which was one of her noticeable traits. She spoke as though she thought,
indeed, that Claudia Marcy's nature was a thing which Mrs. Lenox, or any
one, might observe. Claudia rather admired her nature. It was not
perfect, of course, but at least it was large in its boundaries, and
above the usual feminine pettinesses; she felt a calm pride in that. She
was silent for a while. The first sunset ray had now been joined by
others, and together they had lighted up one-half of the choir-dome; its
gold was all awake and glistening superbly, and the great mosaic figure
enthroned there began to glow with a solemn, mysterious life.
"Men should not marry until they are at least thirty, I think," resumed
Claudia; "and especially those of the imaginative or artistic
temperament. Three-quarters of the incongruous marriages one sees were
made when the husband was very young. It is not the wife's fault; at the
time of the marriage she is generally the superior, the generous one;
the benefit is conferred by her. But--she does not advance, and he
does."
"What would you propose in the way of--of an amelioration?" asked her
listener.
"There can, of course, be no amelioration in actual cases. But there
might be a prevention. I think that a law could be passed--such as now
exists, for instance, against the marriage of minors. If a man could not
marry until he was thirty or older, he would at that time naturally
select a wife who was ten years or so his junior rather than one of his
own age."
"And the women of thirty?"
"They would be already married to the men of fifty, you know."
Here a figure emerging from the heavy red-brown shadows of the north
aisle, and seeming to bring some of them with it, as it advanced,
crossed the billowy pavement, and stopped before them. It was Mr. Lenox.
He took a seat on the other side of Blake, and they talked for a while
of the way the chocolate-hued walls met the gold of the domes solidly,
without shading, and of the total absence of white--two of the marked
features of the rich interior of the old pirate cathedral. At length
Blake rose, giving up his place beside Miss Marcy to the younger man. "I
think we have still a half-hour before that jailer of a janitor jangles
his keys," she said.
"Yes; but for the men of fifty it is time to be going," answered Blake.
"They take cold rather easily, you know, those poor fellows of fifty."
He went away. Claudia and Lenox remained until the keys jangled.
Every day the weather and the water-city grew more divinely fair. June
began. And now even Mrs. Marcy saw no objection to their utilizing the
moonlight, and no longer spoke of "wraps." The evenings were haunted by
music; everybody seemed to be floating about singing or touching
guitars. The effect of the mingled light and shadows across the fronts
of the palaces was enchanting; they could not say enough in its praise.
"Still, do you know sometimes I would give it all for the fresh odor of
the fields at home, in the country, and the old scent of lilacs," said
Mrs. Lenox.
"Do you care for lilacs?" said Claudia. "If you had said roses--"
"No, I mean lilacs--the simple country lilacs. And I want to see some
currant bushes, too; yes, and even an old wooden garden fence," replied
Mrs. Lenox, laughing, but nevertheless as if she meant what she said.
She went with them only that once in the evening, for when she reached
home she found that the little boy had been wakeful, and that he had
refused to go to sleep again because she was not there. After this the
others went without her in a gondola holding four. At last, although the
moonlight lingers longer in Venice than anywhere else, there was, for
that month at least, no more. Yet still the evening air was delicious,
and the music did not cease; the effect of the shadows was even more
marvellous than the mingled light and shade had been. They continued to
go out and float about for an hour or two in the warm, peopled
darkness. They went also, but by daylight, to Torcello, and this time
Theocritus was of the party. During half of the day he was more despotic
than he had ever been, but later he seemed very tired; he slept in his
aunt's arms all the way home. Once she made an effort to transfer him to
her husband, as the weight of his little muffled figure lay heavily on
her slender arm; but Theocritus was awake immediately, and began to beat
off his uncle's hands with all his might.
"Do let me take him, Elizabeth; he will soon fall asleep again," said
Lenox. He looked annoyed. "You are overtaxing your strength; I can see
that you are tired out."
"It will not harm me; I know when I am really too tired," answered his
wife. She gave him a little trusting smile as she spoke, and his frown
passed off.
They were all together in one of the large gondolas; Blake noted this
little side-scene.
That night Theocritus had a slight attack of fever. Mrs. Lenox said that
it came from over-fatigue, and that he must not go on any of the longer
expeditions. When they went to Murano, therefore, and down to Chioggia,
she did not accompany them, but remained at home with her charge.
