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diff --git a/2457-0.txt b/2457-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5b76543 --- /dev/null +++ b/2457-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4516 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Stories By English Authors: Italy, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Stories By English Authors: Italy + +Author: Various + +Release Date: April 3, 2006 [EBook #2457] +Last Updated: September 21, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORIES BY ENGLISH AUTHORS: ITALY *** + + + + +Produced by Dagny; John Bickers + + + + + +STORIES BY ENGLISH AUTHORS + +ITALY + + + + +CONTENTS + + A FAITHFUL RETAINER James Payn + BIANCA W. E. Norris + GONERIL A. Mary F. Robinson + THE BRIGAND’S BRIDE Laurence Oliphant + MRS. GENERAL TALBOYS Anthony Trollope + + + + +A FAITHFUL RETAINER, By James Payn + + +When I lived in the country,--which was a long time ago,--our nearest +neighbours were the Luscombes. They were very great personages in the +country indeed, and the family were greatly “respected”; though not, +so far as I could discern, for any particular reason, except from +their having been there for several generations. People are supposed to +improve, like wine, from keeping--even if they are rather “ordinary” at +starting; and the Luscombes, at the time I knew them, were considered +quite a “vintage” family. They had begun in Charles II.’s time, and +dated their descent from greatness in the female line. That they had +managed to keep a great estate not very much impaired so long was +certainly a proof of great cleverness, since there had been many +spend-thrifts among them; but fortunately there had been a miser or two, +who had restored the average, and their fortunes. + +Mr. Roger Luscombe, the present proprietor, was neither the one nor the +other, but he was inclined to frugality, and no wonder; a burnt child +dreads the fire, even though he may have had nothing to do with lighting +it himself, and his father had kicked down a good many thousands with +the help of “the bones” (as dice were called in his day) and “the +devil’s books” (which was the name for cards with those that disapproved +of them) and race-horses; there was plenty left, but it made the old +gentleman careful and especially solicitous to keep it. There was no +stint, however, of any kind at the Court, which to me, who lived in the +little vicarage of Dalton with my father, seemed a palace. + +It was indeed a very fine place, with statues in the hall and pictures +in the gallery and peacocks on the terrace. Lady Jane, the daughter of +a wealthy peer, who had almost put things on their old footing with her +ample dowry, was a very great lady, and had been used, I was told, to +an even more splendid home; but to me, who had no mother, she was simply +the kindest and most gracious woman I had ever known. + +My connection with the Luscombes arose from their only son Richard +being my father’s pupil. We were both brought up at home, but for very +different reasons. In my case it was from economy: the living was small +and our family was large, though, as it happened, I had no brothers. +Richard was too precious to his parents to be trusted to the tender +mercies of a public school. He was in delicate health, not so much +natural to him as caused by an excess of care--coddling. Though he and I +were very good friends, unless when we were quarreling, it must be owned +that he was a spoiled boy. + +There is a good deal of nonsense talked of young gentlemen who are +brought up from their cradles in an atmosphere of flattery _not_ +being spoiled; but unless they are angels--which is a very exceptional +case--it cannot be otherwise. Richard Luscombe was a good fellow in +many ways; liberal with his money (indeed, apt to be lavish), and +kind-hearted, but self-willed, effeminate, and impulsive. He had +also--which was a source of great alarm and grief to his father--a +marked taste for speculation. + +After the age of “alley tors and commoneys,” of albert-rock and +hard-bake, in which we both gambled frightfully, I could afford him no +opportunities of gratifying this passion; but if he could get a little +money “on” anything, there was nothing that pleased him better--not +that he cared for the money, but for the delight of winning it. The next +moment he would give it away to a beggar. Numbers of good people look +upon gambling with even greater horror than it deserves, because they +cannot understand this; the attraction of risk, and the wild joy of +“pulling off” something when the chances are against one, are unknown to +them. It is the same with the love of liquor. Richard Luscombe had not +a spark of that (his father left him one of the best cellars in England, +but he never touches even a glass of claret after dinner; “I should as +soon think,” he says, “of eating when I am not hungry”); but he dearly +liked what he called a “spec.” Never shall I forget the first time he +realised anything that could be termed a stake. + +When he was about sixteen, he and I had driven over to some little +country races a few miles away from Dalton, without, I fear, announcing +our intention of so doing. Fresh air was good for “our dear Richard,” + and since pedestrian exercise (which he also hated) exhausted him, he +had a groom and dog-cart always at his own disposal. It was a day of +great excitement for me, who had never before seen a race-course. The +flags, the grand stand (a rude erection of planks, which came down, +by-the-bye, the next year during the race for the cup, and reduced the +sporting population), the insinuating gipsies, the bawling card-sellers, +and especially the shining horses with their twisted manes, all excited +my admiration. + +I was well acquainted with them in fiction; and these illustrations of +the books I loved so well delighted me. Richard, who had read less and +seen more, was bent on business. + +He was tall for his age, but very slight and youthful-looking, and the +contrast of his appearance with that of the company in the little ring, +composed as it was of a choice selection of the roughest blackguards in +England, was very striking. + +Many of these knew who he was, and were very glad to see him, but only +one of the book-makers secured his patronage. The fact was, Master +Richard had but one five-pound note to lay; he had been saving up his +pocket-money for weeks for this very purpose, and he took ten to one +about an outsider, “Don Sebastian,”--a name I shall remember when all +other historical knowledge has departed from me,--not because he knew +anything of the horse, but because the longest odds were laid against +him. + +I didn’t like the look of the “gentleman sportsman” who took custody +of that five-pound note, but Richard (who had never seen him before) +assured me, with his usual confidence, that he was “straight as a die” + and “as honest as the day.” + +The race excited me exceedingly; Richard had lent me a field-glass (for +everything he had was in duplicate, if not triplicate), and I watched +the progress of that running rainbow with a beating heart. At first +Yellow Cap (the Don) seemed completely out of it, the last of all; but +presently he began to creep up, and as they drew near the winning-post, +shouts of “Yellow Cap wins!” “Yellow Cap wins!” rent the air. He did +win by a head, and with a well-pleased flush on my face at my friend’s +marvellous good fortune, I turned to congratulate him. He was gone. The +tumult and confusion were excessive; but looking toward the exit gate, I +just caught a glimpse of the book-maker passing rapidly through it, and +then of Richard in pursuit of him. + +A stout young farmer, whom I knew, was standing behind me, and in a few +hurried words I told him what had happened. “Come with me,” he said, +and off we ran, as though we had been entered for the cup ourselves. The +other two were already a field ahead, and far away from the course; but, +fast as the book-maker ran, the delicate Richard had come up with him. I +could imagine how pumped he was, but the idea of having been swindled by +this scoundrel, who was running off with his five-pound note, as well as +the fifty pounds he owed him, had no doubt lent him wings. It could not, +however, lend him strength, nor teach him the art of self-defence, +and after a few moments, passed doubtless in polite request and blunt +refusal, we saw the miscreant strike out from the shoulder and Richard +go down. + +The time thus lost, however, short-lived as was the combat, was fatal +to the victor. There were few better runners in Dalton than my companion +and myself, and we gained on the book-maker, who had probably trained on +gin and bad tobacco, hand over hand. As we drew near him he turned round +and inquired, with many expletives, made half inarticulate by want +of breath, what we wanted with a gentleman engaged on his own private +affairs. + +“Well,” I said,--for as I could trust my agricultural friend with the +more practical measures that were likely to follow I thought it only +fair that I should do the talking,--“we want first the five-pound note +which that young gentleman, whom you have just knocked down, intrusted +to your care, and then the fifty pounds you have lost to him.” + +He called Heaven to witness that he had never made a bet in his life +with any young gentleman, but that, having been molested, he believed by +a footpad, as he was returning home to his family, he had been compelled +to defend himself. + +“I heard you make the bet and saw you take the money,” I remarked, with +confidence. + +“That’s good enough,” said the farmer. “Now if you don’t shell out that +money this instant, I’ll have you back in the ring in a brace of shakes +and tell them what has happened. Last year they tore a welsher pretty +nigh to pieces, and this year, if you don’t ‘part,’ they’ll do it +quite.” + +The book-maker turned livid,--I never saw a man in such a funk in my +life,--and produced a greasy pocket-book, out of which he took Richard’s +bank-note, and ten quite new ones; and I noticed there were more left, +so that poverty was not his excuse for fraud. + +“Let me look at ‘em against the sun,” said the farmer, “to see as the +water-mark is all right.” + +This was a precaution I should never have thought of, and it gave me +for the first time a sense of the great intelligence of my father’s +parishioner. + +“Yes, they’re all correct. And now you may go; but if ever you show your +face again on Southick (Southwick) race-course it will be the worst for +you.” + +He slunk away, and we returned to Richard, who was sitting on the +ground, looking at his nose, which was bleeding and had attained vast +dimensions. + +“Did you get the money?” were his first words, which I thought very +characteristic. + +“Yes, there it is, squire--ten fivers and your own note.” + +“Very good; I should never have seen a shilling of it but for you and +Charley, so we will just divide it into three shares.” + +The farmer said, “No,” but eventually took his L16 13s. 4d., and quite +right too. Of course I did not take Richard’s money, but he afterward +bought me a rifle with it, which I could not refuse. The farmer, as may +be well imagined, could be trusted to say nothing of our adventure; but +it was impossible to hide Richard’s nose. He was far too honest a fellow +to tell a lie about it, and the whole story came out. His father was +dreadfully shocked at it, and Lady Jane in despair: the one about his +gambling propensities, and the other about his nose; she thought, if the +injury did not prove fatal, he would be disfigured for life. + +He was well in a week, but the circumstances had the gravest +consequences. It was decided that something must be done with the heir +of the Luscombes to wean him from low company (this was not me, but +grooms and racing people); but even this predilection was ascribed in +part to his fragile constitution. A fashionable physician came down from +London to consider the case. He could not quite be brought to the point +desired by Lady Jane, to lay Richard’s love of gambling at the door of +the delicacy of his lungs; but he was brought very near it. The young +fellow, his “opinion” was, had been brought up too much like a hothouse +flower; his tastes were what they were chiefly because he had no +opportunities of forming better ones; with improved strength his moral +nature would become more elevated. That he was truthful was a great +source of satisfaction (this was with reference to his distinct refusal +to give up gambling to please anybody) and a most wholesome physical +sign. “My recommendation is that he should be temporarily removed from +his present dull surroundings; there is not scope in them for his mind; +he should be sent abroad for a month or two with his tutor. That will do +him a world of good.” + +If it was not very good advice, it was probably quite as judicious +as other “opinions” for which a hundred and fifty guineas have been +cheerfully paid. It was at all events a great comfort to hear that there +was nothing constitutionally wrong with “dearest Richard,” and that he +only wanted a tonic for mind and body. The doctor’s verdict was accepted +by both parents, but there was an insurmountable obstacle to its being +carried into effect in Master Richard himself. My father could not +leave his parish and his family, and with no other tutor could the young +gentleman be induced to go. + +Now it happened that the butler at the Court, John Maitland, who, as +is often the case in such households, had the gravity and dignity of a +bishop, was so fortunate as to be a favourite both with the old folks +and the young one. He really was a superior person, and not only +“honest as the day” in Richard’s eyes (which, as we have seen, was not +a guarantee of straightforwardness), but in those of every one else. He +had been born in the village, had been page to Mr. Luscombe’s father, +and had lived more than fifty years at the Court. The relations between +master and servant were feudal, mingled with the more modern attachment +that comes of good service properly appreciated. He thought the +Luscombes, if not the only old family in the world, the best, and +worshipped--though in a dignified and ecclesiastical manner--the ground +trodden on both by the squire and Master Richard. My own impression +was that under pretence of giving way to the latter he played into the +parental hands; but as this was certainly for my young friend’s good, +I never communicated my suspicions to him. Maitland, at all events, +had more influence over him than any man except my father. Still it +astonished us all not a little, notwithstanding the high opinion we +entertained of him, when we heard that the butler was to be intrusted +with the guardianship of Richard abroad. Such a thing could not have +happened in any other family, but so it was arranged; and partly as +valet, partly as confidential companion and treasurer Maitland started +with his young master on his travels. + +These were to last for not less than six months, and Italy, because +of its warm climate, was the country to which they were bound. That it +would do the young fellow good, both moral and physical, we all hoped; +but my father had his doubts. He feared that Maitland’s influence over +his companion would wane when away from the Court; but it never entered +into his mind that he would willingly permit any wrong doing, and still +less that the man would himself succumb to any temptation that involved +dishonesty. + +They travelled by easy stages; though they used the railway, of course, +they did so only for a few hours a day, and got out and remained at +places of interest. Richard was very amenable, and indeed showed no +desire for dissipation; his one weakness--that of having a “spree”--had +no opportunity of being gratified; and Maitland wrote home the most +gratifying letters, not only respecting the behaviour of his charge, but +of the improvement in his health. As they drew nearer to Italy, Richard +observed one day that he should spend a day or two at Monte Carlo. +Maitland had never heard of the place or of its peculiar attractions; +and “Master Richard” only told him that it was very picturesque. The +horror of the faithful retainer may therefore be imagined when he found +that it was a gambling resort. + +He could not prevent his young master frequenting the tables, and +though he kept the purse, with the exception of a few pounds, and would +certainly have stood between him and ruin, he could not prevent his +winning. Richard had the luck, and more, that proverbially attends young +people--he had the luck of the devil; his few napoleons swelling to a +great many on the very first day, and he was in the seventh heaven of +happiness. The next day and the next he won largely, immensely; in vain +Maitland threatened to write to his father, and even to leave him. + +“All right,” replied the reckless youth. “You may do as you like; even +if the governor disinherits me I can make my fortune by stopping here. +And as to leaving me, go by all means; I shall get on very well with a +French valet.” + +It was dreadful. + +Richard grew happier and happier every day, as the golden flood flowed +in upon him, but also extremely hectic. He passed the whole day at the +tables, and the want of air and exercise, and, still more, the intense +excitement which possessed him, began to have the most serious effect. +That prescription of “seeing the world,” and “escaping from his dull +surroundings,” was having a very different result from what had +been expected. “The paths of glory lead but to the grave”; the young +Englishman and his luck were the talk of all Monte Carlo, and he enjoyed +his notoriety very much; but, as the poor butler plaintively observed, +what was the good of that when Master Richard was “killing himself”? + +How the news was received at the Court I had no means of judging, for +the squire kept a rigid silence, except that he had long conferences +with my father; and Lady Jane kept her room. It was indeed a very sore +subject. The squire wanted to start for Monte Carlo at once; but he was +singularly insular, detested travel, and in truth was very unfit for +such a “cutting-out expedition” as was contemplated. He waited, half out +of his mind with anxiety, but in hopes of a better report; what he hoped +for was that luck would turn, and Richard lose every shilling. + +The very reverse of this, however, took place; Richard won more and +more. He would come home to his hotel in the evening with a porter +carrying his gains. His portmanteau was full of napoleons. It was +characteristic of him that he never thought of banking it. One evening +he came in with very bright eyes, but a most shrunken and cadaverous +face. + +“This has been my best day of all, Johnny,” he said. “See, I have won +two thousand pounds; and you shall have a hundred of it.” + +But Maitland refused to have anything to do with such ill-gotten gains, +for which, too, his young master was sacrificing his health, and perhaps +his life. Still--though this did not strike Richard till afterward--he +could not help regarding the great heap of gold with considerable +interest. Added to the lad’s previous gains, the amount was now very +large indeed--more than five thousand pounds. + +“I should really think, Master Richard, as you had now won enough.” + +“Enough? Certainly not. I have not broken the bank yet. I mean to do +that before I’ve done with it, Johnny.” + +“That will be after you’ve killed yourself,” said honest John. + +“Well, then I shall die _rich_,” was the reckless rejoinder. + +Richard, who was too exhausted for repose, tossed and tumbled on his bed +for hours, and eventually dropped into a heavy slumber, and slept far +into the next morning. He awoke feeling very unwell, but his chief +anxiety was lest he should miss the opening of the tables; he was always +the first to begin. He rang his bell violently for Maitland. There was +no reply, and when he rang again, one of the hotel servants came up. + +“Where is my man?” he inquired. + +“Monsieur’s man-servant took monsieur’s luggage to the railway-station; +he is gone by the early train to Turin.” + +“Gone to Turin with my luggage?” + +“Yes, with the two portmanteaus--very heavy ones.” + +Richard got out of bed, and dragged his weary limbs into the +dressing-room, an inner apartment, where the portmanteaus were kept for +safety. They were both gone. + +“What train did the scoundrel go by? Where is my watch? Why, the villain +has taken that too! Send for the police! No; there is no time to be +lost--send a telegram. Why, he has not even left me enough money to pay +a telegram!” + +All his small change was gone. Honest John had taken everything; he had +not left his young master a single sixpence. At this revelation of +the state of affairs, poor Richard, weakened as he was by his long +excitement, threw himself on the bed and burst into tears. The +attendant, to whom, as usual, he had been liberal, was affected by an +emotion so strange in an Englishman. + +“Monsieur must not fret; the thief will be caught and the money +restored. It will be well, perhaps to tell the _maitre d’hotel_.” + +The master of the hotel appeared with a very grave face. He was +desolated to hear of the misfortune that had befallen his young guest. +Perhaps there was not quite so much taken as had been reported. + +“I tell you it’s all gone; more than five thousand pounds, and my watch +and chain; I have not half a franc in my possession.” + +“That is unfortunate indeed,” said the _maitre d’hotel_, looking graver +than ever, “because there is my bill to settle.” + +“Oh, hang your bill!” cried Richard. “_That_ will be all right. I must +telegraph to my father at once.” + +“But how is monsieur to telegraph if he has no money?” + +It was probably the first time in his life that the young fellow had +ever understood how inconvenient a thing is poverty. What also amazed +him beyond measure was the man’s manner; yesterday, and all other +days, it had been polite to obsequiousness; now it was dry almost to +insolence. It seemed, indeed, to imply some doubt of the bona fides of +his guest--that he might not, in short, be much better than honest John +himself, of whom he was possibly the confederate; that the whole story +was a trumped-up one to account for the inability to meet his bill. As +to his having won largely at the tables, that might be true enough; but +he also might have lost it all, and more with it; money changes hands at +Monte Carlo very rapidly. + +In the end, however, and not without much objection, the landlord +advanced a sufficient sum to enable Richard to telegraph home. He also +permitted him to stay on at the hotel, stipulating, however, that +he should call for no wine, nor indulge in anything expensive--a +humiliating arrangement enough, but not so much so as the terms of +another proviso, that he was never to enter the gambling saloon or go +beyond the public gardens. Even there he was under surveillance, and it +was, in short, quite clear that he was suspected of an intention to run +away without paying his bill--perhaps even of joining his “confederate,” + Mr. John Maitland. + +The only thing that comforted Richard was the conviction that he should +have a remittance from his father in a few hours; but nothing of the +sort, not even a telegram, arrived. Day after day went by, and the +young fellow was in despair; he felt like a pariah, for he had been +so occupied with the tables that he had made no friends; and his few +acquaintances looked askance at him, as being under a cloud, with the +precise nature of which they were unacquainted. Friendless and penniless +in a foreign land, his spirit was utterly broken, and he began +to understand what a fool he had made of himself; especially how +ungratefully he had behaved to his father, without whom it was not so +easy to “get on,” it appeared, as he had imagined. He saw, too, the evil +of his conduct in having thrust a temptation in the way of honest John +too great to be resisted. The police could hear no news of him, and, +indeed, seemed very incredulous with respect to Richard’s account of the +matter. + +On the fourth day Richard received a letter from his father of the +gravest kind, though expressed in the most affectionate terms. He hardly +alluded to the immediate misfortune that had happened to him, but spoke +of the anxiety and alarm which his conduct had caused his mother +and himself. “I enclose you a check,” he wrote, “just sufficient to +comfortably bring you home and pay your hotel bill, and exceedingly +regret that I cannot trust my son with more--lest he should risk it in +a way that gives his mother and myself more distress of mind than I can +express.” + +Richard’s heart was touched, as it well might have been; though perhaps +the condition of mind in which his father’s communication found him had +something to do with it. By that night’s mail he despatched a letter +home which gave the greatest delight at the Court, and also at the +vicarage, for Mr. Luscombe, full of pride and joy, brought it to my +father to read. “I have been very foolish, sir, and very wicked,” it +ran. “I believe I should have been dead by this time had not Maitland +stolen my money (so that I have no reason to feel very angry with him) +and deprived me of the means of suicide. I give you my word of honour +that I will never gamble again.” + +Lady Jane sent a telegram to meet Master Richard in Paris, to say what +a dear good boy he was, and how happy he had made her. This did not +surprise him, but what did astonish him very much on arriving at the +Court was that John Maitland opened the door for him. + +“Why, you old scoundrel!” + +“Yes, sir, I know; I’m a thief and all that, but I did it for the best; +I did, indeed.” + +Though the fatted calf was killed for Master Richard, he had by no means +returned like the prodigal son. On the contrary, he had sent home +a remittance, as it were, by the butler, of more than five thousand +pounds. The whole plot had been devised by honest John as the only +method of extricating Master Richard from that Monte Carlo spider’s web, +and had been carried out by the help of the _maitre d’hotel_, with the +squire’s approval. And to do the young fellow justice, he never resented +the trick that had been played upon him. + +Richard was not sent abroad again, but to Cambridge, where eventually he +took a fourth-class (poll) degree; and Lady Jane was as proud of it +as if he had been senior wrangler. He kept his word, in spite of all +temptations to the contrary, and never touched a card--a circumstance +which drove him to take a fair amount of exercise, and, in consequence, +he steadily improved in health. He was sometimes