admire, even more, the clear, strong, good sense which has carried you
through."
"I had my mother to think of; my--good sense might not have been so
faithful otherwise."
"You do not think of returning to America?"
"Probably not; I doubt if my mother could bear the voyage now. We have
no one to call us back but my brother, and he has not been with us for
years, and would not be if we should return; he lives in California. We
sold the farm, too, before we came. No; for the present, at least, it is
better for us to remain here."
"There is one more question I should like to ask," said Noel, later.
"But I have no possible right to do so."
"I will give you the right. When I remember the things I asked you to do
for me, the demands I made upon your time, I can well answer a few
questions in return. I was a miracle of ignorance."
"I always did you justice in those respects, Miss Macks; all that I
understood at once. My question refers to Horace Jackson: I see you
appreciated his worth--which was rare--yet you would not marry him."
"I did not love him."
"Did any of his relatives come out from England?" he said, after a
moment of silence.
"After his death a cousin came."
"As heir to what was left?"
"Yes."
"He should have left it to you."
"He wished to do so. Of course, I would not accept it."
"I thank you for answering. My curiosity was not an idle one." He
paused. "If you will permit me to express it, your course has been very
brave and true. I greatly admire it."
"You are kind," said Miss Macks.
There was not in her voice any indication of sarcasm. Yet the fact that
he immediately thought of it made him suspect that it was there. He took
leave soon afterwards. He was smarting a little under the sarcasm he had
divined, and, as he was, it was like him to request permission to come
again.
For Raymond Noel lived up with a good deal of determination to his own
standard of what was manly; if his standard was not set on any very fine
elevation of self-sacrifice or heroism, it was at least firmly
established where it did stand, and he kept himself fairly near it. If
Miss Macks was sarcastic, he had been at fault somewhere; he would try
to atone.
He saw her four times during the five weeks of his stay in Rome; upon
three other occasions when he went to the street of the Hyacinth she was
not at home. The third week in April he decided to go to Venice. Before
going he asked if there was not something he could do for her; but she
said there was nothing, and he himself could think of nothing. She was
well established in her new life and occupations, and needed nothing--at
least, nothing that he could bestow.
The next winter he came back to Rome early in the season, before
Christmas. By chance one of the first persons he encountered was Mrs.
Lawrence. She began immediately to tell him a piece of American news, in
which he, as an American, would of course be interested; the news was
that "the brother of the Princess C---- --that is Count L----, you
know--is determined to marry Ettie Macks. You remember her, don't you? I
introduced you to her at the Dudley reception, three years ago."
Noel thought that probably he remembered her better than Mrs. Lawrence
did, seeing that that lady had never troubled herself to enter the
street of the Hyacinth. But he did her injustice. Mrs. Lawrence had
troubled herself--lately.
"It seems that she has been out at Albano for two summers, as governess
to his sister's children; it was there that he saw her. He has announced
his determination to the family, and they are immensely disturbed and
frightened; they had it all arranged for him to marry a second cousin
down at Naples, who is rich--these Italians are so worldly, you know!
But he is very determined, they say, and will do as he pleases in spite
of them. He hasn't much money, but of course it's a great match for
Ettie Macks. She will be a countess, and now, I suppose, more American
girls will come over than ever before! Of course, as soon as I heard of
it, I went to see her. I felt that she would need advice about a hundred
things. In the beginning she brought a letter of introduction to me from
a dear cousin of mine, and, naturally, she would rely upon me as her
chief friend now. She is very much improved. She was rather silent; but,
of course, I shall go again. The count is willing to take the mother,
too, and that, under the circumstances, is not a small matter; she is a
good deal to take. Until the other day I had not seen Mrs. Spurr!
However, I suppose that her deficiencies are not apparent in a language
she cannot speak. If her daughter would only insist upon her dressing in
black! But the old lady told me herself, in the most cheerful way, that
she liked 'a sprinkling of color.' And at the moment, I assure you, she
had on five different shades of red!"
