THE WINE-SHOP.
It was past twelve by the clock tower when the two left the gondola and
entered the Place of St. Mark. The old church with its cupolas, the
open Place, the pillars with St. Theodore and the dragon, the palace of
the Doges with its open stone work, showed like a scene out of another
world; so unearthly beautiful, so weird and so stately. There had been
that day some festival or public occasion which had called the
multitude together, and lingerers were still to be seen here and there,
and the windows of cafés and trattorie were lighted, and the buzz of
voices came from them. Dolly and Rupert crossed the square, however,
without more than a moment's lingering, and plunged presently into what
seemed to her a labyrinth of confused ways. Such ways! an alley in New
York would be broad in comparison; two women in hoops would have been
obliged to use some skill to pass each other; they threaded the old
city in the strangest manner. Rupert went steadily and without
hesitation, Dolly wondered how he could, through one into another, up
and down, over bridge after bridge, clearly knowing his way; yet it was
a nervous walk to her, for more than one reason. Sometimes the whole
line of one of these narrow streets, if they could be called so, would
be perfectly dark; the moonlight not getting into it, and only
glittering on a palace cornice or a street corner in view; others,
lying right for the moonbeams, were flooded with them from one turning
to another. Most of the shops were closed; but the sellers of fruit had
not shut up their windows yet, and now and then a cook-shop made a most
peculiar picture, with its blazing fire at the back, and its dishes of
cooked and uncooked viands temptingly displayed at the street front.
Steadily and swiftly Rupert and Dolly passed on; saw these things
without stopping to look at them, but yet saw them so that in all
after-life those peculiar effects of light and shade, fireshine and
moonlight, Italian fruits and vegetables, and fish coloured by the one
or the other illumination, were never lost from memory. Here there
would be a red Vulcanic glow in the interior of a shop where the
furnace fire was flaming up about the pots and pans of cookery; and at
the street front, at the window, the moonlight glinting white from the
edge of a dish, or glancing from a pane of glass; and then again
reflected from the still waters of a canal. The two saw these things,
and never forgot; but Dolly was silent and Rupert did not know what to
say. Yet he thought he felt her arm tremble sometimes, and would have
given a great deal to be able to speak to the purpose. Perhaps Dolly at
length found the need of distraction to her thoughts, for she it was
that first said anything.
"I hope mother will not wake up!"
"Why?"
"She would not understand my being away."
"Then she does not know?"
"I did not dare tell her. I had to risk it. I do not want her ever to
know, Rupert, if it can be helped."
"She'll be no wiser for me. What are you going to do now, Miss Dolly?
We ain't far off the place."
"I am going to get my father to go home with me. You needn't come in.
Better not. You go back to the gondola and wait there for a little
say--a quarter or half an hour; if I do not come before that, then go
on home."
"But you cannot go anywhere alone?"
"Oh no; I shall have father; but I cannot tell which way he may take to
get home. You go back to the gondola,--or no, be in front of St.
Mark's; that would be better."
"I am afraid to leave you, Miss Dolly."
"You need not. One gets to places where there is nothing to fear any
more."
Rupert was not sure what she meant; her voice had a peculiar cadence
which struck him. Then they turned another corner, and a few steps
ahead of them saw the light from a window making a strip of
illumination across the street, which here was unvisited by the
moonbeams.
"That is the place," said Rupert.
Dolly slackened her walk, and the next minute paused before the window
and looked in. The light was not brilliant, yet sufficient to show
several men within, some sitting and drinking, some in attendance; and
Dolly easily recognised one among the former number. She drew her arm
from Rupert's.
"Now go back to St. Mark's," she whispered. "I wish it. Yes, I would
rather go in alone. Wait for me a little while in front of St. Mark's."
She stood still yet half a minute, making her observations or getting
up her resolution; then with a light, swift step passed into the shop.
Rupert could not obey her and go at once; he felt he must see what she
did and what her reception promised to be; he came a little nearer to
the window and gazed anxiously in. The minutes he stood there burned
the scene for ever into his memory.