chaffed by his +companions for his abstinence from play; they should have thought he was +the last man to be afraid of losing his money. + +“You are right, so far,” he would answer, drily; “but the fact is, I +have had enough of winning.” + +To which they would reply: + +“Oh yes, we dare say,” an elliptical expression, which conveyed +disbelief. + +He never told them the story of his Monte Carlo experiences; but in the +vacations he would often talk to honest John about them. We may be sure +that that faithful retainer did not go unrewarded for his fraudulent +act. + + + + +BIANCA, By W. E. Norris + +Not long since, I was one among a crowd of nobodies at a big official +reception in Paris when the Marchese and Marchesa di San Silvestro were +announced. There was a momentary hush; those about the doorway fell back +to let this distinguished couple pass, and some of us stood on tiptoe to +get a glimpse of them; for San Silvestro is a man of no small importance +in the political and diplomatic world, and his wife enjoys quite a +European fame for beauty and amiability, having had opportunities of +displaying both these attractive gifts at the several courts where she +has acted as Italian ambassadress. They made their way quickly up the +long room,--she short, rather sallow, inclined toward embonpoint, but +with eyes whose magnificence was rivalled only by that of her diamonds; +he bald-headed, fat, gray-haired, covered with orders,--and were soon +out of sight. I followed them with a sigh which caused my neighbour to +ask me jocosely whether the marchesa was an old flame of mine. + +“Far from it,” I answered. “Only the sight of her reminded me of bygone +days. Dear, dear me! how time does slip on! It is fifteen years since I +saw her last.” + +I moved away, looking down rather ruefully at the waistcoat to whose +circumference fifteen years have made no trifling addition, and +wondering whether I was really as much altered and aged in appearance as +the marchesa was. + +Fifteen years--it is no such very long time; and yet I dare say that the +persons principally concerned in the incident which I am about to relate +have given up thinking about it as completely as I had done, until the +sound of that lady’s name, and the sight of her big black eyes, recalled +it to me, and set me thinking of the sunny spring afternoon on which +my sister Anne and I journeyed from Verona to Venice, and of her naive +exclamations of delight on finding herself in a real gondola, gliding +smoothly down the Grand Canal. My sister Anne is by some years my +senior. She is what might be called an old lady now, and she certainly +was an old maid then, and had long accepted her position as such. Then, +as now, she habitually wore a gray alpaca gown, a pair of gold-rimmed +spectacles, gloves a couple of sizes too large for her, and a shapeless, +broad-leaved straw hat, from which a blue veil was flung back and +streamed out in the breeze behind her, like a ship’s ensign. Then, as +now, she was the simplest, the most kind-hearted, the most prejudiced +of mortals; an enthusiastic admirer of the arts, and given, as her own +small contribution thereto, to the production of endless water-colour +landscapes, a trifle woolly, indeed, as to outline, and somewhat faulty +as to perspective, but warm in colouring, and highly thought of in +the family. I believe, in fact, that it was chiefly with a view to +the filling of her portfolio that she had persuaded me to take her to +Venice; and, as I am constitutionally indolent, I was willing enough to +spend a few weeks in the city which, of all cities in the world, is +the best adapted for lazy people. We engaged rooms at Danielli’s, +and unpacked all our clothes, knowing that we were not likely to make +another move until the heat should drive us away. + +The first few days, I remember, were not altogether full of enjoyment +for one of us. My excellent Anne, who has all her brother’s virtues, +without his failings, would have scouted the notion of allowing any +dread of physical fatigue to stand between her and the churches and +pictures which she had come all the way from England to admire; and, as +Venice was an old haunt of mine, she very excusably expected me to act +as cicerone to her, and allowed me but little rest between the hours of +breakfast and of the _table d’hote_. At last, however, she conceived the +modest and felicitous idea of making a copy of Titian’s “Assumption”; +and, having obtained the requisite permission for that purpose, set +to work upon the first of a long series of courageous attempts, all of +which she conscientiously destroyed when in a half-finished state. At +that rate it seemed likely that her days would be fully occupied for +some weeks to come; and I urged her to persevere, and not to allow +herself to be disheartened by a few brilliant failures; and so she +hurried away, early every morning, with her paint-box, her brushes, and +her block, and I was left free to smoke my cigarettes in peace, in front +of my favourite cafe on the Piazza San Marco. + +I was sitting there one morning, watching, with half-closed eyes, the +pigeons circling overhead under a cloudless sky, and enjoying the fresh +salt breeze that came across the ruffled water from the Adriatic, when I +was accosted by one of the white-coated Austrian officers by whom Venice +was thronged in those days, and whom I presently recognised as a young +fellow named Von Rosenau, whom I had known slightly in Vienna the +previous winter. I returned his greeting cordially, for I always like +to associate as much as possible with foreigners when I am abroad, +and little did I foresee into what trouble this fair-haired, +innocent-looking youth was destined to lead me. + +I asked him how he liked Venice, and he answered laughingly that he was +not there from choice. “I am in disgrace,” he explained. “I am always in +disgrace, only this time it is rather worse than usual. Do you remember +my father, the general? No? Perhaps he was not in Vienna when you were +there. He is a soldier of the old school, and manages his family as they +tell me he used to manage his regiment in former years, boasting that he +never allowed a breach of discipline to pass unpunished, and never will. +Last year I exceeded my allowance, and the colonel got orders to stop +my leave; this year I borrowed from the Jews, the whole thing was found +out, and I was removed from the cavalry, and put into a Croat regiment +under orders for Venice. Next year will probably see me enrolled in the +police; and so it will go on, I suppose, till some fine morning I +shall find myself driving a two-horse yellow diligence in the wilds +of Carinthia, and blowing a horn to let the villagers know that the +imperial and royal mail is approaching.” + +After a little more conversation we separated, but only to meet again, +that same evening, on the Piazza San Marco, whither I had wandered to +listen to the band after dinner, and where I found Von Rosenau seated +with a number of his brother officers in front of the principal cafe. +These gentlemen, to whom I was presently introduced, were unanimous in +complaining of their present quarters. Venice, they said, might be all +very well for artists and travellers; but viewed as a garrison it was +the dullest of places. There were no amusements, there was no sport, and +just now no society; for the Italians were in one of their periodical +fits of sulks, and would not speak to, or look at, a German if they +could possibly avoid it. “They will not even show themselves when +our band is playing,” said one of the officers, pointing toward the +well-nigh empty piazza. “As for the ladies, it is reported that if one +of them is seen speaking to an Austrian, she is either assassinated or +sent off to spend the rest of her days in a convent. At all events, it +is certain that we have none of us any successes to boast of, except Von +Rosenau, who has had an affair, they say, only he is pleased to be very +mysterious about it.” + +“Where does she live, Von Rosenau?” asked another. “Is she rich? Is she +noble? Has she a husband, who will stab you both? or only a mother, who +will send her to a nunnery, and let you go free? You might gratify +our curiosity a little. It would do you no harm, and it would give us +something to talk about.” + +“Bah! he will tell you nothing,” cried a third. “He is afraid. He knows +that there are half a dozen of us who could cut him out in an hour.” + +“Von Rosenau,” said a young ensign, solemnly, “you would do better to +make a clean breast of it. Concealment is useless. Janovicz saw you with +her in Santa Maria della Salute the other day, and could have followed +her home quite easily if he had been so inclined.” + +“They were seen together on the Lido, too. People who want to keep their +secrets ought not to be so imprudent.” + +“A good comrade ought to have no secrets from the regiment.” + +“Come, Von Rosenau, we will promise not to speak to her without +your permission if you will tell us how you managed to make her +acquaintance.” + +The object of all these attacks received them with the most perfect +composure, continuing to smoke his cigar and gaze out seaward, +without so much as turning his head toward his questioners, to whom he +vouchsafed no reply whatever. Probably, as an ex-hussar and a sprig of +nobility, he may have held his head a little above those of his present +brother officers, and preferred disregarding their familiarity to +resenting it, as he might have done if it had come from men whom he +considered on a footing of equality with himself. Such, at least, was my +impression; and it was confirmed by the friendly advances which he made +toward me, from that day forth, and by the persistence with which he +sought my society. I thought he seemed to wish for some companion whose +ideas had not been developed exclusively in barrack atmosphere; and +I, on my side, was not unwilling to listen to the chatter of a lively, +good-natured young fellow, at intervals, during my long idle days. + +It was at the end of a week, I think, or thereabouts, that he honoured +me with his full confidence. We had been sea-fishing in a small open +boat which he had purchased, and which he managed without assistance; +that is to say, that we had provided ourselves with what was requisite +for the pursuit of that engrossing sport, and that the young count had +gone through the form of dropping his line over the side and pulling it +up, baitless and fishless, from time to time, while I had dispensed with +even this shallow pretence of employment, and had stretched myself out +full length upon the cushions which I had thoughtfully brought with me, +inhaling the salt-laden breeze, and luxuriating in perfect inaction, +till such time as it had become necessary for us to think of returning +homeward. My companion had been sighing portentously every now and again +all through the afternoon, and had repeatedly given vent to a sound +as though he had been about to say something, and had as often checked +himself, and fallen back into silence. So that I was in a great measure +prepared for the disclosure that fell from him at length as we slipped +before the wind across the broad lagoon, toward the haze and blaze of +sunset which was glorifying the old city of the doges. + +“Do you know,” said he, suddenly, “that I am desperately in love?” I +said I had conjectured as much; and he seemed a good deal surprised at +my powers of divination. “Yes,” he resumed, “I am in love; and with +an Italian lady too, unfortunately. Her name is Bianca,--the Signorina +Bianca Marinelli,--and she is the most divinely beautiful creature the +sun ever shone upon.” + +“That,” said I, “is of course.” + +“It is the truth; and when you have seen her, you will acknowledge that +I do not exaggerate. I have known her nearly two months now. I became +acquainted with her accidentally--she dropped her handkerchief in a +shop, and I took it to her, and so we got to be upon speaking terms, +and--and--But I need not give you the whole history. We have discovered +that we are all the world to each other; we have sworn to remain +faithful to each other all our lives long; and we renew the oath +whenever we meet. But that, unhappily, is very seldom! for her father, +the Marchese Marinelli, scarcely ever lets her out of his sight; and he +is a sour, narrow-minded old fellow, as proud as he is poor, an intense +hater of all Austrians; and if he were to discover our attachment, I +shudder to think of what the consequences might be.” + +“And your own father--the stern old general of whom you told me--what +would he say to it all?” + +“Oh, he, of course, would not hear of such a marriage for a moment. He +detests and despises the Venetians as cordially as the marchese abhors +the _Tedeschi_; and, as I am entirely dependent upon him, I should not +dream of saying a word to him about the matter until I was married, and +nothing could be done to separate me from Bianca.” + +“So that, upon the whole, you appear to stand a very fair chance of +starvation, if everything turns out according to your wishes. And pray, +in what way do you imagine that I can assist you toward this desirable +end? For I take it for granted that you have some reason for letting me +into your secret.” + +Von Rosenau laughed good-humouredly. + +“You form conclusions quickly,” he said. “Well, I will confess to you +that I have thought lately that you might be of great service to me +without inconveniencing yourself much. The other day, when you did me +the honour to introduce me to your sister, I was very nearly telling her +all. She has such a kind countenance; and I felt sure that she would not +refuse to let my poor Bianca visit her sometimes. The old marchese, you +see, would have no objection to leaving his daughter for hours under the +care of an English lady; and I thought that perhaps when Miss Jenkinson +went out to work at her painting--I might come in.” + +“Fortunate indeed is it for you,” I said, “that your confidence in the +kind countenance of my sister Anne did not carry you quite to the point +of divulging this precious scheme to her. I, who know her pretty well, +can tell you exactly the course she would have pursued if you had. +Without one moment’s hesitation, she would have found out the address of +the young lady’s father, hurried off thither, and told him all about +it. Anne is a thoroughly good creature; but she has little sympathy with +love-making, still less with surreptitious love-making, and she would as +soon think of accepting the part you are so good as to assign to her as +of forging a check.” + +He sighed, and said he supposed, then, that they must continue to +meet as they had been in the habit of doing, but that it was rather +unsatisfactory. + +“It says something for your ingenuity that you contrive to meet at all,” + I remarked. + +“Well, yes, there are considerable difficulties, because the old man’s +movements are so uncertain; and there is some risk too, for, as you +heard the other day, we have been seen together. Moreover, I have +been obliged to tell everything to my servant Johann, who waylays the +marchese’s housekeeper at market in the mornings, and finds out from +her when and where I can have an opportunity of meeting Bianca. I would +rather not have trusted him; but I could think of no other plan.” + +“At any rate, I should have thought you might have selected some more +retired rendezvous than the most frequented church in Venice.” + +He shrugged his shoulders. “I wish you would suggest one within reach,” + he said. “There are no retired places in this accursed town. But, in +fact, we see each other very seldom. Often for days together the only +way in which I can get a glimpse of her is by loitering about in my boat +in front of her father’s house, and watching till she shows herself at +the window. We are in her neighborhood now, and it is close upon the +hour at which I can generally calculate upon her appearing. Would you +mind my making a short detour that way before I set you down at your +hotel?” + +We had entered the Grand Canal while Von Rosenau had been relating his +love-tale, and some minutes before he had lowered his sail and taken to +the oars. He now slewed the boat’s head round abruptly, and we shot into +a dark and narrow waterway, and so, after sundry twistings and turnings, +arrived before a grim, time-worn structure, so hemmed in by the +surrounding buildings that it seemed as if no ray of sunshine could ever +penetrate within its walls. + +“That is the Palazzo Marinelli,” said my companion. “The greater part of +it is let to different tenants. The family has long been much too poor +to inhabit the whole of it, and now the old man only reserves himself +four rooms on the third floor. Those are the windows, in the far corner; +and there--no!--yes!--there is Bianca.” + +I brought my eyeglass to bear upon the point indicated just in time +to catch sight of a female head, which was thrust out through the open +window for an instant, and then withdrawn with great celerity. + +“Ah,” sighed the count, “it is you who have driven her away. I ought to +have remembered that she would be frightened at seeing a stranger. And +now she will not show herself again, I fear. Come; I will take you home. +Confess now--is she not more beautiful than you expected?” + +“My dear sir, I had hardly time to see whether she was a man or a woman; +but I am quite willing to take your word for it that there never was +anybody like her.” + +“If you would like to wait a little longer--half an hour or so--she +_might_ put her head out again,” said the young man, wistfully. + +“Thank you very much; but my sister will be wondering why I do not come +to take her down to the _table d’hote_. And besides, I am not in love +myself, I may perhaps be excused for saying that I want my dinner.” + +“As you please,” answered the count, looking the least bit in the world +affronted; and so he pulled back in silence to the steps of the hotel, +where we parted. + +I don’t know whether Von Rosenau felt aggrieved by my rather +unsympathetic reception of his confidence, or whether he thought it +useless to discuss his projects further with one who could not or would +not assist him in carrying them out; but although we continued to meet +daily, as before, he did not recur to the interesting subject, and it +was not for me to take the initiative in doing so. Curiosity, I confess, +led me to direct my gondolier more than once to the narrow canal +over which the Palazzo Martinelli towered; and on each occasion I was +rewarded by descrying, from the depths of the miniature mourning-coach +which concealed me, the faithful count, seated in his boat and waiting +in patient faith, like another Ritter Toggenburg, with his eyes fixed +upon the corner window; but of the lady I could see no sign. I was +rather disappointed at first, as day after day went by and my young +friend showed no disposition to break the silence in which he had chosen +to wrap himself; for I had nothing to do in Venice, and I thought it +would have been rather amusing to watch the progress of this incipient +romance. By degrees, however, I ceased to trouble myself about it; and +at the end of a fortnight I had other things to think of, in the shape +of plans for the summer, my sister Anne having by that time satisfied +herself that, all things considered, Titian’s “Assumption” was a little +too much for her. + +It was Captain Janovicz who informed me casually one evening that +Von Rosenau was going away in a few days on leave, and that he would +probably be absent for a considerable time. + +“For my own part,” remarked my informant, “I shall be surprised if we +see him back in the regiment at all. He was only sent to us as a sort of +punishment for having been a naughty boy, and I suppose now he will be +forgiven, and restored to the hussars.” + +“So much for undying love,” thinks I, with a cynical chuckle. “If +there is any gratitude in man, that young fellow ought to be showering +blessings on me for having refused to hold the noose for him to thrust +his head into.” + +Alas! I knew not of what I was speaking. I had not yet heard the last +of Herr von Rosenau’s entanglement, nor was I destined to escape from +playing my part in it. The very next morning, after breakfast, as I +was poring over a map of Switzerland, “Murray” on my right hand and +“Bradshaw” on my left, his card was brought to me, together with an +urgent request that I would see him immediately and alone; and before I +had had time to send a reply, he came clattering into the room, trailing +his sabre behind him, and dropped into the first arm-chair with a +despairing self-abandonment which shook the house to its foundations. + +“Mr. Jenkinson,” said he, “I am a ruined man!” + +I answered rather drily that I was very sorry to hear it. If I must +confess the truth, I thought he had come to borrow money of me. + +“A most cruel calamity has befallen me,” he went on; “and unless you +will consent to help me out of it--” + +“I am sure I shall be delighted to do anything in my power,” I +interrupted, apprehensively; “but I am afraid--” + +“You cannot refuse me till you have heard what I have to say. I am aware +that I have no claim whatever upon your kindness; but you are the only +man in the world who can save me, and, whereas the happiness of my +whole life is at stake, the utmost you can have to put up with will be +a little inconvenience. Now I will explain myself in as few words as +possible, because I have only a minute to spare. In fact, I ought to be +out on the ramparts at this moment. You have not forgotten what I told +you about myself and the Signorina Martinelli, and how we had agreed to +seize the first opportunity that offered to be privately married, and to +escape over the mountains to my father’s house, and throw ourselves upon +his mercy?” + +“I don’t remember your having mentioned any such plan.” + +“No matter--so it was. Well, everything seemed to have fallen out most +fortunately for us. I found out some time ago that the marchese would +be going over to Padua this evening on business, and would be absent +at least one whole day, and I immediately applied for my leave to begin +to-morrow. This I obtained at once through my father, who now expects +me to be with him in a few days, and little knows that I shall not come +alone. Johann and the marchese’s housekeeper arranged the rest between +them. I was to meet my dear Bianca early in the morning on the Lido; +thence we were to go by boat to Mestre, where a carriage was to be in +waiting for us; and the same evening we were to be married by a priest, +to whom I have given due notice, at a place called Longarone. And so +we should have gone on, across the Ampezzo Pass homeward. Now would you +believe that all this has been defeated by a mere freak on the part of +my colonel? Only this morning, after it was much too late to make any +alteration in our plans, he told me that he should require me to be on +duty all to-day and to-morrow, and that my leave could not begin until +the next day. Is it not maddening? And the worst of it is that I have no +means of letting Bianca know of this, for I dare not send a message +to the palazzo, and there is no chance of my seeing her myself; and of +course she will go to the Lido to-morrow morning, and will find no one +there. Now, my dear Mr. Jenkinson--my good, kind friend--do you begin to +see what I want you to do for me?” + +“Not in the very least.” + +“No? But it is evident enough. Now listen. You must meet Bianca +to-morrow morning; you explain to her what has happened; you take her in +the boat, which will be waiting for you, to Mestre; you proceed in the +travelling-carriage, which will also be waiting for you, to Longarone; +you see the priest, and appoint with him for the following evening; and +the next day I arrive, and you return to Venice. Is that clear?” + +The volubility with which this programme was enunciated so took away my +breath that I scarcely realised its audacity. + +“You will not refuse; I am sure you will not,” said the count, rising +and hooking up his sword, as if about to depart. + +“Stop, stop!” I exclaimed. “You don’t consider what you are asking. +I can’t elope with young women in this casual sort of way. I have a +character--and a sister. How am I to explain all this to my sister, I +should like to know?” + +“Oh, make any excuse you can think of to her. Now, Mr. Jenkinson, you +know there cannot be any real difficulty in that. You consent then? A +thousand, thousand thanks! I will send you a few more instructions by +letter this evening. I really must not stay any longer now. Good-bye.” + +“Stop! Why can’t your servant Johann do all this instead of me?” + +“Because he is on duty like myself. Good-bye.” + +“Stop! Why can’t you postpone your flight for a day? I don’t so much +mind meeting the young lady and telling her all about it.” + +“Quite out of the question, my dear sir. It is perfectly possible that +the marchese may return from Padua to-morrow night, and what should we +do then? No, no; there is no help for it. Good-bye.” + +“Stop! Hi! Come back!” + +But it was too late. My impetuous visitor was down the staircase and +away before I had descended a single flight in pursuit, and all I could +do was to return to my room and register a vow within my own heart that +I would have nothing to do with this preposterous scheme. + +Looking back upon what followed across the interval of fifteen years, I +find that I can really give no satisfactory reason for my having failed +to adhere to this wise resolution. I had no particular feeling of +friendship for Von Rosenau; I did not care two straws about the +Signorina Bianca, whom I had never seen; and certainly I am not, nor +ever was, the sort of person who loves romantic adventures for their +own sake. Perhaps it was good-nature, perhaps it was only an indolent +shrinking from disobliging anybody, that influenced me--it does not +much matter now. Whatever the cause of my yielding may have been, I did +yield. I prefer to pass over in silence the doubts and hesitations which +beset me for the remainder of the day; the arrival, toward evening, +of the piteous note from Von Rosenau, which finally overcame my +weak resistance to his will; and the series of circumstantial false +statements (I blush when I think of them) by means of which I accounted +to my sister for my proposed sudden departure. + +Suffice it to say that, very early on the following morning, there might +have been seen, pacing up and down the shore on the seaward side of +the Lido, and peering anxiously about him through an eyeglass, as if in +search of somebody or something, the figure of a tall, spare Englishman, +clad in a complete suit of shepherd’s