A CHANGE IN MARION
It was the evening of Constitution Day, the Italian Fourth of July.
Aunt Caroline and Irma, seated in the doorway of the hotel, watched the
passing crowd. On the Arno in front of the house, not far from the Ponte
Vecchio, were several boats decorated with flags and paper lanterns.
There was also a large float, and the voluble porter explained that a
chorus was to be stationed there during the evening to sing.
"Where is Marion?" asked Uncle Jim.
"He has walked to the Cascine with Katie and Richard and Ellen. I wished
to stay with Aunt Caroline," replied Irma.
"I am afraid Katie has cut you out with Marion," exclaimed Uncle Jim.
"How foolish!" protested Aunt Caroline. "Irma has no such ideas. Marion
has never exerted himself for Irma, and she has always been too busy to
think of him."
"When it's quite dark," continued Uncle Jim, "we must walk over to the
Piazza in front of the Palazzo Vecchio. They say the illumination of the
tower is the thing best worth seeing, better even than the fireworks
these crowds are waiting for."
A little later the three stood in front of the tall gray tower of the
old palace, whose outlines were wonderfully beautiful, set in a frame of
fire made up of countless tiny lamps.
"Hello," cried a voice, "we didn't expect to see you here." Richard was
the speaker, and with him were Marion and Ellen.
"Where is Katie?" asked Aunt Caroline.
"Oh, she and Marion have had some kind of a spat, and she insisted on
our leaving her at the hotel."
"Spat! Nonsense!" interposed Ellen.
"Well, a quarrel by any other name will do just as well. I'm glad she
can stay with mother. One of us ought to be with her."
Marion made no reply to Richard. But he walked beside Ellen on their way
back to the hotel, while Richard helped Irma find a way through the
throng.
"What a quiet, orderly crowd!" cried Aunt Caroline, "and to-day their
Fourth of July!"
"It's only after they have crossed the Atlantic that foreigners grow
uproarious. There seems to be more law and order over here."
The Lungarno was packed with people when they reached the hotel, so all
went upstairs to Aunt Caroline's room, that overlooked the river and the
boat from which the fireworks were sent off. There were one or two set
pieces, the chorus on the large float sang several part songs, and at
intervals showers of stars of all colors fell from the Roman candles and
rockets sent up from the boats.
It was late when they began to separate. "Where is Marion?" asked Aunt
Caroline, when the lights were turned on, and the others came to bid her
good night.
"He must have gone to his room," said Uncle Jim. "I noticed half an hour
ago that he was not here."
"Perhaps he didn't like the noise," said Richard, with what sounded like
a slight shade of sarcasm. "His nerves are not very strong."
The next morning, when Irma went to breakfast, none of the older
members of her party were at the table, and Marion, too, was missing.
"Of course Marion didn't give it to me," she heard Katie say, as she
took her seat.
"It's certainly very strange that it should be the same device as his
small seal."
"Probably they wouldn't look at all alike, if you should bring them
together and compare them."
"Can mine eyes deceive me?" Richard assumed a tragic tone.
"It's the ring that Katie has around her scarf." Ellen explained to
Irma. "Richard is sure that Marion gave it to her. But he ought to
believe Katie when she says this is not so."
Irma looked closely at the ring through which Katie had pulled the end
of her silk necktie. The dragon carved on the agate stone certainly
seemed familiar. Yes, she recalled the same dragon on an old-fashioned
seal that Marion had shown her one day; at least it looked the same,
though of course the dragon was by no means an uncommon device. But
after all, this was no affair of hers. If Katie said Marion had not
given the ring to her there seemed to be no reason for Richard to doubt
Katie's word. Suppose even that he had loaned it to her, why should her
cousin concern himself about it?
After breakfast Katie and Ellen drove to their dressmaker's, and just as
Irma had finished a home letter Marion appeared in the reading-room.
"I had an early breakfast," he explained, "and have been out walking.
Now I wish some one would take a trolley ride with me. Will _you_ go?"
At first Irma could hardly believe the invitation was meant for her; she
had been so little with Marion the past fortnight.
But when she saw that he undoubtedly meant her, she accepted gladly.
"It does not matter where we go," he cried, as the car started. "I
simply wish to see what the suburbs are like out this way."