Mrs. Marcy was enjoying this last month in Venice greatly. "Naturally,
it is much pleasanter when one has some one to attend to one, and one
too who knows one's tastes and looks after one's little comforts," she
remarked to her niece, with some intricacy of impersonal pronouns. The
lily did not observe that the attentions she found so agreeable were
being offered to her niece also by another impersonal pronoun. As she
would herself have said, "naturally," when they went here and there
together, the two elders often sat down to rest awhile when Claudia and
Lenox did not feel the need of it.
"Of course, with her beauty, her attractive qualities, and her fortune,
Miss Marcy has had many suitors," said Blake to the aunt during one of
these rests.
"Several," answered that lady, moderately. "But Claudia is not at all
susceptible. Neither is she so--so generally attractive as you might
suppose. She has too little thought for the opinions of others. She
says, for instance, just what she thinks, and that, you know, is seldom
agreeable."
"True; we much prefer that people should say what they don't. I have
myself noticed some plainly evident faults in her: a most impolitic
honesty; and, when stirred, an impulsiveness which is sure to be
unremunerative in the long-run. I should say, too, that she had an
empyrean sort of pride."
"Yes," replied the lily, not knowing what he meant, but concluding on
the whole that he spoke in reprobation. "As I said before, she has not
_quite_ enough of that true feminine softness one likes so much to
see--I mean, of course, in a woman."
"Her pride will be her bane yet. It will make her blind to the most
obvious pitfall. However, I'll back her courage against it when once she
sees where she has dropped."
"What?" said the lily.
"She will in time learn from you; she could not follow a more lovely
example," said Blake, coming back from his reflections.
Towards the last of June a long expedition was planned, an expedition
into "Titian's country," which was to last three days. This little
pilgrimage had been talked about for a long time, Mrs. Lenox being as
much interested in it as the others. Whether she would have had the
courage to take Theocritus, even in his best estate, is a question; but
after the time was finally set and all the arrangements made, his worst
asserted itself, and so markedly that it was plain to all that she could
not go. Something was said about postponement, but it was equally plain
that if they were to go at all they should go at once, as the weather
was rapidly approaching a too great heat. Claudia wished particularly to
take this little journey; she had set her heart upon seeing the Titians
and reputed Titians said to be still left in that unvisited
neighborhood. Blake asserted that she even expected to discover one. It
was next proposed (although rather faintly) that Mr. Lenox should be
excused from the pilgrimage. But it could not be denied that the little
boy had been quite as ill (and irritable) several times before in
Venice, and that he had always recovered in a day or two. Not that Mrs.
Lenox denied it; on the contrary, she was the one to mention it. She
urged her husband's going; it was the excursion of all others to please
him the most. It ended in his consenting; it seemed, indeed, too much to
give up for so slight a cause.
"She looks a little anxious," observed Blake, as they waited for him in
the gondola which was to take them to the railway station. Lenox had
said good-bye to her, and was now coming down the long stairway within,
while she had stepped out on her balcony to see them start.
"Do you think so?" said Mrs. Marcy. "To me she always looks just the
same, always so unmoved."
Lenox now came out, and the gondola started. Claudia looked back and
waved her hand, Mrs. Lenox returning the salutation.
On the evening of the third day, at eleven o'clock, a gondola from the
railway station stopped at the larger palace's lower door, and three
persons ascended the dimly lighted stairs.
At the top Mrs. Lenox's servant was waiting for them. "Oh, where is
signore? Is he not with you? He has not come? Oh, the poor signora--may
the sweet Madonna help her now!" cried the girl, with tears in her
sympathetic Italian eyes. "The poor little boy is dead."
They rushed up the higher stairway and across the hall bridge. But it
was as the woman had said. There, on his little white bed, lay the
child; he would be troublesome no more on this earth; he was quiet at
last. Mrs. Lenox stood in the lighted doorway of her room as they came
towards her. When she saw that her husband was not with them, when they
began hurriedly to explain that he had not come, that he had stayed
behind, that he had sent a note, she swayed over without a word and
fainted away.