tartan, with a wide-awake on his +head, a leather bag slung by a strap across his shoulder, and a light +coat over his arm. Myself, in point of act, in the travelling-costume of +the epoch. + +I was kept waiting a long time--longer than I liked; for, as may be +supposed, I was most anxious to be well away from Venice before the rest +of the world was up and about; but at length there appeared, round the +corner of a long white wall which skirted the beach, a little lady, +thickly veiled, who, on catching sight of me, whisked round, and +incontinently vanished. This was so evidently the fair Bianca that I +followed her without hesitation, and almost ran into her arms as I swung +round the angle of the wall behind which she had retreated. She gave +a great start, stared at me, for an instant, like a startled fawn, and +then took to her heels and fled. It was rather ridiculous; but there was +nothing for me to do but to give chase. My legs are long, and I had soon +headed her round. + +“I presume that I have the honour of addressing the Signorina +Marinelli?” I panted, in French, as I faced her, hat in hand. + +She answered me by a piercing shriek, which left no room for doubt as to +her identity. + +“For the love of Heaven, don’t do that!” I entreated, in an agony. “You +will alarm the whole neighbourhood and ruin us both. Believe me, I am +only here as your friend, and very much against my own wishes. I have +come on the part of Count Albrecht von Rosenau, who is unable to come +himself, because--” + +Here she opened her mouth with so manifest an intention of raising +another resounding screech that I became desperate, and seized her by +the wrists in my anxiety. “_Sgridi ancora una volta_,” says I, in the +purest _lingua Toscana_, “_e la lascero qui_--to get out of this mess as +best you can--_cosi sicuro che il mio nome e Jenkinsono_!” + +To my great relief she began to laugh. Immediately afterward, however, +she sat down on the shingle and began to cry. It was too vexatious: what +on earth was I to do? + +“Do you understand English?” I asked, despairingly. + +She shook her head, but sobbed out that she spoke French; so I proceeded +to address her in that language. + +“Signorina, if you do not get up and control your emotion, I will not +be answerable for the consequences. We are surrounded by dangers of the +most--compromising description; and every moment of delay must add +to them. I know that the officers often come out here to bathe in the +morning; so do many of the English people from Danielli’s. If we are +discovered together there will be such a scandal as never was, and you +will most assuredly not become Countess von Rosenau. Think of that, and +it will brace your nerves. What you have to do is to come directly with +me to the boat which is all ready to take us to Mestre. Allow me to +carry your hand-bag.” + +Not a bit of it! The signorina refused to stir. + +“What is it? Where is Alberto? What has happened?” she cried. “You have +told me nothing.” + +“Well, then, I will explain,” I answered, impatiently. And I explained +accordingly. + +But, dear me, what a fuss she did make over it all! One would have +supposed, to hear her, that I had planned this unfortunate complication +for my own pleasure, and that I ought to have been playing the part of a +suppliant instead of that of a sorely tried benefactor. First she was +so kind as to set me down as an imposter, and was only convinced of my +honesty when I showed her a letter in the beloved Alberto’s handwriting. +Then she declared that she could not possibly go off with a total +stranger. Then she discovered that, upon further consideration, she +could not abandon poor dear papa in his old age. And so forth, and so +forth, with a running accompaniment of tears and sobs. Of course she +consented at last to enter the boat; but I was so exasperated by her +silly behaviour that I would not speak to her, and had really scarcely +noticed whether she was pretty or plain till we were more than half-way +to Mestre. But when we had hoisted our sail, and were running before a +fine, fresh breeze toward the land, and our four men had shipped their +oars and were chattering and laughing under their breath in the bows, +and the first perils of our enterprise seemed to have been safely +surmounted, my equanimity began to return to me, and I stole a glance at +the partner of my flight, who had lifted her veil, and showed a pretty, +round, childish face, with a clear, brown complexion, and a pair of +the most splendid dark eyes it has ever been my good fortune to +behold. There were no tears in them now, but a certain half-frightened, +half-mischievous light instead, as if she rather enjoyed the adventure, +in spite of its inauspicious opening. A very little encouragement +induced her to enter into conversation, and ere long she was prattling +away as unrestrainedly as if we had been friends all our lives. She +asked me a great many questions. What was I doing in Venice? Had I known +Alberto long? Was I very fond of him? Did I think that the old Count +von Rosenau would be very angry when he heard of his son’s marriage? +I answered her as best I could, feeling very sorry for the poor little +soul, who evidently did not in the least realise the serious nature +of the step which she was about to take; and she grew more and more +communicative. In the course of a quarter of an hour I had been put in +possession of all the chief incidents of her uneventful life. + +I had heard how she had lost her mother when she was still an infant; +how she had been educated partly by two maiden aunts, partly in a +convent at Verona; how she had latterly led a life of almost complete +seclusion in the old Venetian palace; how she had first met Alberto; and +how, after many doubts and misgivings, she had finally been prevailed +upon to sacrifice all for his sake, and to leave her father, +who,--stern, severe, and suspicious, though he had always been generous +to her,--had tried to give her such small pleasures as his means +and habits would permit. She had a likeness of him with her, she +said,--perhaps I might like to see it. She dived into her travelling-bag +as she spoke, and produced from thence a full-length photograph of a +tall, well-built gentleman of sixty or thereabouts, whose gray hair, +black moustache, and intent, frowning gaze made up an ensemble more +striking than attractive. + +“Is he not handsome--poor papa?” she asked. + +I said the marchese was certainly a very fine-looking man, and inwardly +thanked my stars that he was safely at Padua; for looking at the breadth +of his chest, the length of his arm, and the somewhat forbidding cast of +his features, I could not help perceiving that “poor papa” was precisely +one of those persons with whom a prudent man prefers to keep friends +than to quarrel. + +And so, by the time that we reached Mestre, we had become quite friendly +and intimate, and had half forgotten, I think, the absurd relation in +which we stood toward each other. We had rather an awkward moment +when we left the boat and entered our travelling-carriage; for I need +scarcely say that both the boatmen and the grinning vetturino took me +for the bridegroom whose place I temporarily occupied, and they were +pleased to be facetious in a manner which was very embarrassing to me, +but which I could not very well check. Moreover, I felt compelled so +far to sustain my assumed character as to be specially generous in the +manner of a _buona mano_ to those four jolly watermen, and for the first +few miles of our drive I could not help remembering this circumstance +with some regret, and wondering whether it would occur to Von Rosenau to +reimburse me. + +Probably our coachman thought that, having a runaway couple to drive, +he ought to make some pretence, at least, of fearing pursuit; for he set +off at such a furious pace that our four half-starved horses were +soon beat, and we had to perform the remainder of the long, hot, dusty +journey at a foot’s pace. I have forgotten how we made the time pass. I +think we slept a good deal. I know we were both very tired and a +trifle cross when in the evening we reached Longarone, a small, +poverty-stricken village, on the verge of that dolomite region which, in +these latter days, has become so frequented by summer tourists. + +Tourists usually leave in their wake some of the advantages as well as +the drawbacks of civilisation; and probably there is now a respectable +hotel at Longarone. I suppose, therefore, that I may say, without risk +of laying myself open to an action for slander, that a more filthy den +than the _osteria_ before which my charge and I alighted no imagination, +however disordered, could conceive. It was a vast, dismal building, +which had doubtless been the palace of some rich citizen of the republic +in days of yore, but which had now fallen into dishonoured old age. +Its windows and outside shutters were tightly closed, and had been so, +apparently, from time immemorial; a vile smell of rancid oil and garlic +pervaded it in every part; the cornices of its huge, bare rooms were +festooned with blackened cobwebs, and the dust and dirt of ages had +been suffered to accumulate upon the stone floors of its corridors. +The signorina tucked up her petticoats as she picked her way along the +passages to her bedroom, while I remained behind to order dinner of the +sulky, black-browed padrona to whom I had already had to explain that my +companion and I were not man and wife, and who, I fear, had consequently +conceived no very high opinion of us. Happily the priest had already +been warned by telegram that his service would not be required until the +morrow; so I was spared the nuisance of an interview with him. + +After a time we sat down to our tete-a-tete dinner. Such a dinner! Even +after a lapse of all these years I am unable to think of it without a +shudder. Half famished though we were, we could not do much more than +look at the greater part of the dishes which were set before us; and the +climax was reached when we were served with an astonishing compote, made +up, so far as I was able to judge, of equal proportions of preserved +plums and mustard, to which vinegar and sugar had been superadded. Both +the signorina and I partook of this horrible mixture, for it really +looked as if it might be rather nice; and when, after the first +mouthful, each of us looked up, and saw the other’s face of agony and +alarm, we burst into a simultaneous peal of laughter. Up to that moment +we had been very solemn and depressed; but the laugh did us good, and +sent us to bed in somewhat better spirits; and the malignant compote at +least did us the service of effectually banishing our appetite. + +I forbear to enlarge upon the horrors of the night. Mosquitos, and other +insects, which, for some reason or other, we English seldom mention, +save under a modest pseudonym, worked their wicked will upon me till +daybreak set me free; and I presume that the fair Bianca was no better +off, for when the breakfast hour arrived I received a message from her +to the effect that she was unable to leave her room. + +I was sitting over my dreary little repast, wondering how I should get +through the day, and speculating upon the possibility of my release +before nightfall, and I had just concluded that I must make up my mind +to face another night with the mosquitos and their hardy allies, when, +to my great joy, a slatternly serving-maid came lolloping into the room, +and announced that a gentleman styling himself “_il Conte di Rosenau_” + had arrived and demanded to see me instantly. Here was a piece of +unlooked-for good fortune! I jumped up, and flew to the door to receive +my friend, whose footsteps I already heard on the threshold. + +“My dear, good soul!” I cried, “this is too delightful! How did you +manage----” + +The remainder of my sentence died away upon my lips; for, alas! it +was not the missing Alberto whom I had nearly embraced, but a stout, +red-faced, white-moustached gentleman, who was in a violent passion, +judging by the terrific salute of Teutonic expletives with which he +greeted my advance. Then he, too, desisted as suddenly as I had done, +and we both fell back a few paces, and stared at each other blankly. The +new-comer was the first to recover himself. + +“This is some accursed mistake,” said he, in German. + +“Evidently,” said I. + +“But they told me that you and an Italian young lady were the only +strangers in the house.” + +“Well, sir,” I said, “I can’t help it if we are. The house is not of +a kind likely to attract strangers; and I assure you that, if I could +consult my own wishes, the number of guests would soon be reduced by +one.” + +He appeared to be a very choleric old person. “Sir,” said he, “you seem +disposed to carry things off with a high hand; but I suspect that you +know more than you choose to reveal. Be so good as to tell me the name +of the lady who is staying here.” + +“I think you are forgetting yourself,” I answered with dignity. “I must +decline to gratify your curiosity.” + +He stuck his arms akimbo, and planted himself directly in front of me, +frowning ominously. “Let us waste no more words,” he said. “If I +have made a mistake, I shall be ready to offer you a full apology. If +not--But that is nothing to the purpose. I am Lieutenant-General Graf +von Rosenau, at your service, and I have reason to believe that my +son, Graf Albrecht von Rosenau, a lieutenant in his Imperial and Royal +Majesty’s 99th Croat Regiment, has made a runaway match with a certain +Signorina Bianca Marinelli of Venice. Are you prepared to give me your +word of honour as a gentleman and an Englishman that you are not privy +to this affair?” + +At these terrible words I felt my blood run cold. I may have lost my +presence of mind; but I don’t know how I could have got out of the +dilemma even if I had preserved it. + +“Your son has not yet arrived,” I stammered. + +He pounced upon me like a cat upon a mouse, and gripped both my arms +above the elbow. “Is he married?” he hissed, with his red nose a couple +of inches from mine. + +“No,” I answered, “he is not. Perhaps I had better say at once that if +you use personal violence I shall defend myself, in spite of your age.” + +Upon this he was kind enough to relax his hold. + +“And pray, sir,” he resumed, in a somewhat more temperate tone, after a +short period of reflection, “what have you to do with all this?” + +“I am not bound to answer your questions, Herr Graf,” I replied; “but, +as things have turned out, I have no special objection to doing so. Out +of pure good-nature to your son, who was detained by duty in Venice +at the last moment, I consented to bring the Signorina Marinelli here +yesterday, and to await his arrival, which I am now expecting.” + +“So you ran away with the girl, instead of Albrecht, did you? Ho, ho, +ho!” + +I had seldom heard a more grating or disagreeable laugh. + +“I did nothing of the sort,” I answered, tartly. “I simply undertook to +see her safely through the first stage of her journey.” + +“And you will have the pleasure of seeing her back, I imagine; for as +for my rascal of a boy, I mean to take him off home with me as soon as +he arrives; and I can assure you that I have no intention of providing +myself with a daughter-in-law in the course of the day.” + +I began to feel not a little alarmed. “You cannot have the brutality +to leave me here with a young woman whom I am scarcely so much as +acquainted with on my hands!” I ejaculated, half involuntarily. “What in +the world should I do?” + +The old gentleman gave vent to a malevolent chuckle. “Upon my word, +sir,” said he, “I can only see one course open to you as a man of +honour. You must marry her yourself.” + +At this I fairly lost all patience, and gave the Graf my opinion of his +conduct in terms the plainness of which left nothing to be desired. +I included him, his son, and the entire German people in one sweeping +anathema. No Englishman, I said, would have been capable of either +insulting an innocent lady, or of so basely leaving in the lurch one +whose only fault had been a too great readiness to sacrifice his own +convenience to the interests of others. My indignation lent me a flow +of words such as I should never have been able to command in calmer +moments; and I dare say I should have continued in the same strain for +an indefinite time, had I not been summarily cut short by the entrance +of a third person. + +There was no occasion for this last intruder to announce himself, in a +voice of thunder, as the Marchese Marinelli. I had at once recognised +the original of the signorina’s photograph, and I perceived that I was +now in about as uncomfortable a position as my bitterest enemy could +have desired for me. The German old gentleman had been very angry at the +outset; but his wrath, as compared with that of the Italian, was as a +breeze to a hurricane. The marchese was literally quivering from head +to foot with concentrated fury. His face was deadly white, his strongly +marked features twitched convulsively, his eyes blazed like those of a +wild animal. Having stated his identity in the manner already referred +to, he made two strides toward the table by which I was seated, and +stood glaring at me as though he would have sprung at my throat. I +thought it might avert consequences which we should both afterward +deplore if I were to place the table between us; and I did so without +loss of time. From the other side of that barrier I adjured my visitor +to keep cool, pledging him my word, in the same breath, that there was +no harm done as yet. + +“No harm!” he repeated, in a strident shout that echoed through the bare +room. “Dog! Villain! You ensnare my daughter’s affections--you entice +her away from her father’s house--you cover my family with eternal +disgrace--and then you dare to tell me there is no harm done! Wait a +little, and you shall see that there will be harm enough for you. Marry +her you must, since you have ruined her; but you shall die for it the +next day! It is I--I, Ludovico Marinelli--who swear it!” + +I am aware that I do but scant justice to the marchese’s inimitable +style. The above sentences must be imagined as hurled forth in a series +of yells, with a pant between each of them. As a melodramatic actor this +terrific Marinelli would, I am sure, have risen to the first rank in his +profession. + +“Signore,” I said, “you are under a misapprehension. I have ensnared +nobody’s affections, and I am entirely guiltless of all the crimes which +you are pleased to attribute to me.” + +“What? Are you not, then, the hound who bears the vile and dishonoured +name of Von Rosenau?” + +“I am not. I bear the less distinguished, but, I hope, equally +respectable patronymic of Jenkinson.” + +But my modest disclaimer passed unheeded, for now another combatant had +thrown himself into the fray. + +“Vile and dishonoured name! No one shall permit himself such language +in my presence. I am Lieutenant-General Graf von Rosenau, sir, and you +shall answer to me for your words.” + +The Herr Graf’s knowledge of Italian was somewhat limited; but, such as +it was, it had enabled him to catch the sense of the stigma cast upon +his family, and now he was upon his feet, red and gobbling, like a +turkey-cock, and prepared to do battle with a hundred irate Venetians if +need were. + +The marchese stared at him in blank amazement. “_You!_” he +ejaculated--“you Von Rosenau! It is incredible--preposterous. Why, you +are old enough to be her grandfather.” + +“Not old enough to be in my dotage,--as I should be if I permitted my +son to marry a beggarly Italian,--nor too old to punish impertinence as +it deserves,” retorted the Graf. + +“Your son? You are the father then? It is all the same to me. I will +fight you both. But the marriage shall take place first.” + +“It shall not.” + +“It shall.” + +“Insolent slave of an Italian, I will make you eat your words!” + +“Triple brute of a German, I spit upon you!” + +“Silence, sir!” + +“Silence yourself!” + +During this animated dialogue I sat apart, softly rubbing my hands. What +a happy dispensation it would be, I could not help thinking, if these +two old madmen were to exterminate each other, like the Kilkenny cats! +Anyhow, their attention was effectually diverted from my humble person, +and that was something to be thankful for. + +Never before had I been privileged to listen to so rich a vocabulary of +vituperation. Each disputant had expressed himself, after the first few +words, in his own language, and between them they were now making hubbub +enough to bring the old house down about their ears. Up came the padrona +to see the fun; up came her fat husband, in his shirt-sleeves and +slippers; and her long-legged sons, and her tousle-headed daughters, and +the maid-servant, and the cook, and the ostler--the whole establishment, +in fact, collected at the open folding-doors, and watched with delight +the progress of this battle of words. Last of all, a poor little +trembling figure, with pale face and eyes big with fright, crept in, and +stood, hand on heart, a little in advance of the group. I slipped to her +side, and offered her a chair, but she neither answered me nor noticed +my presence. She was staring at her father as a bird stares at a snake, +and seemed unable to realise anything except the terrible fact that he +had followed and found her. + +Presently the old man wheeled round, and became aware of his daughter. + +“Unhappy girl!” he exclaimed, “what is this that you have done?” + +I greatly fear that the marchese’s paternal corrections must have +sometimes taken a more practical shape than mere verbal upbraidings; for +poor Bianca shrank back, throwing up one arm, as if to shield her face, +and, with a wild cry of “Alberto! come to me!” fell into the arms +of that tardy lover, who at that appropriate moment had made his +appearance, unobserved, upon the scene. + +The polyglot disturbance that ensued baffles all description. Indeed, +I should be puzzled to say exactly what took place, or after how many +commands, defiances, threats, protestations, insults, and explanations, +a semblance of peace was finally restored. I only know that, at the +expiration of a certain time, three of us were sitting by the open +window, in a softened and subdued frame of mind, considerately turning +our backs upon the other two, who were bidding each other farewell at +the farther end of the room. + +It was the faithless Johann, as I gathered, who was responsible for +this catastrophe. His heart, it appeared, had failed him when he had +discovered that nothing less than a bona-fide marriage was to be the +outcome of the meetings he had shown so much skill in contriving, and, +full of penitence and alarm, he had written to his old master, divulging +the whole project. It so happened that a recent storm in the mountains +had interrupted telegraphic communication, for the time, between Austria +and Venice, and the only course that had seemed open to Herr von Rosenau +was to start post-haste for the latter place, where, indeed, he would +have arrived a day too late had not Albrecht’s colonel seen fit to +postpone his leave. In this latter circumstance also the hand of Johann +seemed discernible. As for the marchese, I suppose he must have returned +rather sooner than had been expected from Padua, and finding his +daughter gone, must have extorted the truth from his housekeeper. He did +not volunteer any explanation of his presence, nor were any of us bold +enough to question him. + +As I have said before, I have no very clear recollection of how an +understanding was arrived at and bloodshed averted and the padrona and +her satellites hustled downstairs again. Perhaps I may have had some +share in the work of pacification. Be that as it may, when once the +exasperated parents had discovered that they both really wanted the same +thing,--namely, to recover possession of their respective offspring, to +go home, and never meet each other again,--a species of truce was soon +agreed upon between them for the purpose of separating the two lovers, +who all this time were locked in each other’s arms, in the prettiest +attitude in the world, vowing loudly that nothing should ever part them. + +How often since the world began have such vows been made and +broken--broken, not willingly, but of necessity--broken and mourned +over, and, in due course of time, forgotten! I looked at the Marchese di +San Silvestro the other night, as she sailed up the room in her lace and +diamonds, with her fat little husband toddling after her, and wondered +whether, in these days of her magnificence, she ever gave a thought to +her lost Alberto--Alberto, who has been married himself this many a long +day, and has succeeded to his father’s estates, and has numerous family, +I am told. At all events, she was unhappy enough over parting with +him at the time. The two old gentlemen, who, as holders of the +purse-strings, knew that they were completely masters of the situation, +and could afford to be generous, showed some kindliness of feeing at the +last. They allowed the poor lovers an uninterrupted half-hour in +which to bid each other adieu forever, and abstained from any needless +harshness in making their decision known. When the time was up, two +travelling-carriages were seen waiting at the door. Count von Rosenau +pushed his son before him into the first; the marchese assisted the +half-fainting Bianca into the second; the vetturini cracked their whips, +and presently both vehicles were rolling away, the one toward the +north, the other toward the south. I suppose the young people had been +promising to remain faithful to each other until some happier future +time should permit of their union, for at the last moment Albrecht +thrust his head out of the carriage window, and, waving his hand, cried, +“_A rivederci!