Soon they had passed beyond the old narrow streets, and were running
through a broad avenue of the newer Florence that has begun to drive the
old city out of sight.
After a word or two to the conductor, "Why, this is a car for Fiesole,"
said Marion. "I had meant to drive out there some day, but now----"
He did not finish the sentence, but later in the morning Irma realized
what he had had in mind when he spoke.
"Fiesole," Marion began to explain, "the old Faesulae, was an important
place long before Florence. I believe there are imposing Etruscan
fortifications still to be seen up there on the hill. But Fiesole was
conquered and destroyed in the early part of the twelfth century, and
Florence soon became rich. Many English and Americans have country
villas at Fiesole. It is not so damp there as in Florence. There are
several people I know living out there, if I cared to see them."
"Oh, we don't come to Europe to see Americans," said Irma, noticing a
severe expression on Marion's face, such as she had seen before, when
Americans were spoken of.
After leaving the car they rambled around the pleasant, shady roads of
Fiesole for an hour or more, visiting the piazza and the old church. At
the terminus they had to wait a little time for the car by which they
were to return. While standing near a little shop where they had made
some purchases, a tall girl rushed up to Marion, and, seizing his hand,
first raised it to her lips, and then poured out a flood of words.
Marion reddened, pulled his hand away, and looked puzzled, as the girl
began to talk. But before she had finished her long, long sentence, his
face cleared, and he turned toward Irma.
"She was on the _Ariadne_; her mother died. Perhaps you remember."
Of course Irma remembered. This was the girl upon whom she had so often
looked from the deck above the steerage, the girl for whose family
Marion had raised the subscription.
When the girl's words at last came to an end, Marion tore a leaf from
his notebook and gave it to her, after he had written something upon it.
"_Grazie, grazie_," she cried, and then, when he shook his head to some
request of hers, "_A rivederci_, signor and signorina," she cried, as
they stepped toward the approaching car on which they were to return to
the city.
"Now, I will explain," said Marion, as they rode toward Florence.
"Luisa hopes some time to return to America, and I have given her my
mother's address, in case she should need advice from us." ("The second
time," Irma thought, "I have heard Marion speak of his mother.")
"She was greatly disappointed," continued Marion, "that we could not go
up to see the family. They have a little house back there on the hills,
and with the subscription raised on the ship they could lease it for
five years, and they have a little besides to keep them going until
their garden is grown. The grandmother hopes to sell enough flowers and
vegetables in Florence to pay for clothes and things they can't raise on
the farm. It's surprising, though, how little it takes for people to
live on over here. Luisa says she earns something by working for a
cousin who has one of those little shops at the terminus, two days in
the week."
While Marion talked, Irma longed to ask why he had been unwilling to add
her little gift to the money he had raised for Luisa's family on the
_Ariadne_. But, in spite of his being so friendly now, she did not quite
dare question him. Later in the day, however, when alone with Aunt
Caroline, she told her about Luisa, and brought up the matter of the
subscription.
"Oh," said Aunt Caroline, "I can partly explain that subscription to
you. Marion told me little at the time, but since then we have had a
talk. Indeed he is much more inclined to confide in me than when we
first left New York. He says that he spent more or less time among the
steerage passengers coming over, and when he found money did not come in
readily for Luisa's family, he decided to make up the whole amount
himself.
"He seldom changes his mind, when once he has decided upon a certain
thing, and so when you offered your money he did not think it right to
take it. You know Marion has a great deal of money of his own, and he
could afford to do all that was necessary for this poor Italian family.
I am sorry, however, that he hurt your feelings, for really Marion is
goodhearted. Of course he has had a particularly hard time this year,
and has not yet got over the effects of all he has been through."
"Now," thought Irma, "I will ask Aunt Caroline to tell me all about
Marion. Every one else seems to know, and I hate mysteries." But before
she had a chance to ask the question, Marion and Uncle Jim appeared on
the scene, and the opportunity was lost.
After this the days at Florence passed swiftly. Aunt Caroline was
absorbed in the galleries, and Uncle Jim or Mrs. Sanford spent much time
there with her. The young people did their sightseeing by themselves,
Richard, Ellen, Irma, and Marion, at least. Katie seemed, as Richard put
it, "disaffected." She said she had been in Europe too long to care to
spend much time over galleries and historical places.
