THE GROWTH OF A SOUL.
Dorothy gave herself up to the task of humanizing Martin with great
enthusiasm. Her success was naturally greater and more rapid than that
of the tutor or old Andrew. She undertook to teach him to read, and
arguing it was best to teach him in Italian until he knew more of
English, she began to teach him from a little book she had bought in
Italy, one which was a great favorite of her own for its quaint and
simple legends. It was the "Fioretti di San Francisco."
A pretty picture it was to all the other members of the household to
see Dorothy seated in a high-backed oak chair on the hearth, with the
fire light playing about her, while Martin, squatting on a low seat
beside her, read diligently from the book on her lap, marking each word
with his rude forefinger. Often she read aloud to him in hesitating
accents, for the language was still strange to her; but the very
slowness and difficulty of her utterance made it easier for him to
comprehend. Sidney and Margaret themselves sat listening to the gentle
and childlike beauty of these "Flowrets of S. Francisco," and watching
the kindling intelligence of Martin's face. His soul was developing
under Dorothy's tender care. On the snow-clad moors, also, Dorothy
made herself his constant companion. In all weather, except when the
snow was whirling in a bewildering network of closely falling flakes,
she was ready to go out with him, and Philip, and Hugh, guiding them to
places known only to herself. She could show them the winter dens of
many a wild creature; and Martin learned from her that he was not to
kill them. Once she led them to the edge of a deep, narrow dell,
invisible from a little distance, and under the brow of it was a cave
hewn out of the rock, a cave so similar to his place of refuge on the
mountains, that Martin uttered a cry of mingled astonishment and
delight. It was like a piece of home to him.
Later on, when the others had gone back to London, Dorothy persuaded
Sidney to procure for him, from that far-off Austrian valley, one of
the curious, quaint old crucifixes which stand at every point where
crossroads meet. She had it placed near the entrance of this cave;
for, she said, if it awoke a thought, or gave him a glimmer of
religious light, it was right for him to have it. When he came upon it
first, unexpectedly, he threw himself on his knees before it, and burst
into a passion of tears. It was a symbol familiar to him from his
earliest days; the only place of refuge, where, if he could reach it,
he was safe from the blows of his tyrants.
So evident was Martin's rapid development, that Margaret decided to
remain with Dorothy after Sidney and Philip had returned to London.
She was deeply interested in this growth of a soul under her own eyes.
Martin was learning to make broken sentences in English; and she marked
his progress with constantly increasing pleasure in seeing him overcome
difficulties.
To Martin these winter months were less wearisome than the summer and
autumn had been. The snow made the moors a more familiar ground, and
in these long, dark afternoons, if Dorothy was out of the way, he could
creep into the kitchen, and crouch down in the chimney nook smoking a
pipe, undisturbed by the servants, who were still busy at their work.
Margaret and Dorothy sat chiefly in the great hall, which Martin liked
next best to the kitchen; large screens were drawn round the hearth,
and huge fires kept burning, and there Martin would lie on the warm
bearskins, with Dorothy's dogs around him, while she read the "Fioretti
di San Francisco." Most things were irksome to him still; he could
never wear the shackles of civilization easily. But he was changing
and developing. By and by they would reap the harvest of the seed they
were sowing.
The Easter holidays brought back Philip for a few days. In his eyes
the transformation was marvelous. Martin had submitted to wearing
boots and a hat; at any rate, when he went out with Dorothy. He sat
down with them to their meals, and could even make his wants known to
the servants in intelligible words. He was learning to ride, and he
was willing to sit in the carriage quietly when they drove to the
nearest town. His eyes followed Dorothy, and he was obedient to her
slightest sign. He watched her as if to see if he displeased her in
any way. When she looked at him his dull face brightened with a rare
smile, which had a strange and pathetic attraction in it, like a sudden
and transient gleam of sunshine on a dreary, wintry day. The doglike
allegiance he had displayed toward Philip was plainly transferred to
her.
Was there any touch of jealousy in the uneasiness which Philip felt at
this new phase of his brother's character? A vague, indefinable
apprehension of some new danger took hold of him at the sight of this
constant companionship between Martin and Dorothy. He recognized in
his own mind that Martin was still a young man, and that there was a
simple charm about Dorothy that few men of any rank in life could be
indifferent to. Was Martin too dense a barbarian to feel it?
Though more civilized in other respects, Martin had not yet learned to
sleep before he was sleepy. His hours of slumber were still as
irregular as his hours of eating had been at first. Late one night,
when all the rest of the household were long ago asleep, Philip found
him on the hearth in the hall, sitting on his low stool beside
Dorothy's chair. His deep-set eyes were glowing under his shaggy
eyebrows like the embers on the hearth.
"My brother," he said, as Philip stood looking down at him, "tell me,
am I now a rich English signore like the other signori?"
"Of course," answered Philip, about to sit down in Dorothy's chair; but
Martin motioned him away, and drew another seat forward.
"This belongs to her, my signorina," he said; "it is not for you or for
me."
"Why not?" asked Philip, half laughing. "She is only a girl like other
girls."