_” I don’t know whether they ever met again. + +The whole scene, I confess, had affected me a good deal, in spite of +some of the absurdities by which it had been marked; and it was not +until I had been alone for some time, and silence had once more fallen +upon the Longarone _osteria_, that I awoke to the fact that it was _my_ +carriage which the Marchese Marinelli had calmly appropriated to his own +use, and that there was no visible means of my getting back to Venice +that day. Great was my anger and great my dismay when the ostler +announced this news to me, with a broad grin, in reply to my order to +put the horses to without delay. + +“But the marchese himself--how did he get here?” I inquired. + +“Oh, he came by the diligence.” + +“And the count--the young gentleman?” + +“On horseback, signore; but you cannot have his horse. The poor beast is +half dead as it is.” + +“Then will you tell me how I am to escape from your infernal town? For +nothing shall induce me to pass another night here.” + +“Eh! there is the diligence which goes through at two o’clock in the +morning!” + +There was no help for it. I sat up for that diligence, and returned by +it to Mestre, seated between a Capuchin monk and a peasant farmer whose +whole system appeared to be saturated with garlic. I could scarcely have +fared worse in my bed at Longarone. + +And so that was my reward for an act of disinterested kindness. It +is only experience that can teach a man to appreciate the ingrained +thanklessness of the human race. I was obliged to make a clean breast +of it to my sister, who of course did not keep the secret long; and for +some time afterward I had to submit to a good deal of mild chaff upon +the subject from my friends. But it is an old story now, and two of the +actors in it are dead, and of the remaining three I dare say I am the +only one who cares to recall it. Even to me it is a somewhat painful +reminiscence. + + + + +GONERIL, By A. Mary F. Robinson + + + +CHAPTER I THE TWO OLD LADIES + +On one of the pleasant hills round Florence, a little beyond Camerata, +there stands a house so small that an Englishman would probably take it +for a lodge of the great villa behind, whose garden trees at sunset +cast their shadow over the cottage and its terrace on to the steep white +road. But any of the country people could tell him that this, too, is a +_casa signorile_, despite its smallness. It stands somewhat high above +the road, a square white house with a projecting roof, and with four +green-shuttered windows overlooking the gay but narrow terrace. The beds +under the windows would have fulfilled the fancy of that French poet +who desired that in his garden one might, in gathering a nosegay, cull +a salad, for they boasted little else than sweet basil, small and white, +and some tall gray rosemary bushes. Nearer to the door an unusually +large oleander faced a strong and sturdy magnolia-tree, and these, with +their profusion of red and white sweetness, made amends for the dearth +of garden flowers. At either end of the terrace flourished a thicket +of gum-cistus, syringa, stephanotis, and geranium bushes; and the wall +itself, dropping sheer down to the road, was bordered with the customary +Florentine hedge of China roses and irises, now out of bloom. Great +terra-cotta flower-pots, covered with devices, were placed at intervals +along the wall; as it was summer, the oranges and lemons, full of +wonderfully sweet white blossoms and young green fruit, were set there +in the sun to ripen. + +It was the 17th of June. Although it was after four o’clock, the olives +on the steep hill that went down to Florence looked blindingly white, +shadeless, and sharp. The air trembled round the bright green cypresses +behind the house. The roof steamed. All the windows were shut, all the +jalousies shut, yet it was so hot that no one could stir within. The +maid slept in the kitchen; the two elderly mistresses of the house dozed +upon their beds. Not a movement; not a sound. + +Gradually along the steep road from Camerata there came a roll of +distant carriage-wheels. The sound came nearer and nearer, till one +could see the carriage, and see the driver leading the tired, thin, +cab-horse, his bones starting under the shaggy hide. Inside the carriage +reclined a handsome, middle-aged lady, with a stern profile turned +toward the road; a young girl in pale pink cotton and a broad hat +trudged up the hill at the side. + +“Goneril,” said Miss Hamelyn, “let me beg you again to come inside the +carriage.” + +“Oh no, Aunt Margaret; I’m not a bit tired.” + +“But I have asked you; that is reason enough.” + +“It’s so hot!” cried Goneril. + +“That is why I object to your walking.” + +“But if it’s so hot for me, just think how hot is must be for the +horse.” + +Goneril cast a commiserating glance at the poor, halting, wheezing nag. + +“The horse, probably,” rejoined Miss Hamelyn, “does not suffer from +malaria, neither has he kept his aunt in Florence nursing him till the +middle heat of the summer.” + +“True!” said Goneril. Then, after a few minutes, “I’ll get in, Aunt +Margaret, on one condition.” + +“In my time young people did not make conditions.” + +“Very well, auntie; I’ll get in, and you shall answer all my questions +when you feel inclined.” + +The carriage stopped. The poor horse panted at his ease, while the girl +seated herself beside Miss Hamelyn. Then for a few minutes they drove +on in silence past the orchards; past the olive-yards, yellow underneath +the ripening corn; past the sudden wide views of the mountains, faintly +crimson in the mist of heat, and, on the other side, of Florence, the +towers and domes steaming beside the hazy river. + +“How hot it looks down there!” cried Goneril. + +“How hot it _feels_!” echoed Miss Hamelyn, rather grimly. + +“Yes, I am so glad you can get away at last, dear, poor old auntie.” + Then, a little later, “Won’t you tell me something about the old ladies +with whom you are going to leave me?” + +Miss Hamelyn was mollified by Goneril’s obedience. + +“They are very nice old ladies,” she said; “I met them at Mrs. +Gorthrup’s.” But this was not at all what the young girl wanted. + +“Only think, Aunt Margaret,” she cried, impatiently, “I am to stay there +for at least six weeks, and I know nothing about them, not what age they +are, nor if they are tall or short, jolly or prim, pretty, or ugly, not +even if they speak English!” + +“They speak English,” said Miss Hamelyn, beginning at the end. “One of +them is English, or at least Irish: Miss Prunty.” + +“And the other?” + +“She is an Italian, Signora Petrucci; she used to be very handsome.” + +“Oh!” said Goneril, looking pleased. “I’m glad she’s handsome, and that +they speak English. But they are not relations?” + +“No, they are not connected; they are friends.” + +“And have they always lived together?” + +“Ever since Madame Lilli died,” and Miss Hamelyn named a very celebrated +singer. + +“Why!” cried Goneril, quite excited; “were they singers too?” + +“Madame Petrucci; nevertheless a lady of the highest respectability. +Miss Prunty was Madame Lilli’s secretary.” + +“How nice!” cried the young girl; “how interesting! O auntie, I’m so +glad you found them out.” + +“So am I, child; but please remember it is not an ordinary pension. +They only take you, Goneril, till you are strong enough to travel, as an +especial favour to me and to their old friend, Mrs. Gorthrup.” + +“I’ll remember, auntie.” + +By this time they were driving under the terrace in front of the little +house. + +“Goneril,” said the elder lady, “I shall leave you outside; you can play +in the garden or the orchard.” + +“Very well.” + +Miss Hamelyn left the carriage and ascended the steep little flight of +steps that leads from the road to the cottage garden. + +In the porch a singular figure was awaiting her. + +“Good-afternoon, Madame Petrucci,” said Miss Hamelyn. + +A slender old lady, over sixty, rather tall, in a brown silk skirt, and +a white burnoose that showed the shrunken slimness of her arms, came +eagerly forward. She was rather pretty, with small refined features, +large expressionless blue eyes, and long whitish-yellow ringlets down +her cheeks, in the fashion of forty years ago. + +“Oh, _dear_ Miss Hamelyn,” she cried, “how _glad_ I am to see you! And +have you brought your _charming_ young relation?” + +She spoke with a languid foreign accent, and with an emphatic and +bountiful use of adjectives, that gave to our severer generation an +impression of insincerity. Yet it was said with truth that Giulia +Petrucci had never forgotten a friend nor an enemy. + +“Goneril is outside,” said Miss Hamelyn. “How is Miss Prunty?” + +“Brigida? Oh, you must come inside and see my invaluable Brigida. She +is, as usual, fatiguing herself with our accounts.” The old lady led the +way into the darkened parlour. It was small and rather stiff. As +one’s eyes became accustomed to the dim green light one noticed the +incongruity of the furniture: the horsehair chairs and sofa, and +large accountant’s desk with ledgers; the large Pleyel grand piano; a +bookcase, in which all the books were rare copies or priceless MSS. of +old-fashioned operas; hanging against the wall an inlaid guitar and some +faded laurel crowns; moreover, a fine engraving of a composer, twenty +years ago the most popular man in Italy; lastly, an oil-colour portrait, +by Winterman, of a fascinating blonde, with very bare white shoulders, +holding in her hands a scroll, on which were inscribed some notes of +music, under the title Giulia Petrucci. In short, the private parlour of +an elderly and respectable diva of the year ‘40. + +“Brigida!” cried Madame Petrucci, going to the door. “Brigida! our +charming English friend is arrived!” + +“All right!” answered a strong, hearty voice from upstairs. “I’m +coming.” + +“You must excuse me, dear Miss Hamelyn,” went on Madame Petrucci. “You +must excuse me for shouting in your presence, but we have only one +little servant, and during this suffocating weather I find that any +movement reminds me of approaching age.” The old lady smiled as if that +time were still far ahead. + +“I am sure you ought to take care of yourself,” said Miss Hamelyn. “I +hope you will not allow Goneril to fatigue you.” + +“Gonerilla! What a pretty name! Charming! I suppose it is in your +family?” asked the old lady. + +Miss Hamelyn blushed a little, for her niece’s name was a sore point +with her. + +“It’s an awful name for any Christian woman,” said a deep voice at the +door. “And pray, who’s called Goneril?” + +Miss Prunty came forward: a short, thick-set woman of fifty, with fine +dark eyes, and, even in a Florentine summer, with something stiff and +masculine in the fashion of her dress. + +“And have you brought your niece?” she said, as she turned to Miss +Hamelyn. + +“Yes, she is in the garden.” + +“Well, I hope she understands that she’ll have to rough it here.” + +“Goneril is a very simple girl,” said Miss Hamelyn. + +“So it’s she that’s called Goneril?” + +“Yes,” said the aunt, making an effort. “Of course I am aware of the +strangeness of the name, but--but, in fact, my brother was devotedly +attached to his wife, who died at Goneril’s birth.” + +“Whew!” whistled Miss Prunty. “The parson must have been a fool who +christened her!” + +“He did, in fact, refuse; but my brother would have no baptism saving +with that name, which, unfortunately, it is impossible to shorten.” + +“I think it is a charming name!” said Madame Petrucci, coming to the +rescue. “Gonerilla--it dies on one’s lips like music! And if you do not +like it, Brigida, what’s in a name? as your charming Byron said.” + +“I hope we shall make her happy,” said Miss Prunty. + +“Of course we shall!” cried the elder lady. + +“Goneril is easily made happy,” asserted Miss Hamelyn. + +“That’s a good thing,” snapped Miss Prunty, “for there’s not much here to +make her so!” + +“O Brigida! I am sure there are many attractions. The air, the view, +the historic association! and, more than all, you know there is always a +chance of the signorino!” + +“Of whom?” said Miss Hamelyn, rather anxiously. + +“Of him!” cried Madame Petrucci, pointing to the engraving opposite. +“He lives, of course, in the capital; but he rents the villa behind our +house,--the Medici Villa,--and when he is tired of Rome he runs down +here for a week or so; and so your Gonerilla may have the benefit of +_his_ society!” + +“Very nice, I’m sure,” said Miss Hamelyn, greatly relieved; for she knew +that Signor Graziano must be fifty. + +“We have known him,” went on the old lady, “very nearly thirty years. +He used to largely frequent the salon of our dear, our cherished Madame +Lilli.” + +The tears came into the old lady’s eyes. No doubt those days seemed near +and dear to her; she did not see the dust on those faded triumphs. + +“That’s all stale news!” cried Miss Prunty, jumping up. “And Gon’ril +(since I’ll have to call her so) must be tired of waiting in the +garden.” + +They walked out on to the terrace. The girl was not there, but by the +gate into the olive-yard, where there was a lean-to shed for tools, they +found her sitting on a cask, whittling a piece of wood and talking to a +curly-headed little contadino. + +Hearing steps, Goneril turned round. “He was asleep,” she said. “Fancy, +in such beautiful weather!” + +Then, remembering that two of the ladies were still strangers, she made +an old-fashioned little courtesy. + +“I hope you won’t find me a trouble, ladies,” she said. + +“She is charming!” said Madame Petrucci, throwing up her hands. + +Goneril blushed; her hat had slipped back and showed her short brown +curls of hair, strong regular features, and flexile scarlet mouth +laughing upward like a faun’s. She had sweet dark eyes, a little too +small and narrow. + +“I mean to be very happy,” she exclaimed. + +“Always mean that, my dear,” said Miss Prunty. + +“And now, since Gonerilla is no longer a stranger,” added Madame +Petrucci, “we will leave her to the rustic society of Angiolino while we +show Miss Hamelyn our orangery.” + +“And conclude our business!” said Bridget Prunty. + + +CHAPTER II + +THE SIGNORINO + +One day, when Goneril, much browner and rosier for a week among the +mountains, came in to lunch at noon, she found no signs of that usually +regular repast. The little maid was on her knees polishing the floor; +Miss Prunty was scolding, dusting, ordering dinner, arranging vases, all +at once; strangest of all, Madame Petrucci had taken the oil-cloth cover +from her grand piano, and, seated before it, was practising her sweet +and faded notes, unheedful of the surrounding din and business. + +“What’s the matter?” cried Goneril. + +“We expect the signorino,” said Miss Prunty. + +“And is he going to stay here?” + +“Don’t be a fool!” snapped that lady; and then she added, “Go into the +kitchen and get some of the pasty and some bread and cheese--there’s a +good girl.” + +“All right!” said Goneril. + +Madame Petrucci stopped her vocalising. “You shall have all the better +a dinner to compensate you, my Gonerilla!” She smiled sweetly, and then +again became Zerlina. + +Goneril cut her lunch, and took it out of doors to share with her +companion, Angiolino. He was harvesting the first corn under the olives, +but at noon it was too hot to work. Sitting still there was, however, a +cool breeze that gently stirred the sharp-edged olive-leaves. + +Angiolino lay down at full length and munched his bread and cheese in +perfect happiness. Goneril kept shifting about to get herself into the +narrow shadow cast by the split and writhen trunk. + +“How aggravating it is!” she cried. “In England, where there’s no +sun, there’s plenty of shade; and here, where the sun is like a +mustard-plaster on one’s back, the leaves are all set edgewise on +purpose that they sha’n’t cast any shadow!” + +Angiolino made no answer to this intelligent remark. + +“He is going to sleep again!” cried Goneril, stopping her lunch in +despair. “He is going to sleep, and there are no end of things I want to +know. Angiolino!” + +“_Si_, signora,” murmured the boy. + +“Tell me about Signor Graziano.” + +“He is our padrone; he is never here.” + +“But he is coming to-day. Wake up, wake up, Angiolino. I tell you, he is +on the way!” + +“Between life and death there are so many combinations,” drawled the +boy, with Tuscan incredulity and sententiousness. + +“Ah!” cried the girl, with a little shiver of impatience. “Is he young?” + +“_Che!_” + +“Is he old then?” + +“_Neppure!_” + +“What is he like? He must be _something_.” + +“He’s our padrone,” repeated Angiolino, in whose imagination Signor +Graziano could occupy no other place. + +“How stupid you are!” exclaimed the young English girl. + +“Maybe,” said Angiolino, stolidly. + +“Is he a good padrone? Do you like him?” + +“Rather!” The boy smiled and raised himself on one elbow; his eyes +twinkled with good-humoured malice. + +“My _babbo_ had much better wine than _quel signore_,” he said. + +“But that is wrong!” cried Goneril, quite shocked. + +“Who knows?” + +After this conversation flagged. Goneril tried to imagine what a great +musician could be like: long hair, of course; her imagination did not +get much beyond the hair. He would of course be much older now than his +portrait. Then she watched Angiolino cutting the corn, and learned how +to tie the swathes together. She was occupied in this useful employment +when the noise of wheels made them both stop and look over the wall. + +“Here’s the padrone!” cried the boy. + +“Oh, he is old!” said Goneril. “He is old and brown, like a +coffee-bean.” + +“To be old and good is better than youth with malice,” suggested +Angiolino, by way of consolation. + +“I suppose so,” acquiesced Goneril. + +Nevertheless she went in to dinner a little disappointed. + +The signorino was not in the house; he had gone up to the villa; but +he had sent a message that later in the evening he intended to pay his +respects to his old friends. Madame Petrucci was beautifully dressed in +soft black silk, old lace, and a white Indian shawl. Miss Prunty had on +her starchiest collar and most formal tie. Goneril saw it was necessary +that she, likewise should deck herself in her best. She was much +too young and impressionable not to be influenced by the flutter of +excitement and interest which filled the whole of the little cottage. +Goneril, too, was excited and anxious, although Signor Graziano had +seemed so old and like a coffee-bean. She made no progress in the piece +of embroidery she was working as a present for the two old ladies, +jumping up and down to look out of the window. When, about eight +o’clock, the door-bell rang, Goneril blushed, Madame Petrucci gave +a pretty little shriek, Miss Prunty jumped up and rang for coffee. +A moment afterward the signorino entered. While he was greeting her +hostesses Goneril cast a rapid glance at him. He was tall for an +Italian, rather bent and rather gray; fifty at least--therefore very +old. He certainly was brown, but his features were fine and good, and he +had a distinguished and benevolent air that somehow made her think of +an abbe, a French abbe of the last century. She could quite imagine him +saying, “_Enfant de St. Louis, montez au ciel!_” + +Thus far had she got in her meditations when she felt herself addressed +in clear, half-mocking tones: + +“And how, this evening, is Madamigella Ruth?” + +So he had seen her this evening binding his corn. + +“I am quite well, padrone,” she said, smiling shyly. + +The two old ladies looked on amazed, for of course they were not in the +secret. + +“Signor Graziano, Miss Goneril Hamelyn,” said Miss Prunty, rather +severely. + +Goneril felt that the time had come for silence and good manners. She +sat quite quiet over her embroidery, listening to the talk of Sontag, of +Clementi, of musicians and singers dead and gone. She noticed that the +ladies treated Signore Graziano with the utmost reverence, even the +positive Miss Prunty furling her opinions in deference to his gayest +hint. They talked too of Madame Lilli, and always as if she were still +young and fair, as if she had died yesterday, leaving the echo of her +triumph loud behind her. And yet all this had happened years before +Goneril had ever seen the light. + +“Mees Goneril is feeling very young!” said the signorino, suddenly +turning his sharp, kind eyes upon her. + +“Yes,” said Goneril, all confusion. + +Madame Petrucci looked almost annoyed--the gay, serene little lady that +nothing ever annoyed. + +“It is she that is young!” she cried, in answer to an unspoken thought. +“She is a baby!” + +“Oh, I am seventeen!” said Goneril. + +They all laughed, and seemed at ease again. + +“Yes, yes; she is very young,” said the signorino. + +But a little shadow had fallen across their placid entertainment: the +spirit had left their memories; they seemed to have grown shapeless, +dusty, as the fresh and comely faces of dead Etruscan kings crumble into +mould at the touch of the pitiless sunshine. + +“Signorino,” said Madame Petrucci, presently, “if you will accompany me +we will perform one of your charming melodies.” + +Signor Graziano rose a little stiffly and led the pretty, withered +little diva to the piano. + +Goneril looked on, wondering, admiring. The signorino’s thin white hands +made a delicate, fluent melody, reminding her of running water under +the rippled shade of trees, and, like a high, sweet bird, the thin, +penetrating notes of the singer rose, swelled, and died away, admirably +true and just even in this latter weakness. At the end Signor Graziano +stopped his playing to give time for an elaborate cadenza. Suddenly +Madame Petrucci gasped; a sharp discordant sound cracked the delicate +finish of her singing. She put her handkerchief to her mouth. + +“Bah!” she said, “this evening I am abominably husky.” + +The tears rose to Goneril’s eyes. Was it so hard to grow old? This doubt +made her voice loudest of all in the chorus of mutual praise and thanks +which covered the song’s abrupt finale. + +And then there came a terrible ordeal. Miss Prunty, anxious to divert +the current of her friend’s ideas, had suggested that the girl should +sing. Signor Graziano and madame insisted; they would take no refusal. + +“Sing, sing, little bird!” cried the old lady. + +“But, madame, how can one--after you?” + +The homage in the young girl’s voice made the little diva more +good-humouredly insistent than before, and Goneril was too well-bred +to make a fuss. She stood by the piano wondering which to choose, the +Handels that she always drawled or the Pinsuti that she always galloped. +Suddenly she came by an inspiration. + +“Madame,” she pleaded, “may I sing one of Angiolino’s songs?” + +“Whatever you like, _cara mia_.” + +And, standing by the piano, her arms hanging loose, she began a chant +such as the peasants use working under the olives. Her voice was small +and deep, with a peculiar thick sweetness that suited the song, half +humourous, half pathetic. These were the words she sang: + + “Vorrei morir di morte piccinina, + Morta la sera e viva la mattina. + Vorrei morire, e non vorrei morire, + Vorrei veder chi mi piange e chi ride; + Vorrei morir, e star sulle finestre, + Vorrei veder chi mi cuce la veste; + Vorrei morir, e stare sulla scala, + Vorrei veder chi mi porta la bara: + Vorrei morir, e vorre’ alzar la voce, + Vorrei veder chi mi porta la croce.” + +“Very well chosen, my dear,” said Miss Prunty, when the song was +finished. + +“And very well sung, my Gonerilla!” cried the old lady. + +But the signorino went up to the piano and shook hands with her. + +“Little Mees Goneril,” he said, “you have the makings of an artist.” + +The two old ladies stared, for, after all, Goneril’s performance had +been very simple. You see, they were better versed in music than in +human nature. + + +CHAPTER III + +SI VIEILLESSE POUVAIT! + +Signor Graziano’s usual week of holiday passed and lengthened into +almost two months, and still he stayed on at the villa. The two old +ladies were highly delighted. + +“At last he has taken my advice!” cried Miss Prunty. “I always told him +those premature gray hairs came from late hours and Roman air.” + +Madame Petrucci shook her head and gave a meaning smile. Her friendship +with the signorino had begun when he was a lad and she a charming +married woman; like many another friendship, it had begun with a +flirtation, and perhaps (who knows?) she thought the flirtation had +revived. + +As for Goneril, she considered him the most charming old man she had +ever known, and liked nothing so much as to go out a walk with him. +That, indeed, was one of the signorino’s pleasures; he loved to take +the young girl all over his gardens and vineyards, talking to her in the +amiable, half-petting, half-mocking manner that he had adopted from the +first; and twice a week he gave her a music lesson. + +“She has a splendid organ!” he would say. + +“_Vous croyez_?” fluted Madame Petrucci, with the vilest accent and the +most aggravating smile imaginable. + +It was the one hobby of the signorino’s that she regarded with +disrespect. + +Goneril too was a little bored by the music lesson, but, on the other +hand, the walks delighted her. + +One day Goneril was out with her friend. + +“Are the peasants very much afraid of you, signore?” she asked. + +“Am I such a tyrant?” counter-questioned the signorino. + +“No; but they are always begging me to ask you things. Angiolino wants +to know if he may go for three days to see his uncle at Fiesole.” + +“Of course.” + +“But why, then, don’t they ask you themselves? Is it they think me so +cheeky?” + +“Perhaps they think I can refuse you nothing.” + +“_Che!_ In that case they would ask Madame Petrucci.” + +Goneril ran on to pick some China roses. The signorino stopped +confounded. + +“It is impossible!” he cried. “She cannot think I am in love with +Giulia! She cannot think I am so old as that!” + +The idea seemed horrible to him. He walked on very quickly till he came +up to Goneril, who was busy plucking roses in a hedge. + +“For whom are those flowers?” he asked. + +“Some are for you and some are for Madame Petrucci.” + +“She is a charming woman, Madame Petrucci.” + +“A dear old lady,” murmured Goneril, much more interested in her posy. + +“Old, do you call her?” said the signorino, rather anxiously. “I should +scarcely call her that, though of course she is a good deal older than +either of us.” + +“Either of us!” Goneril looked up astounded. Could the signorino have +suddenly gone mad? + +He blushed a little under his brown skin that had reminded her of a +coffee-bean. + +“She is a good ten years older than I am,” he explained. + +“Ah, well, ten years isn’t much.” + +“You don’t think so?” he cried, delighted. Who knows? she might not +think even thirty too much. + +“Not at that age,” said Goneril, blandly. + +Signor Graziano could think of no reply. + +But from that day one might have dated a certain assumption of +youthfulness in his manners. At cards it was always the signorino and +Goneril against the two elder ladies; in his conversation, too, it +was to the young girl that he constantly appealed, as if she were his +natural companion--she, and not his friends of thirty years. Madame +Petrucci, always serene and kind, took no notice of these little +changes, but they were particularly irritating to Miss Prunty, who was, +after all, only four years older than the signorino. + +That lady had, indeed, become more than usually sharp and foreboding. +She received the signorino’s gay effusions in ominous silence, and would +frown darkly while Madame Petrucci petted her “little bird,” as she +called Goneril. Once, indeed, Miss Prunty was heard to remark that it +was tempting Providence to have dealings with a creature whose very +name was a synonym for ingratitude. But the elder lady only smiled and +declared that her Gonerilla was charming, delicious, a real sunshine in +the house. + +“Now I call on you to support me, signorino,” she cried one evening, +when the three elders sat together in the room, while Goneril watered +the roses on the terrace. “Is not my Gonerilla a charming little +_bebe_?” + +Signor Graziano withdrew his eyes from the window. + +“Most charming, certainly, but scarcely such a child. She is seventeen, +you know, my dear signora.” + +“Seventeen! _Santo Dio!