one day, at the close of a long conversation. "For I'd always been so
fond of the boy; I had him first when he warn't but two years old--just
a baby--and _so_ purty and cunning! He always called me mamma--the only
one of the children, 'cept poor Nounce there, that really seemed to care
for me. And I cared everything for him. I went straight down to town and
hunted all over. But he warn't to be found. I tried it the next day, and
the next, not saying what I wanted, of course; but nobody knew where he
was, and at last I made up my mind that he'd gone away. For three weeks
I waited; I was almost dead; I couldn't do nothing; I felt as if I was
broke in two, and only the skin held me together. Every morning I'd say
to myself, 'There'll certainly come a letter to-day, and he'll tell me
all about it.' But the letter didn't come, and didn't come. From the
beginning, of course, I knew it was him--I couldn't help but know; Jo
Vanny was the only person in the whole world that knew where it was. For
I'd showed it to him one day--the work-box, I mean--and let him put it
back in the hole behind the hay--'twas the time I took the money out for
Patro. At last I did get a letter, and he said as how he'd meant to put
it back the very next morning, sure. But something had happened, so he
couldn't, and so he'd gone away. And now he was working just as hard as
he could, he said, so as to be able to pay it back soon; he hardly
played on his mandolin at all now, he said, he was working so hard. You
see, he wasn't bad himself, poor little fellow, but he was led away by
bad men; gambling's an awful thing, once you get started in it, and he
was sort of _drove_ to take that money, meaning all the while to pay it
back. Well, of course I felt ever so much better just as soon as I got
that letter. And I began to work again. But I didn't get on as well as
I'd oughter; I can't understand why. That day, now, when I first saw
you--when you ran in to help me--I hadn't been feeling sick at all;
there warn't no sense in my tumbling down that way all of a sudden."
One lovely afternoon in November Prudence's bed was carried out to the
front of the dark little house.
The cow-shed was gone. A straight path, freshly paved, led down to a
swing gate set in a new paling fence, flower beds bordered the path, and
in the centre of the open spaces on each side there was a large rose
bush. The fence was painted a glittering white; there had been an
attempt at grass; currant bushes in straight rows bordered the two
sides.
Prudence lay looking at it all in peaceful silence. "It's mighty purty,"
she said at last, with grateful emphasis. "It's everything I planned to
have, and a great deal nicer than I could have done it myself, though I
thought about it goodness knows how many years!"
"I'm not surprised that you thought about it," the American answered.
"It was the view you were longing for--fancy its having been cut off so
long by that miserable stable! But now you have it in perfection."
"You mean the view of the garden," said Prudence. "There wasn't much to
look at before; but now it's real sweet."
"No; I mean the great landscape all about us here," responded the
American, surprised. She paused. Then seeing that Prudence did not lift
her eyes, she began to enumerate its features, to point them out with
her folded parasol. "That broad Umbrian plain, Prudence, with those tall
slender trees; the other towns shining on their hills, like Perugia over
there; the gleam of the river; the velvety blue of the mountains; the
color of it all--I do believe it is the very loveliest view in the whole
world!"
"I don't know as I've ever noticed it much--the view," Prudence
answered. She turned her eyes towards the horizon for a moment. "You see
I was always thinking about my front yard."
"The front yard is very nice now," said the American. "I am so glad you
are pleased; we couldn't get snowballs or Missouri currant, so we had to
take roses." She paused; but she could not give up the subject without
one more attempt. "You have probably noticed the view without being
aware of it," she went on; "it is so beautiful that you must have
noticed it. If you should leave it you would find yourself missing it
very much, I dare say."
"Mebbe," responded Prudence. "Still, I ain't so sure. The truth is, I
don't care much for these Eyetalian views; it seems to me a poor sort of
country, and always did." Then, wishing to be more responsive to the
tastes of this new friend, if she could be so honestly, she added, "But
I like views, as a general thing; there was a very purty view from
Sage's Hill, I remember."
"Sage's Hill?"
"Yes; the hill near Ledham. You told me you knew Ledham. You could see
all the fields and medders of Josiah Strong's farm, and Deacon
Mayberry's too; perfectly level, and not a stone in 'em. And the
turnpike for miles and miles, with three toll-gates in sight. Then, on
the other side, there were the factories to make it lively. It was a
sweet view."
A few days afterwards she said: "People tell us that we never get what
we want in this world, don't they? But I'm fortunate. I think I've
always been purty fortunate. I got my front yard, after all."
* * * * *
A week later, when they told her that death was near, "My! I'd no idea I
was so sick as that," she whispered. Then, looking at them anxiously,
"What'll become of Nounce?"
