AN ADVENTURESS.
"When he told me first, I was angry like you, I would not believe it.
Money! that is a thing to keep, I said, not to give away."
"To give away!" Few things in all her life, at least in all her later
life, had so moved the Contessa. She was walking about the pretty room
in an excitement which was like agitation, now sitting down in one
place, now in another, turning over without knowing it the things on the
table, arranging a drapery here and there instinctively. To how few
people in the world would it be a matter of indifference that money, so
to speak, was going begging, and might fall into their hands as well as
another's! The best of us on this argument would prick up our ears.
Nobody cared less for money in itself than Madame di Forno-Populo. She
liked not to spend it only, but to squander--to make it fly on all
hands. To be utterly extravagant one must be poor, and the money hunger
which belongs to poverty is almost, one might say, a disinterested
quality, so little is it concerned with the possession of the thing
coveted. "Oh," she said, "this is too wonderful! and you are sure you
have not been deceived by the language? You know English so well--are
you sure that you were not deceived?"
Bice did not deign any reply to this question. She gave her head a
slight toss of scorn. The suggestion that she could be mistaken was
unworthy of an answer, and indeed was not put in seriousness, nor did
the Contessa wait for a reply. "What then," the Contessa went on, "is
the position of Sir Tom? Has he no control? Does he permit this? To have
it taken away from himself and his family, thrown into the sea, parted
with--Oh, it is too much! But how can it be done? I was aware that
settlements were very troublesome, but I had not thought it
possible--Bice! Bice! this is very exciting, it makes one's heart beat!
And you are her friend."
"I am her--friend?" Bice turned one ear to her patroness with a startled
look of interrogation.
"Oh!" cried the Contessa once more; by which exclamation, naturally
occurring when she was excited, she proved that she was of English
race. "What difficulty is there in my meaning? You have English enough
for that. What! do you feel no impatience when you hear of money running
away?--going into a different channel--to strangers--to people that have
nothing to do with it--that have no right to it--anybody--a clergyman,
a----"
Her feelings were too much for her. She threw herself into a chair, out
of breath.
"He looked a very good man," said Bice, with that absolute calm which is
so exasperating to an excited woman, "and what does it matter, if it has
to be given away, who gets it? I should give it to the beggars. I should
fling it for them, as you do the _bajocchi_ when you are out driving."
"You are a fool! you are a fool!" cried the Contessa, "or rather you are
a child, and don't understand anything. Fling it to the beggars? Yes, if
it was in shillings or even sovereigns. You don't understand what money
is."
"That is true, Madama, for I never had any," cried the girl, with a
laugh. She was perfectly unmoved--the desire of money was not in her as
yet, though she was far more enlightened as to its uses than most
persons of her age. It amused her to see the excitement of her
companion; and she knew very well what the Contessa meant, though she
would not betray any consciousness of it. "If I marry," she said, "then
perhaps I shall know."
"Bice! you are not a fool--you are very sharp, though you choose not to
see. Why should not you have this as well as another?--oh, much better
than another! I can't stand by and see it all float into alien channels,
while you--it would not be doing my duty while you---- Oh, don't look at
me with that blank face, as if it did not move you in the least! Would
it be nothing to have it in your power to dress as you like, to do as
you like, to go into the world, to have a handsome house, to enjoy
life?----"
"But, yes!" said Bice, "is it necessary to ask?" She was still as calm
as if the question they were discussing had been of the very smallest
importance. "But we are not good poor people that will spend the money
_comme il faut_. If we had it we should throw it away. Me also--I would
throw it away. It would be for nothing good; why should it be given to
us? Oh no, Madama. The good old clergyman had many children. He will not
waste the money--which we should. What do you care for money, but to
spend it fast, fast; and I too----"
"You are a child," said the Contessa. "No, perhaps I am not what people
call good, though I am poor enough--but you are a child. If it was given
to you it would be invested; you would have power over the income only.
You could not throw it away, nor could I, which, perhaps, is what you
are thinking of. You are just the person she wants, so far as I can see.
She objects to my plan of putting you out in the world; she says it
would be better if you were to work; but this is the best of all. Let
her provide for you, and then it will not need that you should either
marry or work. This is, beyond all description, the best way. And you
are her friend. Tell me, was it before or after the boy informed you of
this that you advised yourself to become her friend?"
"Contessa!" cried Bice, with a shock of angry feeling which brought the
blood to her face. She was not sensitive in many matters which would
have stung an English girl; but this suggestion, which was so
undeserved, moved her to passion. She turned away with an almost tragic
scorn, and seizing the _tapisserie_, which was part of the Contessa's
_mise en scene_, flung a long strip of the many-coloured embroidery over
her arm, and began to work with a sort of savage energy. The Contessa
watched her movements with a sudden pause in her own excitement. She
stopped short in the eagerness of her own thoughts, and looked with keen
curiosity at the young creature upon whom she had built so many
expectations. She was not an ungenerous or mercenary woman, though she
had many faults, and as she gazed a certain compunction awoke within
her, mingled with amusement. She was sorry for the unworthy suggestion
she had made, but the sight of the girl in her indignation was like a
scene in a play to this woman of the world. Her youthful dignity and
wrath, her silent scorn, the manner in which she flung her needle
through the canvas, working out her rage, were full of entertainment to
the Contessa. She was not irritated by the girl's resentment; it even
took off her thoughts from the primary matter to watch this exhibition
of feeling. She gave vent to a little laugh as she noted how the needle
flew.
