A RAINY JUNE
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A RAINY JUNE
AND OTHER STORIES
BY
OUIDA
AUTHOR OF 'PUCK,' 'TRICOTRIN,' 'THE MASSARENES,' ETC.
[Illustration]
A NEW EDITION
LONDON
CHATTO & WINDUS
1905
CONTENTS
PAGE
A RAINY JUNE 1
DON GESUALDO 89
THE SILVER CHRIST 215
A LEMON-TREE 305
A RAINY JUNE
A RAINY JUNE
_From the Principe di San Zenone, Claridge's, London, to the
Duchessa dell'Aquila Fulva, Monterone, near Val d'Aosta, Italy._
'CARISSIMA TERESA--I received your letter, which is delightful to me
because it is yours, and terrible to me because it scolds me, abuses
me, flies at me, makes me feel like a schoolboy who has had a scolding.
Yes; it is quite true. I cannot help it. She has bewitched me. She is a
lily made into a woman. I feared you would be angry, especially angry
because she is a foreigner; but the hour of fate has struck. You will
not wonder when you see her. She is as blonde as the dawn and as pure
as a pearl. It seems to me that I have never loved any woman at all in
my life before. To love her is like plunging one's hand in cool spring
water on a midsummer noon. She is such repose; such innocence; such
holiness! In the midst of this crowded, over-coloured, vulgar London
life--for it is very vulgar at its highest--she seems like some angel
of purity. I saw her first standing with a knot of roses in her hand
under a cedar tree, at one of their afternoon clubs on the river. She
was drinking a cup of tea; they are always drinking tea. And she is so
white. I never saw anything so white except the snow on the Leonessa.
She is not in the least like the fast young ladies of England, of whom
one sees so much in the winter at Rome. I do not like their fast young
women. If you want a woman who is fast, a Parisienne is best, or even
an American. Englishwomen overdo it. She is just like a primrose; like
a piece of porcelain; like a soft, pale star shining in the morning.
I write all kinds of poetry when I think of her. And then, there is
something _Sainte Nitouche_ about her which is delicious, because it is
so real. The only thing which was wanting in her was that she ought to
have been shut up in a convent, and I ought to have had to imperil my
soul for all eternity by getting her over a stone wall with a silken
ladder. But it is a prosaic age, and this is a very prosaic country.
London amuses me, but it is such a crowd, and it is frightfully ugly.
I cannot think how people who are so enormously rich as the English
can put up with such ugliness. The houses are all too small, even
the big ones. I have not seen a good ballroom; they say there are
good ones in the country houses. The clubs are admirable, but life in
general seems to me hurried, costly, ungraceful, very noisy, and almost
entirely consecrated to eating. It is made up of a scramble and a mass
of food. People engage themselves for dinners a month in advance.
Everybody's engagement book is so full that it is the burden of their
days. They accept everything, and, at the eleventh hour, pick out what
they prefer, and, to use their own language, "throw over" the rest.
I do not think it is pretty behaviour, but nobody seems to object to
it. I wonder that the women do not do so, but they seem to be afraid
of losing their men altogether if they exact good manners from them.
People here are not at all well-mannered, to my taste; neither the men
nor the women. They are brusque and negligent, and have few _petits
soins_. You should have come over for my marriage to show them all
what an exquisite creature a Venetian patrician beauty can be. Why
_would_ you marry that Piedmontese? Only two things seem to be of any
importance in England--they are, eating and politics. They eat all
day long, and are always talking of their politics. Half of them say
some person I never heard of is the destruction of England, the other
half say the same person is the salvation of England. Myself, I don't
care the least which he is; only I know they cannot keep him out of
their conversation, one way or another, for five minutes; which, to
an unprejudiced foreigner, is a _seccatura_. But to-morrow I go down
into the country with my primrose--all alone; to-morrow she will be
mine altogether and unalterably, and I shall hear nothing about their
detestable politics or anything that is tiresome. Of course, you are
wondering that I should take this momentous step. I wonder myself,
but then if I did not marry I should be compelled to say an eternal
farewell to the Lenten Lily. She has such a spiked wall around her
of male relatives and family greatness! It is not the convent wall;
there is no ladder that will go over it; one must enter by the big
front door, or not at all. Felicitate me, and yet compassionate me! I
am going to Paradise, no doubt; but I have the uncomfortable doubt as
to whether it will suit me, which all people who are going to Paradise
always do feel. Why? Because we are mortal or because we are sinners?
_A reverderci, cara mia Teresina!_ Write to me at my future Eden: it is
called Coombe Bysset, near Luton, Bedfordshire. We are to be there a
month. It is the choice of my primrose.'