The light shone in a wide, spacious apartment, which it but gloomily
revealed. There was nothing whatever of the outward attractions with
which in New York or London a drinking saloon, not of a low order,
would have been made pleasant and inviting. The wine had need to be
good, thought Rupert, when men would come to such a place as this and
spend time there, simply for the pleasure of drinking it. Yet several
men were there, taking that pleasure, even so late as the hour was; and
they were respectable men, at least if their dress could be taken in
testimony. They sat with mugs and glasses before them; one had a plate
of olives also, another had some other tit-bit or provocative; one
seemed to be in converse with Mr. Copley, who was not beyond converse
yet, though Rupert saw he had been some time drinking. His face was
flushed a little, his eyes dull, his features overspread with that
inane stupidity which comes from long-continued and purely sensual
indulgence of any kind, especially under the fumes of wine. To the side
of this man, Rupert saw Dolly go. She went in, as I said, with a light,
quick step, looked at nobody else, made straight to her father, and
laid a hand upon his shoulder. With that she threw back her
head-covering a little,--it was some sort of a scarf, of white and
brown worsted knitting, which lay around her head like a glory, in
Rupert's eyes,--and showed her face to her father. Fair and delicate
and sweet, bright and grave at once, for she _did_ look bright even
there, she stood at his side like his good angel, with her little hand
upon his shoulder. No wonder Mr. Copley started and looked frightened;
that was the first look; and then confused. Rupert understood it all,
though he could not hear what was said. He saw the man was embarrassed.
"Dolly!" said Mr. Copley, falling back upon his first thought, as the
easiest to speak of,--"what is the matter?"
"Nothing with me, father. Will you take me home?"
"Where's your mother?"
"She is at home. But it is pretty late, father."
"Where's Lawrence?"
"I don't know."
"Where is Rupert, then?"
"He is out, somewhere. Will you go home with me, father?"
"How did you come here?" said Mr. Copley, sitting a little straighter
up, and now beginning to replace or conceal confusion with displeasure.
"I will tell you. I will tell you on the way. But shall we go first,
father? I don't like to stay here."
"Here? What in the name of ten thousand devils---- Who brought you
here?"
"I am alone," said Dolly. "Hadn't we better go, father? and then we can
talk as we go."
At this point a half tipsy Venetian rose, and stepping before the pair
with a low reverence, said something to Mr. Copley, of which Dolly only
understood the words, "La bella signorina;" they made her, however,
draw her scarf forward over her face and brought Mr. Copley to his
feet. He could stand, she saw, but whether he could walk very well was
open to question.
"Signer, signor"---- he began, stammering and incensed. Dolly seized
his arm.
"Shall we go, father? It is so late, and mother might want me. It is
very late, father. Never mind anything, but come!"
Mr. Copley was sufficiently himself to see the necessity; nevertheless,
his score must be paid; and his head was in a bad condition for
reckoning. He brought out some silver from his pocket, and stood
somewhat helplessly looking at it and at the shopman alternately; then
with an awkward movement of his elbow contrived to throw over a glass,
which fell on the floor and broke. Everybody was looking now at the
father and daughter, and words came to Dolly's ears which made her
cheek burn. But she stood calm, self-possessed, waiting with a somewhat
lofty air of maidenly dignity; helped her father solve the reckoning,
paid for the glass, and at last got hold of his arm and drew him away;
after a gentle, grave salutation to the attendant which he answered
profoundly, and which brought everybody in the little shop to his feet
in involuntary admiration and respect. Dolly looked at nobody, yet with
sweet courtesy made a distant sign of acknowledgment to their homage,
and the next minute stood outside the shop in the dark little street
and the mild, still air. I think, even at that minute, with the
strange, startling inappropriateness of license which thoughts give
themselves, there flashed across her a sense of the ironical contrast
of things without and within her; without, Venice and her historical
past and her monumental glory; within, a trembling little heart and
present danger and a burden of dishonour. But that was only a flash;
the needs of the minute banished all thinking that was not connected
with action; and the moment's business was to get her father home. She
had no thought now for the picturesque revealings of the moonlight and
obscurings of the shadow. Yet she was conscious of them, in that sharp
flash of contrast.
At getting upon his feet and out into the air and gloom of the little
street, Mr. Copley's head was very contused; or else he had taken more
wine than his daughter guessed. He was not fit to guide himself, or to
take care of her. As he seemed utterly at a standstill, Dolly naturally
and unconsciously set her face to go the way she had come; for one or
two turnings at least she was sure of it. Before those one or two
turnings were made, however, she was shocked and scared to find that
her father's walk was wavering; he swayed a little on his feet. The
street was empty; and if it had not been, what help could Dolly ask
for? A pang of great terror shot through her. She took her father's
arm, to endeavour to hold him fast; a task rather too much for her
little hands and slight frame; and feeling that in spite of her he
still moved unsteadily, and that she was an insufficient help, Dolly's
anguish broke forth in a cry; natural enough in its unreasoningness--
"O father, don't!--remember, I am all alone!"