Noel had intended to present himself immediately at the street of the
Hyacinth; but a little attack of illness kept him in for a while, and
ten days had passed before he went up the dark stairway. The maid said
that Miss Macks was at home; presently she came in. They had ten minutes
of conversation upon ordinary topics, and then he took up the especial
one.
"I am told that you are soon to be a countess," he said, "and I have
come to give you my best good wishes. My congratulations I reserve for
Count L----, with whom I have a slight acquaintance; he is, in my
opinion, a very fortunate man."
"Yes, I think he is fortunate; fortunate in my refusal. I shall not
marry Count L----."
"He is not a bad fellow."
"Isn't your praise somewhat faint?" This time the sarcasm was visible.
"Oh, I am by no means his advocate! All I meant was that, as these
modern Romans go, he was not among the worst. Of course I should have
expressed myself very differently if you had said you were to marry
him."
"Yes; you would then have honored me with your finest compliments."
He did not deny this.
"Shall you continue to live in Rome?" he asked.
"Certainly. I shall have more pupils and patronage now than I know what
to do with; the whole family connection is deeply obliged to me."
They talked awhile longer.
"We have always been unusually frank with each other, Miss Macks," he
said, towards the end of his visit. "We have never stopped at
conventionalities. I wonder if you will tell me why you refused him?"
"You are too curious. As to frankness, I have been frank with you; not
you with me. And there was no conventionality, simply because I did not
know what it was."
"I believe you are in love with some one in America," he said, laughing.
"Perhaps I am," answered Miss Macks. She had certainly gained greatly in
self-possession during the past year.
He saw her quite frequently after this. Her life was no longer solitary.
As she had said, she was overwhelmed with pupils and patronage from the
friends of the Princess C----; in addition, the American girl who had
refused a fairly-indorsed and well-appearing count was now something of
a celebrity among the American visitors in Rome. That they knew of her
refusal was not her fault; the relatives of Count L---- had announced
their objections as loud and widely as the count had announced his
determination. Apparently neither side had thought of a non-acceptance.
Cards, not a few, were sent to the street of the Hyacinth; some persons
even climbed the five flights of stairs. Mrs. Spurr saw a good deal of
company--and enjoyed it.
Noel was very fond of riding; when in Rome he always rode on the
Campagna. He had acted as escort to various ladies, and one day he
invited Miss Macks to accompany him--that is, if she were fond of
riding. She had ridden in America, and enjoyed it; she would like to go
once, if he would not be troubled by an improvised habit. They went
once. Then a second time, an interval of three weeks between. Then,
after a while, a third time.
Upon this occasion an accident happened, the first of Noel's life; his
horse became frightened, and, skilled rider though he was, he was
thrown. He was dragged, too, for a short distance. His head came against
some stones, and he lost consciousness. When it came back it did not
come wholly. He seemed to himself to be far away, and the girl who was
weeping and calling his name to be upon the other side of a wide space
like an ocean, over which, without volition of his own, he was being
slowly wafted. As he came nearer, still slowly, he perceived that in
some mysterious way she was holding in her arms something that seemed to
be himself, although he had not yet reached her. Then, gradually, spirit
and body were reunited, he heard what she was saying, and felt her
touch. Even then it was only after several minutes that he was able to
move and unclose his heavy eyes.
When she saw that he was not dead, her wild grief was at once merged in
the thought of saving him. She had jumped from her horse, she knew not
how; but he had not strayed far; a shepherd had seen him, and was now
coming towards them. He signalled to another, and the two carried Noel
to a house which was not far distant. A messenger was sent to the city;
aid came, and before night Noel was in his own rooms at the head of the
Via Sistina, near the Spanish steps.
His injuries proved to be not serious; he had lost consciousness from
the shock, and this, with his pallor and the blood from the cuts made by
the stones, had given him the look of death. The cuts, however, were not
deep; the effect of the shock passed away. He kept his bed for a week
under his physician's advice; he had a good deal of time to think during
that week. Later his friends were admitted. As has been said before,
Noel was a favorite in Rome, and he had friends not a few. Those who
could not come in person sent little notes and baskets of flowers. Among
these Miss Macks was not numbered. But then she was not fashionable.