_From the Lady Mary Bruton, Belgrave Square, London, to Mrs
d'Arcy, British Embassy, Berlin._
'The season has been horribly dull; quantities of marriages--people
always will marry, however dull it is. The one most talked about is
that of the Cowes' second daughter, Lady Gladys, with the Prince of
San Zenone. She is one of the beauties, but a very simple girl, quite
old-fashioned, indeed. She has refused Lord Hampshire, and a good many
other people, and then fallen in love in a week with this Roman, who is
certainly as handsome as a picture. But Cowes didn't like it at all;
he gave in because he couldn't help it, but he was dreadfully vexed
that the Hampshire affair did not come off instead. Hampshire is such
a good creature, and his estates are close to theirs. It is certainly
very provoking for them that this Italian must take it into his head to
spend a season in London, and lead the cotillon so beautifully that all
the young women talked of nothing else but his charms.'
_From the Lady Mona St Clair, Grosvenor Square, London, to Miss
Burns, Schooner-yacht Persephone, off Cherbourg._
'The wedding was very pretty yesterday. We had frocks of tussore silk,
with bouquets of orchids and Penelope Boothby caps. She looked as
white as her gown--such a goose!--it was ivory satin, with _point de
Venise_. He is quite too handsome, and I cannot think what he could
see in her! He gave us each a locket with _her_ portrait inside. I
wished it had been _his_! I daresay Hampshire would have been better
for her, and worn longer than Romeo. Lord Cowes is furious about Romeo.
He detests the religion and all that, and he could hardly make himself
look pleasant even at church. Of course, there were two ceremonies. The
Cardinal had consented at last, though I believe he had made all kinds
of fuss first. Lady Gladys, you know, is very, _very_ High Church, and
I suppose that reconciled a little the very irreconcilable Prelate. She
thinks of nothing but the Church and her missions and her poor people.
I am afraid the Roman Prince will get dreadfully bored. And they are
going down into Bedfordshire, of all places, to be shut up for a month!
It is very stupid of her, and such a wet season as it is! They are
going to Coombe Bysset, her aunt, Lady Caroline's place. I fancy Romeo
will soon be bored, and I don't think Coombe Bysset at all judicious. I
would have gone to Homburg, or Deauville, or Japan.'
_From the Principessa di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, Luton,
Beds., to the Countess of Cowes, London._
'DEAREST MOTHER,--I am too, too, too happy. It is no use writing about
it. I would if I could, but I _can't_. He is delighted with Coombe,
and says the verdure is something wonderful. We got here just as the
sun was setting. There were all Aunt Carrie's school children out to
meet us, with baskets of roses. Piero said they looked like bigger
roses themselves. He is enchanted with our rural England. It is very
fine to-day, and I do so hope it won't rain, but the glass is falling.
Forgive a hurried word like this. I am going to take Piero on the lake.
I know you haven't liked it, dear; but I am sure when you see how happy
I am you will say there was never anyone like him on earth.
'He is an angel. We ride in the morning, we sing and play in the
evening. We adore each other all the twenty-four hours through. I
wonder however I could have lived without him. I am longing to see all
he tells me about his great marble palaces, and his immense dreamlike
villas, and his gardens with their multitude of statues, and the
wonderful light that is over it all. He protests it is always twilight
with us in England. It seems so absurd, when nowadays everybody knows
everything about everywhere, that I should never have been to Italy.
But we were such country mice down at dear, old, dull, green, muddy
Ditchworth. Lanciano, the biggest of all their big places, must be like
a poem. It is a great house, all of different coloured marbles, set
amidst ilex groves on the mountain side, with cascades like Terni, and
gardens that were planned by Giulio Romano, and temples that were there
in the days of Horace. I long to see it all, and yet I hope he will not
want to leave Coombe yet. There is no place like the place where one
is _first_ happy. And somehow, I fancy I look better in these homely,
low rooms of Aunt Carrie's, with their Chippendale furniture and their
smell of dry rose leaves, than I shall do in those enormous palaces
which want a Semiramis or a Cleopatra. They were kind enough to make a
fuss about me in London, but I never thought much of myself, and I am
afraid I must feel rather dull to Piero, who is so brilliant himself,
and has all kinds of talents.'
_From the Countess of Cowes, Cowes House, London, to the
Duchess of Dunne, Wavernake, Worcestershire._
'No, I confess I do not approve of the marriage; it will take her away
from us, and I am afraid she won't be happy. She has always had such
very exaggerated ideas. She is not in the least the girl of the period.