How much was in the tone of those last words Dolly could not know; they
hardly reached Mr. Copley's sense, though they went through and through
another hearer. The next minute Rupert stood before the pair, and was
offering his arm to Mr. Copley. Not trusting his patron, in the
circumstances, to take care of his young mistress, Rupert had disobeyed
her orders so far as to keep the two figures in sight; he had watched
them from one turning to another, and had seen that his help was
needed, even before he heard Dolly's cry. Then, with a spring, he was
there. Mr. Copley leaned now upon his arm, and Dolly fell behind,
thankful unspeakably for the relief. She knew by this time that she
could never have found her way; and it was plain her father could not.
"Rupert," said Mr. Copley, half recognising the assistance afforded
him, "you're a good fellow, and always in the way when you aren't
wanted, by George!" But he leaned on his arm heavily.
Dolly followed close; she could not well keep beside them; and felt in
that hour more thoroughly lonely perhaps than at any other of her life
before or after. Rupert was a relief; and yet so the shame was
increased. She stepped along through moonlight and shadow, feeling that
light was gone out of her pathway of life for ever, as far as this
world was concerned. What was left, when her father was lost to
her?--her father!--and not by death; _that_ would not have been to lose
him utterly; but now his very identity was gone. Her father, whom all
her life she had loved; manly, frank, able, active, taking the lead in
every society where she had seen him, making other men do his bidding
always, until the passion of gaining and the lust of drink got hold of
him! Was it the same, that figure in front of her, leaning on
somebody's arm and glad to lean, and going with lame, unsteady gait
whither he was led, so like the way his mental course had been lately?
Was that her father? The bitterness of Dolly's feeling it is impossible
to put into words. Tears could bring no relief, and nature did not
summon them to the impossible service. The fire at her heart would have
burnt them up; for there was a strange passion of resistance and sense
of wrong mixed with Dolly's bitter pain. The way was not short, and it
seemed threefold the length it was; every step was so hard, and the
crowd of thoughts was so disproportionately great.
They were rather ruminating thoughts of grief and pain, than
considerative of what was to be done. For the first, the thing was to
get Mr. Copley home. Dolly did not look beyond that. She was glad to
find herself arrived at St. Mark's again; and presently they were all
three in the gondola. Mr. Copley leaned in a corner, laid his head
against a cushion, and slept, or seemed to sleep. The other two were as
silent; but I think both felt at the moment as if they would never
sleep again. Rupert's face was in shadow; he watched Dolly's face which
was in light. She forgot it could be watched; her eyes stared into the
moonshine, not seeing it, or looking through it; the sweet face was so
very grave that the watcher felt his heart ache. Not the gentle gravity
of young maidenhood, looking into the vague light; but the anxious,
searching gaze of older life looking into the vague darkness. Rupert
did not dare speak to her, though he longed. What would he not have
given for the right and the power to comfort! But he knew he had
neither. He had sense enough not to try.
It was customary for Mr. Copley, after he had been late out at night,
to keep to his room until a late hour the next morning; so Dolly knew
what she had to expect. It suited her very well this time, for she must
think what she would say to her father when she next saw him. She took
care that a cup of coffee such as he liked was sent him; and then,
after her own slight breakfast, sat down to plan her movements. So
Rupert found her, with her Bible in her lap, but not reading; sitting
gazing out upon the bright waters of the lagoon. He came up to her,
with a depth of understanding and sympathy in his plain features which
greatly dignified them.
"Does that help?" said he, glancing at the book in Dolly's lap.
"_This?_" said Dolly. "What other help in the world is there?"
"Friends?" suggested Rupert.
"Yes, you were a great help last night," Dolly said slowly. "But there
come times--and things--when friends cannot do anything."
"And then--what does the book do?"
"The book?" Dolly repeated again. "O Rupert! it tells of the Friend
that can do everything!" Her eyes flushed with tears and she clasped
her hands as she spoke.
"What?" said Rupert; for her action was eloquent, and he was curious;
and besides he liked to make her talk.
Dolly looked at him and saw that the question was serious. She opened
her book.
"Listen. 'Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content
with such things as ye have; for He hath said, I will never leave thee
nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and
I will not fear what man shall do unto me.'"
"That makes pretty close work of it. Can you get hold of that rope? and
how much strain will it bear?"
"I believe it will bear anything," said Dolly slowly and thoughtfully;
"if one takes hold with both hands. I guess the trouble with me is,
that I only take hold with one."
"What do you do with the other hand?"