At the end of two weeks the patient was allowed to go out. He took a
short walk to try his strength, and, finding that it held out well, he
went to the street of the Hyacinth.
Miss Macks was at home. She was "so glad" to see him out again; and was
he "really strong enough;" and he "should be very prudent for a while;"
and so forth and so forth. She talked more than usual, and, for her,
quite rapidly.
He let her go on for a time. Then he took the conversation into his own
hands. With few preliminaries, and with much feeling in his voice and
eyes, he asked her to be his wife.
She was overwhelmed with astonishment; she turned very white, and did
not answer. He thought she was going to burst into tears. But she did
not; she only sat gazing at him, while her lips trembled. He urged his
point; he spoke strongly.
"You are worth a hundred of me," he said. "You are true and sincere; I
am a dilettante in everything. But, dilettante as I am, in one way I
have always appreciated you, and, lately, all other ways have become
merged in that one. I am much in earnest; I know what I am doing; I have
thought of it searchingly and seriously, and I beg you to say yes."
He paused. Still she did not speak.
"Of course I do not ask you to separate yourself from your mother," he
went on, his eyes dropping for the moment to the brim of his hat, which
he held in his hand; "I shall be glad if she will always make her home
with us."
Then she did speak. And as her words came forth, the red rose in her
face until it was deeply colored.
"With what an effort you said that! But you will not be tried. One gray
hair in my mother's head is worth more to me, Mr. Noel, than anything
you can offer."
"I knew before I began that this would be the point of trouble between
us, Faith," he answered. "I can only assure you that she will find in me
always a most respectful son."
"And when you were thinking so searchingly and seriously, it was _this_
that you thought of--whether you could endure her! Do you suppose that I
do not see the effort? Do you suppose I would ever place my mother in
such a position? Do you suppose that you are of any consequence beside
her, or that anything in this world weighs in my mind for one moment
compared with her happiness?"
"We can make her happy; I suppose that. And I suppose another thing, and
that is that we could be very happy ourselves if we were married."
"The Western girl, the girl from Tuscolee! The girl who thought she
could paint, and could not! The girl who knew so little of social rules
that she made a fool of herself every time she saw you!"
"All this is of no consequence, since it is the girl I love," answered
Noel.
"You do not. It is a lie. Oh, of course, a very unselfish and noble one;
but a lie, all the same. You have thought of it seriously and
searchingly? Yes, but only for the last fourteen days! I understand it
all now. At first I did not, I was confused; but now I see the whole.
You were not unconscious out there on the Campagna; you heard what I
said when I thought you were dying, or dead. And so you come--come very
generously and self-sacrificingly, I acknowledge that--and ask me to be
your wife." She rose; her eyes were brilliant as she faced him. "I might
tell you that it was only the excitement, that I did not know or mean
what I was saying; I might tell you that I did not know that I had said
anything. But I am not afraid. I will not, like you, tell a lie, even
for a good purpose. I did love you; there, you have it! I have loved you
for a long time, to my sorrow and shame. For I do not respect you or
admire you; you have been completely spoiled, and will always remain so.
I shall make it the one purpose of my life from this moment to overcome
the feeling I have had for you; and I shall succeed. Nothing could make
me marry you, though you should ask me a thousand times."
"I shall ask but once," said Noel. He had risen also; and, as he did, he
remembered the time when they had stood in the same place and position,
facing each other, and she had told him that she was at his feet. "I did
hear what you said. And it is of that I have been seriously thinking
during the days of my confinement to the house. It is also true that it
is what you said which has brought me here to-day. But the reason is
that it has become precious to me--this knowledge that you love me. As I
said before, in one way I have always done you justice, and it is that
way which makes me realize to the full now what such a love as yours
would be to me. If it is true that I am spoiled, as you say I am, a love
like yours would make me better, if anything can." He paused. "I have
not said much about my own feelings," he added; "I know you will not
credit me with having any. But I think I have. I think that I love you."
"It is of little moment to me whether you do or not."