Of course, she was taken by his picturesque face and his admirable
manners. His manners are really wonderful in these days, when our men
have none at all; and he has charmingly caressing and deferential ways
which even win me. I cannot wonder at her, poor child, but I am afraid;
candidly, I am afraid! He makes all our men look like ploughboys. And
it was all done in such tremendous haste that she had no time to reason
or reflect; and I don't think they have said two serious words to each
other. If only it had been dear old Hampshire, whom we have known all
our lives, and whose lands march with ours! But that was too good to
be, I suppose, and there was no positive objection we could raise to
San Zenone. We could not refuse his proposals merely because he is
too good-looking, isn't an Englishman, and has a mother who is reputed
_maîtresse femme_! Gladys writes from Coombe as from the seventh
heaven. They have been married three days! But I fear she will have
trouble before her. I fear he is weak and unstable, and will not back
her up amongst his own people when she goes amongst them; and though,
now-a-days, a man and woman, once wedded, see so little of each other,
Gladys is not quite of the time in her notions. She will take it all
very seriously, poor child, and expect the idyl to be prolonged over
the honeymoon. And she is very English in her tastes, and has been so
very little out of England. However, every girl in London is envying
her; it is only her father and I who see these little black specks on
the fruit she has plucked. They are gone to Coombe by her wish. I think
it would have been wiser not to subject an Italian to such an ordeal as
a wet English June in an utterly lonely country house. You know, even
Englishmen, who can always find such refuge and comfort in prize pigs
and strawyards, and unusually big mangolds, get bored if they are in
the country when there is nothing to shoot, and Englishmen are used to
being drenched to the skin every time they move out. He is not. Lord
Cowes says love is like a cotton frock--very pretty as long as the sun
shines, but it won't stand a wetting. I wish you had been here; Gladys
looked quite lovely. The Cardinal most kindly relented, and the whole
thing went off very well. Of the San Zenone family, there was only
present Don Fabrizio, the younger son, a very good-looking young man.
The terrible Duchess didn't come, on account, I think, of her sulks.
She hates the marriage on her side as much as we do on ours, I am sure.
Really, one must believe a little bit in fate. I do think that Gladys
would soon have resigned herself to accepting Hampshire, out of sheer
fatigue at saying "No," and, besides, she knew that we are so fond of
him, and to live in the same county was such an attraction. But this
irresistible young Roman must take it into his head that he wished to
see a London season, and when once they had met (it was one afternoon
at Ranelagh) there was no more chance for our poor, dear, good, stupid
neighbour. Well, we must hope for the best!'
_From the Principe Piero di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, to the
Duchessa dell'Aquila Fulva, Palazzo Fulva, Rome._
'CARISSIMA MIA,--There are quantities of birds in little green nests
at this season. I am in a green nest. I never saw anything so green as
this Paradise of mine. It is certainly Paradise. If I feel a little
like a fish out of water instead of a happy bird in it, it is only
because I have been such a sinner. No doubt it is only that. Paradise
is chilly; this is its only fault. It is the sixth of June and we have
fires. Fires in the dressing-rooms, fires in the drawing-rooms, fires
at both ends of the library, fires on both sides of the hall, fires
everywhere; and with all of them I shiver. I cannot help shivering,
and I feel convinced that in my rapture I have mistaken the month--it
must be December! It is all extraordinarily trim and neat here; the
whole place looks in such perfect order that it might have been taken
out of a box of German toys last night. I have a little the sensation
of being always at church. That, no doubt, is the effect of the first
step towards virtue that I have ever made. Pray do not think that I
am not perfectly happy. I should be more sensible of my happiness, no
doubt, if I had not quite such a feeling, due to the dampness of the
air, of having been put into an aquarium, like a jelly-fish. But Gladys
is adorable in every way; and if she were not quite so easily scared,
would be perfection. It was that little air of hers, like that of some
irresistible Alpine flower, which bewitched me. But when one has got
the Alpine flower, one cannot live for ever on it!--however _ma basta_!
I was curious to know what a northern woman was like; I know now. She
is exquisite, but a little monotonous, and a little prudish. Certainly
she will never compromise me; but then, perhaps, she will never let
me compromise myself, and that will be terrible! I am ungrateful; all
men are ungrateful; but, then, is it not a little the women's fault?
They do keep so very close to one. Now, an angel, you know, becomes
tiresome if one never gets out of the shadow of its wings--here, at
Coombe Bysset, the angel fills the horizon, and one's distance is a
Botticelli picture!'
_From the Duchessa dell'Aquila Fulva, Palazzo Fulva, Rome, to
the Principe Piero di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, Luton, Beds.,
England._
'CARO MIO PIERINO,--Are you sure you have an angel? People have a trick
of always calling very commonplace women angels. "She is an angel" is
a polite way of saying "she is a bore." I am not sure either that I
should care to live with a veritable angel. One would see too much of
the wings, as you say; and even a guardian angel must be the _terzo
incommodo_ sometimes. Why _would_ you marry an English girl? I daresay
she is so good-tempered that she never contradicts you, and you grow
peevish out of sheer weariness at having everything your own way. If
you had married Nicoletta, as I wanted you to do, she would have flown
at you, like a little tigress, a dozen times a week, and kept you on
the _qui vive_ to please her. We know what our own men want. I have
half a mind to write to your wife and tell her that no Italian is
comfortable unless he has his ears boxed twice a day. If your wife
would be a little disagreeable, probably you would adore her. But it
is a great mistake, _Pierino mio_, to confuse marriage and love. In
reality, they have no more to do with one another than a horse chestnut
and a chestnut horse; than the _zuccone_ that means a vegetable, and
the _zuccone_ that means a simpleton. I should imagine that your
wet English bird's-nest will force you to realise this truth with
lamentable rapidity.'