"Cara! I was nasty when I said that. I did not mean it. I suffered
myself to talk as one talks in the world. You are not of the world--it
is not applicable to you."
"Yes, Madama, I am of the world," cried Bice. "What have I known else?
But I did not mean to become Milady's friend, as you say. It was by
accident. I was in the gallery only to amuse myself, and she came--it
was not intention. I think that Milady is----"
Here Bice stopped, looked up from the sudden fervour of her working,
threw back her head, and said nothing more.
"That Milady is--what?" the Contessa cried.
A laugh so joyous, so childish, that no one could have refused to be
sympathetic, burst from Bice's lips. She gave her patroness a look of
merriment and derision, in which there was something tender and sweet.
"Milady is--sorry for me," she said.
This speech had a strange effect upon the Contessa. She coloured, and
the tears seemed to flood in a moment to her eyes. "Poor child!" she
said--"poor child! She has reason. But that amuses you, Bice mia," she
said, in a voice full of the softest caressing, looking at her through
those sudden tears. The Contessa was an adventuress, and she had brought
up this girl after her own traditions; but it was clear as they looked
at each other that they loved each other. There was perfect confidence
between them. Bice looked with fearless laughing eyes, and a sense of
the absurdity of the fact that some one was sorry for her, into the face
of her friend.
"She thinks I would be happier if I worked. To give lessons to little
children and be their slave would be better, she thinks. To know nothing
and see nothing, but live far away from the world and be independent,
and take no trouble about my looks, or, if I please--that is Milady's
way of thinking," Bice said.
The Contessa's face softened more and more as she looked at the girl.
There even dropped a tear from her full eyes. She shook her head. "I am
not sure," she said, "dear child, that I am not of Milady's opinion.
There are ways in which it is better. Sometimes I think I was most happy
when I was like that--without money, without experience, with no
wishes."
"No wishes, Madama! Did you not wish to go out into the beautiful bright
world, to see people, to hear music, to talk, to please? It is
impossible. Money, that is different, and experience that is different:
but to wish, every one must do that."
"Bice, you have a great deal of experience for so young a girl. You have
seen so much. I ought to have brought you up otherwise, perhaps, but how
could I? You have always shared with me, and what I had I gave you. And
you know besides how little satisfaction there is in it--how sick one
becomes of a crowd of faces that are nothing to you, and of music that
goes on just the same whatever you are feeling--and this to please, as
you call it! Whom do I please? Persons who do not care at all for me
except that I amuse them sometimes--who like me to sing; who like to
look at me; who find themselves less dull when I am there. That is all.
And that will be all for you, unless you marry well, my Bice, which it
is the object of my life to make you do."
"I hope I shall marry well," said the girl, composedly. "It would be
very pleasant to find one's self above all shifts, Madama. Still that is
not everything; and I would much rather have led the life I have led,
and enjoyed myself and seen so much, than to have been the little
governess of the English family--the little girl who is always so quiet,
who walks out with the children, and will not accept the eldest son even
when he makes love to her. I should have laughed at the eldest son. I
know what they are like--they are so stupid; they have not a word to
say; that would have amused me; but in the Tauchnitz books it is all
honour and wretchedness. I am glad I know the world, and have seen all
kinds of people, and wish for everything that is pleasant, instead of
being so good and having no wishes as you say."
The Contessa laughed, having got rid of all her incipient tears. "There
is more life in it," she said. "You see now what it is--this life in
England; one day is like another, one does the same things. The
newspaper comes in the morning, then luncheon, then to go out, then tea,
dinner; there is no change. When we talk in the evening, and I remind
Sir Tom of the past when I lived in Florence, and he was with me every
day,"--the Contessa once more uttered that easy exclamation which would
sound so profane in English. "_Quelle vie!_" she cried, "how much we got
out of every day. There were no silences! They came in one after another
with some new thing, something to see and to do. We separated to dress,
to make ourselves beautiful for the evening, and then till the morning
light came in through the curtains, never a pause or a weariness. Yes!
sometimes one had a terrible pang. There would be a toilette, which was
ravishing, which was far superior to mine--for I never had money to
dress as I wished--or some one else would have a success, and attract
all eyes. But what did that matter?" the Contessa cried, lighting up
more and more. "One did not really grudge what lasted only for a time;
for one knew next day one would have one's turn. Ah!" she said, with a
sigh, "I knew what it was to be a queen, Bice, in those days."
"And so you do still, Madama," said the girl, soothingly.