"Shopping is much more necessary now, as I am to sail so soon, and
grandmamma is willing to pay duty on any amount of things."
So, while Katie bought embroidered dresses, and spent hours over
fittings, the others made what Ellen called "pilgrimages." Once it was
to the old palace that had been Michelangelo's home, lately presented to
Florence by a descendant of his brother. There they saw furniture and
smaller belongings of the great man, manuscripts and sketches and plans
of some of his great works, and on the walls of one room a series of
paintings representing dramatic incidents in his life.
"And yet he died almost a century before Plymouth was settled," said
Irma, returning to the historical comparisons of the first part of her
trip.
Again, one day, rambling through a narrow street, they came to the
so-called "house of Dante," a tiny dwelling with small rooms and steep
stairs, and though Marion tried to throw cold water on the enthusiasm of
the girls by telling them that no one now really believed this to be the
house where Dante had lived, they only laughed at him.
"No one can prove that it is _not_ the house where he was born; and
every one knows that it belonged to his father. But at any rate it's a
charming little museum, and since I have seen all the interesting
manuscripts and books there, I am more anxious than ever to read Dante,"
and Ellen patted her brother's arm, adding, "No, Richard, what we wish
to believe we will believe, especially when it's true."
"Just like a girl," responded Richard, smiling.
One other day they made a pilgrimage to the Protestant cemetery, chiefly
to please Ellen, who wished to see the grave of Elizabeth Barrett
Browning. They found it without trouble, a plain marble sarcophagus on
Corinthian columns, with no inscription except the initials of the poet
and the date of her death. Near the sarcophagus a few pink roses were in
bloom.
"How I wish I dared pick one," sighed Ellen.
"Why not?" asked Richard. "There's no one but us to see, and we won't
tell."
Irma was not sure how much in earnest Richard was, but she believed he
was only in fun, for he made no reply to Ellen's, "Oh, I think there's
nothing worse than carrying away flowers and stones as souvenirs. I have
known people to do such silly things. Surely you remember Hadrian's
villa."
Now Irma, although she had no clue to Ellen's reference, at once
recalled her own success in securing a fragment of marble from this same
villa of Hadrian's, and what it had almost cost her. Even while she
recalled it, it seemed to her that Marion glanced significantly toward
her, yet she was sure she had never told him what had caused her to miss
her train on that eventful evening.
One never to be forgotten day, Irma, Uncle Jim, and Aunt Caroline went
down to Perugia. Mrs. Sanford and her party had been there before their
arrival in Siena, and Marion, who said he hadn't time for both,
preferred a trip to Pisa. But to Irma, the railway journey itself,
through tunnels, past mountain towns, around the lovely shores of Lake
Thrasymene, was something long to be remembered.
"If I hadn't come to Perugia," she said to Uncle Jim, "I suppose I
shouldn't have known what I had missed, but now it seems as if I
shouldn't have really known Italy without coming here. It is so much
larger than Orvieto, and brighter, and yet it is a hill town with
streets that tumble into one another, and picturesque arches, and though
it hasn't an Orvieto Cathedral, it has more beautiful churches than one
expects to find in a place of its size. Then that perfect little
Merchants' Exchange! One could spend a day there studying the frescoes.
There are more quaint carvings on the outside of the buildings than in
most places we have seen, and in spite of this broad main street, with
the trolley cars running through it, it seems still a mediaeval town, a
cheerful one, not a melancholy one like San Gimignano. Then I shall be
very proud when I go home to say that I have actually been in the house
where Raphael lived and taught before the world knew how great he really
was."
"A long speech for a little girl," said Uncle Jim, "but it doesn't
explain your unwillingness to stay with your aunt this morning while she
makes a careful study of the exhibition of Umbrian art."
"Why, I think it _does_ explain it. I was there long enough to learn
Perugino by heart, his funny little bodyless angels, and his young men
with thin, graceful legs and small skull caps, and of course his
beautiful color."
Uncle Jim laughed at Irma's characterization of Perugino. "And is that
all you remember of that great building with its treasures of art, as
the books might say?"
