0049
0049f
The Complete Works of Edith Wharton - Part 6
ITALIAN VILLAS AND THEIR GARDENS
by
EDITH WHARTON
Illustrated with Pictures by Maxfield Parrish
and by Photographs
[Illustration]
New York
The Century Co.
1905
Copyright, 1903, 1904, by
THE CENTURY CO.
Published November, 1904
The De Vinne Press
TO
VERNON LEE
WHO, BETTER THAN ANY ONE ELSE, HAS UNDERSTOOD AND INTERPRETED THE
GARDEN-MAGIC OF ITALY
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 5
I
FLORENTINE VILLAS 19
II
SIENESE VILLAS 63
III
ROMAN VILLAS 81
IV
VILLAS NEAR ROME
I CAPRAROLA AND LANTE 127
II VILLA D’ESTE 139
III FRASCATI 148
V
GENOESE VILLAS 173
VI
LOMBARD VILLAS 197
VII
VILLAS OF VENETIA 231
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Villa Campi, near Florence _Frontispiece_
Drawn by Maxfield Parrish.
The Reservoir, Villa Falconieri, Frascati 4
Drawn by Maxfield Parrish.
The Cascade, Villa Torlonia, Frascati 9
Drawn by Maxfield Parrish.
Fountain of Venus, Villa Petraja, Florence 18
From a Photograph.
Villa Gamberaia at Settignano, near Florence 20
Drawn by C. A. Vanderhoof, from a Photograph.
Boboli Garden, Florence 24
Drawn by Maxfield Parrish.
Entrance to Upper Garden, Boboli Garden, Florence 27
From a Photograph.
Cypress Alley, Boboli Garden, Florence 31
From a Photograph.
Ilex-walk, Boboli Garden, Florence 36
From a Photograph.
Villa Gamberaia, near Florence 39
Drawn by Maxfield Parrish.
View of Amphitheatre, Boboli Garden, Florence 44
From a Photograph.
Villa Corsini, Florence 49
Drawn by Maxfield Parrish.
Vicobello, Siena 62
Drawn by Maxfield Parrish.
La Palazzina (Villa Gori), Siena 67
Drawn by Maxfield Parrish.
The Theatre at La Palazzina, Siena 73
Drawn by Maxfield Parrish.
The Dome of St. Peter’s, from the Vatican Gardens 80
Drawn by Maxfield Parrish.
Entrance to Forecourt, Villa Borghese, Rome 87
From a Photograph.
Grotto, Villa di Papa Giulio, Rome 91
From a Photograph.
Temple of Æsculapius, Villa Borghese, Rome 96
From a Photograph.
Villa Medici, Rome 100
Drawn by Maxfield Parrish.
Courtyard Gate of the Villa Pia, Vatican Gardens 102
Drawn by E. Denison, from a Photograph.
Villa Pia—In the Gardens of the Vatican 105
Drawn by Maxfield Parrish.
Gateway of the Villa Borghese 108
Drawn by E. Denison, from a Photograph.
Villa Chigi, Rome 111
Drawn by Maxfield Parrish.
Parterres on Terrace, Villa Belrespiro (Pamphily-Doria), 116
Rome
From a Photograph.
View from Lower Garden, Villa Belrespiro 121
(Pamphily-Doria), Rome
From a Photograph.
Villa d’Este, Tivoli 126
Drawn by Maxfield Parrish.
Villa Caprarola 129
From a retouched Photograph.
The Casino, Villa Farnese, Caprarola 133
From a Photograph.
Villa Lante, Bagnaia 138
From a Photograph.
The Pool, Villa d’Este, Tivoli 141
Drawn by Maxfield Parrish.
Villa Lante, Bagnaia 146
Drawn by Maxfield Parrish.
Cascade and Rotunda, Villa Aldobrandini, Frascati 149
From a Photograph.
Garden of Villa Lancellotti, Frascati 153
From a Photograph.
Casino, Villa Falconieri, Frascati 157
From a Photograph.
The Entrance, Villa Falconieri, Frascati 161
From a Photograph.
Villa Lancellotti, Frascati 165
From a Photograph.
Villa Scassi, Genoa 172
Drawn by Maxfield Parrish.
A Garden-niche, Villa Scassi, Genoa 181
Drawn by Maxfield Parrish.
Villa Cicogna, Bisuschio 196
Drawn by Maxfield Parrish.
Villa Isola Bella, Lake Maggiore 203
Drawn by Maxfield Parrish.
In the Gardens of Isola Bella, Lake Maggiore 210
Drawn by Maxfield Parrish.
Villa Cicogna, from the Terrace above the House 216
From a Photograph.
Villa Pliniana, Lake Como 221
Drawn by Maxfield Parrish.
Iron Gates of the Villa Alario (now Visconti di 224
Saliceto)
Drawn by E. Denison, from a Photograph.
Railing of the Villa Alario 225
Drawn by Malcolm Fraser, from a Photograph.
Gateway of the Botanic Garden, Padua 230
Drawn by Maxfield Parrish.
View at Val San Zibio, near Battaglia 235
Drawn by Maxfield Parrish.
Plan of the Botanic Garden, Padua 239
Drawn by E. Denison, from Sketch by the Author.
Val San Zibio, near Battaglia 241
Drawn by Maxfield Parrish.
Gateway, Villa Pisani, Strà 244
Drawn by E. Denison, from a Photograph.
Villa Valmarana, Vicenza 247
Drawn by Maxfield Parrish.
ITALIAN VILLAS AND THEIR GARDENS
[Illustration: THE RESERVOIR, VILLA FALCONIERI, FRASCATI]
ITALIAN VILLAS AND THEIR GARDENS
INTRODUCTION
ITALIAN GARDEN-MAGIC
Though it is an exaggeration to say that there are no flowers in Italian
gardens, yet to enjoy and appreciate the Italian garden-craft one must
always bear in mind that it is independent of floriculture.
The Italian garden does not exist for its flowers; its flowers exist for
it: they are a late and infrequent adjunct to its beauties, a
parenthetical grace counting only as one more touch in the general
effect of enchantment. This is no doubt partly explained by the
difficulty of cultivating any but spring flowers in so hot and dry a
climate, and the result has been a wonderful development of the more
permanent effects to be obtained from the three other factors in
garden-composition—marble, water and perennial verdure—and the
achievement, by their skilful blending, of a charm independent of the
seasons.
It is hard to explain to the modern garden-lover, whose whole conception
of the charm of gardens is formed of successive pictures of
flower-loveliness, how this effect of enchantment can be produced by
anything so dull and monotonous as a mere combination of clipped green
and stonework.
The traveller returning from Italy, with his eyes and imagination full
of the ineffable Italian garden-magic, knows vaguely that the
enchantment exists; that he has been under its spell, and that it is
more potent, more enduring, more intoxicating to every sense than the
most elaborate and glowing effects of modern horticulture; but he may
not have found the key to the mystery. Is it because the sky is bluer,
because the vegetation is more luxuriant? Our midsummer skies are almost
as deep, our foliage is as rich, and perhaps more varied; there are,
indeed, not a few resemblances between the North American summer climate
and that of Italy in spring and autumn.
Some of those who have fallen under the spell are inclined to ascribe
the Italian garden-magic to the effect of time; but, wonder-working as
this undoubtedly is, it leaves many beauties unaccounted for. To seek
the answer one must go deeper: the garden must be studied in relation to
the house, and both in relation to the landscape. The garden of the
Middle Ages, the garden one sees in old missal illuminations and in
early woodcuts, was a mere patch of ground within the castle precincts,
where “simples” were grown around a central wellhead and fruit was
espaliered against the walls. But in the rapid flowering of Italian
civilization the castle walls were soon thrown down, and the garden
expanded, taking in the fish-pond, the bowling-green, the rose-arbour
and the clipped walk. The Italian country house, especially in the
centre and the south of Italy, was almost always built on a hillside,
and one day the architect looked forth from the terrace of his villa,
and saw that, in his survey of the garden, the enclosing landscape was
naturally included: the two formed a part of the same composition.
The recognition of this fact was the first step in the development of
the great garden-art of the Renaissance: the next was the architect’s
discovery of the means by which nature and art might be fused in his
picture. He had now three problems to deal with: his garden must be
adapted to the architectural lines of the house it adjoined; it must be
adapted to the requirements of the inmates of the house, in the sense of
providing shady walks, sunny bowling-greens, parterres and orchards, all
conveniently accessible; and lastly it must be adapted to the landscape
around it. At no time and in no country has this triple problem been so
successfully dealt with as in the treatment of the Italian country house
from the beginning of the sixteenth to the end of the eighteenth
century; and in the blending of different elements, the subtle
transition from the fixed and formal lines of art to the shifting and
irregular lines of nature, and lastly in the essential convenience and
livableness of the garden, lies the fundamental secret of the old
garden-magic.
However much other factors may contribute to the total impression of
charm, yet by eliminating them one after another, by _thinking away_ the
flowers, the sunlight, the rich tinting of time, one finds that,
underlying all these, there is the deeper harmony of design which is
independent of any adventitious effects. This does not imply that a plan
of an Italian garden is as beautiful as the garden itself. The more
permanent materials of which the latter is made—the stonework, the
evergreen foliage, the effects of rushing or motionless water, above all
the lines of the natural scenery—all form a part of the artist’s design.
But these things are as beautiful at one season as at another; and even
these are but the accessories of the fundamental plan. The inherent
beauty of the garden lies in the grouping of its parts—in the converging
lines of its long ilex-walks, the alternation of sunny open spaces with
cool woodland shade, the proportion between terrace and bowling-green,
or between the height of a wall and the width of a path. None of these
details was negligible to the landscape-architect of the Renaissance: he
considered the distribution of shade and sunlight, of straight lines of
masonry and rippled lines of foliage, as carefully as he weighed the
relation of his whole composition to the scene about it.
[Illustration: THE CASCADE, VILLA TORLONIA, FRASCATI]
Then, again, any one who studies the old Italian gardens will be struck
with the way in which the architect broadened and simplified his plan if
it faced a grandiose landscape. Intricacy of detail, complicated
groupings of terraces, fountains, labyrinths and porticoes, are found in
sites where there is no great sweep of landscape attuning the eye to
larger impressions. The farther north one goes, the less grand the
landscape becomes and the more elaborate the garden. The great
pleasure-grounds overlooking the Roman Campagna are laid out on severe
and majestic lines: the parts are few; the total effect is one of
breadth and simplicity.
It is because, in the modern revival of gardening, so little attention
has been paid to these first principles of the art that the garden-lover
should not content himself with a vague enjoyment of old Italian
gardens, but should try to extract from them principles which may be
applied at home. He should observe, for instance, that the old Italian
garden was meant to be lived in—a use to which, at least in America, the
modern garden is seldom put. He should note that, to this end, the
grounds were as carefully and conveniently planned as the house, with
broad paths (in which two or more could go abreast) leading from one
division to another; with shade easily accessible from the house, as
well as a sunny sheltered walk for winter; and with effective
transitions from the dusk of wooded alleys to open flowery spaces or to
the level sward of the bowling-green. He should remember that the
terraces and formal gardens adjoined the house, that the ilex or laurel
walks beyond were clipped into shape to effect a transition between the
straight lines of masonry and the untrimmed growth of the woodland to
which they led, and that each step away from architecture was a nearer
approach to nature.
The cult of the Italian garden has spread from England to America, and
there is a general feeling that, by placing a marble bench here and a
sun-dial there, Italian “effects” may be achieved. The results produced,
even where much money and thought have been expended, are not altogether
satisfactory; and some critics have thence inferred that the Italian
garden is, so to speak, _untranslatable_, that it cannot be adequately
rendered in another landscape and another age.
Certain effects, those which depend on architectural grandeur as well as
those due to colouring and age, are no doubt unattainable; but there is,
none the less, much to be learned from the old Italian gardens, and the
first lesson is that, if they are to be a real inspiration, they must be
copied, not in the letter but in the spirit. That is, a marble
sarcophagus and a dozen twisted columns will not make an Italian garden;
but a piece of ground laid out and planted on the principles of the old
garden-craft will be, not indeed an Italian garden in the literal sense,
but, what is far better, _a garden as well adapted to its surroundings
as were the models which inspired it_.
This is the secret to be learned from the villas of Italy; and no one
who has looked at them with this object in view will be content to
relapse into vague admiration of their loveliness. As Browning, in
passing Cape St. Vincent and Trafalgar Bay, cried out:
“Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?”—say,
so the garden-lover, who longs to transfer something of the old
garden-magic to his own patch of ground at home, will ask himself, in
wandering under the umbrella-pines of the Villa Borghese, or through the
box-parterres of the Villa Lante: What can I bring away from here? And
the more he studies and compares, the more inevitably will the answer
be: “Not this or that amputated statue, or broken bas-relief, or
fragmentary effect of any sort, but a sense of the informing spirit—an
understanding of the gardener’s purpose, and of the uses to which he
meant his garden to be put.”
FLORENTINE VILLAS
[Illustration: FOUNTAIN OF VENUS, VILLA PETRAJA, FLORENCE]
I
FLORENTINE VILLAS
For centuries Florence has been celebrated for her villa-clad hills.
According to an old chronicler, the country houses were more splendid
than those in the town, and stood so close-set among their
olive-orchards and vineyards that the traveller “thought himself in
Florence three leagues before reaching the city.”
Many of these houses still survive, strongly planted on their broad
terraces, from the fifteenth-century farmhouse-villa, with its
projecting eaves and square tower, to the many-windowed _maison de
plaisance_ in which the luxurious nobles of the seventeenth century
spent the gambling and chocolate-drinking weeks of the vintage season.
It is characteristic of Florentine thrift and conservatism that the
greater number of these later and more pretentious villas are merely
additions to the plain old buildings, while, even in the rare cases
where the whole structure is new, the baroque exuberance which became
fashionable in the seventeenth century is tempered by a restraint and
severity peculiarly Tuscan.
[Illustration: VILLA GAMBERAIA, AT SETTIGNANO, NEAR FLORENCE]
So numerous and well preserved are the buildings of this order about
Florence that the student who should attempt to give an account of them
would have before him a long and laborious undertaking; but where the
villa is to be considered in relation to its garden, the task is reduced
to narrow limits. There is perhaps no region of Italy so rich in old
villas and so lacking in old gardens as the neighbourhood of Florence.
Various causes have brought about this result. The environs of Florence
have always been frequented by the wealthy classes, not only Italian but
foreign. The Tuscan nobility have usually been rich enough to alter
their gardens in accordance with the varying horticultural fashions
imported from England and France; and the English who have colonized in
such numbers the slopes above the Arno have contributed not a little to
the destruction of the old gardens by introducing into their
horticultural plans two features entirely alien to the Tuscan climate
and soil, namely, lawns and deciduous shade-trees.
Many indeed are the parterres and terraces which have disappeared before
the Britannic craving for a lawn, many the olive-orchards and vineyards
which must have given way to the thinly dotted “specimen trees” so dear
to the English landscape-gardener, who is still, with rare exceptions,
the slave of his famous eighteenth-century predecessors, Repton and
“Capability Brown,” as the English architect is still the descendant of
Pugin and the Gothic revival. This Anglicization of the Tuscan garden
did not, of course, come only from direct English influence. The _jardin
anglais_ was fashionable in France when Marie Antoinette laid out the
Petit Trianon, and Herr Tuckermann, in his book on Italian gardens,
propounds a theory, for which he gives no very clear reasons, to the
effect that the naturalistic school of gardening actually originated in
Italy, in the Borghese gardens in Rome, which he supposes to have been
laid out more or less in their present form by Giovanni Fontana, as
early as the first quarter of the seventeenth century.