"You are making a mistake," he said, after a pause, during which their
eyes had met in silence.
"The mistake would be to consent."
She had now recovered her self-possession. She even smiled a little.
"Imagine Mr. Raymond Noel in the street of the Hyacinth!" she said.
"Ah, I should hardly wish to live here; and my wife would naturally be
with me."
"I hope so. And I hope she will be very charming and obedient and
sweet." Then she dropped her sarcasms, and held out her hand in
farewell. "There is no use in prolonging this, Mr. Noel. Do not think,
however, that I do not appreciate your action; I do appreciate it. I
said that I did not respect you, and I have not until now; but now I do.
You will understand, of course, that I would rather not see you again,
and refrain from seeking me. Go your way, and forget me; you can do so
now with a clear conscience, for you have behaved well."
"It is not very likely that I shall forget you," answered Noel,
"although I go my way. I see you are firmly resolved. For the present,
therefore, all I can do is to go."
They shook hands, and he left her. As he passed through the small hall
on his way to the outer door he met Mrs. Spurr; she was attired as
opulently, in respect to colors, as ever, and she returned his greeting
with much cordiality. He glanced back; Miss Macks had witnessed the
meeting through the parlor door. Her color had faded; she looked sad and
pale.
She kept her word; she did not see him again. If he went to the street
of the Hyacinth, as he did two or three times, the little maid presented
him with the Italian equivalent of "begs to be excused," which was
evidently a standing order. If he wrote to her, as he did more than two
or three times, she returned what he wrote, not unread, but without
answer. He thought perhaps he should meet her, and was at some pains to
find out her various engagements. But all was in vain; the days passed,
and she remained invisible. Towards the last of May he left Rome. After
leaving, he continued to write to her, but he gave no address for
reply; she would now be obliged either to burn his letters or keep them,
since she could no longer send them back. They could not have been
called love-letters; they were friendly epistles, not long--pleasant,
easy, sometimes amusing, like his own conversation. They came once a
week. In addition he sent new books, and occasionally some other small
remembrance.
In early September of that year there came to the street of the Hyacinth
a letter from America. It was from one of Mrs. Spurr's old neighbors at
Tuscolee, and she wrote to say that John Macks had come home--had come
home broken in health and spirits, and, as he himself said, to die. He
did not wish his mother to know; she could not come to him, and it would
only distress her. He had money enough for the short time that was left
him, and when she heard it would be only that he had passed away; he had
passed from her life in reality years before. In this John Macks was
sincere. He had been a ne'er-do-well, a rolling stone; he had not been a
dutiful son. The only good that could be said of him, as far as his
mother was concerned, was contained in the fact that he had not made
demands upon her small purse since the sum he took from her when he
first went away. He had written to her at intervals, briefly. His last
letter had come eight months before.
But the Tuscolee neighbor was a mother herself, and, doing as she would
be done by, she wrote to Rome. When her letter came Mrs. Spurr was
overwhelmed with grief; but she was also stirred to an energy and
determination which she had never shown before. For the first time in
years she took the leadership, put her daughter decisively back into a
subordinate place, and assumed the control. She would go to America. She
must see her boy (the dearest child of the two, as the prodigal always
is) again. But even while she was planning her journey illness seized
her--her old rheumatic troubles, only more serious than before; it was
plain that she could not go. She then required that her daughter should
go in her place--go and bring her boy to Rome; this soft Italian air
would give new life to his lungs. Oh, she should not die! Ettie need not
be afraid of that. She would live for years just to get one look at him!
And so it ended in the daughter's departure, an efficient nurse being
left in charge; the physician said that although Mrs. Spurr would
probably be crippled, she was in no danger otherwise.
Miss Macks left Rome on the 15th of September. On the 2d of December she
again beheld the dome of St. Peter's rising in the blue sky. She saw it
alone. John Macks had lived three weeks after her arrival at Tuscolee,
and those three weeks were the calmest and the happiest of his
unsuccessful--unworthy it may be--but also bitterly unhappy life. His
sister did not judge him. She kissed him good-bye as he lost
consciousness, and soon afterwards closed his eyes tenderly, with tears
in her own. Although he was her brother, she had never known him; he
went away when she was a child. She sat beside him a long time after he
was dead, watching the strange, youthful peace come back to his worn
face.