They assured her that Nounce should be provided for. "You know you have
to be sorter patient with her," she explained; "but she's growing
quicker-witted every day."
Later, "I should like so much to see Jo Vanny," she murmured, longingly;
"but of course I can't. You must get Bepper to send him my love, my
dearest, dearest love."
Last of all, as her dulled eyes turned from the little window and rested
upon her friend: "It seems a pity--But perhaps I shall find--"
NEPTUNE'S SHORE
I
Old Mrs. Preston had not been able to endure the hotel at Salerno. She
had therefore taken, for two months, this house on the shore.
"I might as well be here as anywhere, saddled as I am with the
Abercrombies," she remarked to her cousin, Isabella Holland. "Arthur may
really do something: I have hopes of Arthur. But as to Rose, Hildegarde,
and Dorothea, I shall plainly have to drag them about with me, and drag
them about with me, year after year, in the hope that the constant
seeing of so many straight statues, to say nothing of pictures, may at
last teach them to have spines. Here they are now; did you ever see such
shoulders, or rather such a lack of them? Hildegarde, child, come here a
moment," she added, as the three girls drew near. "I have an idea. Don't
you think you could _hold_ your shoulders up a little? Try it now; put
them up high, as though you were shrugging them; and expand your chest
too; you mustn't cramp that. There!--that is what I mean; don't you
think, my dear, that you could keep yourself so?"
Hildegarde, with her shoulders elevated and her long chin run out, began
to blush painfully, until her milk-white face was dyed red. "I am afraid
I could not keep myself so _long_, aunt," she answered, in a low voice.
"Never mind; let them down, then: it's of no use," commented Mrs.
Preston, despairingly. "Go and dance for twenty-five minutes in the
upper hall, all of you. And dance as hard as you can."
The three girls, moving lifelessly, went down the echoing vaulted
corridor. They were sisters, the eldest not quite sixteen, all three
having the same lank figures with sloping shoulders and long thin
throats, and the same curiously white, milk-white skin. Orphans, they
had been sent with their brother Arthur to their aunt, Mrs. Octavia
Preston, five years before, having come to her from one of the West
India Islands, their former home.
"Those girls have done nothing but eat raw meat, take sea baths, and
practise calisthenics and dancing ever since I first took charge of
them," Mrs. Preston was accustomed to remark to intimate friends; "yet
look at them now! Of course I could not send them to school--they would
only grow lanker. So I take them about with me patiently, governess and
all."
But Mrs. Preston was not very patient.
The three girls having disappeared, Isabella thought the occasion
favorable for a few words upon another subject. "Do you like to have
Paulie riding so often with Mr. Ash, Cousin Octavia? I can't help being
distressed about it."
"Don't be Mistering John Ash, I beg; no one in the world but you,
Isabella, would dream of doing it--a great swooping creature like
that--the horseman in 'Heliodorus.'"
"You mean Raphael's fresco? Oh, Cousin Octavia, how can you think so?
Raphael--such a religious painter, and John Ash, who looks so
dissipated!"
"Did I say he didn't look dissipated? I said he could ride. John Ash is
one of the most dissipated-looking youths I have ever met," pursued Mrs.
Preston, comfortably. "The clever sort, not the brutal."
"And you don't mind Paulie's being with him?"
"Pauline Euphemia Graham has been married, Pauline Euphemia Graham is a
widow; it ill becomes those who have not had a tithe of her experience
(though they may be _much_ older) to set themselves up as judges of her
conduct."
Mrs. Preston had a deep rich voice, and slow enunciation; her simplest
sentences, therefore, often took on the tone of declamation, and when
she held forth at any length, it was like a Gregorian chant.
"Oh, I didn't mean to judge, I'm sure," said Isabella; "I only meant
that it would be such a pity--such a bad match for dear Paulie in case
she should be thinking of marrying again. Even if one were sure of John
Ash--and certainly the reverse is the case--look at his mother! I am
interested, naturally, as Paulie is my first cousin, you know."
"Do you mean that your first cousin's becoming Mrs. John Ash might
endanger your own matrimonial prospects?"
"Oh dear no," said poor little Isabella, shrinking back to her
embroidery. She was fifty, small, plain, extremely good. In her heart
she wished that people would take the tone that Isabella had "never
cared to marry."
"Here is Pauline now, I think," said Mrs. Preston, as a figure appeared
at the end of the hall.
Isabella was afraid to add, "And going out to ride again!" But it was
evident that Mrs. Graham intended to ride: she wore her habit.