"Of course not," said Irma indignantly. "I remember quantities of other
things. Raphael, and all those strange, pious Umbrian painters, and the
beautiful silver chalices from the churches, and all the carved
crucifixes. On the ship going home Aunt Caroline will be able to talk to
us for hours about these things, describing them exactly. Isn't it much
better for a girl of my age to enjoy this lovely view? Come, let us sit
down on a bench in the little piazza in front of the hotel. As we look
off to the valley, so far below, we seem to be on the edge of a high
mountain. Every one in Perugia seems to enjoy the view. See, there are
two soldiers strolling about; a group of priests; well to do children
riding around in that donkey cart; half a dozen others who are almost in
rags watching them; several strangers besides ourselves; two or three
dignitaries of the town. So it's a very popular place."
Again Uncle Jim smiled at Irma's astuteness. Then he left her to enjoy
the view still longer, while he went down to the Municipal Building, to
"rescue" Aunt Caroline, as he expressed it, from too long a stay at the
exhibition of Umbrian art.
On her return to Florence the next evening, Irma wrote Lucy about her
visit to Assisi. She had promised this before she left home, as Lucy had
especially asked her to see for herself the thornless roses growing in
St. Francis's Garden.
"I have seen the garden," she wrote, "in the cloister back of the
church, and here is a leaf from the thornless rosebushes. The good
brothers have these leaves already pressed on little cards, as souvenirs
of the visit to St. Mary of the Angels, St. Francis's church. Inside the
great church they have preserved the tiny church in which St. Francis
preached, and also the cell in which he died. The great church of San
Francesco on the hill above where St. Francis was buried was built in
his memory. His body was finally buried there. It is an enormous
building, and I will try to tell you here about the beautiful frescoes
describing his life. But I have some photographs for you, and they show
all his great deeds told in pictures.
"I wish I had time to tell you about Florence. But in six weeks I shall
be at home again, and then how much I shall have to say! It seems to me
that all the paintings you and I like best are here, and in color they
are so beautiful. The Pitti Gallery is wonderful. It is in a great
palace where the de Medicis (of course) once lived. It now belongs to
the king, and his rooms are most beautiful. But the gallery is quite
apart from the rest of the palace, and filled with the greatest
paintings, Titian and Raphael and Andrea del Sarto and Botticelli and
Bronzino, and some time, when I am older, I hope to come back and study
them and criticise them just as I hear people doing now. Now I simply
enjoy them.
"There are always many people copying in the galleries, especially in
the Uffizi, and the other day we saw two sisters in their convent dress
at work at easels. I suppose they were painting for their convents.
There are so many things in Florence I wish we could look at together,
the cathedral and Giotto's tower, and the wonderful della Robbia
reliefs; you know the small cast of the singing boys that your mother
gave you Christmas. Then, though this is different, I wish you could see
the green, pointed hills that are outside of Florence on two sides. When
I first saw them they seemed like old friends, I had seen them in so
many paintings by the old painters who worked in Florence. I thought
they put them in just for ornament, but now I know they couldn't help
it. This was the background they were most used to here.
"But there! I have seen so many things besides pictures--the old
palaces, like fortresses, and the people who seem so gentle, though they
are descendants of all those old fighters who thought nothing of killing
one another when they had had the slightest disagreement (or often when
they hadn't had any) just because their ancestors were enemies. Yet in
some ways they were very good to one another. Yesterday we met a
queer-looking procession, hardly a procession, for there were not more
than a dozen men, but they wore long black robes, with hoods, and black
masks over their faces, and holes cut for their eyes, and, really, they
were terrifying.
"Uncle Jim explained that they were the Misericordia, or Brothers of
Mercy. Rich and poor belong to it, and have for centuries, and when a
man is on duty, when he hears a certain bell ring--I think it's in the
Campanile--he stops whatever he is doing and goes to the headquarters of
the brothers to learn whether he is to watch with some sick man, or help
bury some dead person with no friends to follow him to the grave.
"I have been disappointed not to see more picturesque costumes here, but
in the cities they are never seen, and seldom in the country. The
apprentice boys in different trades wear big aprons, and the nursemaids
have great caps with long, colored streamers, but that is all.
"I feel rather mean, sometimes, when I think how hard you all are
working now, and I am just amusing myself. When you get this,
examinations will be about over, and I do wonder if George Belman will
be at the head of the class.
"Well, even if I am idle now, I may have to study hard enough in August.
I won't be able to make the excuse that I am not well.
"Hastily,
"Irma."