It is certain, at any rate, that the Florentines adopted the new fashion
early in the nineteenth century, as is shown—to give but one instance—in
the vast Torrigiani gardens, near the Porta Romana, laid out by the
Marchese Torrigiani about 1830 in the most approved “landscape” style,
with an almost complete neglect of the characteristic Tuscan vegetation
and a corresponding disregard of Italian climate and habits. The large
English colony has, however, undoubtedly done much to encourage, even in
the present day, the alteration of the old gardens and the introduction
of alien vegetation in those which have been partly preserved. It is,
for instance, typical of the old Tuscan villa that the farm, or
_podere_, should come up to the edge of the terrace on which the house
stands; but in most cases where old villas have been bought by
foreigners, the vineyards and olive-orchards near the house have been
turned into lawns dotted with plantations of exotic trees. Under these
circumstances it is not surprising that but few unaltered gardens are to
be found near Florence. To learn what the old Tuscan garden was, one
must search the environs of the smaller towns, and there are more
interesting examples about Siena than in the whole circuit of the
Florentine hills.
[Illustration: BOBOLI GARDEN, FLORENCE]
The old Italian architects distinguished two classes of country houses:
the _villa suburbana_, or _maison de plaisance_ (literally the
pleasure-house), standing within or just without the city walls,
surrounded by pleasure-grounds and built for a few weeks’ residence; and
the country house, which is an expansion of the old farm, and stands
generally farther out of town, among its fields and vineyards—the seat
of the country gentleman living on his estates. The Italian
pleasure-garden did not reach its full development till the middle of
the sixteenth century, and doubtless many of the old Florentine villas,
the semi-castle and the quasi-farm of the fourteenth century, stood as
they do now, on a bare terrace among the vines, with a small walled
enclosure for the cultivation of herbs and vegetables. But of the period
in which the garden began to be a studied architectural extension of the
house, few examples are to be found near Florence.
The most important, if not the most pleasing, of Tuscan pleasure-gardens
lies, however, within the city walls. This is the Boboli garden, laid
out on the steep hillside behind the Pitti Palace. The plan of the
Boboli garden is not only magnificent in itself, but interesting as one
of the rare examples, in Tuscany, of a Renaissance garden still
undisturbed in its main outlines. Eleonora de’ Medici, who purchased the
Pitti Palace in 1549, soon afterward acquired the neighbouring ground,
and the garden was laid out by Il Tribolo, continued by Buontalenti, and
completed by Bartolommeo Ammanati, to whom is also due the garden façade
of the palace. The scheme of the garden is worthy of careful study,
though in many respects the effect it now produces is far less
impressive than its designers intended. Probably no grounds of equal
grandeur and extent have less of that peculiar magic which one
associates with the old Italian garden—a fact doubtless due less to
defects of composition than to later changes in the details of planting
and decoration. Still, the main outline remains and is full of
instruction to the garden-lover.
The palace is built against the steep hillside, which is dug out to
receive it, a high retaining-wall being built far enough back from the
central body of the house to allow the latter to stand free. The ground
floor of the palace is so far below ground that its windows look across
a paved court at the face of the retaining-wall, which Ammanati
decorated with an architectural composition representing a grotto, from
which water was meant to gush as though issuing from the hillside. This
grotto he surmounted with a magnificent fountain, standing on a level
with the first-floor windows of the palace and with the surrounding
gardens. The arrangement shows ingenuity in overcoming a technical
difficulty, and the effect, from the garden, is very successful, though
the well-like court makes an unfortunate gap between the house and its
grounds.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO UPPER GARDEN, BOBOLI GARDEN, FLORENCE]
Behind the fountain, and in a line with it, a horseshoe-shaped
amphitheatre has been cut out of the hillside, surrounded by tiers of
stone seats adorned with statues in niches and backed by clipped laurel
hedges, behind which rise the ilex-clad slopes of the upper gardens.
This amphitheatre is one of the triumphs of Italian garden-architecture.
In general design and detail it belongs to the pure Renaissance, without
trace of the heavy and fantastic _barocchismo_ which, half a century
later, began to disfigure such compositions in the villas near Rome.
Indeed, comparison with the grotesque garden-architecture of the Villa
d’Este at Tivoli, which is but little later in date, shows how long the
Tuscan sense of proportion and refinement of taste resisted the
ever-growing desire to astonish instead of charming the spectator.
On each side of the amphitheatre, clipped ilex-walks climb the hill,
coming out some distance above on a plateau containing the toy lake with
its little island, the Isola Bella, which was once the pride of the
Boboli garden. This portion of the grounds has been so stripped of its
architectural adornments and of its surrounding vegetation that it is
now merely forlorn; and the same may be said of the little upper garden,
reached by an imposing flight of steps and commanding a wide view over
Florence. One must revert to the architect’s plan to see how admirably
adapted it was to the difficulties of the site he had to deal with, and
how skilfully he harmonized the dense shade of his ilex-groves with the
great open spaces and pompous architectural effects necessary in a
garden which was to form a worthy setting for the pageants of a
Renaissance court. It is interesting to note in this connection that the
flower-garden, or _giardino segreto_, which in Renaissance gardens
almost invariably adjoins the house, has here been relegated to the
hilltop, doubtless because the only level space near the palace was
required for state ceremonials and theatrical entertainments rather than
for private enjoyment.
It is partly because the Boboli is a court-garden, and not designed for
private use, that it is less interesting and instructive than many
others of less importance. Yet the other Medicean villas near Florence,
though designed on much simpler lines, have the same lack of personal
charm. It is perhaps owing to the fact that Florence was so long under
the dominion of one all-powerful family that there is so little variety
in her pleasure-houses. Pratolino, Poggio a Caiano, Cafaggiuolo,
Careggi, Castello and Petraia, one and all, whatever their origin, soon
passed into the possessorship of the Medici, and thence into that of the
Austrian grand dukes who succeeded them; and of the three whose gardens
have been partly preserved, Castello, Petraia and Poggio Imperiale, it
may be said that they have the same impersonal official look as the
Boboli.
[Illustration: CYPRESS ALLEY, BOBOLI GARDEN, FLORENCE]
Castello and Petraia, situated a mile apart beyond the village of
Quarto, were both built by Buontalenti, that brilliant pupil of
Ammanati’s who had a share in the planning of the gardens behind the
Pitti. Castello stands on level ground, and its severely plain
façade, with windows on consoles and rusticated doorway, faces what
is now a highway, though, according to the print of Zocchi, the
eighteenth-century engraver, a semicircular space enclosed in a low
wall once extended between the house and the road, as at the
neighbouring Villa Corsini and at Poggio Imperiale. It was an
admirable rule of the old Italian architects, where the garden-space
was small and where the site permitted, to build their villas facing
the road, so that the full extent of the grounds was secured to the
private use of the inmates, instead of being laid open by a public
approach to the house. This rule is still followed by French
villa-architects, and it is exceptional in France to see a villa
entered from its grounds when it may be approached directly from the
highroad.
Behind Castello the ground rises in terraces, enclosed in lateral walls,
to a high retaining-wall at the back, surmounted by a wood of ilexes
which contains a pool with an island. Montaigne, who describes but few
gardens in his Italian diary, mentions that the terraces of Castello are
_en pante_ (sic); that is, they incline gradually toward the house, with
the slope of the ground. This bold and unusual adaptation of formal
gardening to the natural exigencies of the site is also seen in the
terraced gardens of the beautiful Villa Imperiali (now Scassi) at
Sampierdarena, near Genoa. The plan of the garden at Castello is
admirable, but in detail it has been modernized at the cost of all its
charm. Wide steps lead up to the first terrace, where Il Tribolo’s
stately fountain of bronze and marble stands surrounded by marble
benches and statues on fine rusticated pedestals. Unhappily, fountain
and statues have lately been scrubbed to preternatural whiteness, and
the same spirit of improvement has turned the old parterres into
sunburnt turf, and dotted it with copper beeches and pampas-grass.
Montaigne alludes to the _berceaux_, or pleached walks, and to the
close-set cypresses which made a delicious coolness in this garden; and
as one looks across its sun-scorched expanse one perceives that its lack
of charm is explained by lack of shade.
As is usual in Italian gardens built against a hillside, the
retaining-wall at the back serves for the great decorative motive at
Castello. It is reached by wide marble steps, and flanked at the sides
by symmetrical lemon-houses. On the central axis of the garden, the wall
has a wide opening between columns, and on each side an arched recess,
equidistant between the lemon-houses and the central opening. Within the
latter is one of those huge grottoes[1] which for two centuries or more
were the delight of Italian garden-architects. The roof is decorated
with masks and arabesques in coloured shell-work, and in the niches of
the tufa of which the background is formed are strange groups of
life-sized animals, a camel, a monkey, a stag with real antlers, a wild
boar with real tusks, and various small animals and birds, some made of
coloured marbles which correspond with their natural tints; while
beneath these groups are basins of pink-and-white marble, carved with
sea-creatures and resting on dolphins. Humour is the quality which
soonest loses its savour, and it is often difficult to understand the
grotesque side of the old garden-architecture; but the curious delight
in the representations of animals, real or fantastic, probably arose
from the general interest in those strange wild beasts of which the
travellers of the Renaissance brought home such fabulous descriptions.
As to the general use of the grotto in Italian gardens, it is a natural
development of the need for shade and coolness, and when the
long-disused waterworks were playing, and cool streams gushed over
quivering beds of fern into the marble tanks, these retreats must have
formed a delicious contrast to the outer glare of the garden.
Footnote 1:
This grotto and its sculptures are the work of Il Tribolo, who also
built the aqueduct bringing thither the waters of the Arno and the
Mugnone.
[Illustration: ILEX-WALK, BOBOLI GARDEN, FLORENCE]
At Petraia the gardens are less elaborate in plan than at Castello, and
are, in fact, noted chiefly for a fountain brought from that villa. This
fountain, the most beautiful of Il Tribolo’s works, is surmounted by the
famous Venus-like figure of a woman wringing out her hair, now generally
attributed to Giovanni da Bologna. Like the other Florentine villas of
this quarter, where water is more abundant, Petraia has a great oblong
_vasca_, or tank, beneath its upper terrace; while the house itself, a
simple structure of the old-fashioned Tuscan type, built about an inner
quadrangle, is remarkable for its very beautiful tower, which, as Herr
Gurlitt[2] suggests, was doubtless inspired by the tower of the Palazzo
Vecchio.
Footnote 2:
“Geschichte des Barockstils in Italien.”
According to Zocchi’s charming etching, the ducal villa of Poggio
Imperiale, on a hillside to the south of Florence, still preserved, in
the eighteenth century, its simple and characteristic Tuscan façade.
This was concealed by the Grand Duke Peter Leopold behind a heavy
pillared front, to which the rusticated porticoes were added later; and
externally nothing remains as it was save the ilex and cypress avenue,
now a public highway, which ascends to the villa from the Porta Romana,
and the semicircular entrance-court with its guardian statues on mighty
pedestals.
Poggio Imperiale was for too long the favourite residence of the
grand-ducal Medici, and of their successors of Lorraine, not to suffer
many changes, and to lose, one by one, all its most typical features.
Within there is a fine court surrounded by an open arcade, probably due
to Giulio Parigi, who, at the end of the sixteenth century, completed
the alterations of the villa according to the plans of Giuliano da
Sangallo; and the vast suites of rooms are interesting to the student of
decoration, since they are adorned, probably by French artists, with
exquisite carvings and _stucchi_ of the Louis XV and Louis XVI periods.
But the grounds have kept little besides their general plan. At the
back, the villa opens directly on a large level pleasure-garden, with
enclosing walls and a central basin surrounded by statues; but the
geometrical parterres have been turned into a lawn. To the right of this
level space, a few steps lead down to a long terrace planted with
ilexes, whence there is a fine view over Florence—an unusual
arrangement, as the _bosco_ was generally above, not below, the
flower-garden.
[Illustration: VILLA GAMBERAIA, NEAR FLORENCE]
If, owing to circumstances, the more famous pleasure-grounds of Florence
have lost much of their antique charm, she has happily preserved a
garden of another sort which possesses to an unusual degree the flavour
of the past. This is the villa of the Gamberaia at Settignano. Till its
recent purchase, the Gamberaia had for many years been let out in
lodgings for the summer, and it doubtless owes to this obscure fate the
complete preservation of its garden-plan. Before the recent alterations
made in its gardens, it was doubly interesting from its unchanged
condition, and from the fact that, even in Italy, where small and
irregular pieces of ground were so often utilized with marvellous skill,
it was probably the most perfect example of the art of producing a great
effect on a small scale.
The villa stands nobly on a ridge overlooking the village of Settignano
and the wide-spread valley of the Arno. The house is small yet
impressive. Though presumably built as late as 1610, it shows few
concessions to the baroque style already prevalent in other parts of
Italy, and is yet equally removed from the classic or Palladian manner
which held its own so long in the Venetian country. The Gamberaia is
distinctly Tuscan, and its projecting eaves, heavily coigned angles and
windows set far apart on massive consoles, show its direct descent from
the severe and sober school of sixteenth-century architects who produced
such noble examples of the great Tuscan villa as I Collazzi and Fonte
all’ Erta. Nevertheless, so well proportioned is its elevation that
there is no sense of heaviness, and the solidity of the main building is
relieved by a kind of flying arcade at each end, one of which connects
the house with its chapel, while the other, by means of a spiral
stairway in a pier of the arcade, leads from the first floor to what was
once the old fish-pond and herb-garden. This garden, an oblong piece of
ground, a few years ago had in its centre a round fish-pond, surrounded
by symmetrical plots planted with roses and vegetables, and in general
design had probably been little changed since the construction of the
villa. It has now been remodelled on an elaborate plan, which has the
disadvantage of being unrelated in style to its surroundings; but
fortunately no other change has been made in the plan and planting of
the grounds.
[Illustration: VIEW OF AMPHITHEATRE, BOBOLI GARDEN, FLORENCE]
Before the façade of the house a grassy terrace bounded by a low wall,
set alternately with stone vases and solemn-looking stone dogs,
overhangs the vineyards and fields, which, as in all unaltered Tuscan
country places, come up close to the house. Behind the villa, and
running parallel with it, is a long grass alley or bowling-green,
flanked for part of its length by a lofty retaining-wall set with
statues, and for the remainder by high hedges which divide it on one
side from the fish-pond garden and on the other from the farm. The green
is closed at one end by a grotto of coloured pebbles and shells, with
nymphs and shepherds in niches about a fountain. This grotto is overhung
by the grove of ancient cypresses for which the Gamberaia is noted. At
its opposite end the bowling-green terminates in a balustrade whence one
looks down on the Arno and across to the hills on the southern side of
the valley.
The retaining-wall which runs parallel with the back of the house
sustains a terrace planted with cypress and ilex. This terraced wood
above the house is very typical of Italian gardens: good examples may be
seen at Castello and at the Villa Medici in Rome. These patches of
shade, however small, are planted irregularly, like a wild wood, with
stone seats under the dense ilex boughs, and a statue placed here and
there in a deep niche of foliage. Just opposite the central doorway of
the house the retaining-wall is broken, and an iron gate leads to a slit
of a garden, hardly more than twenty feet wide, on a level with the
bowling-green. This narrow strip ends also in a grotto-like fountain
with statues, and on each side balustraded flights of steps lead to the
upper level oh which the ilex-grove is planted. This grove, however,
occupies only one portion of the terrace. On the other side of the cleft
formed by the little grotto-garden, the corresponding terrace, formerly
laid out as a vegetable-garden, is backed by the low façade of the
lemon-house, or _stanzone_, which is an adjunct of every Italian villa.