_From the Principessa di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, Luton,
Beds., to Lady Gwendoline Dormer, British Embassy, Vienna._
'DEAREST GWEN,--I did promise, I know, to write to you at once, and
tell you everything; and a whole week is gone and I couldn't do it, I
really couldn't; and even now I don't know where to begin. I suppose
I am dreadfully _vieux jeu_. I suppose you will only laugh at me, and
say "spoons." How glad I am Piero cannot say a word of English, and
so I never hear that dreadful jargon which I do think so ugly and so
vulgar, though you are all so fond of it. I ought not to have come to
Coombe Bysset; at least, they all said it was silly. Nessie Fitzgerald
was back in London before the week was out, and doing a play. To be
sure she was married in October, and she didn't care a bit about him,
and I suppose that made all the difference. To me, it seems so much
more natural to shut one's self up, and Piero thought so too; but I
am half afraid he finds it a little dull now. You see, we knew very
little of one another. He came for a month of the London season, and he
met me at Ranelagh, and he danced the cotillon with me at a good many
houses, and we cared for one another in a week, and were married in a
month, as you know. Papa hated it because it wasn't Lord Burlington or
Lord Hampshire. But he couldn't really object, because the San Zenone
are such a great Roman family, and all the world knows them; and they
are Spanish dukes as well as Italian princes. And Piero is such a
grand gentleman, and made quite superb settlements; much more, Papa
said, than he could have expected, so poor as we are. But what I meant
was, meeting like that in the rush of the season, at balls and dinners
and garden parties, and luncheons at Hurlingham, and being married to
one another just before Ascot, we really knew nothing at all of each
other's tastes or habits or character. And when, on the first morning
at Coombe, we realised that we were together for life, I think we both
felt very odd. We adored one another, but we didn't know what to
talk about; we never had talked to each other; we never had time. And
I am afraid there is something of this feeling with him. I am afraid
he is dreadfully bored, and I told him so, and he answered, "My dear
little angel, your admirable countrymen are not bored in the country
because they are always eating. They eat a big breakfast, they eat a
big luncheon, they eat a big dinner, they are always eating. Myself, I
have not that resource. Give me a little coffee and a little wine, and
let me eat only once a day. You never told me I was expected to absorb
continually food like the crocodiles." What would he say if he saw a
hunting breakfast in the shires? I suppose life _is_ very material in
England. I think it is why there is so much typhoid fever. Do you know,
he wasn't going to dress for dinner because we were alone. As if that
was any reason! I told him it would look so odd to the servants if he
didn't dress, so he has done so since. But he says it was a _seccatura_
(this means, I believe, a bore), and he told me we English sacrifice
our whole lives to fuss, form and the outside of things. There is a
good deal of truth in this. What numbers of people one knows who are
ever so poor, and who yet, for the sake of the look of the thing, get
into debt over their ears! And then, quantities of them go to church
for the form of the thing, when they don't _believe_ one atom; they
will tell you at luncheon that they don't. I fancy Italians are much
more honest than we are in this sort of way. Piero says if they are
poor, they don't mind saying so, and if they have no religion, they
don't pretend to have any. He declares we English spoil all our lives
because we fancy it is our duty to pretend to be something we are
not. Now, isn't that really very true? I am sure you would delight in
all he says. He is so original, so unconventional; our people think
him ignorant, because he doesn't read, and doesn't care a straw about
politics. But I assure you he is as clever as anything can be; and he
doesn't get his ideas out of newspapers; nor repeat like a parrot what
his chief of party tells him. I do wish you could have come over and
could have seen him. It was so unkind of you to be ill just at the
very time of my marriage. You know that it is only to you that I ever
say quite what I feel about things. The girls are too young, and Mamma
doesn't understand. She never could see why I would not marry poor
Hampshire. She always said that I should care for him in time. I don't
think Mamma can ever have been in love with anybody. I wonder what
_she_ married for--don't you?'
_From the Principe Piero di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, to the
Count Zazzari, Italian Legation, London._
'CARO GIGI,--Pray send me all the French novels you can find, and a
case of Turkish cigarettes. I am in Paradise, but Paradise is a little
dull, and exceedingly damp, at least in England. Does it always rain in
this country? It has rained here without stopping for seventeen days
and a half. I produce upon myself the impression of being one of those
larks who sit behind wires on a little square of wet grass. I should
like to run up to London. I see you have Sarah and Coquelin and the
others; but I suppose it would be against all the unwritten canons of a
honeymoon. What a strange institution. A honeymoon! Who first invented
it?'
_From the Principe di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, Luton, Beds.,
to the Duchessa dell'Aquila Fulva, Palazzo Fulva, Milano._
'CARA TERESINA,--I ought to have written to you long since, but you
know I am not fond of writing. I really, also, have nothing to say.
Happy the people who have no history! I am like that people. I was
made happy two weeks ago; I have been happy ever since. It is slightly
monotonous. How can you vary happiness, except by quarrelling a little?
