made you take such an uncomfortable chair, Effie?"
Effie shut her book over her hand. "It keeps me wakeful longer," she
whispered, with a glance at her mother from the corner of her eye.
"I don't see why any one should wish to be wakeful," sighed the girl.
When Mrs. Bowen tore up one of her half-written pages Imogene started
nervously forward, and then relapsed again into her chair. At last Mrs.
Bowen seemed to find the right phrases throughout, and she finished
rather a long letter, and read it over to herself. Then she said,
without leaving her desk, "Imogene, I've been trying to write to your
mother. Will you look at this?"
She held the sheet over her shoulder, and Imogene came languidly and
took it; Mrs. Bowen dropped her face forward on the desk, into her
hands, while Imogene was reading.
"FLORENCE, _March_ 10, 18--
"Dear Mrs. Graham,--I have some very important news to give you in
regard to Imogene, and as there is no way of preparing you for it, I
will tell you at once that it relates to her marriage.
"She has met at my house a gentleman whom I knew in Florence when I was
here before, and of whom I never knew anything but good. We have seen
him very often, and I have seen nothing in him that I could not approve.
He is Mr. Theodore Colville, of Prairie des Vaches, Indiana, where he
was for many years a newspaper editor; but he was born somewhere in New
England. He is a very cultivated, interesting man; and though not
exactly a society man, he is very agreeable and refined in his manners.
I am sure his character is irreproachable, though he is not a member of
any church. In regard to his means I know nothing whatever, and can only
infer from his way of life that he is in easy circumstances.
"The whole matter has been a surprise to me, for Mr. Colville is some
twenty-one or two years older than Imogene, who is very young in her
feelings for a girl of her age. If I could have realised anything like a
serious attachment between them sooner, I would have written before.
Even now I do not know whether I am to consider them engaged or not. No
doubt Imogene will write you more fully.
"Of course I would rather not have had anything of the kind happen while
Imogene was under my charge, though I am sure that you will not think I
have been careless or imprudent about her. I interfered as far as I
could, at the first moment I could, but it appears that it was then too
late to prevent what has followed.--Yours sincerely, EVALINA BOWEN."
Imogene read the letter twice over, and then she said, "Why isn't he a
society man?"
Probably Mrs. Bowen expected this sort of approach. "I don't think a
society man would have undertaken to dance the Lancers as he did at
Madam Uccelli's," she answered patiently, without lifting her head.
Imogene winced, but "I should despise him if he were merely a society
man," she said. "I have seen enough of them. I think it's better to be
intellectual and good."
Mrs. Bowen made no reply, and the girl went on. "And as to his being
older, I don't see what difference it makes. If people are in sympathy,
then they are of the same age, no difference how much older than one the
other is. I have always heard that." She urged this as if it were a
question.
"Yes," said Mrs. Bowen.
"And how should his having been a newspaper editor be anything against
him?"
Mrs. Bowen lifted her face and stared at the girl in astonishment. "Who
said it was against him?"
"You hint as much. The whole letter is against him."
"Imogene!"
"Yes! Every word! You make him out perfectly detestable. I don't know
why you should hate _him_, He's done everything he could to satisfy
you."
Mrs. Bowen rose from her desk, putting her hand to her forehead, as if
to soften a shock of headache that her change of posture had sent there.
"I will leave the letter with you, and you can send it or not as you
think best. It's merely a formality, my writing to your mother. Perhaps
you'll see it differently in the morning. Effie!" she called to the
child, who with her book shut upon her hand had been staring at them and
listening intently. "It's time to go to bed now."
When Effie stood before the glass in her mother's room, and Mrs. Bowen
was braiding her hair and tying it up for the night, she asked ruefully,
"What's the matter with Imogene, mamma?"
"She isn't very happy to-night."
"You don't seem very happy either," said the child, watching her own
face as it quivered in the mirror. "I should think that now Mr.
Colville's concluded to stay, we would all be happy again. But we don't
seem to. We're--we're perfectly demoralised!" It was one of the words
she had picked up from Colville.
The quivering face in the glass broke in a passion of tears, and Effie
sobbed herself to sleep.
Imogene sat down at Mrs. Bowen's desk, and pushing her letter away,
began to write.
"FLORENCE, _March_ 10, 18--.
"DEAR MOTHER,---I inclose a letter from Mrs. Bowen which will tell you
better than I can what I wish to tell. I do not see how I can add
anything that would give you more of an idea of him, or less, either. No
person can be put down in cold black and white, and not seem like a mere
inventory. I do not suppose you expected me to become engaged when you
sent me out to Florence, and, as Mrs. Bowen says, I don't know whether I
am engaged or not. I will leave it entirely to Mr. Colville; if he says
we are engaged, we are. I am sure he will do what is best. I only know
that he was going away from Florence because he thought I supposed he
was not in earnest, and I asked him to stay.
"I am a good deal excited to-night, and cannot write very clearly. But I
will write soon again, and more at length.
"Perhaps something will be decided by that time. With much love to
father,
"Your affectionate daughter,
"Imogene."