Here the lemon and orange trees, the camellias and other semi-tender
shrubs, are stored in winter, to be set out in May in their red earthen
jars on the stone slabs which border the walks of all old Italian
gardens.
The plan of the Gamberaia has been described thus in detail because it
combines in an astonishingly small space, yet without the least sense of
overcrowding, almost every typical excellence of the old Italian garden:
free circulation of sunlight and air about the house; abundance of
water; easy access to dense shade; sheltered walks with different points
of view; variety of effect produced by the skilful use of different
levels; and, finally, breadth and simplicity of composition.
Here, also, may be noted in its fullest expression that principle of old
gardening which the modern “landscapist” has most completely unlearned,
namely, the value of subdivision of spaces. Whereas the modern
gardener’s one idea of producing an effect of space is to annihilate his
boundaries, and not only to merge into one another the necessary
divisions of the garden, but also to blend this vague whole with the
landscape, the old garden-architect proceeded on the opposite principle,
arguing that, as the garden is but the prolongation of the house, and as
a house containing a single huge room would be less interesting and less
serviceable than one divided according to the varied requirements of its
inmates, so a garden which is merely one huge outdoor room is also less
interesting and less serviceable than one which has its logical
divisions. Utility was doubtless not the only consideration which
produced this careful portioning off of the garden. Æsthetic impressions
were considered, and the effect of passing from the sunny fruit-garden
to the dense grove, thence to the wide-reaching view, and again to the
sheltered privacy of the pleached walk or the mossy coolness of the
grotto—all this was taken into account by a race of artists who studied
the contrast of æsthetic emotions as keenly as they did the
juxtaposition of dark cypress and pale lemon-tree, of deep shade and
level sunlight. But the real value of the old Italian garden-plan is
that logic and beauty meet in it, as they should in all sound
architectural work. Each quarter of the garden was placed where
convenience required, and was made accessible from all the others by the
most direct and rational means; and from this intelligent method of
planning the most varying effects of unexpectedness and beauty were
obtained.
It was said above that lawns are unsuited to the Italian soil and
climate, but it must not be thought that the Italian gardeners did not
appreciate the value of turf. They used it, but sparingly, knowing that
it required great care and was not a characteristic of the soil. The
bowling-green of the Gamberaia shows how well the beauty of a long
stretch of greensward was understood; and at the Villa Capponi, at
Arcetri, on the other side of Florence, there is a fine oblong of old
turf adjoining the house, said to be the only surviving fragment of the
original garden. These bits of sward were always used near the house,
where their full value could be enjoyed, and were set like jewels in
clipped hedges or statue-crowned walls. Though doubtless intended
chiefly for games, they were certainly valued for their æsthetic effect,
for in many Italian gardens steep grass alleys flanked by walls of beech
or ilex are seen ascending a hillside to the temple or statue which
forms the crowning ornament of the grounds. In Florence a good example
of this _tapis vert_, of which Le Nôtre afterward made such admirable
use in the moist climate of France, is seen at the Villa Danti, on the
Arno near Campiobbi.
Close to the ducal villas of Castello lies a country-seat possessing
much of the intimate charm which they lack. This is Prince Corsini’s
villa, the finest example of a baroque country house near Florence. The
old villa, of which the typical Tuscan elevation may still be seen at
the back, was remodelled during the latter half of the seventeenth
century, probably by Antonio Ferri, who built the state saloon and
staircase of the Palazzo Corsini on the Lungarno. The Villa Corsini lies
in the plain, like Castello, and has before it the usual walled
semicircle. The front of the villa is frankly baroque, a two-storied
elevation with windows divided by a meagre order, and a stately central
gable flanked by balustrades surmounted by vases. The whole treatment is
interesting, as showing the manner in which the seventeenth-century
architect overlaid a plain Tuscan structure with florid ornament; and
the effect, if open to criticism, is at once gay and stately.
[Illustration: VILLA CORSINI, FLORENCE]
The house is built about a quadrangle enclosed in an open arcade on
columns. Opposite the porte-cochère is a doorway opening on a broad
space bounded by a balustrade with statues. An ilex avenue extends
beyond this space, on the axis of the doorway. At one end of the house
is the oblong walled garden, with its box-edged flower-beds grouped in
an intricate geometrical pattern about a central fountain. Corresponding
with this garden, at the opposite end of the house, is a dense
ilex-grove with an alley leading down the centre to a beautiful
fountain, a tank surmounted by a kind of voluted pediment, into which
the water falls from a large ilex-shaded tank on a higher level. Here
again the vineyards and olive-orchards come up close to the formal
grounds, the ilex-grove being divided from the _podere_ by a line of
cypresses instead of a wall.
Not far from the Gamberaia, on the hillside of San Gervasio, stands
another country house which preserves only faint traces of its old
gardens, but which, architecturally, is too interesting to be
overlooked. This is the villa of Fonte all’ Erta. Originally a long
building of the villa-farmhouse order, with chapel, offices and
outhouses connected with the main house, it was transformed in the
sixteenth century, probably by Ammanati, into one of the stateliest
country houses near Florence. A splendid rusticated loggia, approached
by a double flight of steps, forms an angle of the main house, and
either then or later the spacious open court, around three sides of
which the villa is built, was roofed over and turned into a great
central saloon like those of the Venetian and Milanese villas. This
two-storied saloon is the finest and most appropriate feature of the
interior planning of Italian villas, but it seems never to have been as
popular in Tuscany as it was farther north or south. The Tuscan villas,
for the most part, are smaller and less pretentious in style than those
erected in other parts of Italy, and only in exceptional instances did
the architect free himself from the traditional plan of the old
farmhouse-villa around its open court. A fine example of this arcaded
court may be seen at Petraia, the Medicean villa near Castello. At Fonte
all’ Erta the former court faced toward what was once an old
flower-garden, raised a few feet above the grass terrace which runs the
length of the façade. Behind this garden, and adjoining the back of the
villa, is the old evergreen grove; but the formal surroundings of the
house have disappeared.
The most splendid and stately villa in the neighbourhood of Florence
stands among the hills a few miles beyond the Certosa of Val d’Ema, and
looks from its lofty ridge across the plain toward Pistoia and the
Apennines. This villa, called Ai Collazzi (now Bombicci), from the
wooded hills which surround it, was built for the Dini family in the
sixteenth century, and, as tradition avers, by no less a hand than
Michelangelo’s. He is known to have been a close friend of the Dini, and
is likely to have worked for them; and if, as some experts think,
certain details of the design, as well as the actual construction of the
villa, are due to Santi di Tito, it is impossible not to feel that its
general conception must have originated with a greater artist.
The Villa Bombicci has in fact the Michelangelesque quality: the
austerity, the breadth, the peculiar majesty which he imparted to his
slightest creations. The house is built about three sides of a raised
stone-flagged terrace, the enclosing elevation consisting of a
two-storied open arcade roofed by widely projecting eaves. The wings are
solid, with the exception of the sides toward the arcade, and the
windows, with their heavy pediments and consoles, are set far apart in
true Tuscan fashion. A majestic double flight of steps, flanked by
shield-bearing lions, leads up to the terrace about which the house is
built. Within is a high central saloon opening at the back on a stone
_perron_, with another double flight of steps which descend in a curve
to the garden. On this side of the house there is, on the upper floor,
an open loggia of great beauty, consisting of three arches divided by
slender coupled shafts. Very fine, also, is the arched and rusticated
doorway surmounted by a stone escutcheon.
The villa is approached by a cypress avenue which leads straight to the
open space before the house. The ridge on which the latter is built is
so narrow, and the land falls away so rapidly, that there could never
have been much opportunity for the development of garden-architecture;
but though all is now Anglicized, it is easy to trace the original plan:
in front, the open space supported by a high retaining-wall, on one side
of the house the grove of cypress and ilex, and at the back, where there
was complete privacy, the small _giardino segreto_, or hedged garden,
with its parterres, benches and statues.
The purpose of this book is to describe the Italian villa in relation to
its grounds, and many villas which have lost their old surroundings must
therefore be omitted; but near Florence there is one old garden which
has always lacked its villa, yet which cannot be overlooked in a study
of Italian garden-craft. Even those most familiar with the fascinations
of Italian gardens will associate a peculiar thrill with their first
sight of the Villa[3] Campi. Laid out by one of the Pucci family,
probably toward the end of the sixteenth century, it lies beyond
Lastra-Signa, above the Arno, about ten miles from Florence. It is not
easy to reach, for so long is it since any one has lived in the
melancholy _villino_ of Villa Campi that even in the streets of Lastra,
the little walled town by the Arno, a guide is hard to find. But at last
one is told to follow a steep country road among vines and olives, past
two or three charming houses buried in ilex-groves, till the way ends in
a lane which leads up to a gateway surmounted by statues. Ascending
thence by a long avenue of cypresses, one reaches the level hilltop on
which the house should have stood. Two pavilions connected by a high
wall face the broad open terrace, whence there is a far-spreading view
over the Arno valley: doubtless the main building was to have been
placed between them. But now the place lies enveloped in a mysterious
silence. The foot falls noiselessly on the grass carpeting of the
alleys, the water is hushed in pools and fountains, and broken statues
peer out startlingly from their niches of unclipped foliage. From the
open space in front of the pavilions, long avenues radiate, descending
and encircling the hillside, walled with cypress and ilex, and leading
to _rond-points_ set with groups of statuary, and to balustraded
terraces overhanging the valley. The plan is vast and complicated, and
appears to have embraced the whole hillside, which, contrary to the
usual frugal Tuscan plan, was to have been converted into a formal park
with vistas, quincunxes and fountains.
Footnote 3:
_Villa_, in Italian, signifies not the house alone, but the house and
pleasure-grounds.
Entering a gate in the wall between the pavilions, one comes on the
terraced flower-gardens, and here the same grandeur of conception is
seen. The upper terrace preserves traces of its formal parterres and
box-hedges. Thence flights of steps lead down to a long bowling-green
between hedges, like that at the Gamberaia. A farther descent reveals
another terrace-garden, with clipped hedges, statues and fountains; and
thence sloping alleys radiate down to stone-edged pools with reclining
river-gods in the mysterious shade of the ilex-groves. Statues are
everywhere: in the upper gardens, nymphs, satyrs, shepherds, and the
cheerful fauna of the open pleasance; at the end of the shadowy glades,
solemn figures of Titanic gods, couched above their pools or reared
aloft on mighty pedestals. Even the opposite hillside must have been
included in the original scheme of this vast garden, for it still shows,
on the central axis between the pavilions, a _tapis vert_ between
cypresses, doubtless intended to lead up to some great stone Hercules
under a crowning arch.
But it is not the size of the Campi gardens which makes them so
remarkable; it is the subtle beauty of their planning, to which time and
neglect have added the requisite touch of poetry. Never perhaps have
natural advantages been utilized with so little perceptible straining
after effect, yet with so complete a sense of the needful adjustment
between landscape and architecture. One feels that these long avenues
and statued terraces were meant to lead up to a “stately
pleasure-house”; yet so little are they out of harmony with the
surrounding scene that nature has gradually taken them back to herself,
has turned them into a haunted grove in which the statues seem like
sylvan gods fallen asleep in their native shade.
There are other Florentine villas which preserve traces of their old
gardens. The beautiful Villa Palmieri has kept its terrace-architecture,
Lappeggi its fine double stairway, the Villa Danti its grass-walk
leading to a giant on the hilltop, and Castel Pulci its stately façade
with a sky-line of statues and the long cypress avenue shown in Zocchi’s
print; even Pratolino, so cruelly devastated, still preserves Giovanni
da Bologna’s colossal figure of the Apennines. But where so much of
greater value remains to be described, space fails to linger over these
fragments which, romantic and charming as they are, can but faintly
suggest, amid their altered surroundings, the vanished garden-plans of
which they formed a part.
SIENESE VILLAS
[Illustration: VICOBELLO, SIENA]
II
SIENESE VILLAS
In the order of age, the first country-seat near Siena which claims
attention is the fortress-villa of Belcaro.
Frequent mention is made of the castle of Belcaro in early chronicles
and documents, and it seems to have been a place of some importance as
far back as the eleventh century. It stands on a hilltop clothed with
oak and ilex in the beautiful wooded country to the west of Siena, and
from its ancient walls one looks forth over the plain to the hill-set
city and its distant circle of mountains. It was perhaps for the sake of
this enchanting prospect that Baldassare Peruzzi, to whom the
transformation of Belcaro is ascribed, left these crenellated walls
untouched, and contented himself with adorning the inner court of the
castle with a delicate mask of Renaissance architecture. A large bare
villa of no architectural pretensions was added to the mediæval
buildings, and Peruzzi worked within the enclosed quadrangle thus
formed.
A handsome architectural screen of brick and marble with a central
gateway leads from a stone-paved court to a garden of about the same
dimensions, at the back of which is an arcaded loggia, also of brick and
marble, exquisitely light and graceful in proportion, and frescoed in
the Raphaelesque manner with medallions and arabesques, fruit-garlands
and brightly plumed birds. Adjoining this loggia is a small brick
chapel, simple but elegant in design, with a frescoed interior also
ascribed to Peruzzi, and still beautiful under its crude repainting. The
garden itself is the real _hortus inclusus_ of the mediæval chronicler:
a small patch of ground enclosed in the fortress walls, with box-edged
plots, a central well and clipped shrubs. It is interesting as a
reminder of what the mediæval garden within the castle must have been,
and its setting of Renaissance architecture makes it look like one of
those little marble-walled pleasances, full of fruit and flowers, in the
backgrounds of Gozzoli or Lorenzo di Credi.
Several miles beyond Belcaro, in a pleasant valley among oak-wooded
hills, lies the Marchese Chigi’s estate of Cetinale. A huge clipped
ilex, one of the few examples of Dutch topiary work in Italy, stands at
the angle of the road which leads to the gates. Across the highway,
facing the courtyard entrance, is another gate, guarded by statues and
leading to a long _tapis vert_ which ascends between double rows of
square-topped ilexes to a statue on the crest of the opposite slope. The
villa looks out on this perspective, facing it across an oblong
courtyard flanked by low outbuildings. The main house, said to have been
built (or more probably rebuilt) in 1680 by Carlo Fontana for Flavio
Chigi, nephew of Pope Alexander VII, is so small and modest of aspect
that one is surprised to learn that it was one of the celebrated
pleasure-houses of its day. It must be remembered, however, that with
the exception of the great houses built near Rome by the Princes of the
Church, and the country-seats of such reigning families as the Medici,
the Italian villa was almost invariably a small and simple building, the
noble proprietor having usually preferred to devote his wealth and time
to the embellishment of his gardens.
The house at Cetinale is so charming, with its stately double flight of
steps leading up to the first floor, and its monumental doorway opening
on a central _salone_, that it may well be ascribed to the architect of
San Marcello in Rome, and of Prince Lichtenstein’s “Garden Palace” in
Vienna. The plan of using the low-studded ground floor for offices,
wine-cellar and store-rooms, while the living-rooms are all
above-stairs, shows the hand of an architect trained in the Roman
school. All the Tuscan and mid-Italian villas open on a level with their
gardens, while about Rome the country houses, at least on one side, have
beneath the living-rooms a ground floor generally used for the storage
of wine and oil.