_ And what is one at seventeen but an innocent, +playful, charming little kitten?” + +“You are always right, madame,” agreed the signorino, but he looked as +if he thought she were very wrong. + +“Of course I am right,” laughed the little lady. “Come here, my +Gonerilla, and hold my skein for me. Signor Graziano is going to charm +us with one of his delightful airs.” + +“I hoped she would sing,” faltered the signorino. + +“Who? Gonerilla? Nonsense, my friend. She winds silk much better than +she sings.” + +Goneril laughed; she was not at all offended. But Signor Graziano made +several mistakes in his playing. At last he left the piano. “I cannot +play to-night,” he cried. “I am not in the humour. Goneril, will you +come and walk with me on the terrace?” + +Before the girl could reply Miss Prunty had darted an angry glance at +Signor Graziano. + +“Good Lord, what fools men are!” she ejaculated. “And do you think, now, +I’m going to let that girl, who’s just getting rid of her malaria, go +star-gazing with any old idiot while all the mists are curling out of +the valleys?” + +“Brigida, my love, you forget yourself,” said Madame Petrucci. + +“Bah!” cried the signorino. He was evidently out of temper. + +The little lady hastened to smooth the troubled waters. “Talking of +malaria,” she began, in her serenest manner, “I always remember what my +dearest Madame Lilli told me. It was at one of Prince Teano’s concerts. +You remember, signorino?” + +“_Che!_ How should I remember?” he exclaimed. “It was a lifetime ago, +dead and forgotten.” + +The old lady shrank, as if a glass of water had been rudely thrown in +her face. She said nothing, staring blindly. + +“Go to bed, Goneril!” cried Miss Prunty, in a voice of thunder. + + +CHAPTER IV + +BIRDS OF A FEATHER + +A few mornings after these events the postman brought a letter for +Goneril. This was such a rare occurrence that she blushed rose red at +the very sight of it and had to walk up and down the terrace several +times before she felt calm enough to read it. Then she went upstairs and +knocked at the door of Madame Petrucci’s room. + +“Come in, little bird.” + +The old lady, in pink merino and curl-papers, opened the door. Goneril +held up her letter. + +“My cousin Jack is coming to Florence, and he is going to walk over to +see me this afternoon. And may he stay to dinner, _cara_ signora?” + +“Why, of course, Gonerilla. I am charmed!” + +Goneril kissed the old lady, and danced downstairs brimming over with +delight. + +Later in the morning Signor Graziano called. + +“Will you come out with me, Mees Goneril?” he said. “On my land the +earliest vintage begins to-day.” + +“Oh, how nice!” she cried. + +“Come, then,” said the signorino, smiling. + +“Oh, I can’t come to-day, because of Jack.” + +“Jack?” + +“My cousin; he may come at any time.” + +“Your cousin!” The signorino frowned a little. “Ah, you English,” he +said, “you consider all your cousins brothers and sisters!” + +Goneril laughed. + +“Is it not so?” he asked, a little anxiously. + +“Jack is much nicer than my brothers,” said the young girl. + +“And who is he, this Jack?” + +“He’s a dear boy,” said Goneril, “and very clever; he is going home for +the Indian civil-service exam; he has been out to Calcutta to see my +father.” + +The signorino did not pay any attention to the latter part of this +description, but he appeared to find the beginning very satisfactory. + +“So he is only a boy,” he muttered to himself, and went away +comparatively satisfied. + +Goneril spent most of the day watching the road from Florence. She might +not walk on the highway, but a steep short cut that joined the main road +at the bottom of the hill was quite at her disposal. She walked up and +down for more than an hour. At last she saw some one on the Florence +road. She walked on quickly. It was the telegraph-boy. + +She tore open the envelope and read: “Venice.--Exam. on Wednesday. Start +at once. _Arivederci_.” + +It was with very red eyes that Goneril went in to dinner. + +“So the cousin hasn’t come?” said Miss Prunty, kindly. + +“No; he had to go home at once for his examination.” + +“I dare say he’ll come over again soon, my dear,” said that +discriminating lady. She had quite taken Goneril back into her good +graces. + +They all sat together in the little parlor after dinner. At eight +o’clock the door-bell rang. It was now seven weeks since Goneril had +blushed with excitement when first she heard that ring, and now she did +not blush. + +The signorino entered. He walked very straight and his lips were set. He +came in with the air of one prepared to encounter opposition. + +“Mees Goneril,” he said, “will you come out on the terrace?--before it +is too late,” he added, with a savage glance at Miss Prunty. + +“Yes,” said Goneril; and they went out together. + +“So the cousin did not come?” said the signorino. + +“No.” + +They went on a little way in silence together. The night was moon-lit +and clear; not a wind stirred the leaves; the sky was like a sapphire, +containing but not shedding light. The late oleanders smelled very +sweet; the moon was so full that one could distinguish the peculiar +grayish-pink of the blossoms. + +“It is a lovely night!” said Goneril. + +“And a lovely place.” + +“Yes.” + +Then a bird sang. + +“You have been here just eight weeks,” said the signorino. + +“I have been very happy.” + +He did not speak for a minute or two, and then he said: + +“Would you like to live here always?” + +“Ah, yes! but that is impossible.” + +He took her hand and turned her gently, so that her face was in the +light. + +“Dear Mees Goneril, why is it impossible?” + +For a moment the young girl did not answer. She blushed very red, and +looked brave. + +“Because of Jack!” she said. + +“Ah!” + +“Nothing is settled,” added the young girl, “but it is no use pretending +not to know.” + +“It is no use,” he repeated, very sadly. + +And then for a little while they listened to the bird. + +“Mees Goneril,” said the signorino at last, “do you know why I brought +you out here?” + +“Not at all,” she answered. + +It was a minute before he spoke again. + +“I am going to Rome to-morrow,” he said, “and I wanted to bid you +good-bye. You will sing to me to-night, as it will be the last time?” + +“Oh, I hope not the last time!” + +“Yes, yes,” he said, a little testily; “unless--and I pray it may not be +so--unless you ever need the help of an old friend.” + +“Dear Signor Graziano!” + +“And now you will sing me my ‘Nobil Amore’?” + +“I will do anything you like.” + +The signorino sighed and looked at her for a minute. Then he led her +into the little parlour, where Madame Petrucci was singing shrilly in +the twilight. + + + + +THE BRIGAND’S BRIDE: A TALE OF SOUTHERN ITALY, By Laurence Oliphant + + +The Italian peninsula during the years 1859, 1860, and 1861 offered a +particularly tempting field for adventure to ardent spirits in search +of excitement; and, attracted partly by my sympathy with the popular +movement, and partly by that simple desire, which gives so much zest to +the life of youth, of risking it on all possible occasions, I had taken +an active part, chiefly as an officious spectator, in all the principal +events of those stirring years. It was in the spring of 1862 that I +found matters beginning to settle down to a degree that threatened +monotony; and with the termination of the winter gaieties at Naples and +the close of the San Carlo, I seriously bethought me of accepting the +offer of a naval friend who was about to engage in blockade-running, and +offered to land me in the Confederate States, when a recrudescence of +activity on the part of the brigand bands in Calabria induced me to turn +my attention in that direction. The first question I had to consider +was, whether I should enjoy myself most by joining the brigands, or the +troops which were engaged in suppressing them. As the former aspired to +a political character, and called themselves patriotic bands fighting +for their church, their country, and their king,--the refugee monarch of +Naples,--one could espouse their cause without exactly laying one’s self +open to the charge of being a bandit; but it was notorious in point of +fact that the bands cared for neither the pope nor the exiled king nor +their annexed country, but committed the most abominable atrocities +in the names of all the three, for the simple purpose of filling their +pockets. I foresaw not only extreme difficulty in being accepted as +a member of the fraternity, more especially as I had hitherto been +identified with the Garibaldians, but also the probability of finding +myself compromised by acts from which my conscience would revolt, and +for which my life would in all likelihood pay the forfeit. On the other +hand, I could think of no friend among the officers of the bersaglieri +and cavalry regiments then engaged in brigand-hunting in the Capitanata +and Basilicata to whom I could apply for an invitation to join them. + +Under these circumstances I determined to trust to the chapter of +accidents; and, armed with a knapsack, a sketch-book, and an air-gun, +took my seat one morning in the Foggia diligence, with the vague idea +of getting as near the scene of operations as possible, and seeing +what would turn up. The air-gun was not so much a weapon of offence +or defence as a means of introduction to the inhabitants. It had the +innocent appearance of rather a thick walking-cane, with a little brass +trigger projecting; and in the afternoon I would join the group sitting +in front of the chemist’s, which, for some reason or other, is generally +a sort of open-air club in a small Neapolitan town, or stroll into +the single modest cafe of which it might possibly boast, and toy +abstractedly with the trigger. This, together with my personal +appearance,--for do what I would I could never make myself look like a +Neapolitan,--would be certain to attract attention, and some one bolder +than the rest would make himself the spokesman, and politely ask me +whether the cane in my hand was an umbrella or a fishing-rod; on which +I would amiably reply that it was a gun, and that I should have much +pleasure in exhibiting my skill and the method of its operation to +the assembled company. Then the whole party would follow me to an open +space, and I would call for a pack of cards, and possibly--for I was a +good shot in those days--pink the ace of hearts at fifteen paces. At any +rate, my performances usually called forth plaudits, and this involved a +further interchange of compliments and explanations, and the production +of my sketch-book, which soon procured me the acquaintance of some +ladies, and an invitation as an English artist to the house of some +respectable citizen. + +So it happened that, getting out of the diligence before it reached +Foggia, I struck south, and wandered for some days from one little town +to another, being always hospitably entertained, whether there happened +to be an _albergo_ or not, at private houses, seeing in this way more +of the manners and customs of the inhabitants than would have been +otherwise possible, gaining much information as to the haunts of the +brigands, the whereabouts of the troops, and hearing much local gossip +generally. The ignorance of the most respectable classes at this period +was astounding; it has doubtless all changed since. I have been at a +town of two thousand inhabitants, not one of whom took in a newspaper; +the whole population, therefore, was in as profound ignorance of what +was transpiring in the rest of the world as if they had been in Novaia +Zemlia. I have stayed with a mayor who did not know that England was +an island; I have been the guest of a citizen who had never heard of +Scotland, and to whom, therefore, my nationality was an enigma; but +I never met any one--I mean of this same class--who had not heard of +Palmerston. He was a mysterious personage, execrated by the “blacks” and +adored by the “reds.” And I shone with a reflected lustre as the citizen +of a country of which he was the Prime Minister. As a consequence, we +had political discussions, which were protracted far into the night; +for the principal meal of the twenty-four hours was a 10-o’clock-P.M. +supper, at which, after the inevitable macaroni, were many unwholesome +dishes, such as salads made of thistles, cows’ udders, and other +delicacies, which deprived one of all desire for sleep. Notwithstanding +which, we rose early, my hostess and the ladies of the establishment +appearing in the early part of the day in the most extreme deshabille. +Indeed, on one occasion when I was first introduced into the family of a +respectable citizen and shown into my bedroom, I mistook one of the two +females who were making the bed for the servant, and was surprised to +see her hand a little douceur I gave her as an earnest of attention on +her part to the other, with a smile. She soon afterward went to bed: we +all did, from 11 A.M. till about 3 P.M., at which hour I was horrified +to meet her arrayed in silks and satins, and to find that she was the +wife of my host. She kindly took me a drive with her in a carriage and +pair, and with a coachman in livery. + +It was by this simple means, and by thus imposing myself upon the +hospitality of these unsophisticated people, that I worked my way, by +slow degrees, chiefly on foot, into the part of the country I desired to +visit; and I trust that I in a measure repaid them for it by the stores +of information which I imparted to them, and of which they stood much in +need, and by little sketches of their homes and the surrounding scenery, +with which I presented them. I was, indeed, dependent in some measure +for hospitality of this description, as I had taken no money with me, +partly because, to tell the truth, I had scarcely got any, and partly +because I was afraid of being robbed by brigands of the little I had. +I therefore eschewed the character of a _milordo Inglese_; but I never +succeeded in dispelling all suspicion that I might not be a nephew of +the Queen, or at least a very near relative of Palmerston in disguise. +It was so natural, seeing what a deep interest both her Majesty and the +Prime Minister took in Italy, that they should send some one incognito +whom they could trust to tell them all about it. + +Meantime, I was not surprised, when I came to know the disposition of +the inhabitants, at the success of brigandage. It has never been my +fortune before or since to live among such a timid population. One day +at a large town a leading landed proprietor received notice that if he +did not pay a certain sum in blackmail,--I forget at this distance of +time the exact amount,--his farm or _masseria_ would be robbed. This +farm, which was in fact a handsome country house, was distant about ten +miles from the town. He therefore made an appeal to the citizens that +they should arm themselves and help him to defend his property, as he +had determined not to pay, and had taken steps to be informed as to the +exact date when the attack was to be made in default of payment. More +than three hundred citizens enrolled themselves as willing to turn out +in arms. On the day preceding the attack by the brigands, a rendezvous +was given to these three hundred on the great square for five in the +morning, and thither I accordingly repaired, unable, however, to induce +my host to accompany me, although he had signed as a volunteer. On +reaching the rendezvous, I found the landed proprietor and a friend +who was living with him, and about ten minutes afterward two other +volunteers strolled up. Five was all we could muster out of three +hundred. It was manifestly useless to attempt anything with so small a +force, and no arguments could induce any of the others to turn out; so +the unhappy gentleman had the satisfaction of knowing that the brigands +had punctually pillaged his place, carrying off all his live stock +on the very day and at the very hour they said they would. As for the +inhabitants venturing any distance from town, except under military +escort, such a thing was unknown, and all communication with Naples +was for some time virtually intercepted. I was regarded as a sort of +monomaniac of recklessness because I ventured on a solitary walk of a +mile or two in search of a sketch--an act of no great audacity on my +part, for I had walked through various parts of the country without +seeing a brigand, and found it difficult to realise that there was any +actual danger in strolling a mile from a moderately large town. + +Emboldened by impunity, I was tempted one day to follow up a most +romantic glen in search of a sketch, when I came upon a remarkably +handsome peasant girl, driving a donkey before her loaded with wood. +My sudden appearance on the narrow path made the animal shy against +a projecting piece of rock, off which he rebounded to the edge of the +path, which, giving way, precipitated him and his load down the ravine. +He was brought up unhurt against a bush some twenty feet below, the +fagots of wood being scattered in his descent in all directions. For a +moment the girl’s large, fierce eyes flashed upon me with anger; but the +impetuosity with which I went headlong after the donkey, with a view +of repairing my error, and the absurd attempts I made to reverse the +position of his feet, which were in the air, converted her indignation +into a hearty fit of laughter, as, seeing that the animal was apparently +uninjured, she scrambled down to my assistance. By our united efforts +we at last succeeded in hoisting the donkey up to the path, and then I +collected the wood and helped her to load it again--an operation which +involved a frequent meeting of hands and of the eyes, which had now lost +the ferocity that had startled me at first, and seemed getting more soft +and beaming every time I glanced at them, till at last, producing my +sketch-book, I ventured to remark, “Ah, signorina, what a picture you +would make! Now that the ass is loaded, let me draw you before we part, +that I may carry away the recollection of the loveliest woman I have +seen.” + +“First draw the donkey,” she replied, “that I may carry away a +recollection of the _galantuomo_ who first upset him over the bank, and +then helped me to load him.” + +Smiling at this ambiguous compliment, I gave her the sketch she desired, +and was about to claim my reward, when she abruptly remarked: + +“There is not time now; it is getting late, and I must not linger, as +I have still an hour to go before reaching home. How is it that you are +not afraid to be wandering in this solitary glen by yourself? Do you not +know the risks?” + +“I have heard of them, but I do not believe in them,” I said; “besides, +I should be poor plunder for robbers.” + +“But you have friends, who would pay to ransom you, I suppose, if you +were captured?” + +“My life is not worth a hundred scudi to any of them,” I replied, +laughing; “but I am willing to forego the please of drawing you now, +_bellissima_, if you will tell me where you live, and let me come and +paint you there at my leisure.” + +“You’re a brave one,” she said, with a little laugh; “there is not +another man in all Ascoli who would dare to pay me a visit without an +escort of twenty soldiers. But I am too grateful for your amiability to +let you run such a risk. _Addio_, Signor Inglese. There are many reasons +why I can’t let you draw my picture, but I am not ungrateful, see!”--and +she offered me her cheek, on which I instantly imprinted a chaste and +fraternal salute. + +“Don’t think that you’ve seen the last of me, _carrissima_,” I called +out, as she turned away. “I shall live on the memory of that kiss till I +have an opportunity of repeating it.” + +And as I watched her retreating figure with an artist’s eye, I was +struck with its grace and suppleness, combined, as I had observed +while she was helping me to lead the donkey, with an unusual degree of +muscular strength for a woman. + +The spot at which this episode had taken place was so romantic that +I determined to make a sketch of it, and the shades of evening were +closing in so fast that they warned me to hurry if I would reach the +town before dark. I had just finished it and was stooping to pick up by +air-gun, when I heard a sudden rush, and before I had time to look up I +was thrown violently forward on my face, and found myself struggling in +the embrace of a powerful grasp, from which I had nearly succeeded in +freeing myself, when the arms which were clasping me were reinforced by +several more pairs, and I felt a rope being passed round my body. + +“All right, signors!” I exclaimed. “I yield to superior numbers. You +need not pull so hard; let me get up, and I promise to go with you +quietly.” And by this time I had turned sufficiently on my back to see +that four men were engaged in tying me up. + +“Tie his elbows together and let him get up,” said one; “he is not +armed. Here, Giuseppe, carry his stick and paint-box while I feel his +pockets. _Corpo di Baccho!_ twelve bajocchi,” he exclaimed, producing +those copper coins with an air of profound disgust. “It is to be hoped +he is worth more to his friends. Now, young man, trudge, and remember +that the first sign you make of attempting to run away means four +bullets through you.” + +As I did not anticipate any real danger, and as a prolonged detention +was a matter of no consequence to a man without an occupation, I +stepped forward with a light heart, rather pleased than otherwise with +anticipations of the brigand’s cave, and turning over in my mind whether +or not I should propose to join the band. + +We had walked an hour and it had become dark, when we turned off the +road, up a narrow path that led between rocky sides to a glade, at the +extremity of which, under an overhanging ledge, was a small cottage, +with what seemed to be a patch of garden in front. + +“Ho! Anita!” called out the man who appeared to be the leader of the +band; “open! We have brought a friend to supper, who will require a +night’s lodgings.” + +An old woman with a light appeared, and over her shoulder, to my +delight, I saw the face I had asked to be allowed to paint so shortly +before. I was about to recognise her with an exclamation, when I saw a +hurried motion of her finger to her lip, which looked a natural gesture +to the casual observer, but which I construed into a sign of prudence. + +“Where did you pick him up, Croppo?” she asked, carelessly. “He ought to +be worth something.” + +“Just twelve bajocchi,” he answered, with a sneering laugh. “Come, +_amico mio_, you will have to give us the names of some of your +friends.” + +“I am tolerably intimate with his Holiness the Pope, and I have a bowing +acquaintance with the King of Naples, whom may God speedily restore +to his own,” I replied, in a light and airy fashion, which seemed +exceedingly to exasperate the man called Croppo. + +“Oh, yes, we know all about that; we never catch a man who does not +profess to be a Nero of the deepest dye in order to conciliate our +sympathies. It is just as well that you should understand, my friend, +that all are fish who come into our net. The money of the pope’s friends +is quite as good as the money of Garibaldi’s. You need not hope to put +us off with your Italian friends of any colour; what we want is English +gold--good, solid English gold, and plenty of it.” + +“Ah,” said I, with a laugh, “if you did but know, my friend, how long +I have wanted it too! If you could only suggest an Englishman who would +pay you for my life, I would write to him immediately, and we would go +halves in the ransom. Hold!” I said, a bright idea suddenly striking me. +“Suppose I were to write to my government--how would that do?” + +Croppo was evidently puzzled; my cheerful and unembarrassed manner +apparently perplexed him. He had a suspicion that I was even capable of +the audacity of making a fool of him, and yet that proposition about the +government rather staggered him; there might be something in it. + +“Don’t you think,” he remarked, grimly, “it would add to the effect of +your communication if you were to enclose your own ears in your letter? +I can easily supply them; and if you are not a little more guarded in +your speech you may possibly have to add your tongue.” + +“It would not have the slightest effect,” I replied, paying no heed +to his threat; “you don’t know Palmerston as I do. If you wish to get +anything out of him you must be excessively civil. What does he care +about my ears?” And I laughed with such scornful contempt that Croppo +this time felt that he had made a fool of himself, and I observed +the lovely girl behind, while the corners of her mouth twitched with +suppressed laughter, make a sign of caution. + +“_Per Dio!