"Stretch it out towards something else, I suppose. For, see here,
Rupert;--'Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on
Thee; because he trusteth in Thee.'--I am just ashamed of myself!" said
Dolly, breaking down and bursting into tears.
"What for?" said Rupert.
"Because I do not trust so."
"I should think it would be very difficult."
"It ought not to be difficult to trust a friend whose truth you know.
There! that has done me good," said the girl, sitting up and brushing
away the tears. "Rupert, if there is anything you want to see or to do
here in Venice, be about it; for I think we shall go off to Rome at
once."
She told the same thing to St. Leger when he came in; and having got
rid of both the young men set herself anew to consider how she should
speak to her father. And consideration helped nothing; she could not
tell; she had to leave it to the moment to decide.
It was late in the morning, later than the usual hour for the déjeuner
à la fourchette, which Mr. Copley liked. He did not want anything
to-day, his wife said; and she and Dolly and Rupert had finished their
meal. Dolly contrived then that her mother should go out under Rupert's
convoy, to visit the curiosity shop again, (nothing else would have
tempted her), and to make one or two little purchases for which Dolly
gave Rupert the means. When they were fairly off, she went to her
father's room; he was up and dressed, she knew. She went with a very
faint heart, not knowing in the least what she would do or say, but
feeling that something must be said and done, both.
Mr. Copley was sitting listlessly in a chair by the window; miserable
enough, Dolly could see by the gloomy blank of his face; looking out,
and caring for nothing that he saw. His features showed traces of the
evening before, in red eyes and pale cheeks; and yet worse, in the
spiritless, abased expression, which was more than Dolly could bear.
She had come in very quietly, but when she saw this she made one spring
to his side and sank down on the floor before him, hiding her face on
his knee. Mr. Copley's trembling hand presently lifted her up into his
arms, and Dolly sat on his knee and buried her face in his breast.
Neither of them was ready to speak; neither did speak for some time. It
was Mr. Copley who began.
"Well, Dolly,--I suppose you will say to me that I have broken my word?"
"O father!"--it came in a sort of despair from Dolly's heart,--"what
shall we do?"
Mr. Copley had certainly no answer ready to this question; and his next
words were a departure.
"How came you to be at that place last night?"
"I was afraid you were there"----
"How did you dare come poking about through all those crooked ways, and
at that time of night?"
"Father," Dolly said, without lifting her head, "that was nothing. I
dared nothing, compared with what you dared!"
"I? You are mistaken, child. I did not run the slightest risk. In fact,
I was only doing what everybody else does. You make much of nothing, in
your inexperience."
"Father," said Dolly, with a great effort, "you promised me. And when a
man cannot keep his promise"----
She had meant to be perfectly quiet; she had begun very calmly; but at
that word, suddenly, her calmness failed her. It was too much; and with
a sort of wailing cry, which in its forlornness reached and wrung even
Mr. Copley's nerves, she broke into a terrible passion of weeping.
Terrible! young hearts ought never to know such an agony; and never,
never should such an agony be known for the shame or even the weakness
of a father. The hand appointed to shield, the love which ought to
shelter,--when the blow comes from _that_ quarter, it finds the heart
bare and defenceless indeed, and comes so much the harder in that it
comes from so near. No other more distant can give such a stroke. And
to the young heart, unaccustomed to sorrow, new to life, not knowing
how many its burdens and how heavy; not knowing on the other hand the
equalising, tempering effects of time; the first great pain comes
crushing. The shoulders are not adjusted to the burden, and they feel
as if they must break. Dolly's sobs were so convulsive and racking that
her father was startled and shocked. What had he done? Alas, the man
never knows what he has done; he cannot understand how women die,
before their time, that death of the heart which is out of the range of
masculine nature.
"Dolly!--Dolly!" Mr. Copley cried, "what is the matter? Don't, Dolly,
if you love me. My child, what have I done? Don't you know _everybody_
takes a little wine? Are you wiser than all the world?"
"You promised, father!" Dolly managed to say.
"Perhaps I promised too much. You see, Dolly,--_don't_ cry so!--a man
must do as the rest of the world do. It isn't possible to live a
separate life, as you would have me. It would make me ridiculous. It
would not do. There's no harm in a little wine, child."
"Father, you promised!" Dolly repeated, clinging to him. She was not
shrinking away; her arms of love were wrapped round his neck as
tenderly as even in old childish days; they had power over Mr. Copley,
power which he could not quite resist nor break away from. He returned
their pressure, he even kissed her, feeling, I am happy to say, a
little ashamed of himself.