But the glory of Cetinale is its park. Behind the villa a long
grass-walk as wide as the house extends between high walls to a
fantastic gateway, with statues in ivy-clad niches, and a curious
crowning motive terminating in obelisks and balls. Beyond this the
turf-walk continues again to a raised semicircular terrace, surrounded
by a wall adorned with busts and enclosed in clipped ilexes. This
terrace abuts on the ilex-clothed hillside which bounds the valley. A
gateway leads directly into these wild romantic woods, and a steep
irregular flight of stone steps is seen ascending the wooded slope to a
tiny building on the crest of the hill. This ascent is called the Scala
Santa, and the building to which it leads is a hermitage adorned with
circular niches set in the form of a cross, each niche containing the
bust of a saint. The hermitage being directly on the axis of the villa,
one looks out from the latter down the admirable perspective of the
_tapis vert_ and up the Scala Santa to the little house at its summit.
It is interesting to note that this effect of distance and grandeur is
produced at small cost and in the simplest manner; for the grass-walk
with its semicircular end forms the whole extent of the Cetinale garden.
The olive-orchards and corn-fields of the farm come up to the boundary
walls of the walk, and the wood is left as nature planted it. Fontana,
if it was indeed he who laid out this simple but admirable plan, was
wise enough to profit by the natural advantage of the great forest of
oak and ilex which clothes this part of the country, and to realize that
only the broadest and simplest lines would be in harmony with so noble a
background.
[Illustration: LA PALAZZINA (VILLA GORI), SIENA]
As charming in its way, though less romantic and original, is the
Marchese Chigi’s other seat of Vicobello, a mile or two beyond the Porta
Ovile, on the other side of Siena. Vicobello lies in an open
villa-studded country in complete contrast to the wooded hills about
Cetinale. The villa is placed on a long narrow ridge of land, falling
away abruptly at the back and front. A straight entrance avenue runs
parallel to the outer walls of the outbuildings, which form the boundary
of the court, the latter being entered through a vaulted porte-cochère.
Facing this entrance (as at Cetinale) is a handsome gateway guarded by
statues and set in a semicircular wall. Passing through this gate, one
descends to a series of terraces planted with straight rows of the
square-topped ilexes so characteristic of the Sienese gardens. These
densely shaded terraces descend to a level stretch of sward (perhaps an
old bowling-green) bordered by a wall of clipped ilexes, at the foot of
the hill on which the villa stands.
On entering the forecourt, one faces the villa, a dignified oblong
building of simple Renaissance architecture, ascribed in the local
guide-book to Baldassare Peruzzi, and certainly of earlier construction
than the house at Cetinale. On the left, a gate in a high wall leads to
a walled garden, bounded by a long lemon-house which continues the line
of the outbuildings on the court. Opposite, a corresponding gateway
opens into the _bosco_ which is the indispensable adjunct of the Italian
country house. On the other side of the villa are two long terraces, one
beneath the other, corresponding in dimensions with the court, and
flanked on each hand by walled terrace-gardens, descending on one side
from the grove, on the other from the upper garden adjoining the court.
The plan, which is as elaborate and minutely divided as that of Cetinale
is spacious and simple, shows an equally sure appreciation of natural
conditions, and of the distinction between a _villa suburbana_ and a
country estate. The walls of the upper garden are espaliered with
fruit-trees, and the box-edged flower-plots are probably laid out much
as they were in the eighteenth century. All the architectural details
are beautiful, especially a well in the court, set in the wall between
Ionic columns, and a charming garden-house at the end of the upper
garden, in the form of an open archway faced with Doric pilasters,
before a semicircular recess with a marble seat. The descending walled
gardens, with their different levels, give opportunity for many charming
architectural effects—busts in niches, curving steps, and well-placed
vases and statues; and the whole treatment of Vicobello is remarkable
for the discretion and sureness of taste with which these ornamental
touches are added. There is no excess of decoration, no crowding of
effects, and the garden-plan is in perfect keeping with the simple
stateliness of the house.
About a mile from Vicobello, on an olive-clad hillside near the famous
monastery of the Osservanza, lies another villa of much more modest
dimensions, with grounds which, though in some respects typically
Sienese, are in one way unique in Italy. This is La Palazzina, the
estate of the De’ Gori family. The small seventeenth-century house, with
its adjoining chapel and outbuildings, lies directly on the public road,
and forms the boundary of its own grounds. The charming garden-façade,
with its voluted sky-line, and the two-storied open loggia forming the
central motive of the elevation, faces on a terrace-like open space,
bounded by a wall, and now irregularly planted _à l’Anglaise_, but
doubtless once the site of the old flower-garden. Before the house
stands an old well with a beautiful wrought-iron railing, and on the
axis of the central loggia a gate opens into one of the pleached
ilex-alleys which are the glory of the Palazzina. This ancient tunnel of
gnarled and interlocked trees, where a green twilight reigns in the
hottest summer noon, extends for several hundred feet along a ridge of
ground ending in a sort of circular knoll or platform, surrounded by an
impenetrable wall of square-clipped ilexes. The platform has in its
centre a round clearing, from which four narrow paths radiate at right
angles, one abutting on the pleached walk, the others on the outer
ilex-wall. Between these paths are four small circular spaces planted
with stunted ilexes and cypresses, which are cut down to the height of
shrubs. In these dwarf trees blinded thrushes are tied as decoys to
their wild kin, who are shot at from the circular clearing or the side
paths. This elaborate plantation is a perfectly preserved specimen of a
species of bird-trap once, alas! very common in this part of Italy, and
in which one may picture the young gallants of Folgore da San
Gimignano’s Sienese sonnets “Of the Months” taking their cruel pleasure
on an autumn day.
Another antique alley of pleached ilexes, as densely shaded but not
quite as long, runs from the end of the terrace to a small open-air
theatre which is the greatest curiosity of the Villa de’ Gori. The pit
of this theatre is a semicircular opening, bounded by a low wall or
seat, which is backed by a high ilex-hedge. The parterre is laid out in
an elaborate _broderie_ of turf and gravel, above which the stage is
raised about three feet. The pit and the stage are enclosed in a double
hedge of ilex, so that the actors may reach the wings without being seen
by the audience; but the stage-setting consists of rows of clipped
cypresses, each advancing a few feet beyond the one before it, so that
they form a perspective running up to the back of the stage, and
terminated by the tall shaft of a single cypress which towers high into
the blue in the exact centre of the background. No mere description of
its plan can convey the charm of this exquisite little theatre,
approached through the mysterious dusk of the long pleached alley, and
lying in sunshine and silence under its roof of blue sky, in its walls
of unchanging verdure. Imagination must people the stage with the sylvan
figures of the _Aminta_ or the _Pastor Fido_, and must place on the
encircling seats a company of _nobil donne_ in pearls and satin, with
their cavaliers in the black Spanish habit and falling lace collar which
Vandyke has immortalized in his Genoese portraits; and the remembrance
of this leafy stage will lend new life to the reading of the Italian
pastorals, and throw a brighter sunlight over the woodland comedies of
Shakspeare.
[Illustration: THE THEATRE AT LA PALAZZINA, SIENA]
ROMAN VILLAS
[Illustration: THE DOME OF ST. PETER’S, FROM THE VATICAN GARDENS]
III
ROMAN VILLAS
In studying the villas near the smaller Italian towns, it is difficult
to learn much of their history. Now and then some information may be
gleaned from a local guide-book, but the facts are usually meagre or
inaccurate, and the name of the architect, the date of the building, the
original plan of the garden, have often alike been forgotten.
With regard to the villas in and about Rome, the case is different. Here
the student is overwhelmed by a profusion of documents. Illustrious
architects dispute the honour of having built the famous pleasure-houses
on the seven hills, and historians of art, from Vasari downward, have
recorded their annals. Falda engraved them in the seventeenth century,
and Percier and Fontaine at the beginning of the nineteenth; and they
have been visited and described, at various periods, by countless
travellers from different countries.
One of the earliest Roman gardens of which a description has been
preserved is that which Bramante laid out within the Vatican in the last
years of the fifteenth century. This terraced garden, with its
monumental double flight of steps leading up by three levels to the
Giardino della Pigna, was described in 1523 by the Venetian ambassador
to Rome, who speaks of its grass parterres and fountains, its hedges of
laurel and cypress, its plantations of mulberries and roses. One half of
the garden (the court of the Belvedere) had brick-paved walks between
rows of orange-trees; in its centre were statues of the Nile and the
Tiber above a fountain; while the Apollo, the Laocoon and the Venus of
the Vatican were placed about it in niches. This garden was long since
sacrificed to the building of the Braccio Nuovo and the Vatican Library;
but it is worth mentioning that Burckhardt, whose least word on Italian
gardens is more illuminating than the treatises of other writers,
thought that Bramante’s terraced stairway first set the example of that
architectural magnificence which marks the great Roman gardens of the
Renaissance.
Next in date comes the Villa Madama, Raphael’s unfinished masterpiece on
the slope of Monte Mario. This splendid pleasure-house, which was begun
in 1516 for Cardinal Giuliano de’ Medici, afterward Pope Clement VII,
was intended to be the model of the great _villa suburbana_, and no
subsequent building of the sort is comparable to what it would have been
had the original plans been carried out. But the villa was built under
an evil star. Raphael died before the work was finished, and it was
carried on with some alterations by Giulio Romano and Antonio da
Sangallo. In 1527 the troops of Cardinal Colonna nearly destroyed it by
fire; and, without ever being completed, it passed successively into the
possession of the Chapter of St. Eustace, of the Duchess of Parma
(whence its name of _Madama_), and of the King of Naples, who suffered
it to fall into complete neglect.
The unfinished building, with its mighty loggia stuccoed by Giovanni da
Udine, and the semicircular arcade at the back, is too familiar to need
detailed description; and the gardens are so dilapidated that they are
of interest only to an eye experienced enough to reconstruct them from
their skeleton. They consist of two long terraces, one above the other,
cut in the side of the wooded slope overhanging the villa. The upper
terrace is on a level with Raphael’s splendid loggia, and seems but a
roofless continuation of that airy hall. Against the hillside and at the
end it is bounded by a retaining-wall once surmounted by a marble
balustrade and set with niches for statuary, while on the other side it
looks forth over the Tiber and the Campagna. Below this terrace is
another of the same proportions, its retaining-wall broken at each end
by a stairway descending from the upper level, and the greater part of
its surface taken up by a large rectangular tank, into which water
gushes from the niches in the lateral wall. It is evident from the
breadth of treatment of these terraces that they are but a fragment of
the projected whole. Percier and Fontaine, in their “Maisons de
Plaisance de Rome” (1809), published an interesting “reconstitution” of
the Villa Madama and its gardens, as they conceived it might have been
carried to completion; but their plan is merely the brilliant conjecture
of two artists penetrated with the spirit of the Renaissance, for they
had no documents to go by. The existing fragment is, however, well
worthy of study, for the purity of its architecture and the broad
simplicity of its plan are in marked contrast to the complicated design
and overcharged details of some of the later Roman gardens.
Third in date among the early Renaissance gardens comes another, of
which few traces are left: that of the Vigna del Papa, or Villa di Papa
Giulio, just beyond the Porta del Popolo. Here, however, the building
itself, and the architectural composition which once united the house
and grounds, are fortunately well preserved, and so exceptionally
interesting that they deserved a careful description. The Villa di Papa
Giulio was built by Pope Julius III, whose pontificate extends from 1550
to 1555. The villa therefore dates from the middle of the sixteenth
century; but so many architects were associated with it, and so much
confusion exists as to their respective contributions, that it can only
be said that the Pope himself, Michelangelo, Vignola, Vasari and
Ammanati appear all to have had a hand in the work. The exterior
elevation, though it has been criticized, is not as inharmonious as
might have been expected, and on the garden side both plan and elevation
have a charm and picturesqueness which disarm criticism. Above all, it
is felt at once that the arrangement is perfectly suited to a warm
climate. The villa forms a semicircle at the back, enclosing a paved
court. The ground floor is an open vaulted arcade, adorned with
Zucchero’s celebrated frescoes of _putti_ peeping through vine-wreathed
trellises; and the sides of the court, beyond this arcade, are bounded
by two-storied lateral wings, with blind arcades and niches adorned with
statues. Facing the villa, a colonnaded loggia terminates the court; and
thence one looks down into the beautiful lower court of the bath, which
appears to have been designed by Vasari. From the loggia, steps descend
to a semicircular court enclosed in walls, with a balustraded opening in
its centre; and this balustrade rests on a row of caryatids which
encircle the lowest court and form a screen before the grotto-like bath
under the arches of the upper terrace. The plan is too complicated, and
the architectural motives are too varied, to admit of clear description:
both must be seen to give an idea of the full beauty of the composition.
Returning to the upper loggia above the bath, one looks across the
latter to a corresponding loggia of three arches on the opposite side,
on the axis of which is a gateway leading to the actual gardens—gardens
which, alas! no longer exist. It will thus be seen that the flagged
court, the two open loggias, and the bath are so many skilfully
graduated steps in what Percier and Fontaine call the “artistic
progression” linking the gardens to the house, while the whole is so
planned that from the central hall of the villa (and in fact from its
entrance-door) one may look across the court and down the long vista of
columns, into what were once the shady depths of the garden.
In all Italian garden-architecture there is nothing quite comparable for
charm and delicately reminiscent classicalism with this grotto-bath of
Pope Julius’s villa. Here we find the tradition of the old Roman
villa-architecture, as it had been lovingly studied in the letters of
Pliny, transposed into Renaissance forms, with the sense of its
continued fitness to unchanged conditions of climate and a conscious
return to the splendour of the old patrician life. It is instructive to
compare this natural reflowering of a national art with the frigid
archæological classicalism of Winckelmann and Canova. Here there is no
literal transcription of uncomprehended detail: the spirit is preserved,
because it is still living, but it finds expression in subtly altered
forms. Above all, the artist has drawn his inspiration from Roman art,
the true source of modern architecture, and not from that of Greece,
which, for all its beauty and far-reaching æsthetic influences, was
_not_ the starting-point of modern artistic conceptions, for the plain
historical reason that it was utterly forgotten and unknown when the
mediæval world began to wake from its lethargy and gather up its
scattered heritage of artistic traditions.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO FORECOURT, VILLA BORGHESE, ROME]
When John Evelyn came to Rome in 1644 and alighted “at Monsieur Petit’s
in the Piazza Spagnola,” many of the great Roman villas were still in
the first freshness of their splendour, and the taste which called them
forth had not yet wearied of them. Later travellers, with altered ideas,
were not sufficiently interested to examine in detail what already
seemed antiquated and out of fashion; but to Evelyn, a passionate lover
of architecture and garden-craft, the Italian villas were patterns of
excellence, to be carefully studied and minutely described for the
benefit of those who sought to imitate them in England. It is doubtful
if later generations will ever be diverted by the aquatic “surprises”
and mechanical toys in which Evelyn took such simple pleasure; but the
real beauties he discerned are once more receiving intelligent
recognition after two centuries of contempt and indifference. It is
worth noting in this connection that, at the very height of the reaction
against Italian gardens, they were lovingly studied and truly understood
by two men great enough to rise above the prejudices of their age: the
French architects Percier and Fontaine, whose volume contains some of
the most suggestive analyses ever written of the purpose and meaning of
Renaissance garden-architecture.
Probably one of the least changed among the villas visited by Evelyn is
“the house of the Duke of Florence upon the brow of Mons Pincius.” The
Villa Medici, on being sold by that family in 1801, had the good fortune
to pass into the hands of the French government, and its “facciata
incrusted with antique and rare basso-relievos and statues” still looks
out over the statued arcade, the terrace “balustraded with white marble”
and planted with “perennial greens,” and the “mount planted with
cypresses,” which Evelyn so justly admired.