When she reached the street of the Hyacinth a carriage was before the
door; carriages of that sort were not often required by the dwellers on
the floors below their own, and she was rather surprised. She had heard
from her mother in London, the nurse acting as amanuensis; at that time
Mrs. Spurr was comfortable, although still confined to her bed most of
the day. As she was paying her driver she heard steps on the stairway
within. Then she beheld this: The nurse, carrying a pillow and shawls;
next, her mother, in an invalid-chair, borne by two men; and last,
Raymond Noel.
When Mrs. Spurr saw her daughter she began to cry. She had not expected
her until the next day. Her emotion was so great that the drive was
given up, and she was carried back to her room. Noel did not follow her;
he shook hands with the new-comer, said that he would not detain her,
and then, lifting his hat, he stepped into the carriage which was
waiting and was driven away.
For two days Mrs. Spurr wished for nothing but to hear, over and over
again, every detail of her boy's last hours. Then the excitement and
renewed grief made her dangerously ill. After ten days she began to
improve; but two weeks passed before she came back to the present
sufficiently to describe to her daughter all "Mr. No-ul's kind
attentions." He had returned to Rome the first of October, and had come
at once to the street of the Hyacinth. Learning what had happened, he
had devoted himself to her "most as if he was my real son, Ettie, I do
declare! Of course, he couldn't never be like my own darling boy,"
continued the poor mother, overlooking entirely, with a mother's sublime
forgetfulness, the small amount of devotion her boy had ever bestowed;
"but he's just done everything he could, and there's no denying that."
"He has not been mentioned in your letters, mother."
"Well, child, I just told Mrs. Bowler not to. For he said himself,
frankly, that you might not like it; but that he'd make his peace with
you when you come back. I let him have his way about it, and I _have_
enjoyed seeing him. He's the only person I've seen but Mrs. Bowler and
the doctor, and I'm mortal tired of both."
During Mrs. Spurr's second illness Noel had not come in person to the
street of the Hyacinth; he had sent to inquire, and fruits and flowers
came in his name. Miss Macks learned that these had come from the
beginning.
When three weeks had passed Mrs. Spurr was back in her former place as
regarded health. One of her first requests was to be taken out to drive;
during her daughter's absence Mr. Noel had taken her five times, and she
had greatly enjoyed the change. It was not so simple a matter for the
daughter as it had been for Mr. Noel; her purse was almost empty; the
long journeys and her mother's illness had exhausted her store. Still
she did it. Mrs. Spurr wished to go to the Pincio. Her daughter thought
the crowd there would be an objection.
"It didn't tire me one bit when Mr. No-ul took me," said Mrs. Spurr, in
an aggrieved tone; "and we went there every single time--just as soon as
he found out that I liked it. What a lot of folks he does know, to be
sure! They kept him a-bowing every minute."
The day after this drive Mr. Noel came to the street of the Hyacinth. He
saw Miss Macks. Her manner was quiet, a little distant; but she thanked
him, with careful acknowledgment of every item, for his kind attentions
to her mother. He said little. After learning that Mrs. Spurr was much
better he spoke of her own health.
"You have had two long, fatiguing journeys, and you have been acting as
nurse; it would be well for you to give yourself entire rest for several
weeks at least."
She replied, coldly, that she was perfectly well, and turned the
conversation to subjects less personal. He did not stay long. As he rose
to take leave, he said:
"You will let me come again, I hope? You will not repeat the 'not at
home' of last spring?"
"I would really much rather not see you, Mr. Noel," she answered, after
hesitating.
"I am sorry. But of course I must submit." Then he went away.
Miss Macks now resumed her burdens. She was obliged to take more pupils
than she had ever accepted before, and to work harder. She had not only
to support their little household, but there were now debts to pay. She
was out almost the whole of every day.