And then it would not be happiness any longer. It seems to me that
happiness is like an omelette, best impromptu.
'Do not think that I am ungrateful, however, either to fate or to the
charming innocent who has become my companion. We have not two ideas
in common. She is lovely to look at, to caress, to adore; but what to
say to her I confess I have no notion. Love ought never to have to find
dinner-table conversation. He ought to climb up by a ladder, and get
over a balcony, and, when his ecstasies are ended, he ought to go the
same way. I fancy she is much better educated than I am, but, as that
would be a discovery fatal to our comfort, I endeavour not to make
it. She is extraordinarily sweet-tempered: indeed, so much so, that
it makes me angry; it gives one no excuse for being impatient. She is
divine, exquisite, nymph-like; but, alas, she is a prude!
'Never was any creature on earth so exquisitely sensitive, so easily
shocked. To live with her is to walk upon eggshells. Of course, it is
very nice in a wife; very "proper," as the English say; but it is not
amusing. It amused me at first, but now it seems to me a defect. She
has brought me down to this terribly damp and very green place, where
it rains every day and night. There is a library without novels; there
is a cellar without absinthe; there is a _cuisine_ without tomatoes, or
garlic, or any oil at all; there is an admirably-ordered establishment,
so quiet that I fancy I am in a penitentiary. There are some adorably
fine horses, and there are acres of glasshouses used to grow fruits
that we throw in Italy to the pigs. By the way, there are also several
of our field flowers in the conservatories. We eat pretty nearly all
day; there is nothing else to do. Outside, the scenery is oppressively
green, the green of spinach; there is no variety, there are no ilexes
and there are no olives. I understand now why the English painters give
such staring colours; unless the colours scream, you don't see them in
this aqueous, dim atmosphere. That is why a benign Providence has made
the landscape a _purée aux epinards_.
'I think the air here, inside and out, must weigh heavily; it lies on
one's lungs like a sponge. I once went down in a diving-bell when I
was a boy; I have the sensation in this country of being always down
in a diving-bell. The scamp Toniello, whom you may remember as having
played Leporello to my Don Giovanno ever since we were lads, amuses
himself with making love to all the pretty maidens in the village; but,
then, I must not do that--now. They are not very pretty either. They
have very big teeth, and very long upper lips. Their skins, however,
are admirable. For a horse's skin and a woman's, there is no land
comparable to England. It is the country of grooming.'
_From the Principessa di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, to Lady
Gwendolen Chichester, British Embassy, Petersburg._
'He laughed at me because I went to church yesterday, and really I only
went because I thought it _right_. We have been here a fortnight, and
I have never been to church at all till yesterday, and you know how
very serious dear Aunt Carrie is. To-day, as it is the second Sunday
I have been here, I thought I ought to go just once, and I did go;
but it was dreadfully pompous and lonely in the big red pew, and the
villagers stared so, and all the little girls of the village giggled,
and looked at me from under their sun-bonnets. Dear Mr Coate preached a
sermon on Marriage. It was very kind of him; but, oh, how I wished he
hadn't! When I got back, Piero was playing billiards with his servant.
I wondered what Mr Coate would have thought of him. To be sure, English
clergymen have to get used to fast Sundays now, when the country houses
are full. It is such a dear little yew walk to the church from the
house here, not twenty yards long, and all lined with fuchsia. Do you
remember it? Even Piero admits that it is very pretty, only he says it
is a vignette prettiness, which, I suppose, is true. "You can see no
horizon, only a green wall," he keeps complaining; and his beautiful,
lustrous eyes look as if they were made to gaze through endless
fields of light. When I asked him yesterday what he really thought of
England, what do you suppose he said? He said, "_Mia cara_, I think
it would be a most delightful country if it had one-fifth of its
population, one-half of its houses, a tithe of its dinners, a quarter
of its machinery, none of its factories, none of its tramways, and a
wholly different atmosphere!" I suppose this means that he dislikes
it. I think him handsomer than ever. I sent you his photograph, but
that can give you no idea of him. He is like one of his own marble
statues. We came to Coombe Bysset directly after the ceremony, and we
are here still. I could stay on for ever. It is so lovely in these
Bedfordshire woods in mid-June. But I am afraid--just the very least
bit afraid--that Piero may get bored with me--me--me--nothing but me.
'You know I never was clever, and really--really--I haven't an idea
what to talk to him about when we don't talk about ourselves. And
then the weather provokes him. We have hardly had one fine day since
we came; and no doubt it seems very grey and chilly to an Italian.