The villa, built in the middle of the sixteenth century by Annibale
Lippi, was begun for one cardinal and completed for another. It stands
in true Italian fashion against the hillside above the Spanish Steps,
its airy upper stories planted on one of the mighty bastion-like
basements so characteristic of the Roman villa. A villa above, a
fortress below, it shows that, even in the polished cinque-cento, life
in the Papal States needed the protection of stout walls and heavily
barred windows. The garden-façade, raised a story above the entrance,
has all the smiling openness of the Renaissance pleasure-house, and is
interesting as being probably the earliest example of the systematic use
of fragments of antique sculpture in an architectural elevation. But
this façade, with its charming central loggia, is sufficiently well
known to make a detailed description superfluous, and it need be studied
here only in relation to its surroundings.
[Illustration: GROTTO, VILLA DI PAPA GIULIO, ROME]
Falda’s plan of the grounds, and that of Percier and Fontaine, made over
a hundred and fifty years later, show how little succeeding fashions
have been allowed to disturb the original design. The gardens are still
approached by a long shady alley which ascends from the piazza before
the entrance; and they are still divided into a symmetrically planted
grove, a flower-garden before the house, and an upper wild-wood with a
straight path leading to the “mount planted with cypresses.”
It is safe to say that no one enters the grounds of the Villa Medici
without being soothed and charmed by that garden-magic which is the
peculiar quality of some of the old Italian pleasances. It is not
necessary to be a student of garden-architecture to feel the spell of
quiet and serenity which falls on one at the very gateway; but it is
worth the student’s while to try to analyze the elements of which the
sensation is composed. Perhaps they will be found to resolve themselves
into diversity, simplicity and fitness. The plan of the garden is
simple, but its different parts are so contrasted as to produce, by the
fewest means, a pleasant sense of variety without sacrifice of repose.
The ilex-grove into which one first enters is traversed by hedged alleys
which lead to _rond-points_ with stone seats and marble Terms. At one
point the enclosing wall of ilex is broken to admit a charming open
loggia, whence one looks into the depths of green below. Emerging from
the straight shady walks, with their effect of uniformity and repose,
one comes on the flower-garden before the house, spreading to the
sunshine its box-edged parterres adorned with fountains and statues.
Here garden and house-front are harmonized by a strong predominance of
architectural lines, and by the beautiful lateral loggia, with niches
for statues, above which the upper ilex-wood rises. Tall hedges and
trees there are none; for from the villa one looks across the garden at
the wide sweep of the Campagna and the mountains; indeed, this is
probably one of the first of the gardens which Gurlitt defines as
“gardens to look out from,” in contradistinction to the earlier sort,
the “gardens to look into.” Mounting to the terrace, one comes to the
third division of the garden, the wild-wood with its irregular levels,
through which a path leads to the mount, with a little temple on its
summit. This is a rare feature in Italian grounds: in hilly Italy there
was small need of creating the artificial hillocks so much esteemed in
the old English gardens. In this case, however, the mount justifies its
existence, for it affords a wonderful view over the other side of Rome
and the Campagna.
Finally, the general impression of the Medici garden resolves itself
into a sense of fitness, of perfect harmony between the material at hand
and the use made of it. The architect has used his opportunities to the
utmost; but he has adapted nature without distorting it. In some of the
great French gardens, at Vaux and Versailles for example, one is
conscious, under all the beauty, of the immense effort expended, of the
vast upheavals of earth, the forced creating of effects; but it was the
great gift of the Italian gardener to see the natural advantages of his
incomparable landscape, and to fit them into his scheme with an art
which concealed itself.
[Illustration: TEMPLE OF ÆSCULAPIUS, VILLA BORGHESE, ROME]
While Annibale Lippi, an architect known by only two buildings, was
laying out the Medici garden, the Palatine Hill was being clothed with
monumental terraces by a master to whom the Italian Renaissance owed
much of its stateliest architecture. Vignola, who transformed the slopes
of the Palatine into the sumptuous Farnese gardens, was the architect of
the mighty fortress-villa of Caprarola, and of the garden-portico of
Mondragone; and tradition ascribes to him also the incomparable Lante
gardens at Bagnaia.
In the Farnese gardens he found full play for his gift of grouping
masses and for the scenic sense which enabled him to create such
grandiose backgrounds for the magnificence of the great Roman prelates.
The Palatine gardens have been gradually sacrificed to the excavations
of the Palace of the Cæsars, but their almost theatrical magnificence is
shown in the prints of Falda and of Percier and Fontaine. In this
prodigal development of terraces, niches, porticoes and ramps, one
perceives the outcome of Bramante’s double staircase in the inner
gardens of the Vatican, and Burckhardt justly remarks that in the
Farnese gardens “the period of unity of composition and effective
grouping of masses” finally triumphs over the earlier style.
No villa was ever built on this site, and there is consequently an air
of heaviness and over-importance about the stately ascent which leads
merely to two domed pavilions; but the composition would have regained
its true value had it been crowned by such a palace as the Roman
cardinals were beginning to erect for themselves. It is especially
interesting to note the contrast in style and plan between this garden
and that of the contemporaneous Villa Medici. One was designed for
display, the other for privacy, and the success with which the purpose
of each is fulfilled shows the originality and independence of their
creators. It is a common error to think of the Italian gardens of the
Renaissance as repeating endlessly the same architectural effects: their
peculiar charm lies chiefly in the versatility with which their
designers adapted them to different sites and different requirements.
As an example of this independence of meaningless conventions, let the
student turn from the Villa Medici and the Orti Farnesiani to a third
type of villa created at the same time—the Casino of Pope Pius IV in the
Vatican gardens, built in 1560 by the Neapolitan architect Pirro
Ligorio.
[Illustration: VILLA MEDICI, ROME]
This exquisite little garden-house lies in a hollow of the outer Vatican
gardens near the Via de’ Fondamenti. A hillside once clothed with a
grove rises abruptly behind it, and in this hillside a deep oblong cut
has been made and faced with a retaining-wall. In the space thus cleared
the villa is built, some ten or fifteen feet away from the wall, so that
its ground floor is cool and shaded without being damp. The building,
which is long and narrow, runs lengthwise into the cut, its long façades
being treated as sides, while it presents a narrow end as its front
elevation. The propriety of this plan will be seen when the restricted
surroundings are noted. In such a small space a larger structure would
have been disproportionate; and Ligorio hit on the only means of giving
to a house of considerable size the appearance of a mere
garden-pavilion.
Percier and Fontaine say that Ligorio built the Villa Pia “after the
manner of the ancient houses, of which he had made a special study.” The
influence of the Roman fresco-architecture is in fact visible in this
delicious little building, but so freely modified by the personal taste
of the architect that it has none of the rigidity of the
“reconstitution,” but seems rather the day-dream of an artist who has
saturated his mind with the past.
The façade is a mere pretext for the display of the most exquisite and
varied stucco ornamentation, in which motives borrowed from the Roman
_stucchi_ are harmonized with endless versatility. In spite of the
wealth of detail, it is saved from heaviness and confusion by its
delicacy of treatment and by a certain naïveté which makes it more akin
(fantastic as the comparison may seem) with the stuccoed façade of San
Bernardino at Perugia than with similar compositions of its own period.
The angels or genii in the oblong panels are curiously suggestive of
Agostino da Duccio, and the pale-yellow tarnished surface of the stucco
recalls the delicate hues of the Perugian chapel.
[Illustration: COURTYARD GATE OF THE VILLA PIA]
The ground floor consists of an open loggia of three arches on columns,
forming a kind of atrium curiously faced with an elaborate mosaic-work
of tiny round pebbles, stained in various colours and set in arabesques
and other antique patterns. The coigns of the façade are formed of this
same mosaic—a last touch of fancifulness where all is fantastic. The
barrel-vault of the atrium is a marvel of delicate _stuccature_,
evidently inspired by the work of Giovanni da Udine at the Villa Madama;
and at each end stands a splendid marble basin resting on winged
griffins. The fragile decorations of this exquisite loggia are open on
three sides to the weather, and many windows of the upper rooms (which
are decorated in the same style) are unshuttered and have broken panes,
so that this unique example of cinque-cento decoration is gradually
falling into ruin from mere exposure. The steps of the atrium, flanked
by marble Cupids on dolphins, lead to an oval paved court with a central
fountain in which the Cupid-motive is repeated. This court is enclosed
by a low wall with a seat running around it and surmounted by marble
vases of a beautiful tazza-like shape. Facing the loggia, the wall is
broken (as at the Villa di Papa Giulio) by a small pavilion resting on
an open arcade, with an attic adorned with stucco panels; while at the
sides, equidistant between the villa and the pavilion, are two vaulted
porticoes, with façades like arches of triumph, by means of which access
is obtained to curving ramps that lead to the lower level of the
gardens. These porticoes are also richly adorned with stucco panels, and
lined within with a mosaic-work of pebbles, forming niches for a row of
busts.
From the central pavilion one looks down on a tank at its base (the
pavilion being a story lower on its outer or garden side). This tank is
surmounted by a statue of Thetis on a rock-work throne, in a niche
formed in the basement of the pavilion. The tank encloses the pavilion
on three sides, like a moat, and the water, gushing from three niches,
overflows the low stone curb and drips on a paved walk slightly hollowed
to receive it—a device producing a wonderful effect of coolness and
superabundance of water.
The old gardens of the villa were on a level with the tank, and Falda’s
print shows the ingenuity of their planning. These gardens have now been
almost entirely destroyed, and the _bosco_ above the villa has been cut
down and replaced by bare grass-banks dotted with shrubs.
The Villa Pia has been thus minutely described, first, because it is
seldom accessible, and consequently little known; but chiefly because it
is virtually not a dwellinghouse, but a garden-house, and thus forms a
part of the actual composition of the garden. As such it stands alone in
Italian architecture, and Burckhardt, who notes how well its lavish
ornament is suited to a little pleasure-pavilion in a garden, is right
in describing it as the “most perfect retreat imaginable for a midsummer
afternoon.”
The outer gardens of the Vatican, in a corner of which the Villa Pia
lies, were probably laid out by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, who
died in 1546; and though much disfigured, they still show traces of
their original plan. The sunny sheltered terrace, espaliered with
lemons, is a good example of the “walk for the cold season” for which
Italian garden-architects always provided; and the large sunken
flower-garden surrounded by hanging woods is one of the earliest
instances of this effective treatment of the _giardino segreto_. In
fact, the Vatican may have suggested many features of the later
Renaissance garden, with its wide-spread plan which gradually came to
include the park.
[Illustration: VILLA PIA—IN THE GARDENS OF THE VATICAN]
The seventeenth century saw the development of this extended plan, but
saw also the decline of the architectural restraint and purity of detail
which mark the generation of Vignola and Sangallo. The Villa Borghese,
built in 1618 by the Flemish architect Giovanni Vasanzia (John of
Xanten), shows a complete departure from the old tradition. Its
elevation may indeed be traced to the influence of the garden-front of
the Villa Medici, which was probably the prototype of the gay
pleasure-house in which ornamental detail superseded architectural
composition; but the garden-architecture of the Villa Borghese, and the
treatment of its extensive grounds, show the complete triumph of the
baroque.
The grounds of the Villa Borghese, which include a park of several
hundred acres, were laid out by Domenico Savino and Girolamo Rainaldi,
while its waterworks are due to Giovanni Fontana, whose name is
associated with the great _jeux d’eaux_ of the villas at Frascati.
Falda’s plan shows that the grounds about the house have been little
changed. At each end of the villa is the oblong secret garden, not
sunken but walled; in front an entrance-court, at the back an open space
enclosed in a wall of clipped ilexes against which statues were set, and
containing a central fountain. Beyond the left-hand walled garden are
various dependencies, including an aviary. These little buildings,
boldly baroque in style, surcharged with stucco ornament, and not
without a certain Flemish heaviness of touch, have yet that gaiety, that
_imprévu_, which was becoming the distinguishing note of Roman
garden-architecture. On a larger scale they would be oppressive; but as
mere garden-houses, with their leafy background, and the picturesque
adjuncts of high walls, wrought-iron gates, vases and statues, they have
an undeniable charm.
[Illustration: GATEWAY OF THE VILLA BORGHESE]
The plan of the Borghese park has been the subject of much discussion.
Falda’s print shows only the vicinity of the villa, and it has never
been decided when the outlying grounds were laid out and how much they
have been modified. At present the park, with its romantic groves of
umbrella-pine, its ilex avenues, lake and amphitheatre, its sham ruins
and little buildings scattered on irregular grassy knolls, has the
appearance of a _jardin anglais_ laid out at the end of the eighteenth
century. Herr Tuckermann, persuaded that this park is the work of
Giovanni Fontana, sees in him the originator of the “sentimental”
English and German landscape-gardens, with their hermitages, mausoleums
and temples of Friendship; but Percier and Fontaine, from whose plan of
the park his inference is avowedly drawn, state that the grounds were
much modified in 1789 by Jacob Moore, an English landscape-gardener, and
by Pietro Camporesi of Rome. Herr Gurlitt, who seems to have overlooked
this statement, declares himself unable to pronounce on the date of this
“creation already touched with the feeling of sentimentality”; but
Burckhardt, who is always accurate, says that the hippodrome and the
temple of Æsculapius are of late date, and that the park was remodelled
in the style of Poussin’s landscapes in 1849.
About thirty years later than the Villa Borghese there arose its rival
among the great Roman country-seats, the Villa Belrespiro or Pamphily,
on the Janiculan. The Villa Pamphily, designed by Alessandro Algardi of
Bologna, is probably the best known and most admired of Roman _maisons
de plaisance_, and its incomparable ilex avenues and pine-woods, its
rolling meadows and wide views over the Campagna, have enchanted many to
whom its architectural beauties would not appeal.
The house, with its incrustations of antique bas-reliefs, cleverly
adapted in the style of the Villa Medici, but with far greater richness
and license of ornament, is a perfect example of the seventeenth-century
villa, or rather casino; for it was really intended, not for a
residence, but for a suburban lodge. It is flanked by lateral terraces,
and the garden-front is a story lower than the other, so that the
balcony of the first floor looks down on a great sunken garden, enclosed
in the retaining-walls of the terraces, and richly adorned with statues
in niches, fountains and _parterres de broderie_. Thence a double
stairway descends to what was once the central portion of the gardens, a
great amphitheatre bounded by ilex-woods, with a _théâtre d’eaux_ and
stately flights of steps leading up to terraced ilex-groves; but all
this lower garden was turned into an English park in the first half of
the nineteenth century. One of the finest of Roman gardens fell a
sacrifice to this senseless change; for in beauty of site, in grandeur
of scale, and in the wealth of its Roman sculpture, the Villa Pamphily
was unmatched. Even now it is full of interesting fragments; but the
juxtaposition of an undulating lawn and dotty shrubberies to the stately
garden-architecture about the villa has utterly destroyed the unity of
the composition.
There is a legend to the effect that Le Nôtre laid out the park of the
Villa Pamphily when he came to Rome in 1678; but Percier and Fontaine,
who declare that there is nothing to corroborate the story, point out
that the Villa Pamphily was begun over thirty years before Le Nôtre’s
visit. Absence of proof, however, means little to the average French
author, eager to vindicate Le Nôtre’s claim to being the father not only
of French, but of Italian landscape-architecture; and M. Riat, in “L’Art
des Jardins,” repeats the legend of the Villa Pamphily, while Dussieux,
in his “Artists Français à l’Etranger,” anxious to heap further honours
on his compatriot, actually ascribes to him the plan of the Villa
Albani, which was laid out by Pietro Nolli nearly two hundred years
after Le Nôtre’s visit to Rome! Apparently the whole story of Le Nôtre’s
laying out of Italian gardens is based on the fact that he remodelled
some details of the Villa Ludovisi; but one need only compare the dates
of his gardens with those of the principal Roman villas to see that he
was the pupil and not the master of the great Italian garden-architects.