It was only over-fatigue, she explained later. The child had lain in her
arms for thirty hours, most of the time in great pain, and she had
suffered with him. She soon recovered consciousness and was quite
calm--more calm than they had feared she would be. They were anxiously
watchful; they tended her with the most devoted care. Blake did what he
could, and then waited. After a while, when Mrs. Lenox had in a measure
recovered, he softly beckoned Mrs. Marcy out.
"You must tell her that her husband will not be back in time for--that
he will not be back for at least six days, and very likely longer. And
as his route was quite uncertain, we cannot reach him; there is no
telegraph, of course, and even if I were to go after him I could only
follow his track from village to village, and probably come back to
Venice behind him."
"How can I tell her!" said the tearful lady. "Perhaps Claudia--"
"No, on no account. You are the one, and you must do it," replied Blake,
and with so much decision that she obeyed him. Thus the wife was told.
What Blake had said was true; it was hopeless to try to reach Lenox
before the time when he would probably be back of his own accord. He had
started on a hunt after some early drawings of Titian's, of which they
had unearthed dim legends. One was said to be in an old monastery, among
others of no importance; two more were vaguely reported as now here, now
there. Lenox had not been certain of his own route, but expected to be
guided from village to village according to indications. It was not even
certain whether he would come back by Conegliano or strike the railway
at another point. "It certainly is an inexorable fate!" exclaimed poor
Mrs. Marcy, in the emergency driven to unusual expressions.
But when Stephen Lenox's wife understood the position in which she was
placed, she at once decided upon all that was to be done, and gave her
directions clearly and calmly--directions which Blake executed with an
attention and thoughtful care as complete as any one could possibly have
bestowed.
The little boy was to be buried at Venice, in the cemetery on the
island opposite, early in the morning of the second day.
"She is _so_ sensible!" Mrs. Marcy commented, admiringly. "Of course,
under all the circumstances, it is the thing to do. But so many women
would have insisted upon--all sorts of plans; and it would have been
_so_ hard."
"I would willingly carry out anything she wished for, no matter how
difficult," replied Blake. "I greatly respect and admire Mrs. Lenox.
But, as you say, the perfect balance of her character, her clear
judgment and beautiful goodness, have at once decided upon the best
course." (The lily had not quite said this; but in her present state of
distressed sympathy she accepted it.)
Claudia, meanwhile, remained through all very silent. She assisted, and
ably, in everything that was done, but said almost nothing.
The evening before the funeral the two ladies went across to Mrs.
Lenox's rooms; they had left her some hours before, as she had promised
to lie down for a while, but they thought that she was now probably
awake again. They found her sitting beside the little white-shrouded
form.
"Now this is not wise, Elizabeth," began Mrs. Marcy, chidingly.
"I think it is; I like to look at him," replied the watcher. "See, the
peaceful expression I have been hoping for has come; it is not often
needed on the face of a child, but it was with my poor little boy.
Look."
And, sure enough, there shone upon the small, still countenance a lovely
sweetness which had never been there in life. The face did not even seem
thin; its lines had all passed away; it looked very fair and young, and
very peacefully at rest.
"His mother would know him now at once; he was a very pretty little
fellow the last time she saw him, when he was about a year old," she
went on. "I was very fond of his mother, and his father, as probably you
know, was my only brother. Their child was very dear to me," she
resumed, after a short silence, which the others did not break. "His
constant suffering made him unlike stronger, happier children, and I
think that was the very reason I loved him the more. I wanted to make it
up to him. But I could not. I suppose he never knew what it was to be
entirely without pain--the doctors have told me so. He did not know
anything else, or any other way, but to suffer more or less, and to be
tired all the time. And he was so used to it, poor little fellow, that I
suppose he thought that every one suffered too--that that was life. He
has found a better now." Leaning forward, she took the small hands in
hers. "All my loving care, dear child, was not enough to keep you here,"
she said, smoothing them tenderly. "But you are with your mother now;
that is far better."
The funeral took place early the next morning. Then Mrs. Lenox came back
to her empty rooms, and entered them alone. She preferred it so.
After the first explanation, the only allusion she had made to her
husband's absence was to Rodney Blake. That gentleman had not expressed
the shadow of a disapprobation. He had not told her that he had objected
to Lenox's lengthened absence, and had done what he could to prevent it;
he had stopped Mrs. Marcy sharply when she spoke of telling.