"I wish you were going, too," she said to Mrs. Preston, pausing in the
doorway with her skirt uplifted. Her graceful figure in the closely
fitting habit was a pleasant sight to see.
"Thanks, my dear; I should enjoy going very much if I were a little more
slender."
"You are magnificent as you are," responded Pauline, admiringly.
And in truth the old lady was very handsome, with her thick silver hair,
fine eyes with heavy black eyebrows, and well-cut aquiline profile. Her
straight back, noble shoulders, and beautiful hands took from her
massive form the idea of unwieldiness.
"Isabella--you who are always posing for enthusiasm--when will you learn
to say anything so genuine as that?" chanted Cousin Octavia's deep
voice. "I mention it merely on your account, as a question of styles
conversational. Here is Isabella, who thinks John Ash so dissipated,
Pauline; she fears that it may injure the family connection if you marry
him. I have told her that no one here was thinking of marrying or of
giving in marriage; if she has such ideas, she must have brought them
with her from Florence. There are a great many old maids in Florence."
"I can only answer for myself: I certainly am not thinking of marriage,"
said Pauline, laughing, as she went down the stairs.
"Oh, Cousin Octavia, you have set Pauline against me!" exclaimed
Isabella, in distress.
"Don't be an idiot; Pauline isn't against any one: she doesn't care
enough about it. She is a good deal for herself, I acknowledge; but
she's not against any one. Pauline bears no malice; she is delightfully
uncertain; she hasn't a theory in the world to live up to; in addition,
to have her in the house is like going to the play all the time--she
_is_ such a stupendous liar!"
Isabella, who was punching round holes in a linen band with an implement
of ivory, stopped punching. "I am sure poor Paulie--"
"Am I to sit through a defence of Pauline Euphemia Graham, born Preston,
at your hands, Isabella? Pray spare me that. I am much more Pauline's
friend than you ever can be. Did I say that she lied? Nature has given
her a face that speaks one language and a mind that speaks another; she,
of course, follows the language of her mind; but others follow that of
her face, and this makes the play. Eh!--what noise is that?"
"We have come to pay you a visit, Aunt Octavia," called a boyish voice;
its owner was evidently mounting the stairs three at a time: now he was
in the room. "They're all down at the door--Freemantle and Gates and
Beckett. And what do you think--we've got Griff!"
"Griff himself?" said Aunt Octavia, benevolently, as the lad, with a
very pretty gallantry, bent to kiss her hand.
"Yes, Griff himself; you may be sure we're drawing like mad. Griff has
come down from Paris for only three weeks, and he says he will go with
us to Paestum, and all about here--to Amalfi, Ravello, and everywhere.
But of course Paestum's the stunner."
"Yes, of course Paestum's the stunner," repeated Aunt Octavia, as if
trying it in Shakespearian tones.
"I say, may they come up?" Arthur went on.
They came up--three boys of seventeen and eighteen, and Griffith Carew,
who was ten years older. These three youths, with Arthur Abercrombie,
were studying architecture at the Beaux-Arts, Paris; this spring they
had given to a tour in Italy for the purpose of making architectural
drawings. Griffith Carew was also an architect, but a full-fledged one.
His indomitable perseverance and painstaking accuracy caused all the
younger men to respect him; the American students went further; they
were sure that Griff had only to "let himself go," and the United States
would bloom from end to end with City Halls of beauty unparalleled. In
the mean time Griff, while waiting for the City Halls perhaps, was so
kind-hearted and jovial and unselfish that they all adored him for that
too. It was a master-treat, therefore, to Arthur and his companions, to
have their paragon to themselves for a while on this temple-haunted
shore.
Griff sat down placidly, and began to talk to Aunt Octavia. He was of
medium height, his figure heavy and strong; he had a dark complexion and
thick features, lighted by pleasant brown eyes, and white teeth that
gleamed when he smiled.
Aunt Octavia was gracious to Griff; she had always distinguished him
from "Arthur's horde." This was not in the least because the horde
considered him the architect of the future. Aunt Octavia did not care
much about the future; her tests were those of the past. She had known
Griff's mother, and the persons whose mothers Aunt Octavia had
known--ah, that was a certificate!
II
In the meanwhile Pauline Graham had left Salerno behind her, and was
flying over the plain with John Ash.
Pauline all her life had had a passion for riding at breakneck speed;
one of the explanations of her fancy for Ash lay in the fact that,
having the same passion himself, he enabled her to gratify her own.