[Illustration: VILLA CHIGI, ROME]
The last great country house built for a Roman cardinal is the villa
outside the Porta Salaria which Carlo Marchionne built in 1746 for
Cardinal Albani. In spite of its late date, the house still conforms to
the type of Roman _villa suburbana_ which originated with the Villa
Medici; and it is interesting to observe that the Roman architects,
having hit on so appropriate and original a style, did not fear to
continue it in spite of the growing tendency toward a lifeless
classicalism.
Cardinal Albani was a passionate collector of antique sculpture, and the
villa, having been built to display his treasures, is appropriately
planned with an open arcade between rusticated pilasters, which runs the
whole length of the façade on the ground floor, and is continued by a
long portico at each end. The grounds, laid out by Antonio Nolli, have
been much extolled. Burckhardt sees in them traces of the reaction of
French eighteenth-century gardening on the Italian school; but may it
not rather be that, the Villa Albani being, by a rare exception, built
on level ground, the site inevitably suggested a treatment similar to
the French? It is hard to find anything specifically French, any motive
which has not been seen again and again in Italy, in the plan of the
Albani gardens; and their most charming feature, the long ilex-walk
connecting the villa with the _bosco_, exemplifies the Italian habit of
providing shady access from the house to the wood. Dussieux, at any
rate, paid Le Nôtre no compliment in attributing to him the plan of the
Villa Albani; for the great French artist contrived to put more poetry
into the flat horizons of Vaux and Versailles than Nolli has won from
the famous view of the Campagna which is said to have governed the
planning of the Villa Albani.
The grounds are laid out in formal quincunxes of clipped ilex, but
before the house lies a vast sunken garden enclosed in terraces. The
farther end of the garden is terminated by a semicircular portico called
the _Caffè_, built later than the house, under the direction of
Winckelmann; and in this structure, and in the architecture of the
terraces, one sees the heavy touch of that neo-Grecianism which was to
crush the life out of eighteenth-century art. The gardens of the Villa
Albani seem to have been decorated by an archæologist rather than an
artist. It is interesting to note that antique sculpture, when boldly
combined with a living art, is one of the most valuable adjuncts of the
Italian garden; whereas, set in an artificial evocation of its own past,
it loses all its vitality and becomes as lifeless as its background.
[Illustration: PARTERRES ON TERRACE, VILLA BELRESPIRO (PAMPHILY-DORIA),
ROME]
One of the most charming of the smaller Roman villas lies outside the
Porta Salaria, a mile or two beyond the Villa Albani. This is the
country-seat of Prince Don Lodovico Chigi. In many respects it recalls
the Sienese type of villa. At the entrance, the highroad is enlarged
into a semicircle, backed by a wall with busts; and on the axis of the
iron gates one sees first a court flanked by box-gardens, then an open
archway running through the centre of the house, and beyond that, the
vista of a long walk enclosed in high box-hedges and terminating in
another semicircle with statues, backed by an ilex-planted mount. The
plan has all the compactness and charm of the Tuscan and Umbrian villas.
The level ground about the house is subdivided into eight square
box-hedged gardens, four on a side, enclosing symmetrical box-bordered
plots. Beyond these are two little groves with statues and benches. The
ground falls away in farm-land below this level, leaving only the long
central alley which appears to lead to other gardens, but which really
ends in the afore-mentioned semicircle, behind which is a similar alley,
running at right angles, and leading directly to the fields.
At the other end of Rome lies the only small Roman garden comparable in
charm with Prince Chigi’s. This is the Priorato, or Villa of the Knights
of Malta, near Santa Sabina, on the Aventine. Piranesi, in 1765,
remodelled and decorated the old chapel adjoining the house; and it is
said that he also laid out the garden. If he did so, it shows how late
the tradition of the Renaissance garden lingered in Italy; for there is
no trace of romantic influences in the Priorato. The grounds are small,
for the house stands on a steep ledge overlooking the Tiber, whence
there is a glorious view of St. Peter’s and the Janiculan. The designer
of the garden evidently felt that it must be a mere setting to this
view; and accordingly he laid out a straight walk, walled with box and
laurel and running from the gate to the terrace above the river. The
prospect framed in this green tunnel is one of the sights of Rome; and,
by a touch peculiarly Italian, the keyhole of the gate has been so
placed as to take it in. To the left of the pleached walk lies a small
flower-garden, planted with square-cut box-trees, and enclosed in a high
wall with niches containing statues: a real “secret garden,” full of
sunny cloistered stillness, in restful contrast to the wide prospect
below the terrace.
The grounds behind the Palazzo Colonna belong to another type, and are
an interesting example of the treatment of a city garden, especially
valuable now that so many of the great gardens within the walls of Rome
have been destroyed.
The Colonna palace stands at the foot of the Quirinal Hill, and the
gardens are built on the steep slope behind it, being entered by a
stately gateway from the Via Quirinale. On this upper level there is a
charming rectangular box-garden, with flower-plots about a central
basin. Thence one descends to two narrow terraces, one beneath the
other, planted with box and ilex, and adorned with ancient marbles. Down
the centre, starting from the upper garden, there is an elaborate
_château d’eau_ of baroque design, with mossy urns and sea-gods,
terminating in a basin fringed with ferns; and beneath this central
composition the garden ends in a third wide terrace, planted with
square-clipped ilexes, which look from above like a level floor of
verdure. Graceful stone bridges connect this lowest terrace with the
first-floor windows of the palace, which is divided from its garden by a
narrow street; and the whole plan is an interesting example of the
beauty and variety of effect which may be produced on a small steep
piece of ground.
Of the other numerous gardens which once crowned the hills of Rome, but
few fragments remain. The Villa Celimontana, or Mattei, on the Cælian,
still exists, but its grounds have been so Anglicized that it is
interesting chiefly from its site and from its associations with St.
Philip Neri, whose seat beneath the giant ilexes is still preserved. The
magnificent Villa Ludovisi has vanished, leaving only, amid a network of
new streets, the Casino of the Aurora and a few beautiful fragments of
architecture incorporated in the courtyard of the ugly Palazzo
Margherita; and the equally famous Villa Negroni was swept away to make
room for the Piazza delle Terme and the Grand Hôtel. The Villa
Sacchetti, on the slope of Monte Mario, is in ruins; in ruins the old
hunting-lodge of Cecchignola, in the Campagna, on the way to the Divino
Amore. These and many others are gone or going; but at every turn the
watchful eye still lights on some lingering fragment of old
garden-art—some pillared gateway or fluted _vasca_ or broken statue
cowering in its niche—all testifying to what Rome’s crown of gardens
must have been, and still full of suggestion to the student of her past.
[Illustration: VIEW FROM LOWER GARDEN, VILLA BELRESPIRO
(PAMPHILY-DORIA), ROME]
VILLAS NEAR ROME
[Illustration: VILLA D’ESTE, TIVOLI]
IV
VILLAS NEAR ROME
I
CAPRAROLA AND LANTE
The great cardinals did not all build their villas within sight of St.
Peter’s. One of them, Alexander Farnese, chose a site above the mountain
village of Caprarola, which looks forth over the Etrurian plain strewn
with its ancient cities—Nepi, Orte and Cività Castellana—to Soracte,
rising solitary in the middle distance, and the encircling line of
snow-touched Apennines.
There is nothing in all Italy like Caprarola. Burckhardt calls it
“perhaps the highest example of restrained majesty which secular
architecture has achieved”; and Herr Gurlitt makes the interesting
suggestion that Vignola, in building it, broke away from the traditional
palace-architecture of Italy and sought his inspiration in France.
“Caprarola,” he says, “shows the northern castle in the most modern form
it had then attained.... We have to do here with one of the fortified
residences rarely seen save in the north, but doubtless necessary in a
neighbourhood exposed to the ever-increasing dangers of brigandage.
Italy, indeed, built castles and fortified works, but the
fortress-palace, equally adapted to peace and war, was almost unknown.”
The numerous illustrated publications on Caprarola make it unnecessary
to describe its complex architecture in detail. It is sufficient to say
that its five bastions are surrounded by a deep moat, across which a
light bridge at the back of the palace leads to the lower garden. To
pass from the threatening façade to the wide-spread beauty of pleached
walks, fountains and grottoes, brings vividly before one the curious
contrasts of Italian country life in the transition period of the
sixteenth century. Outside, one pictures the cardinal’s soldiers and
_bravi_ lounging on the great platform above the village; while within,
one has a vision of noble ladies and their cavaliers sitting under
rose-arbours or strolling between espaliered lemon-trees, discussing a
Greek manuscript or a Roman bronze, or listening to the last sonnet of
the cardinal’s court poet.
The lower garden of Caprarola is a mere wreck of overgrown box-parterres
and crumbling wall and balustrade. Plaster statues in all stages of
decay stand in the niches or cumber the paths; fruit-trees have been
planted in the flower-beds, and the maidenhair withers in grottoes where
the water no longer flows. The architectural detail of the fountains and
arches is sumptuous and beautiful, but the outline of the general plan
is not easy to trace; and one must pass out of this enclosure and climb
through hanging oak-woods to a higher level to gain an idea of what the
gardens once were.
[Illustration: VILLA CAPRAROLA]
Beyond the woods a broad _tapis vert_ leads to a level space with a
circular fountain sunk in turf. Partly surrounding this is an
architectural composition of rusticated arcades, between which a
_château d’eau_ descends the hillside from a grotto surmounted by two
mighty river-gods, and forming the central motive of a majestic double
stairway of rusticated stonework. This leads up to the highest terrace,
which is crowned by Vignola’s exquisite casino, surely the most
beautiful garden-house in Italy. The motive of the arcades and stairway,
though fine in itself, may be criticized as too massive and important to
be in keeping with the delicate little building above; but once on the
upper terrace, the lack of proportion is no longer seen and all the
surroundings are harmonious. The composition is simple: around the
casino, with its light arcades raised on a broad flight of steps,
stretches a level box-garden with fountains, enclosed in a low wall
surmounted by the famous Canephoræ seen in every picture of
Caprarola—huge sylvan figures half emerging from their stone sheaths,
some fierce or solemn, some full of rustic laughter. The audacity of
placing that row of fantastic terminal divinities against reaches of
illimitable air girdled in mountains gives an indescribable touch of
poetry to the upper garden of Caprarola. There is a quality of
inevitableness about it—one feels of it, as of certain great verse, that
it could not have been otherwise, that, in Vasari’s happy phrase, it was
_born, not built_.
Not more than twelve miles from Caprarola lies the other famous villa
attributed to Vignola, and which one wishes he may indeed have built, if
only to show how a great artist can vary his resources in adapting
himself to a new theme. The Villa Lante, at Bagnaia, near Viterbo,
appears to have been the work not of one cardinal, but of four. Raphael
Riario, Cardinal Bishop of Viterbo, began it toward the end of the
fifteenth century, and the work, carried on by his successors in the
see, Cardinals Ridolfi and Gambara, was finally completed in 1588 by
Cardinal Montalto, nephew of Sixtus V, who bought the estate from the
bishops of Viterbo and bequeathed it to the Holy See. Percier and
Fontaine believe that several architects collaborated in the work, but
its unity of composition shows that the general scheme must have
originated in one mind, and Herr Gurlitt thinks there is nothing to
disprove that Vignola was its author.
[Illustration: THE CASINO, VILLA FARNESE, CAPRAROLA]
Lante, like Caprarola, has been exhaustively sketched and photographed,
but so perfect is it, so far does it surpass, in beauty, in
preservation, and in the quality of garden-magic, all the other great
pleasure-houses of Italy, that the student of garden-craft may always
find fresh inspiration in its study. If Caprarola is “a garden to look
out from,” Lante is one “to look into,” not in the sense that it is
enclosed, for its terraces command a wide horizon; but the pleasant
landscape surrounding it is merely accessory to the gardens, a last
touch of loveliness where all is lovely.
The designer of Lante understood this, and perceived that, the
surroundings being unobtrusive, he might elaborate the foreground. The
flower-garden occupies a level space in front of the twin pavilions; for
instead of one villa there are two at Lante, absolutely identical, and
connected by a _rampe douce_ which ascends between them to an upper
terrace. This peculiar arrangement is probably due to the fact that
Cardinal Montalto, who built the second pavilion, found there was no
other way of providing more house-room without disturbing the plan of
the grounds. The design of the flower-garden is intricate and beautiful,
and its box-bordered parterres surround one of the most famous and
beautiful fountains in Italy. The abundance of water at Lante enabled
the designer to produce a great variety of effects in what Germans call
the “water-art,” and nowhere was his invention happier than in planning
this central fountain. It stands in a square tank or basin, surrounded
by a balustrade, and crossed by four little bridges which lead to a
circular balustraded walk, enclosing an inner basin from the centre of
which rises the fountain. Bridges also cross from the circular walk to
the platform on which the fountain is built, so that one may stand under
the arch of the water-jets, and look across the garden through a mist of
spray.
Lante, doubly happy in its site, is as rich in shade as in water, and
the second terrace, behind the pavilions, is planted with ancient
plane-trees. Above this terrace rise three others, all wooded with plane
and ilex, and down the centre, from the woods above, rushes the cascade
which feeds the basin in the flower-garden. The terraces, with their
balustrades and obelisks and double flights of steps, form a stately
setting to this central _château d’eau_, through which the water gushes
by mossy steps and channels to a splendid central composition of
superimposed basins flanked by recumbent river-gods.
All the garden-architecture at Lante merits special study. The twin
pavilions seem plain and insignificant after the brilliant elevations of
the great Roman villas, but regarded as part of the garden-scheme, and
not as dominating it, they fall into their proper place, and are seen to
be good examples of the severe but pure style of the early cinque-cento.
Specially interesting also is the treatment of the retaining-wall which
faces the entrance to the grounds; and the great gates of the
flower-gardens, and the fountains and garden-houses on the upper
terraces, are all happy instances of Renaissance garden-art untouched by
_barocchismo_.
[Illustration: VILLA LANTE, BAGNAIA]
At Lante, also, one sees one of the earliest examples of the inclusion
of the woodland in the garden-scheme. All the sixteenth-century villas
had small groves adjacent to the house, and the shade of the natural
woodland was used, if possible, as a backing to the gardens; but at the
Villa Lante it is boldly worked into the general scheme, the terraces
and garden-architecture are skilfully blent with it, and its recesses
are pierced by grass alleys leading to clearings where pools surrounded
by stone seats slumber under the spreading branches.
The harmonizing of wood and garden is one of the characteristic features
of the villas at Frascati; but as these are mostly later in date than
the Lante grounds, priority of invention may be claimed for the designer
of the latter. It was undoubtedly from the Italian park of the
Renaissance that Le Nôtre learned the use of the woodland as an adjunct
to the garden; but in France these parks had for the most part to be
planted, whereas in Italy the garden-architect could use the natural
woodland, which was usually hilly, and the effects thus produced were
far more varied and interesting than those possible in the flat
artificial parks of France.
II
VILLA D’ESTE
Of the three great villas built by cardinals beyond the immediate
outskirts of Rome, the third and the most famous is the Villa d’Este at
Tivoli.
Begun before 1540 by the Cardinal Bishop of Cordova, the villa became
the property of Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, son of Alfonso I of Ferrara,
who carried on its embellishment at the cost of over a million Roman
scudi. Thence it passed successively to two other cardinals of the house
of Este, who continued its adornment, and finally, in the seventeenth
century, was inherited by the ducal house of Modena.