"Can't you see, Sophy, that that would be the worst of all for her?" he
said; "to know that Lenox would go, in spite of my unconcealed
opposition, just because Clau--just because he wanted those trivial
drawings," he added, changing the termination of his sentence, but quite
sure, meanwhile, that "Sophy" would never discover what he had begun to
say.
Mrs. Lenox's remark was this. Blake had come in to speak to her about
some necessary directions concerning the funeral, and when she had given
them she said: "It will be a grief to Stephen when he comes back that he
could not have seen the little boy, even if but for once more. And I
hoped so that he would see him! I expected you back at eight--you know
that was the first arrangement--and towards seven he seemed easier. Once
he even smiled, and talked a little about that legend of St. Mark and
St. Theodore, of which, you remember, he was so fond. Then it was
half-past seven, and I still hoped. And then it grew towards eight, and
he was in pain again. Still I kept listening for the sound of your
gondola. But it did not come. And at half-past eight he died. But
perhaps it was as well so," she continued, although her voice trembled a
little. "Stephen would have felt his suffering so much. I was more used
to it, you know, than he was."
"Yes," answered Blake.
But she seemed to know that he was not quite in accord with her. "Of
course I feel it very deeply, Mr. Blake, on my own account, that my
husband is not here; I depend upon him for everything, and feel utterly
lonely without him. But his absence is one of those accidents which we
must all encounter sometimes, and as to everything else--the outside
help I needed--you have done all that even he could have done. You have
been very good to me," and she held out her hand.
Blake took it, and thanked her. And in his words this time he put
something that contented her. It was the sacrifice he made to his liking
for Stephen Lenox's wife.
The evening after the funeral Mrs. Marcy, who had been made nervous and
ill by all that had happened, went out at sunset for a change of air,
and Blake accompanied her. Claudia preferred to stay at home. But five
minutes after the departure of their gondola she went up the stairs and
across the hall bridge that led to Mrs. Lenox's apartment. Mrs. Lenox
was there, lying on the sofa. It was the first time since the return
that the two had been alone together. She looked pale and ill, and there
were dark shadows under her eyes; but she smiled and spoke in her usual
voice, asking Claudia to sit beside her in an easy-chair that stood
there. Claudia sat down, and they spoke on one or two unimportant
subjects. But the girl soon paused in this.
"I have come to say," she began again, in a voice that showed the effort
she made to keep it calm, "that I shall never forgive myself, Mrs.
Lenox, for--for a great deal that I have thought about you, but
especially for having had a part in the absence of your husband at such
a time. If it had not been for me he would not have gone off on that
foolish expedition. But I wanted those miserable drawings, or at least
sketches of them, and so I kept talking about it. When I think of what
you have had to go through, alone, in consequence of it, I am
overwhelmed." Here her voice nearly broke down.
"You must not take it all upon yourself, Miss Marcy," answered the wife.
"No doubt Stephen wanted to please you; no doubt he wanted to very
much--to get you the drawings, if it was possible; of that I am quite
sure."
But Claudia was not quieted. "If you knew how I have suffered--how I
suffer now as I see you lying there so pale and ill"--here she stopped
again. "I come to tell you how I feel your suffering, and I spend the
time talking about my own," she added, abruptly. "I am a worthless
creature!" And covering her face with her hands, she burst into tears.
Mrs. Lenox put out her hand and stroked the beautiful bowed head
caressingly. "Do not feel so badly," she said. "You must not; it is not
necessary."
"But it is--it is," said the girl, amid her tears. "If you knew--"
"I do know, Claudia. I know _you_."
"Oh, if you really do," said Claudia, lifting her head, her wet eyes
turned eagerly upon the wife, "then it is better."
"It is better; it is well. My dear, I think I have understood you all
along."
"But--I have not understood myself," replied Claudia. She had nerved
herself to say it; but after it was spoken a deep blush rose slowly over
her whole face until it was in a flame. Through all its heat, however,
she kept her eyes bravely upon those of the wife.
"That I knew, too," rejoined Mrs. Lenox. "But I also knew that there was
no danger," she added.