Whenever she had felt in the mood during the past five weeks there had
always been a horse and a mounted escort at her door. Upon this
occasion, after what they called an inspiring ride (to any one else a
series of mad gallops), they had dismounted at a farm-house, and leaving
their horses, had strolled down to the shore. It was a lovely day,
towards the last of March; the sea, of the soft misty blue of the
southern Mediterranean, stretched out before them without a sail; at
their feet the same clear water laved the shore in long smooth wavelets,
hardly a foot high, whose gentle roll upon the sands had an
indescribably caressing sound. There was no one in sight. It is a lonely
coast. Pauline stood, gazing absently over the blue.
"Sit down for a moment," suggested Ash.
"Not now."
"Not now? When do you expect to be here again?"
She came back to the present, laughing. "True; but I did not mean that;
I meant that you were not the ideal companion for sea-side musing; you
never meditate. I venture to say you have never quoted poetry in your
life."
"No; I live my poetry," John Ash responded.
"But for a ride you are perfect; for a rush over the plain, in the teeth
of the wind, I have never had any one approaching you. You are a
cavalier of the gods."
"Have you had many?"
"Cavaliers?--plenty. Of the gods?--no."
"Plenty! I reckon you have," said Ash, half to himself.
"Would you wish me to have had few? You must remember that I have been
in many countries and have seen many peoples. I shouldn't have
appreciated _you_ otherwise; I should have thought you dangerous--horrible!
There is Isabella, who has not been in many countries; Isabella is sure
that you are 'so dissipated.'"
"Dissipated!--mild term!"
"Then you acknowledge it?"
"Freely."
Pauline looked about for a rock of the right height, and finding one,
seated herself, and began to draw off her gloves. "Some time--in some
other existence--will you come and tell me how it has paid you, please?
You are so preternaturally intelligent, and you have such a will of your
own, that you cannot have fallen into it from stupidity, as so many do."
Her gloves off, she began to tighten the braids of her hair, loosened by
the gallop.
"It pays as it goes; it makes one forget for a moment the hideous
tiresomeness of existence. But you put your question off to some other
life; you have no intention, then, of redeeming me in this?"
"I shouldn't succeed. In the first place, I have no influence--"
"You know I am your slave," said Ash; his voice suddenly deepened.
"And how much of a slave shall you be to the next pretty peasant girl
you meet?" Mrs. Graham demanded, turning towards him, both hands still
occupied with her hair.
"I don't deny that. But it has nothing to do with the subject."
"In one way I know it has not," she answered, after she had fastened the
last braid in its place with a long gold pin.
"How right I was to like you! You understand of yourself the thing that
so few women can ever be brought to comprehend. Well, if you acknowledge
that it makes no difference--I mean about the peasant girls--we're just
where we were; I am your slave, yet you have no desire to reclaim me. I
believe you like me better as I am," he added, abruptly.
"Do you want me to tell you that you are impertinent?" demanded Pauline,
with her lovely smile, that always contradicted in its sweetness any
apparent rebuke expressed by her words. "Do I know what you are in
reality, or care to know? I know what you seem, and what you seem is
admirable, perfect, for these rides of ours, the most enchanting rides I
have ever had."
"And the rides are to be the end of it? You wouldn't care for me
elsewhere?"
"Ah!" said Pauline, rising and drawing on her gloves, "you wouldn't care
for _me_. In Paris I am altogether another person; I am not at all as
you see me here. In Paris you would call me a doll. Come, don't dissect
the happy present; enjoy it as I do. 'He only is rich who owns the day,'
and we own this--for our ride."
[Illustration: "'YOU KNOW I AM YOUR SLAVE'"]
"'I hear the hoofs upon the hill;
I hear them fainter, fainter still,'"
she sang in her clear voice. "The idea of that old Virginia song coming
to me here!"
"This talk about reclaiming and reforming is all bosh," remarked Ash,
leaning back against a high fragment of rock, with his hands in his
pockets. "I am what I am because I choose to be, that's all. The usual
successes of American life, what are they? I no longer care a rap about
them, because I've had them, or at least have seen them within my reach.
I came up from nothing; I got an education--no matter now how I got it;
I studied law. In ten years I had won such a position in my profession
(my branch of it--I was never an office lawyer) that everything lay open
before me. It was only a question of a certain number of years. Not only
was this generally prophesied, but I knew it myself. But by that time I
had found out the unutterable stupidity of people and their pursuits; I
couldn't help despising them. I had made enough to make my mother
comfortable, and there came over me a horror of a plodding life. I said
to myself, 'What is the use of it?' Of pleasure there was no question.