The villa, an unfinished barrack-like building, stands on a piazza at
one end of the town of Tivoli, above gardens which descend the steep
hillside to the gorge of the Anio. These gardens have excited so much
admiration that little thought has been given to the house, though it is
sufficiently interesting to merit attention. It is said to have been
built by Pirro Ligorio, and surprising as it seems that this huge
featureless pile should have been designed by the creator of the Casino
del Papa, yet one observes that the rooms are decorated with the same
fantastic pebble-work used in such profusion at the Villa Pia. In
extenuation of the ugliness of the Villa d’Este it should, moreover, be
remembered that its long façade is incomplete, save for the splendid
central portico; and also that, while the Villa Pia was intended as
shelter for a summer afternoon, the great palace at Tivoli was planned
to house a cardinal and his guests, including, it is said, “a suite of
two hundred and fifty gentlemen of the noblest blood of Italy.” When one
pictures such a throng, with their innumerable retainers, it is easy to
understand why the Villa d’Este had to be expanded out of all likeness
to an ordinary country house.
[Illustration: THE POOL, VILLA D’ESTE, TIVOLI]
The plan is ingenious and interesting. From the village square only a
high blank wall is visible. Through a door in this wall one passes into
a frescoed corridor which leads to a court enclosed in an open arcade,
with fountains in rusticated niches. From a corner of the court a fine
intramural stairway descends to what is, on the garden side, the _piano
nobile_ of the villa. On this side, looking over the gardens, is a long
enfilade of rooms, gaily frescoed by the Zuccheri and their school; and
behind the rooms runs a vaulted corridor built against the side of the
hill, and lighted by bull’s-eyes in its roof. This corridor has lost its
frescoes, but preserves a line of niches decorated in coloured pebbles
and stucco-work, with gaily painted stucco caryatids supporting the
arches; and as each niche contains a semicircular fountain, the whole
length of the corridor must once have rippled with running water.
The central room opens on the great two-storied portico or loggia,
whence one descends by an outer stairway to a terrace running the length
of the building, and terminated at one end by an ornamental wall, at the
other by an open loggia overlooking the Campagna. From this upper
terrace, with its dense wall of box and laurel, one looks down on the
towering cypresses and ilexes of the lower gardens. The grounds are not
large, but the impression produced is full of a tragic grandeur. The
villa towers above so high and bare, the descent from terrace to terrace
is so long and steep, there are such depths of mystery in the infinite
green distances and in the cypress-shaded pools of the lower garden,
that one has a sense of awe rather than of pleasure in descending from
one level to another of darkly rustling green. But it is the omnipresent
rush of water which gives the Este gardens their peculiar character.
From the Anio, drawn up the hillside at incalculable cost and labour, a
thousand rills gush downward, terrace by terrace, channelling the stone
rails of the balusters, leaping from step to step, dripping into mossy
conchs, flashing in spray from the horns of sea-gods and the jaws of
mythical monsters, or forcing themselves in irrepressible overflow down
the ivy-matted banks. The whole length of the second terrace is edged by
a deep stone channel, into which the stream drips by countless outlets
over a quivering fringe of maidenhair. Every side path or flight of
steps is accompanied by its sparkling rill, every niche in the
retaining-walls has its water-pouring nymph or gushing urn; the solemn
depths of green reverberate with the tumult of innumerable streams. “The
Anio,” as Herr Tuckermann says, “throbs through the whole organism of
the garden like its inmost vital principle.”
[Illustration: VILLA LANTE, BAGNAIA]
The gardens of the Villa d’Este were probably begun by Pirro Ligorio,
and, as Herr Gurlitt thinks, continued later by Giacomo della Porta. It
will doubtless never be known how much Ligorio owed to the taste of
Orazio Olivieri, the famous hydraulic engineer, who raised the Anio to
the hilltop and organized its distribution through the grounds. But it
is apparent that the whole composition was planned about the central
fact of the rushing Anio: that the gardens were to be, as it were, an
organ on which the water played. The result is extraordinarily romantic
and beautiful, and the versatility with which the stream is used, the
varying effects won from it, bear witness to the imaginative feeling of
the designer.
When all has been said in praise of the poetry and charm of the Este
gardens, it must be owned that from the architect’s standpoint they are
less satisfying than those of the other great cinque-cento villas. The
plan is worthy of all praise, but the details are too complicated, and
the ornament is either trivial or cumbrous. So inferior is the
architecture to that of the Lante gardens and Caprarola that Burckhardt
was probably right in attributing much of it to the seventeenth century.
Here for the first time one feels the heavy touch of the baroque. The
fantastic mosaic and stucco temple containing the water-organ above the
great cascade, the arches of triumph, the celebrated “grotto of
Arethusa,” the often-sketched fountain on the second terrace, all seem
pitiably tawdry when compared with the garden-architecture of Raphael or
Vignola. Some of the details of the composition are absolutely
puerile—such as the toy model of an ancient city, thought to be old
Rome, and perhaps suggested by the miniature “Valley of Canopus” in the
neighbouring Villa of Hadrian; and there are endless complications of
detail, where the earlier masters would have felt the need of breadth
and simplicity. Above all, there is a want of harmony between the
landscape and its treatment. The baroque garden-architecture of Italy is
not without charm, and even a touch of the grotesque has its attraction
in the flat gardens of Lombardy or the sunny Euganeans; but the
cypress-groves of the Villa d’Este are too solemn, and the Roman
landscape is too august, to suffer the nearness of the trivial.
III
FRASCATI
The most famous group of villas in the Roman country-side lies on the
hill above Frascati. Here, in the middle of the sixteenth century,
Flaminio Ponzio built the palace of Mondragone for Cardinal Scipione
Borghese.[4] Aloft among hanging ilex-woods rises the mighty pile on its
projecting basement. This fortress-like ground floor, with high-placed
grated windows, is common to all the earlier villas on the
brigand-haunted slopes of Frascati. An avenue of ancient ilexes (now
cruelly cut down) leads up through the park to the villa, which is
preceded by a great walled courtyard, with fountains in the usual
rusticated niches. To the right of this court is another, flanked by the
splendid loggia of Vignola, with the Borghese eagles and dragons
alternating in its sculptured spandrels, and a vaulted ceiling adorned
with _stucchi_—one of the most splendid pieces of garden-architecture in
Italy.
Footnote 4:
The villa was begun by Martino Lunghi the Elder, in 1567, for the
Cardinal Marco d’Altemps, enlarged by Pope Gregory VII, and completed
by Paul V and his nephew, Cardinal Scipione Borghese. See Gustav Ebe,
“Die Spätrenaissance.”
[Illustration: CASCADE AND ROTUNDA, VILLA ALDOBRANDINI, FRASCATI]
At the other end of this inner court, which was formerly a
flower-garden, Giovanni Fontana, whose name is identified with the
fountains of Frascati, constructed a _théâtre d’eau_, raised above the
court, and approached by a double ramp elaborately inlaid in mosaic.
This ornate composition, with a series of mosaic niches simulating
arcaded galleries in perspective, is now in ruins, and the most
impressive thing about Mondragone is the naked majesty of its great
terrace, unadorned save by a central fountain and two tall twisted
columns, and looking out over the wooded slopes of the park to Frascati,
the Campagna, and the sea.
On a neighbouring height lies the more famous Villa Aldobrandini, built
for the cardinal of that name by Giacomo della Porta in 1598, and said
by Evelyn, who saw it fifty years later, “to surpass the most delicious
places ... for its situation, elegance, plentiful water, groves, ascents
and prospects.”
The house itself does not bear comparison with such buildings as the
Villa Medici or the Villa Pamphily. In style it shows the first stage of
the baroque, before that school had found its formula. Like all the
hill-built villas of Frascati, it is a story lower at the back than in
front; and the roof of this lower story forms at each end a terrace
level with the first-floor windows. These terraces are adorned with two
curious turrets, resting on baroque basements and crowned by
swallow-tailed crenellations—a fantastic reversion to mediævalism, more
suggestive of “Strawberry Hill Gothic” than of the Italian seventeenth
century.
Orazio Olivieri and Giovanni Fontana are said to have collaborated with
Giacomo della Porta in designing the princely gardens of the villa.
Below the house a series of splendid stone terraces lead to a long
_tapis vert_, with an ilex avenue down its centre, which descends to the
much-admired grille of stone and wrought-iron enclosing the grounds at
the foot of the hill. Behind the villa, in a semicircle cut out of the
hillside, is Fontana’s famous water-theatre, of which Evelyn gives a
picturesque description: “Just behind the Palace ... rises a high hill
or mountain all overclad with tall wood, and so formed by nature as if
it had been cut out by art, from the summit of which falls a cascade ...
precipitating into a large theatre of water. Under this is an artificial
grot wherein are curious rocks, hydraulic organs, and all sorts of
singing birds, moving and chirping by force of the water, with several
other pageants and surprising inventions. In the centre of one of these
rooms rises a copper ball that continually dances about three feet above
the pavement, by virtue of a wind conveyed secretly to a hole beneath
it; with many other devices for wetting the unwary spectators.... In one
of these theatres of water is an Atlas spouting, ... and another monster
makes a terrible roaring with a horn; but, above all, the representation
of a storm is most natural, with such fury of rain, wind and thunder as
one would imagine oneself in some extreme tempest.”
[Illustration: GARDEN OF VILLA LANCELLOTTI, FRASCATI]
Atlas and the monster are silent, and the tempest has ceased to roar;
but the architecture of the great water-theatre remains intact. It has
been much extolled by so good a critic as Herr Gurlitt, yet compared
with Vignola’s loggia at Mondragone or the terrace of the Orti
Farnesiani, it is a heavy and uninspired production. It suffers also
from too great proximity to the villa, and from being out of scale with
the latter’s modest elevation: there is a distinct lack of harmony
between the two façades. But even Evelyn could not say too much in
praise of the glorious descent of the cascade from the hilltop. It was
in the guidance of rushing water that the Roman garden-architects of the
seventeenth century showed their poetic feeling and endless versatility;
and the architecture of the upper garden at the Aldobrandini merits all
the admiration which has been wasted on its pompous theatre.
Another example of a _théâtre d’eau_, less showy but far more beautiful,
is to be seen at the neighbouring Villa Conti (now Torlonia). Of the
formal gardens of this villa there remain only the vast terraced
stairways which now lead to an ilex-grove level with the first story of
the villa. This grove is intersected by mossy alleys, leading to
circular clearings where fountains overflow their wide stone basins, and
benches are ranged about in the deep shade. The central alley, on the
axis of the villa, leads through the wood to a great grassy semicircle
at the foot of an ilex-clad hill. The base of the hillside is faced with
a long arcade of twenty niches, divided by pilasters, and each
containing a fountain. In the centre is a great baroque pile of
rock-work, from which the spray tosses into a semicircular basin, which
also receives the cascade descending from the hilltop. This cascade is
the most beautiful example of fountain-architecture in Frascati. It
falls by a series of inclined stone ledges into four oval basins, each a
little wider than the one above it. On each side, stone steps which
follow the curves of the basins lead to a grassy plateau above, with a
balustraded terrace overhanging the rush of the cascade. The upper
plateau is enclosed in ilexes, and in its centre is one of the most
beautiful fountains in Italy—a large basin surrounded by a richly
sculptured balustrade. The plan of this fountain is an interesting
example of the variety which the Italian garden-architects gave to the
outline of their basins. Even in the smaller gardens the plan of these
basins is varied with taste and originality; and the small
wall-fountains are also worthy of careful study.
[Illustration: CASINO, VILLA FALCONIERI, FRASCATI]
Among the villas of Frascati there are two, less famous than the
foregoing, but even more full of a romantic charm. One is the Villa
Muti, a mile or two beyond the town, on the way to Grotta Ferrata. From
the gate three ancient ilex avenues lead to the villa, the central one
being on the axis of the lowest garden. The ground rises gradually
toward the house, and the space between the ilex avenues was probably
once planted in formal _boschi_, as fragments of statuary are still seen
among the trees. The house, set against the hillside, with the usual
fortress-like basement, is two stories lower toward the _basse-cour_
than toward the gardens. The avenue to the left of the entrance leads to
a small garden, probably once a court, in front of the villa, whence one
looks down over a mighty retaining-wall at the _basse-cour_ on the left.
On the right, divided from the court by a low wall surmounted by vases,
lies the most beautiful box-garden in Italy, laid out in an elaborate
geometrical design, and enclosed on three sides by high clipped walls of
box and laurel, and on the fourth by a retaining-wall which sustains an
upper garden. Nothing can surpass the hushed and tranquil beauty of the
scene. There are no flowers or bright colours—only the contrasted tints
of box and ilex and laurel, and the vivid green of the moss spreading
over damp paths and ancient stonework.
In the upper garden, which is of the same length but narrower, the
box-parterres are repeated. This garden, at the end nearest the villa,
has a narrow raised terrace, with an elaborate architectural
retaining-wall, containing a central fountain in stucco-work. Steps
flanked by statues lead up to this fountain, and thence one passes by
another flight of steps to the third, or upper, garden, which is level
with the back of the villa. This third garden, the largest of the three,
was once also laid out in formal parterres and _bosquets_ set with
statues, and though it has now been remodelled in the landscape style,
its old plan may still be traced. Before it was destroyed the three
terraces of the Villa Muti must have formed the most enchanting garden
in Frascati, and their plan and architectural details are worthy of
careful study, for they belong to the rare class of small Italian
gardens where grandeur was less sought for than charm and sylvan
seclusion, and where the Latin passion for the monumental was
subordinated to a desire for moderation and simplicity.
[Illustration: THE ENTRANCE, VILLA FALCONIERI, FRASCATI]
The Villa Falconieri, on the hillside below Mondragone, is remarkable
for the wealth of its garden-architecture. The grounds are entered by
two splendid stone gateways, the upper one being on an axis with the
villa. A grass avenue leads from this gate to an arch of triumph, a
rusticated elevation with niches and statues, surmounted by the
inscription “Horatius Falconieris,” and giving access to the inner
grounds. Hence a straight avenue runs between formal ilex-groves to the
court before the house. On the right, above the _bosco_, is a lofty wall
of rock, picturesquely overgrown by shrubs and creepers, with busts and
other fragments of antique sculpture set here and there on its
projecting ledges. This natural cliff sustains an upper plateau, where
there is an oblong artificial water (called “the lake”) enclosed in
rock-work and surrounded by a grove of mighty cypresses. From this shady
solitude the wooded slopes of the lower park are reached by a double
staircase so simple and majestic in design that it harmonizes perfectly
with the sylvan wildness which characterizes the landscape. This
staircase should be studied as an example of the way in which the
Italian garden-architects could lay aside exuberance and whimsicality
when their work was intended to blend with some broad or solemn effect
of nature.
The grounds of the Villa Falconieri were laid out by Cardinal Ruffini in
the first half of the sixteenth century, but the villa was not built
till 1648. It is one of the most charming creations of Borromini, that
brilliant artist in whom baroque architecture found its happiest
expression; and the Villa Falconieri makes one regret that he did not
oftener exercise his fancy in the construction of such pleasure-houses.
The elevation follows the tradition of the Roman _villa suburbana_. The
centre of the ground floor is an arcaded loggia, the roof of which forms
a terrace to the recessed story above; while the central motive of this
first story is another semicircular recess, adorned with stucco ornament
and surmounted by a broken pediment. The attic story is set still
farther back, so that its balustraded roof-line forms a background for
the richly decorated façade, and the building, though large, thus
preserves the airy look and lightness of proportion which had come to be
regarded as suited to the suburban pleasure-house.