"There was not. It was unconscious. In any case, I should in time have
recognized it. And destroyed it, as I do now." These short sentences
were brought out, each with a fresh effort. "I do not speak of--of the
other side," the girl went on, with abrupt, heavy awkwardness of phrase.
"There never was any other side--it was all mine." And then came the
flaming blush again.
"But you are very beautiful, Claudia?" said the other woman, not as if
disturbed at all in her own quiet calm, but half tentatively.
"Yes, I am beautiful," replied Claudia, with a sort of scorn. "But he is
not that kind of man," she added, a quick, involuntary pride coming into
her eyes. Then she turned her head away, shading her face with her hand.
She said no more; it seemed as if she had stopped herself shortly there.
After a moment or two Mrs. Lenox began to speak. "All this life, here in
Venice, has been so much to Stephen," she said, in her sweet, quiet
voice. "You know he has worked very hard--he was obliged to; just so
many hours of each long day, for long, hard years. He never had any
rest; and the work was always distasteful to him, too. It was a slavery.
And it was beginning to tell upon him; he could not have kept it up
without being worn out both in body and mind. Judge, then, how glad I am
that he has had all this change and pleasure--he needed it so! There is
that side to his nature--a love of the beautiful, and a strong one. This
has been always repressed and bound down; it is natural that it should
break forth here. I have not the feeling myself--at least, not like his;
but I understand it in him, and sympathize with it fully." She paused.
Claudia did not speak.
"You have not been a wife, Claudia, and therefore there are some things
you do not know," pursued the voice. "A wife becomes in time to her
husband such a part of himself (that is, if he loves her) that she isn't
a separate person to him any more, and he hardly thinks of her as one;
she is himself. Many things become a matter of course to him--are taken
for granted--on this very account. It does not occur to him that she may
feel differently. He supposes that they feel alike. Often they do.
Still, a woman's thoughts do not always run in the same channel as those
of a man; we are more timid, more limited, more--afraid of things, you
know; but the husband does not always remember that. But there are some
things in which a husband and wife do feel alike, always and forever;
there are ties which are eternal. And my own life holds them--ties and
memories so precious that I can hardly explain them to you; memories of
those early years of ours when we were so alone and poor, but so dear to
each other that we did not mind it. We love each other just the same;
but then we had nothing but our love--and it was enough. The coming, the
short stay with us, and the fading away of our two little children,
Claudia--these are ties deep down in our hearts which nothing can ever
sunder. Stephen will go back to all that old grief of his when he comes
home to find the little boy gone. For the greatest sorrow of his life,
one he has never at heart overcome, was that he felt when we lost our
own little boy. Stephen had loved the child passionately, and would not
believe that he must go; and when he did he bowed his head in a silence
so long that I was frightened. I had never seen him give up before. But
even that is a dear tie between us, for then he had only me. Those
early years of ours, with their joys and sorrows--I often think of them.
A man does not dwell upon such memories, one by one, as a woman does.
But they are none the less there, a part of his life and of him." She
stopped. "Do not mind," she added, in a changed voice. "I am only--a
little tired, I think."
Claudia, who had not moved, turned quickly. Mrs. Lenox's eyes were
closed; she was very pale. But she did not faint; owing to Claudia's
quick, efficient help, she was soon herself again. "You know what to do,
don't you?" she said, smiling, when the faint feeling had passed.
"It is not that I know, so much as that I long to help you," answered
Claudia. "I wish you would let me unbraid your hair, and make you ready
for bed; you look so tired, and perhaps I could do it with a lighter
touch than Bianca," she added, humbly.
"Very well," said the other, assentingly.
And with much care and skill the girl performed her task. "I will even
put out the light," she said. "I will tell Bianca that you have gone to
bed, and are not to be disturbed." When all was done and the light out,
she paused for a moment by the bedside. "I am not going to talk any
more," she said, "but I will just say this: aunt and I are going away.
To-morrow, probably, or the day after. You will not be left alone, for
Mr. Blake will stay."
There was a silence. Then Mrs. Lenox's voice said: "That is a mistake.
It would be better to stay."
"I do not see it in that way," answered the girl. Then, "You must not
ask too much," she added, in a lower voice.