"It cannot be June!" he says a dozen times a week. And when the whole
day is rainy, as it is very often, for our Junes are such wet ones
nowadays, I can see he gets impatient. He doesn't care for reading;
he is fond of billiards, but I don't play a good enough game to be
any amusement to him. And though he sings divinely, as I told you, he
sings as the birds do; only just when the mood is on him. He does not
care about music as a science in the least. He laughed when I said
so. He declared it was no more a science than love is. Perhaps love
ought to be a science too, in a way, or else it won't last? There has
been a scandal in the village, caused by his servant, Toniello. An
infuriated father came up to the house this morning about it. He is
named John Best; he has one of Aunt Carrie's biggest farms. He was in
such a dreadful rage, and I had to talk to him, because, of course,
Piero couldn't understand him. Only when I translated what he said,
Piero laughed till he cried, and offered him a cigarette, and called
him "_figlio mio_," which only made Mr John Best purple with fury,
and he went away in a greater rage than he had been in when he came,
swearing he "would do for the Papist." I have sent for the steward.
I am afraid Aunt Carrie will be terribly annoyed. It has always been
such a model village. Not a public-house near for six miles, and all
the girls such demure, quiet little maidens. This terrible Roman
valet, with his starry eyes and his mandoline, and his audacities, has
been like Mephistopheles in the opera to this secluded and innocent
little hamlet. I beg Piero to send him away, but he looks unutterably
reproachful, and declares he really cannot live without Toniello; and
what can I say?'
_From the Lady Gwendolen Chichester, S. Petersburg, to the
Principessa di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset._
'You are quite in the wrong, my poor pet. If you were only a little
older, and ever so much wiser, you would have telegraphed to the
libraries yourself for the French books; you would have laughed at them
when he laughed, and instead of taking Mr John Best as a tragedy, you
would have made him into a little burlesque, which would have amused
your husband for five minutes, as much as Gyp or Jean Richepin. I begin
to think I should have married your Roman prince, and you should have
married my good, dull George, whom a perverse destiny has shoved into
diplomacy. Your Roman scandalises you, and my George bores me. Such is
marriage, my dear, all the world over. What is the old story? That Jove
split all the walnuts in two, and each half is always uselessly seeking
its fellow.'
_From the Principessa di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, Luton,
Beds., to the Lady Gwendolen Chichester, British Embassy, S.
Petersburg._
'But, surely, if he loved me, he would be as perfectly happy with me
alone as I am with him alone? I want no other companion--no other
interest--no other thought.'
_From the Lady Gwendolen Chichester, British Embassy S.
Petersburg, to the Principessa di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset,
Luton, Beds._
'Of course you do not, because you are a woman. San Zenone is your
god, your idol, your ideal, your universe. But _you_ are only one out
of the many women who have pleased him, and attached to the pleasure
you afford him is the very uncomfortable conviction that he will never
be able to get away from you. My dear child, I have no patience with
any woman when she says, "He does not love me." If he does not, it is
probably the woman's fault. Probably she has worried him. Love dies
directly it is worried, quite naturally. Poor Gladys! You were always
such a good child; you were always devoted to your old women, and
your queer little orphans, and your pet cripples, and your East-End
missions. It certainly is hard that you should have fallen into the
hands of a soulless Italian, who reads naughty novels all day long and
sighs for the flesh-pots of Egypt! But, my child, in reason's name,
what did you expect? Did you think that all in a moment he would sigh
to hear Canon Farrar; the excellent vicar's sermons; take his guitar to
a village concert, and teach Italian to the lodge-keeper's children?
Be reasonable, and let your poor caged bird fly out of Coombe Bysset;
which will certainly be your worst enemy if you shut him up in it much
longer.'
_From the Principe di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, to the
Duchessa dell'Aquila Fulva, Monterone, Val d'Aosta._
'I am still in my box of wet moss. I have been in it two weeks, four
days, and eleven hours, by the calendar and the clocks. I have read all
my novels. I have spelled through my _Figaro_, from the title to the
printer's address, every morning. I have smoked twenty cigarettes every
twenty minutes, and I have yawned as many times. This is Paradise, I
know it; I tell myself so; but still I cannot help it--I yawn. There
is a pale, watery sun, which shines fitfully. There is a quantity of
soaked hay, which they are going to dry by machinery. There is a great
variety of muddy lanes in which to ride. There is a post-office seven
miles off, and a telegraph station fifteen miles further off. The
_ensemble_ is not animated. When you go out you see very sleek cattle,
very white sheep, very fat children. You may meet, at intervals,
labouring people, very round shouldered and very sulky. You also
meet, if you are in luck's way, with a traction engine; and wherever
you look you perceive a church steeple. It is all very harmless,
except the traction engine; but it is not animated or enlivening. You
will not wonder that I soon came to the end of my French novels. The
French novels have enabled me to discover that my angel is very easily
ruffled. In fact, she is that touchy thing--a saint. I had no idea that
she was a saint when I saw her drinking her cup of tea in that garden
on the Thames. True, she had her lovely little serene, holy, _noli me
tangere_ air, but I thought that would pass; it does not pass. And
when I wanted her to laugh with me at Gyp's '_Autour du Mariage_', she
blushed up to the eyes, and was offended. What am I to do? I am no
saint. I cannot pretend to be one. I am not worse than other men, but
I like to amuse myself. I cannot go through life singing a _miserere_.