_” he exclaimed, jumping up with fury. “Understand, Signor +Inglese, that Croppo is not to be trifled with. I have a summary way of +treating disrespect,” and he drew a long and exceedingly sharp-looking +two-edged knife. + +“So you would kill the goose” (“and I certainly am a goose,” I +reflected) “that may lay a golden egg.” But my allusion was lost upon +him, and I saw my charmer touch her forehead significantly, as though to +imply to Croppo that I was weak in the upper story. + +“An imbecile without friends and twelve bajocchi in his pocket,” he +muttered, savagely. “Perhaps the night without food will restore his +senses. Come, fool!” and he roughly pushed me into a dark little chamber +adjoining. “Here, Valeria, hold the light.” + +So Valeria was the name of the heroine of the donkey episode. As she +held a small oil-lamp aloft I perceived that the room in which I was to +spend the night had more the appearance of a cellar than a chamber; it +had been excavated on two sides from the bank; on the third there was +a small hole about six inches square, apparently communicating with +another room, and on the fourth was the door by which I had entered, +and which opened into the kitchen and general living-room of the +inhabitants. There was a heap of onions running to seed, the fagots of +fire-wood which Valeria had brought that afternoon, and an old cask or +two. + +“Won’t you give him some kind of a bed?” she asked Croppo. + +“Bah! he can sleep on the onions,” responded that worthy. “If he had +been more civil and intelligent he should have had something to eat. You +three,” he went on, turning to the other men, “sleep in the kitchen, +and watch that the prisoner does not escape. The door has a strong bolt +besides. Come, Valeria.” + +And the pair disappeared, leaving me in a dense gloom, strongly pervaded +by an ordour of fungus and decaying onions. Groping into one of the +casks, I found some straw, and spreading it on a piece of plank, I +prepared to pass the night sitting with my back to the driest piece +of wall I could find, which happened to be immediately under the +air-hole--a fortunate circumstance, as the closeness was often stifling. +I had probably been dozing for some time in a sitting position, when I +felt something tickle the top of my head. The idea that it might be a +large spider caused me to start, when, stretching up my hand, it came in +contact with what seemed to be a rag, which I had not observed. Getting +carefully up, I perceived a faint light gleaming through the aperture, +and then saw that a hand was protruded through it, apparently waving the +rag. As I felt instinctively that the hand was Valeria’s, I seized the +finger-tips, which was all I could get hold of, and pressed them to +my lips. They were quickly drawn away, and then the whisper reached my +ears: + +“Are you hungry?” + +“Yes.” + +“Then eat this,” and she passed me a tin pannikin full of cold macaroni, +which would just go through the opening. + +“Dear Valeria,” I said, with my mouth full, “how good and thoughtful you +are!” + +“Hush! he’ll hear.” + +“Who?” + +“Croppo.” + +“Where is he?” + +“Asleep in the bed just behind me.” + +“How do you come to be in his bedroom?” + +“Because I’m his wife.” + +“Oh!” A long pause, during which I collapsed upon my straw seat, and +swallowed macaroni thoughtfully. As the result of my meditations, +“Valeria, _carissima_!” + +“Hush! Yes.” + +“Can’t you get me out of this infernal den?” + +“Perhaps, if they all three sleep in the kitchen; at present one is +awake. Watch for my signal, and if they all three sleep I will manage to +slip the bolt. Then you must give me time to get back into bed, and when +you hear me snore you may make the attempt. They are all three sleeping +on the floor, so be very careful where you tread; I will also leave the +front door a little open, so that you can slip through without noise.” + +“Dearest Valeria!” + +“Hush! Yes.” + +“Hand me that cane--it is my fishing-rod, you know--through this hole; +you can leave the sketch-book and paint-box under the tree that the +donkey fell against; I will call for them some day soon. And, Valeria, +don’t you think we could make our lips meet through this beastly hole?” + +“Impossible. There’s my hand; heavens! Croppo would murder me if he +knew. Now keep quiet till I give the signal. Oh, do let go my hand!” + +“Remember, Valeria, _bellissima, carissima_, whatever happens, that I +love you.” + +But I don’t think she heard this, and I went and sat on the onions, +because I could see the hole better and the smell of them kept me awake. + +It was at least two hours after this that the faint light appeared at +the hole in the wall and a hand was pushed through. I rushed at the +finger-tips. + +“Here’s your fishing-rod,” she said, when I had released them and she +had passed me my air-gun. “Now be very careful how you tread. There is +one asleep across the door, but you can open it about two feet. Then +step over him; then make for a gleam of moonlight that comes through the +crack of the front door, open it very gently, and slip out. _Addio, caro +Inglese_; mind you wait till you hear me snoring.” + +Then she lingered, and I heard a sigh. + +“What is it, sweet Valeria?” and I covered her hand with kisses. + +“I wish Croppo had blue eyes like you.” + +This was murmured so softly that I may have been mistaken, but I’m +nearly sure that was what she said; then she drew softly away, and two +minutes afterward I heard her snoring. As the first sound issued from +her lovely nostrils I stealthily approached the door, gently pushed +it open, stealthily stepped over a space which I trusted cleared the +recumbent figure that I could not see, cleared him, stole gently on for +the streak of moonlight, trod squarely on something that seemed like an +outstretched hand, for it gave under my pressure and produced a yell, +felt that I must now rush for my life, dashed the door open, and down +the path with four yelling ruffians at my heels. I was a pretty good +runner, but the moon was behind a cloud and the way was rocky; moreover, +there must have been a short cut I did not know, for one of my pursuers +gained upon me with unaccountable rapidity--he appeared suddenly within +ten yards of my heels. The others were at least a hundred yards behind. +I had nothing for it but to turn round, let him almost run against the +muzzle of my air-gun, pull the trigger, and see him fall in his tracks. +It was the work of a second, but it checked my pursuers. They had heard +no noise, but they found something that they did not bargain for, and +lingered a moment; then, they took up the chase with redoubled fury. But +I had too good a start; and where the path joined the main road, instead +of turning down toward the town as they expected I would, I dodged round +in the opposite direction, the uncertain light this time favouring me, +and I heard their footsteps and their curses dying away on the wrong +track. Nevertheless I ran on at full speed, and it was not till the day +was dawning that I began to feel safe and relax my efforts. The sun had +been up an hour when I reached a small town, and the little _locanda_ +was just opening for the day when I entered it, thankful for a hot cup +of coffee and a dirty little room, with a dirtier bed, where I could +sleep off the fatigue and excitement of the night. I was strolling +down almost the only street in the afternoon when I met a couple of +carabineers riding into it, and shortly after encountered the whole +troop, to my great delight in command of an intimate friend whom I had +left a month before in Naples. + +“Ah, _caro mio_,” he exclaimed, when he saw me, “well met! What on earth +are you doing here? Looking for those brigands you were so anxious to +find when you left Naples? Considering that you are in the heart of +their country, you should not have much difficulty in gratifying your +curiosity.” + +“I have had an adventure or two,” I replied, carelessly. “Indeed, that +is partly the reason you find me here. I was just thinking how I could +get safely back to Ascoli, when your welcome escort appeared; for I +suppose you are going there and will let me take advantage of it.” + +“Only too delighted; and you can tell me your adventures. Let us dine +together to-night, and I will find you a horse to ride on with us in the +morning.” + +I am afraid my account of the episode with which I have acquainted the +reader was not strictly accurate in all its details, as I did not wish +to bring down my military friends on poor Valeria; so I skipped all +allusion to her and my detention in her home, merely saying that I had +had a scuffle with brigands and had been fortunate enough to escape +under cover of the night. As we passed it next morning I recognised the +path which led up to Valeria’s cottage, and shortly after observed that +young woman herself coming up the glen. + +“Holloa!” I said, with great presence of mind, as she drew near, “my +lovely model, I declare! Just you ride on, old fellow, while I stop and +ask her when she can come and sit to me again.” + +“You artists are sad rogues; what chances your profession must give +you!” remarked my companion, as he cast an admiring glance on Valeria +and rode discreetly on. + +“There is nothing to be afraid of, lovely Valeria,” I said, in a low +tone, as I lingered behind; “be sure I will never betray either your or +your rascally--hem! I mean your excellent Croppo. By the by, was that +man much hurt that I was obliged to trip up?” + +“Hurt! Santa Maria! he is dead, with a bullet through his heart. Croppo +says it must have been magic, for he had searched you and he knew you +were not armed, and he was within a hundred yards of you when poor Pippo +fell, and he heard no sound.” + +“Croppo is not far wrong,” I said, glad of the opportunity thus offered +of imposing on the ignorance and credulity of the natives. “He seemed +surprised that he could not frighten me the other night. Tell him he was +much more in my power than I was in his, dear Valeria,” I added, looking +tenderly into his eyes. “I didn’t want to alarm you; that was the reason +I let him off so easily; but I may not be so merciful next time. Now, +sweetest, that kiss you owe me, and which the wall prevented your giving +me the other night.” She held up her face with the innocence of a child +as I stooped from my saddle. + +“I shall never see you again, Signor Inglese,” she said, with a sigh; +“for Croppo says it is not safe, after what happened the night before +last, to stay another hour. Indeed, he went off yesterday, leaving me +orders to follow to-day; but I went first to put your sketch-book under +the bush where the donkey fell, and where you will find it.” + +It took us another minute or two to part after this; and when I had +ridden away I turned to look back, and there was Valeria gazing after +me. “Positively,” I reflected, “I am over head and ears in love with the +girl, and I believe she is with me. I ought to have nipped my feelings +in the bud when she told me she was his wife; but then he is a brigand, +who threatened both my ears and my tongue, to say nothing of my life. +To what extent is the domestic happiness of such a ruffian to be +respected?” And I went on splitting the moral straws suggested by this +train of thought until I had recovered my sketch-book and overtaken my +escort, with whom I rode triumphantly back into Ascoli, where my absence +had been the cause of much anxiety and my fate was even then being +eagerly discussed. My friends with whom I usually sat round the +chemist’s door were much exercised by the reserve which I manifested in +reply to the fire of cross-examination to which I was subjected for the +next few days; and English eccentricity, which was proverbial even in +this secluded town, received a fresh illustration in the light and airy +manner with which I treated a capture and escape from brigands, which +I regarded with such indifference that I could not be induced even to +condescend to details. “It was a mere scuffle; there were only four; +and, being an Englishman, I polished them all off with the ‘box,’” + and I closed my fist and struck a scientific attitude of self-defence, +branching off into a learned disquisition on the pugilistic art, which +filled my hearers with respect and amazement. From this time forward the +sentiment with which I regarded my air-gun underwent a change. When a +friend had made me a present of it a year before I regarded it in the +light of a toy and rather resented the gift as too juvenile. “I wonder +he did not give me a kite or a hoop,” I mentally reflected. Then I +had found it useful among Italians, who are a trifling people and like +playthings; but now that it had saved my life and sent a bullet through +a man’s heart, I no longer entertained the same feeling of contempt +for it. Not again would I make light of it--this potent engine of +destruction which had procured me the character of being a magician. I +would hide it from human gaze and cherish it as a sort of fetich. So I +bought a walking-stick and an umbrella, and strapped it up with them, +wrapped in my plaid; and when, shortly after, an unexpected remittance +from an aunt supplied me with money enough to buy a horse from one of +the officers of my friend’s regiment, which soon after arrived, and I +accepted their invitation to accompany them on their brigand-hunting +expeditions, not one of them knew that I had such a weapon as an air-gun +in my possession. + +Our _modus operandi_ on these occasions was as follows: On receiving +information from some proprietor that the brigands were threatening his +property,--it was impossible to get intelligence from the peasantry, +for they were all in league with the brigands; indeed, they all took a +holiday from regular work and joined a band for a few weeks from time to +time,--we proceeded, with a force sufficiently strong to cope with the +supposed strength of the band, to the farm in question. The bands were +all mounted, and averaged from 200 to 400 men each. It was calculated +that upward of 2000 men were thus engaged in harrying the country, and +this enabled the Neri to talk of the king’s forces engaged in legitimate +warfare against those of Victor Emmanuel. Riding over the vast plains +of Capitanata, we would discern against the sky outline the figure of a +solitary horseman. This we knew to be a picket. Then there was no time +to be lost, and away we would go for him helter-skelter across the +plain; he would instantly gallop in on the main body, probably occupying +a _masseria_. If they thought they were strong enough they would show +fight. If not they would take to their heels in the direction of the +mountains, with us in full cry after them. If they were hardly pressed +they would scatter, and we were obliged to do the same, and the +result would be that the swiftest horsemen might possibly effect a few +captures. It was an exciting species of warfare, partaking a good deal +more of the character of a hunting-field than of cavalry skirmishing. +Sometimes, where the ground was hilly, we had bersaglieri with us, and +as the brigands took to the mountains the warfare assumed a different +character. Sometimes, in default of these active little troops, we took +local volunteers, whom we found a very poor substitute. On more than +one occasion when we came upon the brigands in a farm they thought +themselves sufficiently strong to hold it against us, and once the +cowardice of the volunteers was amusingly illustrated. The band was +estimated at about 200, and we had 100 volunteers and a detachment of 50 +cavalry. On coming under the fire of the brigands the cavalry captain, +who was in command, ordered the volunteers to charge, intending when +they had dislodged the enemy to ride him down on the open; but the +volunteer officer did not repeat the word and stood stock-still, his men +all imitating his example. + +“Charge! I say,” shouted the cavalry captain, “why don’t you charge? I +believe you’re afraid!” + +“_E vero_,” said the captain of volunteers, shrugging his shoulders. + +“Here, take my horse--you’re only fit to be a groom; and you, men, +dismount and let these cowards hold your horses, while you follow me.” + And, jumping from his horse, the gallant fellow, followed by his men, +charged the building, from which a hot fire was playing upon them, sword +in hand. In less than a quarter of an hour the brigands were scampering, +some on foot and some on horseback, out of the farm buildings, followed +by a few stray and harmless shots from such of the volunteers as had +their hands free. We lost three men killed and five wounded in this +little skirmish, and killed six of the brigands, besides making a dozen +prisoners. When I say “we” I mean my companions, for, having no weapon, +I had discreetly remained with the volunteers. The scene of this gallant +exploit was on the classic battle-field of Cannae. This captain, who was +not the friend I had joined the day after my brigand adventure, was a +most plucky and dashing cavalry officer, and was well seconded by his +men, who were all Piedmontese and of a very different temperament from +the Neapolitans. On one occasion a band of 250 brigands waited for us on +the top of a small hill, never dreaming that we should charge up it with +the odds five to one against us; but we did, and after firing a volley +at us, which emptied a couple of saddles, they broke and fled when we +were about twenty yards from them. Then began one of the most exciting +scurries across country it was ever my fortune to be engaged in. The +brigands scattered--so did we; and I found myself with two troopers in +chase of a pair of bandits, one of whom seemed to be the chief of the +band. A small stream wound through the plain, which we dashed across. +Just beyond was a tributary ditch, which would have been considered a +fair jump in the hunting-field: both brigands took it in splendid style. +The hindmost was not ten yards ahead of the leading trooper, who came +a cropper; on which the brigand reined up, fired a pistol-shot into the +prostrate horse and man, and was off; but the delay cost him dear. The +other trooper, who was a little ahead of me, got safely over. I followed +suit. In another moment he had fired his carabine into the brigand’s +horse, and down they both came by the run. We instantly reined up, for +I saw there was no chance of overtaking the remaining brigand, and the +trooper was in the act of cutting down the man as he struggled to his +feet, when to my horror I recognised the lovely features of--Valeria. + +“Stay, man!” I shouted, throwing myself from my horse. “It’s a woman! +touch her if you dare!” And then, seeing the man’s eye gleam with +indignation, I added, “Brave soldiers, such as you have proved yourself +to be, do not kill women; though your traducers say you do, do not +give them cause to speak truth. I will be responsible for this woman’s +safety. Here, to make it sure you had better strap us together.” I +piqued myself exceedingly on this happy inspiration, whereby I secured +an arm-in-arm walk, of a peculiar kind, it is true, with Valeria; and +indeed my readiness to sacrifice myself seemed rather to astonish the +soldier, who hesitated. However, his comrade, whose horse had been shot +in the ditch, now came up, and seconded my proposal as I offered him a +mount on mine. + +“How on earth am I to let you escape, dear Valeria?” I whispered, giving +her a sort of affectionate nudge; the position of our arms prevented my +squeezing hers as I could have wished, and the two troopers kept behind +us, watching us, I thought, suspiciously. + +“It is quite impossible now--don’t attempt it,” she answered; “perhaps +there may be an opportunity later.” + +“Was that Croppo who got away?” I asked. + +“Yes. He could not get his cowardly men to stand on that hill.” + +“What a bother those men are behind, dearest! Let me pretend to scratch +my nose with this hand that is tied to yours, which I can thus bring to +my lips.” + +I accomplished this manoeuvre rather neatly, but parties now came +straggling in from other directions, and I was obliged to give up +whispering and become circumspect. They all seemed rather astonished +at our group, and the captain laughed heartily as he rode up and called +out, “Who have you got tied to you there, _caro mio_?” + +“Croppo’s wife. I had her tied to me for fear she should escape; +besides, she is not bad-looking.” + +“What a prize!” he exclaimed. “We have made a tolerable haul this +time--twenty prisoners in all, among them the priest of the band. Our +colonel has just arrived, so I am in luck; he will be delighted. See the +prisoners are being brought up to him now; but you had better remount +and present yours in a less singular fashion.” + +When we reached the colonel we found him examining the priest. His +breviary contained various interesting notes written on some of the +fly-leaves. + +For instance: + +“Administered extreme unction to A----, shot by Croppo’s order; my share +ten scudi. + +“Ditto, ditto, to R----, hung by Croppo’s order, my share two scudi. + +“Ditto, ditto, to S----, roasted by Croppo’s order to make him name +an agent to bring his ransom; overdone by mistake, and died, so got +nothing. + +“Ditto, ditto, to P----, executed by the knife by Croppo’s order for +disobedience. + +“M---- and F---- and D----, three new members, joined to-day; confessed +them, and received the usual fees.” + +He was a dark, beetle-browed-looking ruffian, this holy man; and the +colonel, when he had finished examining his book of prayer and crime, +tossed it to me, saying, “There! that will show your friends in England +the kind of politicians we make war against. Ha! what have we here? +This is more serious.” And he unfolded a piece of paper which had been +concealed in the breast of the priest. “This contains a little valuable +information,” he added, with a grim smile. “Nobody like priests and +women for carrying about political secrets, so you may have made a +valuable capture,” and he turned to where I stood with Valeria; “let her +be carefully searched.” + +Now the colonel was a very pompous man, and the document he had just +discovered on the priest added to his sense of self-importance. When, +therefore, a large, carefully folded paper was produced from the +neighbourhood of Valeria’s lovely bosom his eyes sparkled with +admiration. “Ho, ho!” he exclaimed, as he clutched it eagerly, “the plot +is thickening!” And he spread out triumphantly, before he had himself +seen what it was, the exquisitely drawn portrait of a donkey. There was +a suppressed titter, which exploded into a shout when the bystanders +looked into the colonel’s indignant face. I only was affected +differently as my gaze fell upon this touching evidence of dear +Valeria’s love for me, and I glanced at her tenderly. “This has a +deeper significance than you think for,” said the colonel, looking round +angrily. “Croppo’s wife does not carefully secrete a drawing like that +on her person for nothing. See, it is done by no common artist. It means +something, and must be preserved.” + +“It may have a biblical reference to the state of Italy. You remember +Issachar was likened to an ass between two burdens. In that case it +probably emanated from Rome,” I remarked; but nobody seemed to see the +point of the allusion, and the observation fell flat. + +That night I dined with the colonel, and after dinner I persuaded him to +let me visit Valeria in prison, as I wished to take the portrait of the +wife of the celebrated brigand chief. I thanked my stars that my friend +who had seen her when we met in the glen was away on duty with his +detachment and could not testify to our former acquaintance. + +My meeting with Valeria on this occasion was too touching and full of +tender passages to be of any general interest. Valeria told me that she +was still a bride, that she had only been married a few months, and that +she had been compelled to become Croppo’s wife against her choice, as +the brigand’s will was too powerful to be resisted; but that, though +he was jealous and attached to her, he was stern and cruel, and, so far +from winning her love since her marriage, he had rather estranged it +by his fits of passion and ferocity. As may be imagined, the portrait, +which was really very successful, took some time in execution, the more +especially as we had to discuss the possibilities of Valeria’s escape. + +“We are going to be transferred to-morrow to the prison at Foggia,” she +said. “If while we were passing through the market-place a disturbance +of some sort could be created, as it is market-day and all the country +people know me and are my friends, a rescue might be attempted. I know +how to arrange for that, only they must see some chance of success.” + +A bright thought suddenly struck me; it was suggested by a trick I had +played shortly after my arrival in Italy. + +“You know I am something of a magician, Valeria; you have had proof of +that. If I create a disturbance by magic to-morrow when you are passing +through the market-place, you won’t stay to wonder what is the cause of +the confusion, but instantly take advantage of it to escape.” + +“Trust me for that, _caro mio_.” + +“And if you escape when shall we meet again?” + +“I am known too well now to risk another meeting. I shall be in hiding +with Croppo, where it will be impossible for you to find me, nor while +he lives could I ever dare to think of leaving him; but I shall never +forget you,”--and she pressed my hands to her lips,--“though I shall no +longer have the picture of the donkey to remember you by.” + +“See, here’s my photograph; that will be better,” said I, feeling a +little annoyed--foolishly, I admit. Then we strained each other to our +respective hearts and parted. Now it so happened that my room in the +_lacanda_ in which I was lodging overlooked the market-place. Here at +ten o’clock in the morning I posted myself; for that was the hour, as +I had been careful to ascertain, when the prisoners were to start for +Foggia. I opened the window about three inches and fixed it there; I +took out my gun, put eight balls in it, and looked down upon the square. +It was crowded with the country people in their bright-coloured costumes +chaffering over their produce. I looked above them to the tall campanile +of the church which filled one side of the square. I receded a step and +adjusted my gun on the ledge of the window to my satisfaction. I then +looked down the street in which the prison was situated, and which +debouched on the square, and awaited events. At ten minutes past ten I +saw the soldiers at the door of the prison form up, and then I knew that +the twenty prisoners of whom they formed the escort were starting; but +the moment they began to move I fired at the big bell in the campanile, +which responded with a loud clang. All the people in the square looked +up. As the prisoners entered the square, which they had begun to cross +in its whole breadth, I fired again and again. The bell banged twice, +and the people began to buzz about. “Now,” I thought, “I must let the +old bell have it.” By the time five more balls had struck the bell +with a resounding din the whole square was in commotion. A miracle was +evidently in progress or the campanile was bewitched. People began +to run hither and thither; all the soldiers forming the escort gaped +open-mouthed at the steeple as the clangour continued. As soon as the +last shot had been fired I looked down into the square and saw all this, +and I saw that the prisoners were attempting to escape, and in more +than one instance had succeeded, for the soldiers began to scatter in +pursuit, and the country people to form themselves into impeding crowds +as though by accident; but nowhere could I see Valeria. When I was +quite sure she had escaped I went down and joined the crowd. I saw three +prisoners captured and brought back, and when I asked the officer in +command how many had escaped he said three--Croppo’s wife, the priest, +and another. + +When I met my cavalry friends at dinner that evening it was amusing to +hear them speculate upon the remarkable occurrence which