Madama di Forno-Populo shook her head. "It is no longer the same," she
said. "You have known only the worst side, my _poverina_. It is no
longer one's own palace, one's own people, and the best of the
strangers, the finest company. You saw the Duchess at Milady's party the
other day. To see me made her lose her breath. She could not refuse to
speak to me--to salute me--but it was with a consternation! But, Bice,
that lady was only too happy to be invited to the Palazzo Populino. To
make one of our expeditions was her pride. I believe in my soul," cried
the Contessa, "that when she looks back she remembers those days as the
most bright of her life."
Bice's clear shining eyes rested upon her patroness with a light in them
which was keen with indignation and wonder. She cried, "And why the
change--and why the change, Madama?" with a high indignant tone, such as
youth assumes in presence of ingratitude and meanness. Bice knew much
that a young girl does not usually know; but the reason why her best
friend should be thus slighted was not one of these things.
The Contessa shrank a little from her gaze. She rose up again and went
to the window and looked out upon the wintry landscape, and standing
there with her face averted, shrugged her shoulders a little and made
answer in a tone of levity very different from the sincerer sound of her
previous communications. "It is poverty, my child, poverty, always the
easiest explanation! I was never rich, but then there had been no crash,
no downfall. I was in my own palace. I had the means of entertaining. I
was somebody. Ah! very different; it was not then at the baths, in the
watering-places, that the Contessa di Forno-Populo was known. It is
this, my Bice, that makes me say that sometimes I am of Milady's
opinion; that to have no wishes, to know nothing, to desire
nothing--that is best. When I knew the Duchess first I could be of
service to her. Now that I meet her again it is she only that can be of
service to me."
"But----" Bice began and stopped short. She was, as has been said, a
girl of many experiences. When a very young creature is thus prematurely
introduced to a knowledge of human nature she approaches the subject
with an impartiality scarcely possible at an older age. She had seen
much. She had been acquainted with those vicissitudes that occur in the
lives of the seekers of pleasure almost since ever she was born. She had
been acquainted with persons of the most gay and cheerful appearance,
who had enjoyed themselves highly, and called all their acquaintances
round them to feast, and who had then suddenly collapsed and after an
interval of tears and wailings had disappeared from the scene of their
downfall. But Bice had not learnt the commonplace lesson so deeply
impressed upon the world from the Athenian Timon downwards, that a
downfall of this kind instantly cuts all ties. She was aware, on the
contrary, that a great deal of kindness, sympathy, and attempts to aid
were always called forth on such occasions; that the women used to form
a sort of rampart around the ruined with tears and outcries, and that
the men had anxious meetings and consultations and were constantly going
to see some one or other upon the affairs of the downfallen. Bice had
not seen in her experience that poverty was an argument for desertion.
She was so worldly wise that she did not press her question as a simple
girl might have done. She stopped short with an air of bewilderment and
pain, which the Contessa, as her head was turned, did not see. She gave
up the inquiry; but there arose in her mind a suspicion, a question,
such as had not ever had admission there before.
"Ah!" cried the Contessa, suddenly turning round, clasping her hands,
"it was different indeed when my house was open to all these English,
and they came as they pleased. But now I do not know, if I am turned out
of this house, this dull house in which I have taken refuge, where I
shall go. I don't know where to go!"
"Madama!" Bice sprang to her feet too, and clasped her hands.
"It is true--it is quite true. We have spent everything. I have not the
means to go even to a third-rate place. As for Cannes it is impossible.
I told you so before we came here. Rome is impossible--the apartment is
let, and without that I could not live at all. Everything is gone. Here
one may manage to exist a little while, for the house is good, and Sir
Tom is rather amusing. But how to get to London unless they will take us
I know not, and London is the place to produce you, Bice. It is for that
I have been working. But Milady does not like me; she is jealous of me,
and if she can she will send us away. Is it wonderful, then, that I am
glad you are her friend? I am very glad of it, and I should wish you to
let her know that to no one could she give her money more fitly. You
see," said the Contessa, with a smile, resuming her seat and her easy
tone, "I have come back to the point we started from. It is seldom one
does that so naturally. If it is true (which seems so impossible) that
there is money to give away, no one has a better right to it than you."
Bice went away from this interview with a mind more disturbed than it
had ever been in her life before. Naturally, the novel circumstances
which surrounded her awakened deeper questions as her mind developed,
and she began to find herself a distinct personage. They set her
wondering. Madame di Forno-Populo had been of a tenderness unparalleled
to this girl, and had sheltered her existence ever since she could
remember. It had not occurred to her mind as yet to ask what the
relations were between them, or why she had been the object of so much
affection and thought. She had accepted this with all the composure of a
child ever since she was a child. And the prospect of achieving a
marriage should she turn out beautiful, and thus being in a position to
return some of the kindness shown her, seemed to Bice the most natural
thing in the world. But the change of atmosphere had done something, and
Lucy's company, and the growth, perhaps, of her own young spirit. She
went away troubled. There seemed to be more in the world and its
philosophy than Bice's simple rules could explain.