I am afraid we shall quarrel. You think that very wholesome. But there
are quarrels and quarrels. Some clear the air like thunderstorms. Ours
are little irritating differences which end in her bursting into tears,
and in myself looking ridiculous and feeling a brute. She has cried
quite a number of times in the last fortnight. I daresay if she went
into a rage, as you justly say Nicoletta would do, and you might have
added you have done, it would rouse me, and I should be ready to strike
her, and should end in covering her with kisses. But she only turns
her eyes on me like a dying fawn, bursts into tears, and goes out of
the room. Then she comes in again--to dinner, perhaps, or to that odd
ceremony, five o'clock tea--with her little sad, stiff, reproachful
air as of a martyr; answers meekly, and makes me again feel a brute.
The English sulk a long time, I think. We are at daggers drawn one
moment, but then we kiss and forget the next. We are more passionate,
but we are more amiable. I want to get away, to go to Paris, Homburg,
Trouville, anywhere; but I dare not propose it. I only drop adroit
hints. If I should die of _ennui_, and be buried under the wet moss for
ever, weep for me.'
_From the Principessa di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, to Lady
Gwendolen Chichester, S. Petersburg._
'Coombe is quite too lovely now. It does rain sometimes, certainly,
but between the showers it is so delicious. I asked Piero to come out
and hear the nightingale; there really is one in the home wood, and
he laughed at the idea. He said, "We have hundreds of nightingales
shouting all day and all night at Lanciano. We don't think about
them, we eat them in _pasta_; they are very good." Fancy eating a
nightingale! You might as well eat Romeo and Juliet. Piero has got a
number of French books from London, and he lies about on the couches
and reads them. He wants me to listen to naughty bits of fun out of
them, but I will not, and then he calls me a prude, and gets angry. I
don't see why he shouldn't laugh as much as he likes himself without
telling me why he laughed. I dislike that sort of thing. I am horribly
afraid I shall care for nothing but him all my life, while he--he
yawned yesterday! Papa said to me, before we were married, "My dear
little girl, San Zenone put on such a lot of steam at first, he'll
be obliged to ease his pace after a bit. Don't be vexed if you find
the thing cooling!" Now, Papa speaks so oddly; always that sort of
floundering, bald metaphor, you remember it; but I knew what he meant.
Nobody could _go on_ being such a lover as Piero was. Ah, dear, is it
in the past already? No, I don't quite mean that. He is Romeo still
very often, and he sings me the divinest love songs, lying at my feet
on cushions in the moonlight. But it is not quite the same thing as it
was at first. He found fault with one of my gowns this morning, and
said I don't know how _de me faire valoir_. I am terribly frightened
lest Coombe has bored him too much. I would come here. I wanted to be
utterly out of the world, and so did he; and I'm sure there isn't a
lover's nest anywhere comparable to Coombe in midsummer. You remember
the rose garden, and the lime avenues, and the chapel ruins by the
little lake? When Aunt Carrie offered it to us for this June I was so
delighted, but now I am half afraid the choice of it was a mistake,
and that he does not know what to do with himself. He is _dépaysé_.
I cried a little yesterday; it was too silly, but I couldn't help it.
He laughed at me, but he got a little angry. "_Enfin que veux tu?_" he
said impatiently; "_je suis à toi, bien à toi, beaucoup trop à toi!_"
He seemed to me to regret being mine. I told him so; he was more angry.
It was, I suppose, what you would call a scene. In five minutes he was
penitent, and caressed me as only he can do; and the sun came out, and
we went into the woods and heard the nightingale; but the remembrance
of it alarms me. If he can say as much as this in a month, what can he
say in a year? I do not think I am silly. I had two London seasons,
and all those country houses show one the world. I know people, when
they are married, are always glad to get away from one another--they
are always flirting with other people. But I should be miserable if I
thought it would ever be like that with Piero and me. I worship his
very shadow, and he does--or he did--worship mine. Why should that
change? Why should it not go on for ever, as it does in poems? If it
can't, why doesn't one die?'
_From the Lady Gwendolen Chichester, S. Petersburg, to the
Principessa di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset._
'What a goose you are, you dearest Gladys! You were always like that.
To all you have said I can only reply, _connu_. When girls are romantic
(and you always were, though it was quite gone out ages before our
time), they always expect husbands to remain lovers. Now, my pet, you
might just as well expect hay to remain grass. Papa was quite right.
When there is such a lot of steam on, it must go off by degrees. I am
afraid, too, you have begun with the passion, and the rapture, and the
mutual adoration, and all the rest of it, which is _quite, quite gone
out_. People don't feel in that sort of way nowadays. Nobody cares
much; a sort of good-humoured liking is the utmost one sees. But you
were always such a goose! And now you must marry an Italian, and expect
it all to be balconies and guitars and moonlight for ever and ever.