had, in fact, +upset the wits of the whole town. Priests and vergers and sacristans +had visited the campanile, and one of them had brought away a flattened +piece of lead, which looked as if it might have been a bullet; but the +suggestion that eight bullets could have hit the bell in succession +without anybody hearing a sound was treated with ridicule. I believe the +bell was subsequently exorcised with holy water. I was afraid to remain +with the regiment with my air-gun after this, lest some one should +discover it and unravel the mystery; besides, I felt a sort of traitor +to the brave friends who had so generously offered me their hospitality; +so I invented urgent private affairs which demanded my immediate return +to Naples, and on the morning of my departure found myself embraced by +all the officers of the regiment from the colonel downward, who in the +fervour of their kisses thrust sixteen waxed moustache-points against my +cheeks. + +About eighteen months after this I heard of the capture and execution +of Croppo, and I knew that Valeria was free; but I had unexpectedly +inherited a property and was engaged to be married. I am now a country +gentleman with a large family. My sanctum is stocked with various +mementos of my youthful adventures, but none awakens in me such +thrilling memories as are excited by the breviary of the brigand priest +and the portrait of the brigand’s bride. + + + + +MRS. GENERAL TALBOYS, by Anthony Trollope + + +Why Mrs. General Talboys first made up her mind to pass the winter of +1859 at Rome I never clearly understood. To myself she explained her +purposes soon after her arrival at the Eternal City, by declaring, in +her own enthusiastic manner, that she was inspired by a burning desire +to drink fresh at the still living fountains of classical poetry and +sentiment. But I always thought that there was something more than this +in it. Classical poetry and sentiment were doubtless very dear to her, +but so also, I imagine, were the substantial comforts of Hardover Lodge, +the general’s house in Berkshire; and I do not think that she would +have emigrated for the winter had there not been some slight domestic +misunderstanding. Let this, however, be fully made clear--that such +misunderstanding, if it existed, must have been simply an affair of +temper. No impropriety of conduct has, I am very sure, ever been imputed +to the lady. The general, as all the world knows, is hot; and Mrs. +Talboys, when the sweet rivers of her enthusiasm are unfed by congenial +waters, can, I believe, make herself disagreeable. + +But be this as it may, in November, 1859, Mrs. Talboys came among +us English at Rome, and soon succeeded in obtaining for herself a +comfortable footing in our society. We all thought her more remarkable +for her mental attributes than for physical perfection, but nevertheless +she was in her own way a sightly woman. She had no special brilliance, +either of eye or complexion, such as would produce sudden flames in +susceptible hearts, nor did she seem to demand instant homage by the +form and step of a goddess; but we found her to be a good-looking woman +of some thirty or thirty-three years of age, with soft, peach-like +cheeks,--rather too like those of a cherub,--with sparkling eyes which +were hardly large enough, with good teeth, a white forehead, a dimpled +chin, and a full bust. Such outwardly was Mrs. General Talboys. The +description of the inward woman is the purport to which these few pages +will be devoted. + +There are two qualities to which the best of mankind are much subject, +which are nearly related to each other, and as to which the world has +not yet decided whether they are to be classed among the good or evil +attributes of our nature. Men and women are under the influence of them +both, but men oftenest undergo the former, and women the latter. They +are ambition and enthusiasm. Now Mrs. Talboys was an enthusiastic woman. + +As to ambition, generally as the world agrees with Mark Antony in +stigmatising it as a grievous fault, I am myself clear that it is a +virtue; but with ambition at present we have no concern. Enthusiasm +also, as I think, leans to virtue’s side, or, at least, if it be a +fault, of all faults it is the prettiest. But then, to partake at all of +virtue or even to be in any degree pretty, the enthusiasm must be true. + +Bad coin is known from good by the ring of it, and so is bad enthusiasm. +Let the coiner be ever so clever at his art, in the coining of +enthusiasm the sound of true gold can never be imparted to the false +metal; and I doubt whether the cleverest she in the world can make false +enthusiasm palatable to the taste of man; to the taste of any woman the +enthusiasm of another woman is never very palatable. + +We understood at Rome that Mrs. Talboys had a considerable family,--four +or five children, we were told,--but she brought with her only one +daughter, a little girl about twelve years of age. She had torn herself +asunder, as she told me, from the younger nurslings of her heart, and +had left them to the care of a devoted female attendant, whose love was +all but maternal. And then she said a word or two about the general in +terms which made me almost think that this quasi-maternal love extended +itself beyond the children. The idea, however, was a mistaken one, +arising from the strength of her language, to which I was then +unaccustomed. I have since become aware that nothing can be more +decorous than old Mrs. Upton, the excellent head nurse at Hardover +Lodge; and no gentleman more discreet in his conduct than General +Talboys. + +And I may as well here declare also that there could be no more virtuous +woman than the general’s wife. Her marriage vow was to her paramount to +all other vows and bonds whatever. The general’s honour was quite safe +when he sent her off to Rome by herself, and he no doubt knew that it +was so. _Illi robur et oes triplex_, of which I believe no weapons of +any assailant could get the better. But nevertheless we used to fancy +that she had no repugnance to impropriety in other women--to what the +world generally calls impropriety. Invincibly attached herself to +the marriage tie, she would constantly speak of it as by no means +necessarily binding on others; and virtuous herself as any griffin +of propriety, she constantly patronised, at any rate, the theory of +infidelity in her neighbours. She was very eager in denouncing the +prejudices of the English world, declaring that she found existence +among them to be no longer possible for herself. She was hot against the +stern unforgiveness of British matrons, and equally eager in reprobating +the stiff conventionalities of a religion in which she said that none +of its votaries had faith, though they all allowed themselves to be +enslaved. + +We had at that time a small set at Rome consisting chiefly of English +and Americans, who habitually met at one another’s rooms, and spent many +of our evening hours in discussing Italian politics. We were, most +of us, painters, poets, novelists, or sculptors--perhaps I should say +would-be painters, poets, novelists, and sculptors, aspirants hoping +to become some day recognised; and among us Mrs. Talboys took her place +naturally enough on account of a very pretty taste she had for painting. +I do not know that she ever originated anything that was grand, but she +made some nice copies and was fond, at any rate, of art conversation. +She wrote essays too, which she showed in confidence to various +gentlemen, and had some idea of taking lessons in modelling. + +In all our circle Conrad Mackinnon, an American, was perhaps the person +most qualified to be styled its leader. He was one who absolutely did +gain his living, and an ample living too, by his pen, and was regarded +on all sides as a literary lion, justified by success in roaring at any +tone he might please. His usual roar was not exactly that of a sucking +dove or a nightingale, but it was a good-humoured roar, not very +offensive to any man and apparently acceptable enough to some ladies. He +was a big, burly man, near to fifty, as I suppose, somewhat awkward in +his gait, and somewhat loud in his laugh. But though nigh to fifty, and +thus ungainly, he liked to be smiled on by pretty women, and liked, +as some said, to be flattered by them also. If so he should have +been happy, for the ladies at Rome at that time made much of Conrad +Mackinnon. + +Of Mrs. Mackinnon no one did make very much, and yet she was one of the +sweetest, dearest, quietest little creatures that ever made glad a +man’s fireside. She was exquisitely pretty, always in good humour, +never stupid, self-denying to a fault, and yet she was generally in +the background. She would seldom come forward of her own will, but was +contented to sit behind her teapot and hear Mackinnon do his roaring. He +was certainly much given to what the world at Rome called flirting, but +this did not in the least annoy her. She was twenty years his +junior, and yet she never flirted with any one. Women would tell +her--good-natured friends--how Mackinnon went on, but she received such +tidings as an excellent joke, observing that he had always done the +same, and no doubt always would until he was ninety. I do believe that +she was a happy woman, and yet I used to think that she should have been +happier. There is, however, no knowing the inside of another man’s house +or reading the riddles of another man’s joy and sorrow. + +We had also there another lion,--a lion cub,--entitled to roar a little, +and of him also I must say something. Charles O’Brien was a young man +about twenty-five years of age, who had sent out from his studio in the +preceding year a certain bust supposed by his admirers to be unsurpassed +by any effort of ancient or modern genius. I am no judge of sculpture, +and will not therefore pronounce an opinion, but many who considered +themselves to be judges declared that it was a “goodish head and +shoulders” and nothing more. I merely mention the fact, as it was on the +strength of that head and shoulders that O’Brien separated himself from +a throng of others such as himself in Rome, walked solitary during the +days, and threw himself at the feet of various ladies when the days were +over. He had ridden on the shoulders of his bust into a prominent place +in our circle, and there encountered much feminine admiration--from Mrs. +General Talboys and others. + +Some eighteen or twenty of us used to meet every Sunday evening in +Mrs. Mackinnon’s drawing-room. Many of us, indeed, were in the habit +of seeing one another daily and of visiting together the haunts in +Rome which are best loved by art-loving strangers; but here in this +drawing-room we were sure to come together, and here before the end of +November Mrs. Talboys might always be found, not in any accustomed seat, +but moving about the room as the different male mental attractions of +our society might chance to move themselves. She was at first greatly +taken by Mackinnon, who also was, I think, a little stirred by her +admiration, though he stoutly denied the charge. She became, however, +very dear to us all before she left us, and certainly we owed to her our +love, for she added infinitely to the joys of our winter. + +“I have come here to refresh myself,” she said to Mackinnon one +evening--to Mackinnon and myself, for we were standing together. + +“Shall I get you tea?” said I. + +“And will you have something to eat?” Mackinnon asked. + +“No, no, no,” she answered. “Tea, yes; but for heaven’s sake let nothing +solid dispel the associations of such a meeting as this!” + +“I thought you might have dined early,” said Mackinnon. Now Mackinnon +was a man whose own dinner was very dear to him. I have seen him become +hasty and unpleasant, even under the pillars of the Forum, when he +thought that the party were placing his fish in jeopardy by their desire +to linger there too long. + +“Early! Yes--no; I know not when it was. One dines and sleeps in +obedience to that dull clay which weighs down so generally the particle +of our spirit; but the clay may sometimes be forgotten; here I can +always forget it.” + +“I thought you asked for refreshment,” I said. She only looked at me, +whose small attempts at prose composition had up to that time been +altogether unsuccessful, and then addressed herself to reply to +Mackinnon. + +“It is the air which we breathe that fills our lungs and gives us +life and light; it is that which refreshes us if pure or sinks us into +stagnation if it be foul. Let me for a while inhale the breath of an +invigorating literature. Sit down, Mr. Mackinnon; I have a question that +I must put to you.” And then she succeeded in carrying him off into a +corner. As far as I could see he went willingly enough at that time, +though he soon became averse to any long retirement in company with Mrs. +Talboys. + +We none of us quite understood what were her exact ideas on the subject +of revealed religion. Somebody, I think, had told her that there were +among us one or two whose opinions were not exactly orthodox according +to the doctrines of the established English church. If so she was +determined to show us that she also was advanced beyond the prejudices +of an old and dry school of theology. “I have thrown down all the +barriers of religion,” she said to poor Mrs. Mackinnon, “and am looking +for the sentiments of a pure Christianity.” + +“Thrown down all the barriers of religion!” said Mrs. Mackinnon, in a +tone of horror which was not appreciated. + +“Indeed, yes,” said Mrs. Talboys, with an exulting voice. “Are not the +days for such trammels gone by?” + +“But yet you hold by Christianity?” + +“A pure Christianity, unstained by blood and perjury, by hypocrisy and +verbose genuflection. Can I not worship and say my prayers among +the clouds?” And she pointed to the lofty ceiling and the handsome +chandelier. + +“But Ida goes to church,” said Mrs. Mackinnon. Ida Talboys was her +daughter. Now it may be observed that many who throw down the barriers +of religion, so far as those barriers may affect themselves, still +maintain them on behalf of their children. “Yes,” said Mrs. Talboys; +“dear Ida! her soft spirit is not yet adapted to receive the perfect +truth. We are obliged to govern children by the strength of their +prejudices.” And then she moved away, for it was seldom that Mrs. +Talboys remained long in conversation with any lady. + +Mackinnon, I believe, soon became tired of her. He liked her flattery, +and at first declared that she was clever and nice, but her niceness was +too purely celestial to satisfy his mundane tastes. Mackinnon himself +can revel among the clouds in his own writings, and can leave us +sometimes in doubt whether he ever means to come back to earth, but when +his foot is on terra firma he loves to feel the earthy substratum which +supports his weight. With women he likes a hand that can remain an +unnecessary moment within his own, an eye that can glisten with the +sparkle of champagne, a heart weak enough to make its owner’s arm +tremble within his own beneath the moonlight gloom of the Colosseum +arches. A dash of sentiment the while makes all these things the +sweeter, but the sentiment alone will not suffice for him. Mrs. Talboys +did, I believe, drink her glass of champagne, as do other ladies, but +with her it had no such pleasing effect. It loosened only her tongue, +but never her eyes. Her arm, I think, never trembled and her hand never +lingered. The general was always safe, and happy perhaps in his solitary +safety. + +It so happened that we had unfortunately among us two artists who had +quarrelled with their wives. O’Brien, whom I have before mentioned, was +one of them. In his case I believe him to have been almost as free from +blame as a man can be whose marriage was in itself a fault. However, he +had a wife in Ireland some ten years older than himself, and though he +might sometimes almost forget the fact, his friends and neighbours were +well aware of it. In the other case the whole fault probably was with +the husband. He was an ill-tempered, bad-hearted man, clever enough, +but without principle; and he was continually guilty of the great sin +of speaking evil of the woman whose name he should have been anxious to +protect. In both cases our friend, Mrs. Talboys, took a warm interest, +and in each of them she sympathised with the present husband against the +absent wife. + +Of the consolation which she offered in the latter instance we used to +hear something from Mackinnon. He would repeat to his wife and to me +and my wife the conversations which she had with him. “Poor Brown!” she +would say; “I pity him with my very heart’s blood.” + +“You are aware that he has comforted himself in his desolation,” + Mackinnon replied. + +“I know very well to what you allude. I think I may say that I +am conversant with all the circumstances of this heart-blighting +sacrifice.” Mrs. Talboys was apt to boast of the thorough confidence +reposed in her by all those in whom she took an interest. “Yes, he has +sought such comfort in another love as the hard cruel world would allow +him.” + +“Or perhaps something more than that,” said Mackinnon. “He has a family +here in Rome, you know; two little babies.” + +“I know it, I know it,” she said; “cherub angels!” And as she spoke she +looked up into the ugly face of Marcus Aurelius, for they were standing +at the moment under the figure of the great horseman on the Campidoglio. +“I have seen them, and they are children of innocence. If all the blood +of all the Howards ran in their veins it could not make their birth more +noble!” + +“Not if the father and mother of all the Howards had never been +married,” said Mackinnon. + +“What! that from you, Mr. Mackinnon!” said Mrs. Talboys, turning her +back with energy upon the equestrian statue and looking up into the +faces first of Pollux and then of Castor, as though from them she might +gain some inspiration on the subject, which Marcus Aurelius in his +coldness had denied to her. “From you, who have so nobly claimed for +mankind the divine attributes of free action! From you, who have taught +my mind to soar above the petty bonds which one man in his littleness +contrives for the subjection of his brother. Mackinnon--you who are so +great!” And she now looked up into his face. “Mackinnon, unsay those +words.” + +“They _are_ illegitimate,” said he, “and if there was any landed +property--” + +“Landed property! and that from an American!” + +“The children are English, you know.” + +“Landed property! The time will shortly come--ay, and I see it +coming--when that hateful word shall be expunged from the calendar, +when landed property shall be no more. What! shall the free soul of a +God-born man submit itself for ever to such trammels as that? Shall +we never escape from the clay which so long has manacled the subtler +particles of the divine spirit? Ay, yes, Mackinnon!” and then she took +him by the arm, and led him to the top of the huge steps which lead down +from the Campidoglio into the streets of modern Rome. “Look down upon +that countless multitude.” Mackinnon looked down, and saw three groups +of French soldiers, with three or four little men in each group; he saw +also a couple of dirty friars, and three priests very slowly beginning +the side ascent to the church of the Ara Coeli. “Look down upon that +countless multitude,” said Mrs. Talboys, and she stretched her arms +out over the half-deserted city. “They are escaping now from those +trammels--now, now--now that I am speaking.” + +“They have escaped long ago from all such trammels as that of landed +property,” said Mackinnon. + +“Ay, and from all terrestrial bonds,” she continued, not +exactly remarking the pith of his last observation; “from bonds +quasi-terrestrial and quasi-celestial. The full-formed limbs of the +present age, running with quick streams of generous blood, will no +longer bear the ligatures which past time have woven for the decrepit. +Look down upon that multitude, Mackinnon; they shall all be free.” And +then, still clutching him by the arm and still standing at the top of +those stairs, she gave forth her prophecy with the fury of a sibyl. + +“They shall all be free. O Rome, thou eternal one! thou who hast bowed +thy neck to imperial pride and priestly craft, thou who has suffered +sorely even to this hour, from Nero down to Pio Nono, the days of thine +oppression are over. Gone from thy enfranchised ways for ever is the +clang of the praetorian cohorts and the more odious drone of meddling +monks!” And yet, as Mackinnon observed, there still stood the dirty +friars and the small French soldiers, and there still toiled the slow +priests, wending their tedious way up to the church of the Ara Coeli. +But that was the mundane view of the matter, a view not regarded by Mrs. +Talboys in her ecstasy. “O Italia,” she continued, “O Italia una, one +and indivisible in thy rights, and indivisible also in thy wrongs! to us +is it given to see the accomplishment of thy glory. A people shall arise +around thine altars greater in the annals of the world than thy Scipios, +thy Gracchi, or thy Caesars. Not in torrents of blood or with screams +of bereaved mothers shall thy new triumphs be stained; but mind shall +dominate over matter, and, doomed together with popes and Bourbons, with +cardinals, diplomatists, and police spies, ignorance and prejudice shall +be driven from thy smiling terraces. And then Rome shall again become +the fair capital of the fairest region of Europe. Hither shall flock the +artisans of the world, crowding into thy marts all that God and man can +give. Wealth, beauty, and innocence shall meet in thy streets--” + +“There will be a considerable change before that takes place,” said +Mackinnon. + +“There shall be a considerable change,” she answered. “Mackinnon, to +thee it is given to read the signs of the time; and hast thou not read? +Why have the fields of Magenta and Solferino been piled with the corpses +of dying heroes? Why have the waters of the Mincio run red with the +blood of martyrs? That Italy might be united and Rome immortal. Here, +standing on the Capitolium of the ancient city, I say that it shall be +so; and thou, Mackinnon, who hearest me knowest that my words are true.” + +There was not then in Rome--I may almost say there was not in Italy--an +Englishman or an American who did not wish well to the cause for which +Italy was and is still contending, as also there is hardly one who does +not now regard that cause as well-nigh triumphant; but nevertheless +it was almost impossible to sympathise with Mrs. Talboys. As Mackinnon +said, she flew so high that there was no comfort in flying with her. + +“Well,” said he, “Brown and the rest of them are down below. Shall we go +and join them?” + +“Poor Brown! How was it that in speaking of his troubles we were led on +to this heart-stirring theme? Yes, I have seen them, the sweet angels; +and I tell you also that I have seen their mother. I insisted on going +to her when I heard her history from him.” + +“And what was she like, Mrs. Talboys?” + +“Well, education has done more for some of us than for others, and there +are those from whose morals and sentiments we might thankfully draw a +lesson, whose manners and outward gestures are not such as custom has +made agreeable to us. You, I know, can understand that. I have seen her, +and feel sure that she is pure in heart and high in principle. Has she +not sacrificed herself, and is not self-sacrifice the surest guarantee +for true nobility of character? Would Mrs. Mackinnon object to my +bringing them together?” + +Mackinnon was obliged to declare that he thought his wife would object, +and from that time forth he and Mrs. Talboys ceased to be very close +in their friendship. She still came to the house every Sunday evening, +still refreshed herself at the fountains of his literary rills, but her +special prophecies from henceforth were poured into other ears; and it +so happened that O’Brien now became her chief ally. I do not remember +that she troubled herself much further with the cherub angels or with +their mother, and I am inclined to think that, taking up warmly as she +did the story of O’Brien’s matrimonial wrongs, she forgot the little +history of the Browns. Be that as it may, Mrs. Talboys and O’Brien now +became strictly confidential, and she would enlarge by the half-hour +together on the miseries of her friend’s position to any one whom she +could get to hear her. + +“I’ll tell you what, Fanny,” Mackinnon said to his wife one day--to his +wife and to mine, for we were all together--“we shall have a row in +the house if we don’t take care. O’Brien will be making love to Mrs. +Talboys.” + +“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Mackinnon; “you are always thinking that somebody +is going to make love to some one.” + +“Somebody always is,” said he. + +“She’s old enough to be his mother,” said Mrs. Mackinnon. + +“What does that matter to an Irishman?” said Mackinnon. “Besides, I +doubt if there is more than five years’ difference between them.” + +“There must be more than that,” said my wife. “Ida Talboys is twelve, I +know, and I am not quite sure that Ida is the eldest.” + +“If she had a son in the Guards it would make no difference,” said +Mackinnon. “There are men who consider themselves bound to make love to +a woman under certain circumstances, let the age of the lady be what it +may. O’Brien is such a one; and if she sympathises with him much oftener +he will mistake the matter and go down on his knees. You ought to put +him on his guard,” he said, addressing himself to his wife. + +“Indeed, I shall do no such thing,” said she; “if they are two fools +they must, like other fools, pay the price of their folly.” As a rule +there could be no softer creature than Mrs. Mackinnon, but it seemed to +me that her tenderness never extended itself in the direction of Mrs. +Talboys. + +Just at this time, toward the end, that is, of November, we made a +party to visit the tombs which lie along the Appian Way beyond that +most beautiful of all sepulchres, the tomb of Cecilia Metella. It was a +delicious day, and we had driven along this road for a couple of miles +beyond the walls of the city, enjoying the most lovely view which the +neighborhood of Rome affords, looking over the wondrous ruins of the old +aqueducts up toward Tivoli and Palestrina. Of all the environs of Rome +this is, on a fair day, the most enchanting; and here perhaps, among a +world of tombs, thoughts and almost memories of the old, old days come +upon one with the greatest force. The grandeur of Rome is best seen and +understood from beneath the walls of the Colosseum, and its beauty +among the pillars of the Forum