Martin made no answer, but repeated "like other girls" under his
breath, as if it was a new idea to him.
"My brother," he resumed, after a pause, "when I was poor, without a
penny, long ago, there was a girl I loved. When a man loves a girl he
wants her for his wife. I wanted this girl to be my wife, but she spat
at me."
"I am glad you did not marry her, Martin," said Philip, thinking how
far worse it would have been if he had discovered his brother with a
wife and children.
"She wouldn't spit at me now," he continued proudly. "I am a rich
signore now, and I should laugh at her being my wife. She is down
there, in the mud. But, my brother, listen to me. You say my
signorina is a girl like other girls, and I am a rich signore. Would
she laugh at me if I love her and want her to be my wife, like the girl
I loved long ago?"
For a minute or two anger and a strong feeling of repulsion kept Philip
silent. It was too monstrous to think of patiently. This rude
peasant, this scarcely reclaimed savage, to be lifting up his eyes to
the sweet English girl, who had only stooped to civilize him out of the
pure compassion of her heart! But the feeling died out as quickly as
it had been kindled. It was possible for Martin to love her, and, if
so, how much he would have to suffer!
"She would laugh at me," said Martin in tones of the deepest and
saddest conviction; "she would not look at me. See, I am a dog to her.
She would turn her face away from me, and never look at me again. She
is so far away above me, but you are close to her. You are like her,
very grand, and very beautiful, and very clever. I am down, down in
the mud. I cannot learn your ways; they are too hard for me. Oh, my
brother! if I was like you, my signorina would love me and be my wife."
Philip, looking down at the seared and melancholy face of his
unfortunate brother, said to himself that this might have been true.
If Martin had been trained and educated as he himself had been he would
have been a suitable husband for Dorothy, and what would please his
father and mother more than to have her for their daughter?
"She is like the Madonna to me," said Martin slowly and hesitatingly,
as if searching through his brain for suitable words to express the
thoughts pressing busily into it; "my Madonna. I see her all day, and
at night I cannot sleep. I sit all night on the mat at her door
watching, listening. I do not sleep, but I am happy."
"You must never tell her that," replied Philip; "it would make her very
unhappy."
"I will never tell her, my brother," he answered submissively; "she is
too high above me. She is like an angel, and I am a dog. That is
true. I am nothing; only a rich man. But I will give her all my
riches--this house, these lands. They shall be hers, not mine."
"But you are not a rich man till your father dies," explained Philip;
"they belong to him as long as he lives, and then they will belong to
you as long as you live, but you can never give them away. They will
be kept for your eldest son. It would be impossible for you to give
any of them to Dorothy."
"It is a lie, then," he said; "it is a lie. I am not a rich man. They
are of no good to me, this house and these lands. It would be better
for me to have a farm of my own in Ampezzo, and marry a woman there. I
did not dare to think the signorina would be my wife; but if I could
give her this house and these lands, and live near her, where I could
see her every day, I could be happy, perhaps, here in this strange
country, though I do not know what the people say. I am not happy in
Ampezzo; they curse me and throw stones at me. I am not happy here in
these clothes, and this great house, and these fine rooms. Let me be a
servant; your servant, or the signorina's; then I might be happy."
"That could never be," said Philip pityingly.
"That is what I am fit for," urged Martin. "Take me away from here;
make me work hard. Say to me: 'Martin, clean my horse;' 'Martin, do
this;' 'Martin, do that,' like Chiara did. The days would not be long
then, and I should sleep sound at night. I want to be tired out, my
brother. See, I am very strong; my arms and legs are strong; and I sit
all day in a chair smoking a pipe, and all they tell me to do is, 'Read
a little book, signore,' or, 'Learn a little English,' or, 'Let me
teach you how to write.' Only my signorina says: 'Let us go out on the
moors, Martin.' But she is not big and strong like me, and I walk like
a girl beside her, for fear she should grow tired. I feel like a wolf
shut up in a stable and fastened by a chain. Make me work hard like a
servant, or let me go back to Ampezzo."
Philip let his hand fall gently on Martin's shoulder, and he turned and
kissed it--the smooth, well formed hand, strong and muscular, yet as
finely molded as a woman's. Martin stretched out his own knotted and
deformed hands, and looked at them, as he had never done before, in the
fire light, with a half laugh and a half groan. Since Philip's arrival
this time he had become more conscious of the vast difference between
himself and his brother. He saw his own uncouthness and ugliness as
they must appear in Dorothy's eyes. His close watchfulness of her had
betrayed to him how different was the expression of her face when she
was talking to him or to Philip. He had seen a happy light in her eyes
when Philip was beside her, or even when she caught the sound of his
voice about the house. These two, thought Martin humbly, were fit for
each other. Dorothy would be Philip's wife, not his.
"Yes, my brother," he said, speaking his last thought aloud, "my
signorina loves you, and she will be your wife."
"Martin," exclaimed Philip, rising hastily, "you must never say such a
word as that to me again."
He left him in solitary possession of the great hall; but looking out
of his own room an hour later, he saw Martin stretched like a dog
across the threshold of Dorothy's door.