"You don't want me to be ridiculous, Dolly?" he repeated, not knowing
what to say.
What should she answer to that? No, she did not want him to be
ridiculous; and as he spoke she recalled the staggering, impotent
figure of last night, in its unmanly feebleness and senseless idiocy. A
sense of the difficulty of her task and the vanity of her
representations came over Dolly; it gave her new food for tears, but
the present effect was to make her stop them. I suppose despair does
not weep. Dolly was not despairing, either.
"What shall we do, father?" she asked, ignoring all his remarks and
suggestions.
"Do, Dolly? About what?"
"Don't you think we will not stay any longer in Venice?"
"For all I care! Where, then?"
"To Rome, father?"
"I thought you were to be in Rome at Christmas?"
"It is not so very long till Christmas."
"Is your mother agreed?"
"She will be, if you say so."
"If it pleases you, Dolly--I don't care."
"And, father, dear father! won't you keep your promise to me? What is
to become of us, father?"
Some bitter tears flowed again as she said this quietly; but Mr. Copley
knew they were flowing, and he had an intuitive sense that they were
bitter. They embarrassed him.
"I'll make a bargain, Dolly," he said after a pause. "I'll do what you
want of me--anything you want--if you'll marry St. Leger."
"But, father, I have not made up my mind to like him enough for that."
"You will like him well enough. If you were to marry him you would be
devoted to him. I know you."
"I think the devotion ought to come first."
"Nonsense. That is romantic folly. Novels are one thing, and real life
is another."
"I daresay; but do you object to people's being a little romantic?"
"When it interferes with their bread and butter, I do."
"Father, if you would drink no wine, we could all of us have as much
bread and butter as we choose."
"You are always harping on that!" said Mr. Copley, frowning.
"Because, our whole life depends on it, father. You cannot bear wine as
some people can, I suppose; the habit is growing on you; mother and I
are losing you, we do not even have but half a sight of you;
and--father--we are wanting necessaries. But I do not think of _that_,"
Dolly went on eagerly; "I do not care; I am willing to live on dry
bread, and work for the means to get it; but I cannot bear to lose you,
father! I cannot bear it!--and it will kill mother. She does not know;
I have kept her from knowing; she knows nothing about what happened
last night. O father, do not let her know! Would anything pay you for
breaking her heart and mine? Is wine more to you than we are? O father,
father! let us go home to America, and quit all these people and
associations that make it so hard for you to be yourself. I want you to
be your dear old self, father! Your dear self, that I love"----
Dolly's voice was choked, and she sobbed. Mr. Copley was not quite
insensible. He was silent a good while, hearing her sobs, and then he
groaned; a groan partly of real feeling, partly, I am afraid, of desire
to have the scene ended; the embarrassment and the difficulty disposed
of and behind him. But he thought it had been an expression of deeper
feeling solely.
"I'll do anything you like, my dear child," he said. "Only stop crying.
You break my heart."
"Father, will you really do something if I ask you?"
"Anything! Only stop crying so."
"Then, father, write and sign it, that you will not ever touch wine.
Rupert and I have taken such a pledge already."
"What is the use of writing and signing? I don't see. A man can let it
alone without that."
"He can, if he wants to let it alone; but if he is very much tempted,
then the pledge is a help."
"What did you and Rupert do such a thing as that for?"
"I wanted to save him."
"Make _him_ take the pledge, then. Why you?"
"How could I ask him to do what I would not do myself? But I've done
it, father; now will you join us?"
"Pshaw!" said Mr. Copley, displeased. "Now you have incapacitated
yourself from appearing as others do in society. How would you refuse,
if you were asked to drink wine with somebody at a dinner-table?"
"Very easily. I should think all women would refuse," said Dolly.
"Father, will you join us, and let us all be unfashionable and happy
together?"
"Did St. Leger pledge himself?"
"I have not asked him."
"Well, I will if he will."
"For him, father, and not for me?" said Dolly.
"Ask him," said Mr. Copley. "I'll do as he does."
"Father, you might set an example to him."
"I'll let him set the example for me," said Mr. Copley rising. And
Dolly could get no further.
But it was settled that they were to leave Venice. What was to be
gained by this step Dolly did not quite know; yet it was a step, that
was something. It was something, too, to get out of the neighbourhood
of that wine-shop, of which Dolly thought with horror. What might await
them in Rome she did not know; at least the bonds of habit in
connection with a particular locality would be broken. And Venice was
grown odious to her.