and the arches of the Sacred Way; but +its history and fall become more palpable to the mind and more clearly +realised out here among the tombs, where the eyes rest upon the +mountains, whose shades were cool to the old Romans as to us, than +anywhere within the walls of the city. Here we look out at the same +Tivoli and the same Praeneste glittering in the sunshine, embowered +among the far-off valleys, which were dear to them; and the blue +mountains have not crumbled away into ruins. Within Rome itself we can +see nothing as they saw it. + +Our party consisted of some dozen or fifteen persons, and, as a hamper +with luncheon in it had been left on the grassy slope at the base of +the tomb of Cecilia Metella, the expedition had in it something of the +nature of a picnic. Mrs. Talboys was of course with us, and Ida Talboys. +O’Brien also was there. The hamper had been prepared in Mrs. Mackinnon’s +room under the immediate eye of Mackinnon himself, and they therefore +were regarded as the dominant spirits of the party. My wife was leagued +with Mrs. Mackinnon, as was usually the case; and there seemed to be a +general opinion, among those who were closely in confidence together, +that something would happen in the O’Brien-Talboys matter. The two had +been inseparable on the previous evening, for Mrs. Talboys had been +urging on the young Irishman her counsels respecting his domestic +troubles. Sir Cresswell Cresswell, she had told him, was his refuge. +“Why should his soul submit to bonds which the world had now declared to +be intolerable? Divorce was not now the privilege of the dissolute rich. +Spirits which were incompatible need no longer be compelled to fret +beneath the same couples.” In short, she had recommended him to go +to England and get rid of his wife, as she would with a little +encouragement have recommended any man to get rid of anything. I am sure +that, had she been skilfully brought on to the subject, she might have +been induced to pronounce a verdict against such ligatures for the body +as coats, waistcoats, and trousers. Her aspirations for freedom ignored +all bounds, and in theory there were no barriers which she was not +willing to demolish. + +Poor O’Brien, as we all now began to see, had taken the matter amiss. +He had offered to make a bust of Mrs. Talboys, and she had consented, +expressing a wish that it might find a place among those who had devoted +themselves to the enfranchisement of their fellow-creatures. I really +think she had but little of a woman’s customary personal vanity. I know +she had an idea that her eye was lighted up in her warmer moments by +some special fire, that sparks of liberty shone round her brow, and that +her bosom heaved with glorious aspirations; but all these feelings had +reference to her inner genius, not to any outward beauty. But O’Brien +misunderstood the woman, and thought it necessary to gaze into her face +and sigh as though his heart were breaking. Indeed, he declared to a +young friend that Mrs. Talboys was perfect in her style of beauty, and +began the bust with this idea. It was gradually becoming clear to us +all that he would bring himself to grief; but in such a matter who can +caution a man? + +Mrs. Mackinnon had contrived to separate them in making the carriage +arrangements on this day, but this only added fuel to the fire which was +now burning within O’Brien’s bosom. I believe that he really did love +her in his easy, eager, susceptible Irish way. That he would get over +the little episode without any serious injury to his heart no one +doubted; but then what would occur when the declaration was made? How +would Mrs. Talboys bear it? + +“She deserves it,” said Mrs. Mackinnon. + +“And twice as much,” my wife added. Why is it that women are so spiteful +to one another? + +Early in the day Mrs. Talboys clambered up to the top of a tomb, and +made a little speech, holding a parasol over her head. Beneath her feet, +she said, reposed the ashes of some bloated senator, some glutton of +the empire, who had swallowed into his maw the provision necessary for +a tribe. Old Rome had fallen through such selfishness as that, but +new Rome would not forget the lesson. All this was very well, and then +O’Brien helped her down; but after this there was no separating them. +For her own part, she would sooner have had Mackinnon at her elbow; but +Mackinnon now had found some other elbow. “Enough of that was as good +as a feast,” he had said to his wife. And therefore Mrs. Talboys, quite +unconscious of evil, allowed herself to be engrossed by O’Brien. + +And then, about three o’clock, we returned to the hamper. Luncheon under +such circumstances always means dinner, and we arranged ourselves for a +very comfortable meal. To those who know the tomb of Cecilia Metella +no description of the scene is necessary, and to those who do not no +description will convey a fair idea of its reality. It is itself a large +low tower of great diameter, but of beautiful proportion, standing far +outside the city, close on to the side of the old Roman way. It has been +embattled on the top by some latter-day baron in order that it might be +used for protection to the castle which has been built on and attached +to it. If I remember rightly, this was done by one of the Frangipani, +and a very lovely ruin he has made of it. I know no castellated old +tumble-down residence in Italy more picturesque than this baronial +adjunct to the old Roman tomb, or which better tallies with the ideas +engendered within our minds by Mrs. Radcliffe and “The Mysteries of +Udolpho.” It lies along the road, protected on the side of the city by +the proud sepulchre of the Roman matron, and up to the long ruined walls +of the back of the building stretches a grassy slope, at the bottom of +which are the remains of an old Roman circus. Beyond that is the long, +thin, graceful line of the Claudian aqueduct, with Soracte in the +distance to the left, and Tivoli, Palestrina, and Frascati lying among +the hills which bound the view. That Frangipani baron was in the right +of it, and I hope he got the value of his money out of the residence +which he built for himself. I doubt, however, that he did but little +good to those who lived in his close neighbourhood. + +We had a very comfortable little banquet seated on the broken lumps of +stone which lie about under the walls of the tomb. I wonder whether the +shade of Cecilia Metella was looking down upon us. We have heard much +of her in these latter days, and yet we know nothing about her, nor can +conceive why she was honoured with a bigger tomb than any other Roman +matron. There were those then among our party who believed that she +might still come back among us, and, with due assistance from some +cognate susceptible spirit, explain to us the cause of her widowed +husband’s liberality. Alas, alas! if we may judge of the Romans by +ourselves the true reason for such sepulchral grandeur would redound +little to the credit of the lady Cecilia Metella herself or to that of +Crassus, her bereaved and desolate lord. + +She did not come among us on the occasion of this banquet, possibly +because we had no tables there to turn in preparation for her presence; +but had she done so, she could not have been more eloquent of things of +the other world than was Mrs. Talboys. I have said that Mrs. Talboys’s +eye never glanced more brightly after a glass of champagne, but I am +inclined to think that on this occasion it may have done so. O’Brien +enacted Ganymede, and was perhaps more liberal than other latter-day +Ganymedes to whose services Mrs. Talboys had been accustomed. Let it +not, however, be suspected by any one that she exceeded the limits of a +discreet joyousness. By no means! The generous wine penetrated, +perhaps, to some inner cells of her heart, and brought forth thoughts in +sparkling words which otherwise might have remained concealed; but there +was nothing in what she thought or spoke calculated to give umbrage +either to an anchoret or to a vestal. A word or two she said or sung +about the flowing bowl, and once she called for Falernian; but beyond +this her converse was chiefly of the rights of man and the weakness of +women, of the iron ages that were past, and of the golden time that was +to come. + +She called a toast and drank to the hopes of the latter historians of +the nineteenth century. Then it was that she bade O’Brien “fill high +the bowl with Samian wine.” The Irishman took her at her word, and she +raised the bumper and waved it over her head before she put it to her +lips. I am bound to declare that she did not spill a drop. “The true +‘Falernian grape,’” she said, as she deposited the empty beaker on +the grass beneath her elbow. Viler champagne I do not think I ever +swallowed; but it was the theory of the wine, not its palpable body +present there, as it were in the flesh, which inspired her. There was +really something grand about her on that occasion, and her enthusiasm +almost amounted to reality. + +Mackinnon was amused, and encouraged her, as I must confess did I also. +Mrs. Mackinnon made useless little signs to her husband, really fearing +that the Falernian would do its good offices too thoroughly. My wife, +getting me apart as I walked round the circle distributing viands, +remarked that “the woman was a fool and would disgrace herself.” But I +observed that after the disposal of that bumper she worshipped the rosy +god in theory only, and therefore saw no occasion to interfere. “Come, +Bacchus,” she said, “and come, Silenus, if thou wilt; I know that ye +are hovering round the graves of your departed favourites. And ye, too, +nymphs of Egeria,” and she pointed to the classic grove which was +all but close to us as we sat there. “In olden days ye did not always +despise the abodes of men. But why should we invoke the presence of the +gods--we who can become godlike ourselves! We ourselves are the deities +of the present age. For us shall the tables be spread with ambrosia, for +us shall the nectar flow.” + +Upon the whole it was a very good fooling--for a while; and as soon as +we were tired of it we arose from our seats and began to stroll about +the place. It was beginning to be a little dusk and somewhat cool, but +the evening air was pleasant, and the ladies, putting on their shawls, +did not seem inclined at once to get into the carriages. At any rate, +Mrs. Talboys was not so inclined, for she started down the hill toward +the long low wall of the old Roman circus at the bottom, and O’Brien, +close at her elbow, started with her. + +“Ida, my dear, you had better remain here,” she said to her daughter; +“you will be tired if you come as far as we are going.” + +“Oh no, mamma, I shall not,” said Ida; “you get tired much quicker than +I do.” + +“Oh yes, you will; besides, I do not wish you to come.” There was an end +of it for Ida, and Mrs. Talboys and O’Brien walked off together, while +we all looked into one another’s faces. + +“It would be a charity to go with them,” said Mackinnon. + +“Do you be charitable then,” said his wife. + +“It should be a lady,” said he. + +“It is a pity that the mother of the spotless cherubim is not here for +the occasion,” said she. “I hardly think that any one less gifted +will undertake such a self-sacrifice.” Any attempt of the kind would, +however, now have been too late, for they were already at the bottom of +the hill. O’Brien had certainly drunk freely of the pernicious contents +of those long-necked bottles, and, though no one could fairly accuse him +of being tipsy, nevertheless that which might have made others drunk had +made him bold, and he dared to do perhaps more than might become a man. +If under any circumstances he could be fool enough to make an avowal of +love to Mrs. Talboys he might be expected, as we all thought, to do it +now. + +We watched them as they made for a gap in the wall which led through +into the large enclosed space of the old circus. It had been an arena +for chariot games, and they had gone down with the avowed purpose +of searching where might have been the meta and ascertaining how the +drivers could have turned when at their full speed. For a while we had +heard their voices, or rather her voice especially. “The heart of a man, +O’Brien, should suffice for all emergencies,” we had heard her say. She +had assumed a strange habit of calling men by their simple names, as men +address one another. When she did this to Mackinnon, who was much older +than herself, we had been all amused by it, and other ladies of our +party had taken to call him “Mackinnon” when Mrs. Talboys was not by; +but we had felt the comedy to be less safe with O’Brien, especially when +on one occasion we heard him address her as Arabella. She did not seem +to be in any way struck by his doing so, and we supposed therefore that +it had become frequent between them. What reply he made at the moment +about the heart of a man I do not know, and then in a few minutes they +disappeared through the gap in the wall. + +None of us followed them, although it would have seemed the most natural +thing in the world to do so had nothing out of the way been expected. As +it was, we remained there round the tomb quizzing the little foibles of +our dear friend and hoping that O’Brien would be quick in what he was +doing. That he would undoubtedly get a slap in the face, metaphorically, +we all felt certain, for none of us doubted the rigid propriety of the +lady’s intentions. Some of us strolled into the buildings and some of us +got out on to the road, but we all of us were thinking that O’Brien +was very slow a considerable time before we saw Mrs. Talboys reappear +through the gap. + +At last, however, she was there, and we at once saw that she was alone. +She came on, breasting the hill with quick steps, and when she drew near +we could see that there was a frown as of injured majesty on her brow. +Mackinnon and his wife went forward to meet her. If she were really in +trouble it would be fitting in some way to assist her, and of all women +Mrs. Mackinnon was the last to see another woman suffer from ill usage +without attempting to aid her. “I certainly never liked her,” Mrs. +Mackinnon said afterward, “but I was bound to go and hear her tale when +she really had a tale to tell.” + +And Mrs. Talboys now had a tale to tell--if she chose to tell it. The +ladies of our party declared afterward that she would have acted more +wisely had she kept to herself both O’Brien’s words to her and her +answer. “She was well able to take care of herself,” Mrs. Mackinnon +said; “and after all the silly man had taken an answer when he got it.” + Not, however, that O’Brien had taken his answer quite immediately, as +far as I could understand from what we heard of the matter afterward. + +At the present moment Mrs. Talboys came up the rising ground all alone +and at a quick pace. “The man has insulted me,” she said aloud, as +well as her panting breath would allow her, and as soon as she was near +enough to Mrs. Mackinnon to speak to her. + +“I am sorry for that,” said Mrs. Mackinnon. “I suppose he has taken a +little too much wine.” + +“No; it was a premeditated insult. The base-hearted churl has failed to +understand the meaning of true, honest sympathy.” + +“He will forget all about it when he is sober,” said Mackinnon, meaning +to comfort her. + +“What care I what he remembers or what he forgets?” she said, turning +upon poor Mackinnon indignantly. “You men grovel so in your ideas--” + (“And yet,” as Mackinnon said afterward, “she had been telling me that I +was a fool for the last three weeks.”) “You men grovel so in your ideas +that you cannot understand the feelings of a true-hearted woman. What +can his forgetfulness or his remembrance be to me? Must not I remember +this insult? Is it possible that I should forget it?” + +Mr. and Mrs. Mackinnon only had gone forward to meet her, but +nevertheless she spoke so loud that all heard her who were still +clustered round the spot on which we had dined. + +“What has become of Mr. O’Brien?” a lady whispered to me. + +I had a field-glass with me, and, looking round, I saw his hat as he was +walking inside the walls of the circus in the direction toward the city. +“And very foolish he must feel,” said the lady. + +“No doubt he is used to it,” said another. + +“But considering her age, you know,” said the first, who might have been +perhaps three years younger than Mrs. Talboys, and who was not herself +averse to the excitement of a moderate flirtation. But then why should +she have been averse, seeing that she had not as yet become subject to +the will of any imperial lord? + +“He would have felt much more foolish,” said the third, “if she had +listened to what he said to her.” + +“Well, I don’t know,” said the second; “nobody would have known anything +about it then, and in a few weeks they would have gradually become tired +of each other in the ordinary way.” + +But in the meantime Mrs. Talboys was among us. There had been no attempt +at secrecy, and she was still loudly inveighing against the grovelling +propensities of men. “That’s quite true, Mrs. Talboys,” said one of the +elder ladies; “but then women are not always so careful as they should +be. Of course I do not mean to say that there has been any fault on your +part.” + +“Fault on my part! Of course there has been fault on my part. No one can +make any mistake without fault to some extent. I took him to be a man of +sense, and he is a fool. Go to Naples indeed.” + +“Did he want you to go to Naples?” asked Mrs. Mackinnon. + +“Yes; that was what he suggested. We were to leave by the train for +Civita Vecchia at six to-morrow morning, and catch the steamer which +leaves Leghorn to-night. Don’t tell me of wine. He was prepared for it!” + And she looked round about on us with an air of injured majesty in her +face which was almost insupportable. + +“I wonder whether he took the tickets overnight,” said Mackinnon. + +“Naples!” she said, as though now speaking exclusively to herself, “the +only ground in Italy which has as yet made no struggle on behalf of +freedom--a fitting residence for such a dastard!” + +“You would have found it very pleasant at this season,” said the +unmarried lady who was three years her junior. + +My wife had taken Ida out of the way when the first complaining note +from Mrs. Talboys had been heard ascending the hill. But now, when +matters began gradually to become quiescent, she brought her back, +suggesting as she did so that they might begin to think of returning. + +“It is getting very cold, Ida dear, is it not?” said she. + +“But where is Mr. O’Brien?” said Ida. + +“He has fled--as poltroons always fly,” said Mrs. Talboys. I believe +in my heart that she would have been glad to have had him there in the +middle of the circle, and to have triumphed over him publicly among us +all. No feeling of shame would have kept her silent for a moment. + +“Fled!” said Ida, looking up into her mother’s face. + +“Yes, fled, my child.” And she seized her daughter in her arms, and +pressed her closely to her bosom. “Cowards always fly.” + +“Is Mr. O’Brien a coward?” Ida asked. + +“Yes, a coward, a very coward! And he has fled before the glance of an +honest woman’s eye. Come, Mrs. Mackinnon, shall we go back to the city? +I am sorry that the amusement of the day should have received this +check.” And she walked forward to the carriage and took her place in it +with an air that showed that she was proud of the way in which she had +conducted herself. + +“She is a little conceited about it after all,” said that unmarried +lady. “If poor Mr. O’Brien had not shown so much premature anxiety +with reference to that little journey to Naples, things might have gone +quietly after all.” + +But the unmarried lady was wrong in her judgment. Mrs. Talboys was +proud and conceited in the matter, but not proud of having excited +the admiration of her Irish lover. She was proud of her own subsequent +conduct, and gave herself credit for coming out strongly as the +noble-minded matron. “I believe she thinks,” said Mrs. Mackinnon, “that +her virtue is quite Spartan and unique; and if she remains in Rome +she’ll boast of it through the whole winter.” + +“If she does, she may be certain that O’Brien will do the same,” said +Mackinnon. “And in spite of his having fled from the field, it is +upon the cards that he may get the best of it. Mrs. Talboys is a very +excellent woman. She has proved her excellence beyond a doubt. But +nevertheless she is susceptible of ridicule.” + +We all felt a little anxiety to hear O’Brien’s account of the matter, +and after having deposited the ladies at their homes Mackinnon and I +went off to his lodgings. At first he was denied to us, but after a +while we got his servant to acknowledge that he was at home, and then we +made our way up to his studio. We found him seated behind a half-formed +model, or rather a mere lump of clay punched into something resembling +the shape of a head, with a pipe in his mouth and a bit of stick in his +hand. He was pretending to work, though we both knew that it was out of +the question that he should do anything in his present frame of mind. + +“I think I heard my servant tell you that I was not at home,” said he. + +“Yes, he did,” said Mackinnon, “and would have sworn it too if we would +have let him. Come, don’t pretend to be surly.” + +“I am very busy, Mr. Mackinnon.” + +“Completing your head of Mrs. Talboys, I suppose, before you start for +Naples.” + +“You don’t mean to say that she has told you all about it?” And he +turned away from his work, and looked up into our faces with a comical +expression, half of fun and half of despair. + +“Every word of it,” said I. “When you want a lady to travel with you +never ask her to get up so early in winter.” + +“But, O’Brien, how could you be such an ass?” said Mackinnon. “As it +has turned out, there is no very great harm done. You have insulted a +respectable middle-aged woman, the mother of a family and the wife of a +general officer, and there is an end of it--unless, indeed, the general +officer should come out from England to call you to account.” + +“He is welcome,” said O’Brien haughtily. + +“No doubt, my dear fellow,” said Mackinnon; “that would be a dignified +and pleasant ending to the affair. But what I want to know is this: what +would you have done if she had agreed to go?” + +“He never calculated on the possibility of such a contingency,” said I. + +“By heavens, then, I thought she would like it,” said he. + +“And to oblige her you were content to sacrifice yourself,” said +Mackinnon. + +“Well, that was just it. What the deuce is a fellow to do when a woman +goes on in that way? She told me down there, upon the old race-course, +you know, that matrimonial bonds were made for fools and slaves. What +was I to suppose that she meant by that? But, to make all sure, I asked +her what sort of a fellow the general was. ‘Dear old man,’ she said, +clasping her hands together. ‘He might, you know, have been my father.’ +‘I wish he were,’ said I, ‘because then you’d be free.’ ‘I am free,’ +said she, stamping on the ground, and looking up at me so much as to say +that she cared for no one. ‘Then,’ said I, ‘accept all that is left of +the heart of Wenceslaus O’Brien,’ and I threw myself before her in her +path. ‘Hand,’ said I, ‘I have none to give, but the blood which runs red +through my veins is descended from a double line of kings.’ I said that +because she is always fond of riding a high horse. I had gotten close +under the wall so that none of you should see me from the tower.” + +“And what answer did she make?” said Mackinnon. + +“Why, she was pleased as Punch--gave me both her hands and declared +that we would be friends for ever. It is my belief, Mackinnon, that that +woman never heard anything of the kind before. The general, no doubt, +did it by letter.” + +“And how was it that she changed her mind?” + +“Why, I got up, put my arm round her waist, and told her that we would +be off to Naples. I’m blessed if she didn’t give me a knock in the +ribs that nearly sent me backward. She took my breath away, so that I +couldn’t speak to her.” + +“And then----” + +“Oh, there was nothing more. Of course I saw how it was. So she walked +off one way and I the other. On the whole, I consider that I am well out +of it.” + +“And so do I,” said Mackinnon, very gravely. “But if you will allow me +to give you my advice, I would suggest that it would be well to avoid +such mistakes in future.” + +“Upon my word,” said O’Brien, excusing himself, “I don’t know what a man +is to do under such circumstances. I give you my honour that I did it +all to oblige her.” + +We then decided that Mackinnon should convey to the injured lady the +humble apology of her late admirer. It was settled that no detailed +excuses should be made. It should be left to her to consider whether the +deed which had been done might have been occasioned by wine or by the +folly of a moment, or by her own indiscreet enthusiasm. No one but +the two were present when the message was given, and therefore we were +obliged to trust to Mackinnon’s accuracy for an account of it. + +She stood on very high ground indeed, he said, at first refusing to hear +anything that he had to say on the matter. The foolish young man, she +declared, was below her anger and below her contempt. + +“He is not the first Irishman that has been made indiscreet by beauty,” + said Mackinnon. + +“A truce to that,” she replied, waving her hand with an air of assumed +majesty. “The incident, contemptible as it is, has been unpleasant to +me. It will necessitate my withdrawal from Rome.” + +“Oh no, Mrs. Talboys; that will be making too much of him.” + +“The greatest hero that lives,” she answered, “may have his house made +uninhabitable by a very small insect.” Mackinnon swore that those were +her own words. Consequently a sobriquet was attached to O’Brien of which +he by no means approved, and from that day we always called Mrs. Talboys +“the hero.” + +Mackinnon prevailed at last with her, and she did not leave Rome. She +was even induced to send a message to O’Brien conveying her forgiveness. +They shook hands together with great eclat in Mrs. Mackinnon’s +drawing-room; but I do not suppose that she ever again offered to him +sympathy on the score of his matrimonial troubles. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg’s Stories By English Authors: Italy, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORIES BY ENGLISH AUTHORS: ITALY *** + +***** This file should be named 2457-0.txt or 2457-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/5/2457/ + +Produced by Dagny; John Bickers; David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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