I think it quite natural he should want to get to Paris. You should
never have taken him to Coombe. I do remember the rose gardens, and
the lime avenues, and the ruins; and I remember being sent down there
when I had too strong a flirtation with Philip Rous, who was in F. O.,
and had nothing a year. You were a baby then, and I remember that I was
bored to the very brink of suicide; that I have detested the smell of a
lime tree ever since. I can sympathise with the Prince, if he longs to
get away. There can't be anything for him to do, all day long, except
smoke. The photo of him is wonderfully handsome, but can you live all
your life, my dear, on a profile?'
_From the Principessa di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, to the Lady
Gwendolen Chichester, S. Petersburg._
'Because almost all Englishmen have snub noses, Englishwomen always
think there is something immoral and delusive about a good profile.
At all events, you will admit that the latter is the more agreeable
object of contemplation. It still rains, rains dreadfully. The meadows
are soaked, and they can't get the hay in, and we can't get out of the
house. Piero does smoke, and he does yawn. He has been looking in the
library for a French novel, but there is nothing except Mrs Craven's
goody-goody books, and a boy's tale by Jules Verne. I am afraid you and
Mamma are right. Coombe, in a wet June, is not the place for a Roman
who knows his Paris by heart, and doesn't like the country anywhere.
We seem to do nothing but eat. I put on an ulster and high boots,
and I don't mind the rain a bit; but he screams when he sees me in
an ulster. "You have no more figure in that thing than if you were a
Bologna sausage," he says to me; and certainly ulsters are very ugly.
But I had a delicious fortnight with the Duchess in a driving tour in
Westmeath. We only took our ulsters with us, and it poured all the
time, and we stayed in bed in the little inns while our things dried,
and it was immense fun; the Duke drove us. But Piero would not like
that sort of thing. He is like a cat about rain. He likes to shut the
house up early, and have the electric light lit, and forget that it
is all slop and mist outside. He declares that we have made a mistake
in the calendar, and that it is November, not June. I change my gowns
three times a day, just as if there were a large house party, but I
feel I look awfully monotonous to him. I am afraid I never was amusing.
I always envy those women who are all _chic_ and "go," who can make
men laugh so at rubbish. They seem to carry about with them a sort of
exhilarating ether. I don't think they are the best sort of women, but
they do so amuse the men. I would give twenty years of my life if I
could amuse Piero. He adores me, but that is another thing. That does
not prevent him shaking the barometer and yawning. He seems happiest
when he is talking Italian with his servant, Toniello. Toniello is
allowed to play billiards with him sometimes. He is a very gay, merry,
saucy, brown-eyed Roman. He has made all the maids in the house, and
all the farmers' daughters round Coombe, in love with him, and I told
you how he had scandalised one of the best tenants, Mr John Best.
The Bedford rustics all vow vengeance against him, but he twangs his
mandoline, and sings away at the top of his voice, and doesn't care
a straw that the butler loathes him, the house steward abhors him,
the grooms would horsewhip him if they dare, and the young farmers
audibly threaten to duck him in the pond. Toniello is very fond of his
master, but he does not extend his allegiance to me. Do you remember
Mrs Stevens, Aunt Caroline's model housekeeper? You should see her face
when she chances to hear Piero laughing and talking with Toniello. I
think she believes that the end of the world has come. Piero calls
Toniello "_figliolo mio_" and "_caro mio_," just as if they were
cousins or brothers. It appears this is the Italian way. They are very
proud in their own fashion, but it isn't our fashion. However, I am
glad the man is there when I hear the click of the billiard balls, and
the splash of the raindrops on the window panes. "We have been here
just three weeks. _Dio!_ It seems three years," Piero said, when I
reminded him of it this morning. For me, I don't know whether it is
like a single day's dream or a whole eternity. You know what I mean.
But I wish--I wish--it seemed either the day's dream or the eternity
of Paradise to him! I daresay it is all my fault in coming to these
quiet, bay-windowed, Queen Anne rooms, and the old-fashioned servants,
and the dreary look-out over the drenched hay-fields. But the sun does
come out sometimes, and then the wet roses smell so sweet, and the wet
lime blossoms glisten in the light, and the larks sing overhead, and
the woods are so green and so fresh. Still, I don't think he likes it
even then, it is all too moist, too windy, too dim for him. When I
put a rose in his button-hole this morning, it shook the drops over
him, and he said, "_Mais quel pays!--même une fleur c'est une douche
d'eau froide!_" Last month, if I had put a dandelion in his coat, he
would have sworn it had the odour of the magnolia and the beauty of
the orchid! It is just twenty-two days ago since we came here, and
for the first four or five days, he never cared whether it rained or
not; he only cared to lie at my feet, really, literally. We were all in
all to each other, just like Cupid and Psyche. And now--he will play
billiards with Toniello to pass the time, and he is longing for his
_petits théâtres_! Is it my fault? I torment myself with a thousand
self-accusations. Is it possible I can have been tiresome, dull,
over-exacting? Is it possible he can be disappointed in me?'
_From the Lady Gwendolen Chichester, S. Petersburg, to the
Principessa di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset._