to make Nora Field a married woman, she had carried her point; but she
was not allowed to feel that she had carried it triumphantly.
Her uncle had not forbidden her scheme, but had never encouraged it. Her
lover had hardly spoken to her on the subject since the day on which she
had explained to him her intention.
“After all, it’s a mere bagatelle,” he had said; “I am not going to
marry your clothes.”
One of her cousins, Bob, had approved; but he had coupled his approval
with an intimation that something should be done to prevent any other
woman from wearing bridal wreaths for the next three months. Charley had
condemned her altogether, pointing out that it was bad policy to feed
the cotton-spinners at the expense of the milliners. But the strongest
opposition had come from her aunt and the Miss Fosters. Mrs. Granger,
though her heart was in the battle which her husband was fighting, could
not endure to think that all the time-honoured ceremonies of her life
should be abandoned. In spite of all that was going on around her, she
had insisted on having mince-pies on the table on Christmas Day. True,
there were not many of them, and they were small and flavourless. But
the mince-pies were there, with whisky to burn with them instead of
brandy, if any of the party chose to go through the ceremony. And to her
the idea of a wedding without wedding-clothes was very grievous. It was
she who had told Nora that she was a widow with two mites, or might make
herself one, if she chose to encounter self-sacrifice. But in so saying
she had by no means anticipated such a widowhood as this.
“I really think, Nora, you might have one of those thinner silks, and
you might do without a wreath; but you should have a veil;--indeed you
should.”
But Nora was obstinate. Having overcome her future lord, and quieted her
uncle, she was not at all prepared to yield to the mild remonstrances of
her aunt. The two Miss Fosters were very much shocked, and for three
days there was a disagreeable coolness between them and the Plumstock
family. A friend’s bridal is always an occasion for a new dress, and the
Miss Fosters naturally felt that they were being robbed of their rights.
“Sensible girl,” said old Foster, when he heard of it. “When you’re
married, if ever you are, I hope you’ll do the same.”
“Indeed we won’t, papa,” said the two Miss Fosters. But the coolness
gradually subsided, and the two Miss Fosters consented to attend in
their ordinary Sunday bonnets.
It had been decided that they should be married early, at eight o’clock;
that they should then go to the parsonage for breakfast, and that the
married couple should start for London immediately afterwards. They were
to remain there for a week, and then return to Liverpool for one other
remaining week before their final departure for America.
“I should only have had them on for about an hour if I’d got them, and
then it would have been almost dark,” she said to her aunt.
“Perhaps it won’t signify very much,” her aunt replied. Then when the
morning came, it seemed that the sacrifice had dwindled down to a very
little thing. The two Miss Fosters had come to the parsonage over night,
and as they sat up with the bride over a bed-room fire, had been
good-natured enough to declare that they thought it would be very good
fun.
“You won’t have to get up in the cold to dress me,” said Nora, “because
I can do it all myself; that will be one comfort.”
“Oh, we shouldn’t have minded that; and as it is, of course, we’ll turn
you out nice. You’ll wear one of your other new dresses; won’t you?”
“Oh, I don’t know; just what I’m to travel in. It isn’t very old. Do you
know, after all, I’m not sure that it isn’t a great deal better.”
“I suppose it will be the same thing in the end,” said the younger Miss
Foster.
“Of course it will,” said the elder.
“And there won’t be all that bother of changing my dress,” said Nora.
Frederic F. Frew came out to Plumstock by an early train from Liverpool,
bringing with him a countryman of his own as his friend on the occasion.
It had been explained to the friend that he was to come in his usual
habiliments.
“Oh, nonsense!” said the friend, “I guess I’ll see you turned off in a
new waistcoat.” But Frederic F. Frew had made it understood that an old
waistcoat was imperative.
“It’s something about the cotton, you know. They’re all beside
themselves here, as though there was never going to be a bit more in the
country to eat. That’s England all over. Never mind; do you come just
as if you were going into your counting-house. Brown cotton gloves, with
a hole in the thumbs, will be the thing, I should say.”
There were candles on the table when they were all assembled in the
parsonage drawing-room previous to the marriage. The two gentlemen were
there first. Then came Mrs. Granger, who rather frightened Mr. Frew by
kissing him, and telling him that she should always regard him as a
son-in-law.
“Nora has always been like one of ourselves, you know,” she said,
apologisingly.
“And let me tell you, Master Frew,” said the parson, “that you’re a very
lucky fellow to get her.”
“I say, isn’t it cold?” said Bob, coming in--“where are the girls?”
“Here are the girls,” said Miss Foster, heading the procession of three
which now entered the room, Nora, of course, being the last. Then Nora
was kissed by everybody, including the strange American gentleman, who
seemed to have made some mistake as to his privilege in the matter. But
it all passed off very well, and I doubt if Nora knew who kissed her. It
was very cold, and they were all wrapped close in their brown shawls and
greatcoats, and the women looked very snug and comfortable in their
ordinary winter bonnets.
“Come,” said the parson, “we mustn’t wait for Charley; he’ll follow us
to church.” So the uncle took his niece on his arm, and the two
Americans took the two bridesmaids, and Bob took his mother, and went
along the beaten path over the snow to the church, and, as they got to
the door, Charley rushed after them quite out of breath.
“I haven’t even got a pair of gloves at all,” he whispered to his
mother.
“It doesn’t matter; nobody’s to know,” said Mrs. Granger.
Nora by this time had forgotten the subject of her dress altogether, and
it may be doubted if even the Misses Foster were as keenly alive to it
as they thought they would have been. For myself, I think they all
looked more comfortable on that cold winter morning without the finery
which would have been customary than they could have done with it. It
had seemed to them all beforehand that a marriage without veils and
wreaths, without white gloves and new gay dresses, would be but a triste
affair; but the idea passed away altogether when the occasion came. Mr.
Granger and his wife and the two lads clustered around Nora as they
made themselves ready for the ceremony, uttering words of warm love, and
it seemed as though even the clerk and the servants took nothing amiss.
Frederic F. Frew had met with a rebuff in the hall of the parsonage, in
being forbidden to take his own bride under his own arm; but when the
time for action came, he bore no malice, but went through his work
manfully. On the whole, it was a pleasant wedding, homely, affectionate,
full of much loving greeting; but not without many sobs on the part of
the bride and of Mrs. Granger, and some slight suspicion of an
eagerly-removed tear in the parson’s eye; but this, at any rate, was
certain, that the wedding-clothes were not missed. When they all sat
down to their breakfast in the parsonage dining-room, that little matter
had come to be clean forgotten. No one knew, not even the Misses Foster,
that there was anything extraordinary in their garb. Indeed, as to all
gay apparel, we may say that we only miss it by comparison. It is very
sad to be the wearer of the only frock-coat in company, to carry the one
solitary black silk handkerchief at a dinner-party. But I do not know
but that a dozen men so arrayed do not seem to be as well dressed as
though they had obeyed the latest rules of fashion as to their garments.
One thing, however, had been made secure. That sum of twenty pounds,
saved from the milliners, had been duly paid over into Mr. Granger’s
hands. “It has been all very nice,” said Mrs. Granger, still sobbing,
when Nora went up stairs to tie on her bonnet before she started. “Only
you are going!”
“Yes, I’m going now, aunt. Dear aunt! But aunt, I have failed in one
thing--absolutely failed.”
“Failed in what, my darling?”
“There has been no widow’s mite. It is not easy to be a widow with two
mites.”
“What you have given will be blessed to you, and blessed to those who
will receive it.”
“I hope it may; but I almost feel that I have been wrong in thinking of
it so much. It has cost me nothing. I tell you, aunt, that it is not
easy to be a widow with two mites.”
When Mrs. Granger was alone with her husband after this, the two Miss
Fosters having returned to Liverpool under the discreet protection of
the two young Grangers, for they had positively refused to travel with
no other companion than the strange American,--she told him all that
Nora had said.
“And who can tell us,” he replied, “that it was not the same with the
widow herself? She threw in all that she had, but who can say that she
suffered aught in consequence? It is my belief that all that is given
in a right spirit comes back instantly, in this world, with interest.”
“I wish my coals would come back,” said Mrs. Granger.
“Perhaps you have not given them in a right spirit, my dear.”
[Illustration: text decoration]
THE LAST AUSTRIAN WHO LEFT VENICE.
[Illustration: text decoration]
THE LAST AUSTRIAN WHO LEFT VENICE.
In the spring and early summer of the year last past,--the year
1866,--the hatred felt by Venetians towards the Austrian soldiers who
held their city in thraldom, had reached its culminating point. For
years this hatred had been very strong; how strong can hardly be
understood by those who never recognise the fact that there had been, so
to say, no mingling of the conquered and the conquerors, no process of
assimilation between the Italian vassals and their German masters.
Venice as a city was as purely Italian as though its barracks were
filled with no Hungarian long-legged soldiers, and its cafés crowded
with no white-coated Austrian officers. And the regiments which held the
town, lived as completely after their own fashion as though they were
quartered in Pesth, or Prague, or Vienna,--with this exception, that in
Venice they were enabled, and, indeed, from circumstances were
compelled,--to exercise a palpable ascendency which belonged to them
nowhere else. They were masters, daily visible as such to the eye of
every one who merely walked the narrow ways of the city or strolled
through the open squares; and, as masters, they were as separate as the
gaoler is separate from the prisoner.
The Austrian officers sat together in the chief theatre,--having the
best part of it to themselves. Few among them spoke Italian. None of the
common soldiers did so. The Venetians seldom spoke German; and could
hold no intercourse whatever with the Croats, Hungarians, and Bohemians,
of whom the garrison was chiefly composed. It could not be otherwise
than that there should be intense hatred in a city so ruled. But the
hatred which had been intense for years had reached its boiling point in
the May preceding the outbreak of the war.
Whatever other nations might desire to do, Italy, at any rate, was at
this time resolved to fight. It was not that the King and the Government
were so resolved. What was the purpose just then of the powers of the
state, if any purpose had then been definitely formed by them, no one
now knows. History, perhaps, may some day tell us. But the nation was
determined to fight. Hitherto all had been done for the Italians by
outside allies, and now the time had come in which Italians would do
something for themselves.
The people hated the French aid by which they had been allowed to live,
and burned with a desire to prove that they could do something great
without aid. There was an enormous army, and that army should be
utilised for the enfranchisement of Venetia and to the great glory of
Italy. The King and the ministers appreciated the fact that the fervour
of the people was too strong to be repressed, and were probably guided
to such resolutions as they did make by that appreciation.
The feeling was as strong in Venice as it was in Florence or in Milan;
but in Venice only,--or rather in Venetia only--all outward signs of
such feeling were repressible, and were repressed. All through Lombardy
and Tuscany any young man who pleased might volunteer with Garibaldi;
but to volunteer with Garibaldi was not, at first, so easy for young men
in Verona or in Venice. The more complete was this repression, the
greater was this difficulty, the stronger, of course, arose the hatred
of the Venetians for the Austrian soldiery. I have never heard that the
Austrians were cruel in what they did; but they were determined; and,
as long as they had any intention of holding the province, it was
necessary that they should be so.
During the past winter there had been living in Venice a certain Captain
von Vincke,--Hubert von Vincke,--an Austrian officer of artillery, who
had spent the last four or five years among the fortifications of
Verona, and who had come to Venice, originally, on account of ill
health. Some military employment had kept him in Venice, and he remained
there till the outbreak of the war; going backwards and forwards,
occasionally, to Verona, but still having Venice as his head-quarters.
Now Captain von Vincke had shown so much consideration for the country
which he assisted in holding under subjection as to learn its language,
and to study its manners; and had, by these means, found his way, more
or less, into Italian society. He was a thorough soldier, good-looking,
perhaps eight-and-twenty or thirty years of age, well educated,
ambitious, very free from the common vice of thinking that the class of
mankind to which he belonged was the only class in which it would be
worth a man’s while to live; but nevertheless imbued with a strong
feeling that Austria ought to hold her own, that an Austrian army was
indomitable, and that the quadrilateral fortresses, bound together as
they were now bound by Austrian strategy, were impregnable. So much
Captain von Vincke thought and believed on the part of his country; but
in thinking and believing this, he was still desirous that much should
be done to relieve Austrian-Italy from the grief of foreign rule. That
Italy should think of succeeding in repelling Austria from Venice was to
him an absurdity.
He had become intimate at the house of a widow lady, who lived in the
Campo San Luca, one Signora Pepé, whose son had first become acquainted
with Captain von Vincke at Verona.
Carlo Pepé was a young advocate, living and earning his bread at Venice,
but business had taken him for a time to Verona; and when leaving that
city he had asked his Austrian friend to come and see him in his
mother’s house.
Both Madame Pepé and her daughter Nina, Carlo’s only sister, had
somewhat found fault with the young advocate’s rashness in thus seeking
the close intimacy of home-life with one whom, whatever might be his own
peculiar virtues, they could not but recognise as an enemy of their
country.
“That would be all very fine if it were put into a book,” said the
Signora to her son, who had been striving to show that an Austrian, if
good in himself, might be as worthy a friend as an Italian; “but it is
always well to live on the safe side of the wall. It is not convenient
that the sheep and the wolves should drink at the same stream.”
This she said with all that caution which everywhere forms so marked a
trait in the Italian character. “Who goes softly goes soundly.” Half of
the Italian nature is told in that proverb, though it is not the half
which was becoming most apparent in the doings of the nation in these
days. And the Signorina was quite of one mind with her mother.
“Carlo,” she said, “how is it that one never sees one of these Austrians
in the house of any friend? Why is it that I have never yet found myself
in a room with one of them?”
“Because men and women are generally so pig-headed and unreasonable,”
Carlo had replied. “How am I, for instance, ever to learn what a German
is at the core, or a Frenchman, or an Englishman, if I refuse to speak
to one?”
It ended by Captain von Vincke being brought to the house in the Campo
San Luca, and there becoming as intimate with the Signora and the
Signorina as he was with the advocate.
Our story must be necessarily too short to permit us to see how the
affair grew in all its soft and delicate growth; but by the beginning of
April Nina Pepé had confessed her love to Hubert von Vincke, and both
the captain and Nina had had a few words with the Signora on the subject
of their projected marriage.
“Carlo will never allow it,” the old lady had said, trembling as she
thought of the danger that was coming upon the family.
“He should not have brought Captain von Vincke to the house, unless he
was prepared to regard such a thing as possible,” said Nina proudly.
“I think he is too good a fellow to object to anything that you will ask
him,” said the captain, holding by the hand the lady whom he hoped to
call his mother-in-law.
Throughout January and February Captain von Vincke had been an invalid.
In March he had been hardly more than convalescent, and had then had
time and all that opportunity which convalescence gives for the sweet
business of love-making.
During this time, through March and in the first weeks of April, Carlo
Pepé had been backwards and forwards to Verona, and had in truth had
more business on hand than that which simply belonged to him as a
lawyer. Those were the days in which the Italians were beginning to
prepare for the great attack which was to be made, and in which
correspondence was busily carried on between Italy and Venetia as to the
enrolment of Venetian volunteers.
It will be understood that no Venetian was allowed to go into Italy
without an Austrian passport, and that at this time the Austrians were
becoming doubly strict in seeing that the order was not evaded. Of
course it was evaded daily, and twice in that April did young Pepé
travel between Verona and Bologna in spite of all that Austria could say
to the contrary.
When at Venice he and Von Vincke discussed very freely the position of
the country, nothing of course being said as to those journeys to
Bologna. Indeed, of them no one in the Campo San Luca knew aught. They
were such journeys that a man says nothing of them to his mother or his
sister, or even to his wife, unless he has as much confidence in her
courage as he has in her love. But of politics he would talk freely, as
would also the German; and though each of them would speak of the cause
as though they two were simply philosophical lookers-on, and were not
and could not become actors, and though each had in his mind a settled
resolve to bear with the political opinion of the other, yet it came to
pass that they now and again were on the verge of quarrelling.
The fault, I think, was wholly with Carlo Pepé, whose enthusiasm of
course was growing as those journeys to Bologna were made successfully,
and who was beginning to feel assured that Italy at last would certainly
do something for herself. But there had not come any open quarrel,--not
as yet, when Nina, in her lover’s presence, was arguing as to the
impropriety of bringing Captain von Vincke to the house, if Captain von
Vincke was to be regarded as altogether unfit for matrimonial purposes.
At that moment Carlo was absent at Verona, but was to return on the
following morning. It was decided at this conference between the two
ladies and the lover, that Carlo should be told on his return of Captain
von Vincke’s intentions. Captain von Vincke himself would tell him.
There is a certain hotel or coffee-house, or place of general public
entertainment in Venice, kept by a German, and called the Hotel Bauer,
probably from the name of the German who keeps it. It stands near the
church of St. Moses, behind the grand piazza, between that and the great
canal, in a narrow intricate throng of little streets, and is approached
by a close dark water-way which robs it of any attempt at hotel
grandeur. Nevertheless it is a large and commodious house, at which good
dinners may be eaten at prices somewhat lower than are compatible with
the grandeur of the Grand Canal. It used to be much affected by Germans,
and had, perhaps, acquired among Venetians a character of being attached
to Austrian interests.
There was not much in this, or Carlo Pepé would not have frequented the
house, even in company with his friend Von Vincke. He did so frequent
it, and now, on this occasion of his return home, Von Vincke left word
for him that he would breakfast at the hotel at eleven o’clock. Pepé by
that time would have gone home after his journey, and would have visited
his office. Von Vincke also would have done the greatest part of his
day’s work. Each understood the habits of the other, and they met at
Bauer’s for breakfast.
It was the end of April, and Carlo Pepé had returned to Venice full of
schemes for that revolution which he now regarded as imminent. The
alliance between Italy and Prussia was already discussed. Those Italians
who were most eager said that it was a thing done, and no Italian was
more eager than Carlo Pepé. And it was believed at this time, and more
thoroughly believed in Italy than elsewhere, that Austria and Prussia
would certainly go to war. Now, if ever, Italy must do something for
herself.
Carlo Pepé was in this mood, full of these things, when he sat down to
breakfast at Bauer’s with his friend Captain von Vincke.
“Von Vincke,” he said, “in three months time you will be out of Venice.”
“Shall I?” said the other; “and where shall I be?”
“In Vienna, as I hope; or at Berlin if you can get there. But you will
not be here, or in the Quadrilatere, unless you are left behind as a
prisoner.”
The captain went on for awhile cutting his meat and drinking his wine,
before he made any reply to this. And Pepé said more of the same kind,
expressing strongly his opinion that the empire of the Austrians in
Venice was at an end. Then the captain wiped his moustaches carefully
with his napkin, and did speak.
“Carlo, my friend,” he said, “you are rash to say all this.”
“Why rash?” said Carlo; “you and I understand each other.”
“Just so, my friend; but we do not know how far that long-eared waiter
may understand either of us.”
“The waiter has heard nothing, and I do not care if he did.”
“And beyond that,” continued the captain, “you make a difficulty for me.
What am I to say when you tell me these things? That you should have
one political opinion and I another is natural. The question between us,
in an abstract point of view, I can discuss with you willingly. The
possibility of Venice contending with Austria I could discuss, if no
such rebellion were imminent. But when you tell me that it is imminent,
that it is already here, I cannot discuss it.”
“It is imminent,” said Carlo.
“So be it,” said Von Vincke.
And then they finished their breakfast in silence. All this was very
unfortunate for our friend the captain, who had come to Bauer’s with the
intention of speaking on quite another subject. His friend Pepé had
evidently taken what he had said in a bad spirit, and was angry with
him. Nevertheless, as he had told Nina and her mother that he would
declare his purpose to Carlo on this morning, he must do it. He was not
a man to be frightened out of his purpose by his friend’s ill-humour.
“Will you come into the piazza, and smoke a cigar?” said Von Vincke,
feeling that he could begin upon the other subject better as soon as the
scene should be changed.
“Why not let me have my cigar and coffee here?” said Carlo.
“Because I have something to say which I can say better walking than
sitting. Come along.”
Then they paid the bill and left the house, and walked in silence
through the narrow ways to the piazza. Von Vincke said no word till he
found himself in the broad passage leading into the great square. Then
he put his hand through the other’s arm and told his tale at once.
“Carlo,” said he, “I love your sister, and would have her for my wife.
Will you consent?”