But I could go back to that plodding life to-morrow if I chose. Don't
you believe it, Pauline?"
"Yes."
"Yet you don't say--try?"
"Try, by all means."
"At a safe distance from you!"
"Yes, at a safe distance from me," Pauline answered. "I should do you no
good; I am not enough in earnest. I am never in earnest long about
anything. I am changeable, too--you have no idea how changeable. There
has been no opportunity to show you."
"Is that a threat? You know that I am deeply in love with you." He did
not move as he said this, but his eyes were fixed passionately upon her
face.
"I neither know it nor believe it; it is with you simply as it is with
me--there is no one else here." She stood there watching the wavelets
break at her feet. Nothing in her countenance corresponded in the least
with the description she had just given of herself.
"How you say that! What am I to think of you? You have a face to
worship: does it lie?" said Ash.
"Oh, my face!" She turned, and began to cross the field towards the
farm.
"It shouldn't have that expression, then," he said, joining her, and
walking by her side. "I don't believe you know what it is yourself,
Pauline--that expression. It seems to say as you talk, coming straight
from those divine lips, those sweet eyes: 'I could love you. Be good and
I will.' Why, you have almost made _me_ determine to be 'good' again,
almost made _me_ begin to dream of going back to that plodding life that
I loathe. And you don't know what I am."
Mrs. Graham did not answer; she did not look up, though she knew that
his head was bent beseechingly towards her.
John Ash was obliged to bend; he was very tall. His figure was rather
thin, and he had a slouching gait; his broad shoulders and well-knit
muscles showed that he had plenty of force, and his slouching step
seemed to come from laziness, as though he found it too much trouble to
plant his feet firmly, to carry his long length erect. He was holding
his hat in his hand, and the light from the sea showed his face
clearly, its good points and its bad. His head was well shaped, covered
with thick brown hair, closely cut; but, in spite of the shortness, many
silver threads could be seen on the brown--a premature silver, as he was
not yet thirty-five. His face was beardless, thin, with a bold
eagle-like outline, and strong, warm blue eyes, the blue eyes that go
with a great deal of color. Ordinarily, Ash had now but little color;
that is, there was but little red; his complexion had a dark brown hue;
there were many deep lines. The mouth, the worst feature, had a cynical
droop; the jaw conveyed suggestions that were not agreeable. The
expression of the whole countenance was that of recklessness and
cleverness, both of no common order. Of late the recklessness had often
changed into a more happy merriment when he was with Pauline, the
careless merriment of a boy; one could see then plainly how handsome he
must have been before the lines, and the heaviness, and, alas! the evil,
had come to darken his youth, and to sadden (for so it must have been)
his silent, frightened-looking mother.
They reached the farm; he led out the horses, and mounted her. She
gathered up the reins; but he still held the bridle. "How tired you
look!" he said.
Her face was flushed slightly, high on the cheeks close under the eyes;
between the fair eyebrows a perpendicular line was visible; for the
moment, she showed to the full her thirty years.
"Yes, I am tired; and it's dangerous to tire me," she answered, smiling.
She had recovered her light-hearted carelessness.
Ash still looked at her. A sudden conviction seemed to seize him. "Don't
throw me over, Pauline," he pleaded. And as he spoke, on his brown,
deeply lined face there was an expression which was boyishly young and
trusting.
"As I told you, so long as there is no one else," Pauline answered.
The next moment they were flying over the plain.
III
The _table d'hote_ of the Star of Italy, the Salerno inn from whose
mysteries (of eels and chestnuts) Mrs. Preston had fled--this unctuous
_table d'hote_ had been unusually brilliant during this month of March;
upon several occasions there had been no less than fifteen travellers
present, and the operatic young landlord himself, with his affectionate
smile, had come in to hand the peas.
The most unnoticed person was always a tall woman of fifty-five, who,
entering with noiseless step, slipped into her chair so quickly and
furtively that it seemed as if she were afraid of being seen standing
upon her feet. Once in her place, she ate sparingly, looking neither to
the right nor the left, holding her knife and fork with care, and laying
them down cautiously, as though she were trying not to waken some one
who was asleep. But the _table d'hote_ of the Star of Italy was never
asleep; the travellers, English and American, could not help feeling
that they were far from home on this shore where so recently brigands
had prowled. It is well known that this feeling promotes conversation.
One evening a pink-cheeked woman, who wore a little round lace cap
perched on the top of her smooth gray hair, addressed the silent
stranger at her left hand. "You have been to Paestum, I dare say?" she
said, in her pleasant English voice.
"No."