She put this letter into an envelope with Mrs. Bowen's, and leaving it
unsealed to show her in the morning, she began to write again. This time
she wrote to a girl with whom she had been on terms so intimate that
when they left school they had agreed to know each other by names
expressive of their extremely confidential friendship, and to address
each other respectively as Diary and Journal. They were going to write
every day, if only a line or two; and at the end of a year they were to
meet and read over together the records of their lives as set down in
these letters. They had never met since, though it was now three years
since they parted, and they had not written since Imogene came abroad;
that is, Imogene had not answered the only letter she had received from
her friend in Florence. This friend was a very serious girl, and had
wished to be a minister, but her family would not consent, or even
accept the compromise of studying medicine, which she proposed, and she
was still living at home in a small city of central New York. Imogene
now addressed her--
"DEAR DIARY,--You cannot think how far away the events of this day have
pushed the feelings and ideas of the time when I agreed to write to you
under this name. Till now it seems to me as if I had not changed in the
least thing since we parted, and now I can hardly know myself for the
same person. O dear Di! something very wonderful has come into my life,
and I feel that it rests with me to make it the greatest blessing to
myself and others, or the greatest misery. If I prove unworthy of it or
unequal to it, then I am sure that nothing but wretchedness will come of
it.
"I am engaged--yes!--and to a man more than twice my own age. It is so
easy to tell you this, for I know that your large-mindedness will
receive it very differently from most people, and that you will see it
as I do. He is the noblest of men, though he tries to conceal it under
the light, ironical manner with which he has been faithful to a cruel
disappointment. It was here in Florence, twenty years ago, that a
girl--I am ashamed to call her a girl--trifled with the priceless
treasure that has fallen to me, and flung it away. You, Di, will
understand how I was first fascinated with the idea of trying to atone
to him here for all the wrong he had suffered. At first it was only the
vaguest suggestion--something like what I had read in a poem or a
novel--that had nothing to do with me personally, but it grew upon me
more and more the more I saw of him, and felt the witchery of his light,
indifferent manner, which I learned to see was tense with the anguish he
had suffered. She had killed his youth; she had spoiled his life: if I
could revive them, restore them! It came upon me like a great flash of
light at last, and as soon as this thought took possession of me, I felt
my whole being elevated and purified by it, and I was enabled to put
aside with contempt the selfish considerations that had occurred to me
at first. At first the difference between our ages was very shocking to
me; for I had always imagined it would be some one young; but when this
light broke upon me, I saw that _he_ was young, younger even than I, as
a man is at the same age with a girl. Sometimes with my experiences, the
fancies and flirtations that every one has and _must_ have, however one
despises them, I felt so _old_ beside him; for he had been true to one
love all his life, and he had not wavered for a moment. If I could make
him forget it, if I could lift every feather's weight of sorrow from his
breast, if I could help him to complete the destiny, grand and beautiful
as it would have been, which another had arrested, broken off--don't you
see, Di dear, how rich my reward would be?
"And he, how forbearing, how considerate, how anxious for me, how full
of generous warning he has been! always putting me in mind, at every
step, of the difference in years between us; never thinking of himself,
and shrinking so much from even seeming to control me or sway me, that I
don't know really whether I have not made all the advances!
"I cannot write his name yet, and you must not ask it till I can; and I
cannot tell you anything about his looks or his life without seeming to
degrade him, somehow, and make him a common man like others.
"How can I make myself his companion in everything? How can I convince
him that there is no sacrifice for me, and that he alone is giving up?
These are the thoughts that keep whirling through my mind. I hope I
shall be helped, and I hope that I shall be tried, for that is the only
way for me to be helped. I feel strong enough for anything that people
can say. I should _welcome_ criticism and opposition from any quarter.
But I can see that _he_ is very sensitive--it comes from his keen sense
of the ridiculous--and if I suffer, it will be on account of this grand
unselfish nature, and I shall be glad of that.
"I know you will understand me, Di, and I am not afraid of your laughing
at these ravings. But if you did I should not care. It is such a comfort
to say these things about him, to exalt him, and get him in the true
light at last.
"Your faithful JOURNAL.
"I shall tell him about you, one of the first things, and perhaps he can
suggest some way out of your trouble, he has had so much experience of
every kind. You will worship him, as I do, when you see him; for you
will feel at once that he understands you, and that is such a rest.
"J."
Before Imogene fell asleep, Mrs. Bowen came to her in the dark, and
softly closed the door that opened from the girl's room into Effie's.
She sat down on the bed, and began to speak at once, as if she knew
Imogene must be awake. "I thought you would come to me, Imogene; but as
you didn't, I have come to you, for if you can go to sleep with hard
thoughts of me to-night, I can't let you. You need me for your friend,
and I wish to be your friend; it would be wicked in me to be anything
else; I would give the world if your mother were here; but I tried to
make my letter to her everything that it should be. If you don't think
it is, I will write it over in the morning."
"No," said the girl coldly; "it will do very well. I don't wish to
trouble you so much."
"Oh, how can you speak so to me? Do you think that I blame Mr. Colville?
Is that it? I don't ask you--I shall never ask you--how he came to
remain, but I know that he has acted truthfully and delicately. I knew
him long before you did, and no one need take his part with me." This
was not perhaps what Mrs. Bowen meant to say when she began. "I have
told you all along what I thought, but if you imagine that I am not
satisfied with Mr. Colville, you are very much mistaken. I can't burst
out into praises of him to your mother: that would be very patronising
and very bad taste. Can't you see that it would?"
"Oh yes."
Mrs. Bowen lingered, as if she expected Imogene to say something more,
but she did not, and Mrs. Bowen rose. "Then I hope we understand each
other," she said, and went out of the room.