To the right of the villa, the composition is prolonged by a gateway
with coupled columns surmounted by stone dogs, and leading from the
forecourt to the adjoining _basse-cour_. About the latter are grouped a
number of low farm-buildings, to which a touch of the baroque gives
picturesqueness. In the charm of its elevation, and in the happy
juxtaposition of garden-walls and outbuildings, the Villa Falconieri
forms the most harmonious and successful example of garden-architecture
in Frascati.
[Illustration: VILLA LANCELLOTTI, FRASCATI]
The elevation which most resembles it is that of the Villa Lancellotti.
Here the house, which is probably nearly a century earlier, shows the
same happy use of the open loggia, which in this case forms the central
feature of the first story, above a stately pedimented doorway. The
loggia is surmounted by a kind of square-headed gable crowned by a
balustrade with statues, and the façade on each side of this central
composition is almost Tuscan in its severity. Before the house lies a
beautiful box-garden of intricate design, enclosed in high walls of
ilex, with the inevitable _théâtre d’eau_ at its farther end. This is a
semicircular composition, with statues in niches between rusticated
pilasters, and a central grotto whence a fountain pours into a wide
balustraded basin; the whole being surmounted by another balustrade,
with a statue set on each pier. It is harmonious and dignified in
design, but unfortunately a fresh coating of brown and yellow paint has
destroyed that exquisite _patina_ by means of which the climate of Italy
effects the gradual blending of nature and architecture.
GENOESE VILLAS
[Illustration: VILLA SCASSI, GENOA]
V
GENOESE VILLAS
Genoa, one of the most splendour-loving cities in Italy, had almost
always to import her splendour. In reading Soprani’s “Lives of the
Genoese Painters, Sculptors and Architects,” one is struck by the fact
that, with few exceptions, these worthies were Genoese only in the sense
of having placed their talents at the service of the merchant princes
who reared the marble city above its glorious harbour.
The strength of the race lay in other directions; but, as is often the
case with what may be called people of secondary artistic instincts, the
Genoese pined for the beauty they could not create, and in the sixteenth
century they called artists from all parts of Italy to embody their
conceptions of magnificence. Two of the most famous of these, Fra
Montorsoli and Pierin del Vaga, came from Florence, Galeazzo Alessi from
Perugia, Giovanni Battista Castello from Bergamo; and it is to the
genius of these four men, sculptor, painter, architect, and _stuccatore_
(and each more or less versed in the crafts of the others), that Genoa
owes the greater part of her magnificence.
Fra Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli, the Florentine, must here be named
first, since his chief work, the Palazzo Andrea Doria, built in 1529, is
the earliest of the great Genoese villas. It is also the most familiar
to modern travelers, for the other beautiful country houses which
formerly crowned the heights above Genoa, from Pegli to Nervi, have now
been buried in the growth of manufacturing suburbs, so that only the
diligent seeker after villa-architecture will be likely to come upon
their ruined gardens and peeling stucco façades among the factory
chimneys of Sampierdarena or the squalid tenements of San Fruttuoso.
The great Andrea Doria, “Admiral of the Navies of the Pope, the Emperor,
the King of France and the Republic of Genoa,” in 1521 bought the villas
Lomellini and Giustiniani, on the western shore of the port of Genoa,
and throwing the two estates together, created a villa wherein “to enjoy
in peace the fruits of an honoured life”—so runs the inscription on the
outer wall of the house.
Fra Montorsoli was first and foremost a sculptor, a pupil of
Michelangelo’s, a plastic artist to whom architecture was probably of
secondary interest. Partly perhaps for this reason, and also because the
Villa Doria was in great measure designed to show the frescoes of Pierin
del Vaga, there is little elaboration in its treatment. Yet the
continuous open loggia on the ground floor, and the projecting side
colonnades enclosing the upper garden, give an airy elegance to the
water-front, and make it, in combination with its mural paintings and
stucco-ornamentation, and the sculpture of the gardens, one of the most
villa-like of Italian villas. The gardens themselves descend in terraces
to the shore, and contain several imposing marble fountains, among them
one with a statue of Neptune, executed in 1600 by the Carloni, and
supposed to be a portrait of the great Admiral.
The house stands against a steep terraced hillside, formerly a part of
the grounds, but now unfortunately divided from them by the railway
cutting. A wide _tapis vert_ still ascends the hill to a colossal
Jupiter (under which the Admiral’s favourite dog is said to be buried);
and when the villa is seen from the harbour one understands how
necessary this stately terraced background was to the setting of the
low-lying building. Beautiful indeed must have been the surroundings of
the villa when Evelyn visited it in 1644, and described the marble
terraces above the sea, the aviary “wherein grew trees of more than two
feet in diameter, besides cypress, myrtles, lentiscuses and other rare
shrubs,” and “the other two gardens full of orange-trees, citrons and
pomegranates, fountains, grots and statues.” All but the statues have
now disappeared, yet much of the old garden-magic lingers in the narrow
strip between house and sea. It is the glory of the Italian
garden-architects that neglect and disintegration cannot wholly mar the
effects they were skilled in creating: effects due to such a fine sense
of proportion, to so exquisite a perception of the relation between
architecture and landscape, between verdure and marble, that while a
trace of their plan remains one feels the spell of the whole.
When Rubens came to Genoa in 1607 he was so impressed by the
magnificence of its great street of palaces—the lately built Strada
Nuova—that he recorded his admiration in a series of etchings, published
in Antwerp in 1622 under the title “Palazzi di Genova,” a priceless
document for the student of Renaissance architecture in Italy, since the
Flemish master did not content himself with mere impressionist sketches,
like Canaletto’s fanciful Venetian etchings, but made careful
architectural drawings and bird’s-eye views of all the principal Genoese
palaces. As many of these buildings have since been altered, Rubens’s
volume has the additional value of preserving a number of interesting
details which might never have been recovered by subsequent study.
The Strada Nuova of Genoa, planned by Galeazzo Alessi between 1550 and
1560, is the earliest example in Europe of a street laid out by an
architect with deliberate artistic intent, and designed to display the
palaces with which he subsequently lined it. Hitherto, streets had
formed themselves on the natural lines of traffic, and individual houses
had sprung up along them without much regard to the site or style of
their nearest neighbors. The Strada Nuova, on the contrary, was planned
and carried out homogeneously, and was thus the progenitor of all the
great street plans of modern Europe—of the Place Royale and the Place
Vendôme in Paris, the great Place at Nancy, the grouping of Palladian
palaces about the Basilica of Vicenza, and all subsequent attempts to
create an organic whole out of a number of adjacent buildings. Even
Lenfant’s plan of Washington may be said to owe its first impulse to the
Perugian architect’s conception of a street of palaces.
When Alessi projected this great work he had open ground to build on,
though, as Evelyn remarked, the rich Genoese merchants had, like the
Hollanders, “little or no extent of ground to employ their estates in.”
Still, there was space enough to permit of spreading porticoes and
forecourts, and to one of the houses in the Strada Nuova Alessi gave the
ample development and airy proportions of a true _villa suburbana_. This
is the Palazzo Parodi, which, like the vanished Sauli palace, shows,
instead of the block plan of the city dwelling, a central _corps de
bâtiment_ with pavilions crowned by open loggias, and a rusticated
screen dividing the court from the street. It is curious that, save in
the case of the beautiful Villa Sauli (now completely rebuilt), Alessi
did not repeat this appropriate design in the country houses with which
he adorned the suburbs of Genoa—those “ravishing retirements of the
Genoese nobility” which prolonged the splendour of the city for miles
along the coast. Of his remaining villas, all are built on the block
plan, or with but slight projections, and rich though they are in
detail, and stately in general composition, they lack that touch of
fantasy which the Roman villa-architects knew how to impart.
Before pronouncing this a defect, however, one must consider the
different conditions under which Alessi and his fellow-architects in
Genoa had to work. Annibale Lippi, Pirro Ligorio, Giacomo della Porta
and Carlo Borromini reared their graceful loggias and stretched their
airy colonnades against masses of luxuriant foliage and above a
far-spreading landscape,
wonderful
To the sea’s edge for gloss and gloom,
while Alessi and Montorsoli had to place their country houses on narrow
ledges of waterless rock, with a thin coating of soil parched by the
wind, and an outlook over the serried roofs and crowded shipping of a
commercial city. The Genoese gardens are mere pockets of earth in coigns
of masonry, where a few olives and bay-trees fight the sun-glare and
sea-wind of a harsh winter and a burning summer. The beauty of the
prospect consists in the noble outline of the harbour, enclosed in
exquisitely modelled but leafless hills, and in the great blue stretch
of sea on which, now and then, the mountains of Corsica float for a
moment. It will be seen that, amid such surroundings, the architectural
quality must predominate over the picturesque or naturalistic. Not only
the natural restrictions of site and soil, but the severity of the
landscape and the nearness of a great city, made it necessary that the
Genoese villa-architects should produce their principal effects by means
of masonry and sculpture, rather than of water and verdure. The somewhat
heavy silhouette of the Genoese country houses is thus perhaps partly
explained; for where the garden had to be a stone monument, it would
have been illogical to make the house less massive.
The most famous of Alessi’s villas lies in the once fashionable suburb
of Sampierdarena, to the west of Genoa. Here, along the shore, were
clustered the most beautiful pleasure-houses of the merchant princes.
The greater number have now been turned into tenements for
factory-workers, or into actual factories, while the beautiful gardens
descending to the sea have been cut in half by the railway and planted
with cabbages and mulberries. Amid this labyrinth of grimy walls,
crumbling loggias and waste ground heaped with melancholy refuse, it is
not easy to find one’s way to the Villa Imperiali (now Scassi), the
masterpiece of Alessi, which stands as a solitary witness to the former
“ravishments” of Sampierdarena. By a happy chance this villa has become
the property of the municipality, which has turned the house into a
girls’ school, while the grounds are used as a public garden; and so
well have house and grounds been preserved that the student of
architecture may here obtain a good idea of the magnificence with which
the Genoese nobles surrounded even their few weeks of _villeggiatura_.
To match such magnificence, one must look to one of the great villas of
the Roman cardinals; and, with the exception of the Villa Doria Pamphily
(which is smaller) and of the Villa Albani, it would be difficult to
cite an elevation where palatial size is combined with such lavish
richness of ornament.
Alessi was once thought to have studied in Rome under Michelangelo; but
Herr Gurlitt shows that the latter was absent from Rome from 1516 to
1535—that is, precisely during what must have been the formative period
of Alessi’s talent. The Perugian architect certainly shows little trace
of Michelangelesque influences, but seems to derive rather from the
school of his own great contemporary, Palladio.
The Villa Scassi, with its Tuscan order below and fluted Corinthian
pilasters above, its richly carved frieze and cornice, and its beautiful
roof-balustrade, is perhaps more familiar to students than any other
example of Genoese suburban architecture. Almost alone among Genoese
villas, it stands at the foot of a hill, with gardens rising behind it
instead of descending below it to the sea. Herr Gurlitt thinks these
grounds are among the earliest in Italy in which the narrow mediæval
_hortus inclusus_ was blent with the wider lines of the landscape;
indeed, he makes the somewhat surprising statement that “all the later
garden-craft has its source in Alessi, who, in the Scassi gardens, has
shown to the full his characteristic gift for preserving unity of
conception in multiplicity of form.”
[Illustration: A GARDEN-NICHE, VILLA SCASSI, GENOA]
There could be no better definition of the garden-science of the Italian
Renaissance; and if, as it seems probable, the Scassi gardens are
earlier in date than the Boboli and the Orti Farnesiani, they certainly
fill an important place in the evolution of the pleasure-ground; but the
Vatican gardens, if they were really designed by Antonio da Sangallo,
must still be regarded as the source from which the later school of
landscape-architects drew their first inspiration. It was certainly
here, and in the unfinished gardens of the Villa Madama, that the
earliest attempts were made to bring the untamed forms of nature into
relation with the disciplined lines of architecture.
Herr Gurlitt is, however, quite right in calling attention to the
remarkable manner in which the architectural lines of the Scassi gardens
have been adapted to their site, and also to the skill with which Alessi
contrived the successive transition from the formal surroundings of the
house to the sylvan freedom of the wooded hilltop beneath which it lies.
A broad terrace, gently sloping with the natural grade of the land,
leads up to a long level walk beneath the high retaining-wall which
sustains the second terrace. In the centre of this retaining-wall is a
beautifully designed triple niche, divided by Atlantides supporting a
delicately carved entablature, while a double flight of steps encloses
this central composition. Niches with statues and marble seats also
adorn the lateral walls of the gardens, and on the upper terrace is a
long tank or canal, flanked by clipped shrubs and statues. Thence an
inclined path leads to a rusticated temple with _colonnes torses_, and
statues in niches above fluted basins into which water once flowed; and
beyond this there is a winding ascent to the grove which crowns the
hill. All the architectural details of the garden are remarkable for a
classical purity and refinement, except the rusticated temple, of which
the fantastic columns are carved to resemble tree-trunks. This may be of
later date; but if contemporary, its baroque style was probably intended
to mark the transition from the formality of the lower gardens to the
rustic character of the naturalistic landscape above—to form, in fact, a
gate from the garden to the park.
The end of the sixteenth century saw this gradual recognition of nature,
and adoption of her forms, in the architecture and sculpture of the
Italian pleasure-house, and more especially in those outlying
constructions which connected the formal and the sylvan portions of the
grounds. “In mid-Renaissance garden-architecture,” as Herr Tuckermann
puts it, “the relation between art and landscape is reversed. Previously
the garden had had to adapt itself to architecture; now architectural
forms are forced into a resemblance with nature.”
Bernini was the great exponent of this new impulse, though it may be
traced back as far as Michelangelo. It was Bernini who first expressed
in his fountains the tremulous motion and shifting curves of water, and
who put into his garden-sculpture that rustle of _plein air_ which the
modern painter seeks to express in his landscapes. To trace the gradual
development of this _rapprochement_ to nature at a period so highly
artificial would be beyond the scope of these articles; but in judging
the baroque garden architecture and sculpture of the late Renaissance,
it should be remembered that they are not the expression of a wilful
eccentricity, but an attempted link between the highly conventionalized
forms of urban art and that life of the fields and woods which was
beginning to charm the imagination of poets and painters.
On the height above the Acqua Sola gardens, on the eastern side of
Genoa, lies Alessi’s other great country house, the Villa Pallavicini
alle Peschiere—not to be confounded with the ridiculous Villa
Pallavicini at Pegli, a brummagem creation of the early nineteenth
century, to which the guide-books still send throngs of unsuspecting
tourists, who come back imagining that this tawdry jumble of weeping
willows and Chinese pagodas, mock Gothic ruins and exotic vegetation,
represents the typical “Italian garden,” of which so much is said and so
little really known.
The Villa Pallavicini alle Peschiere (a drawing of which may be seen in
Rubens’s collection) is in site and design a typical Genoese suburban
house of the sixteenth century. The lower story has a series of arched
windows between Ionic pilasters; above are square-headed windows with
upper lights, divided by fluted Corinthian pilasters and surmounted by a
beautiful cornice and a roof-balustrade of unusual design, in which
groups of balusters alternate with oblong panels of richly carved
openwork. The very slightly projecting wings have, on both stories,
arched recesses in which heroic statues are painted in _grisaille_.
The narrow ledge of ground on which the villa is built permits only of a
broad terrace in front of the house, with a central basin surmounted by
a beautiful winged figure and enclosed in stone-edged flower-beds.
Stately flights of steps lead down to a lower terrace, of which the
mighty retaining-wall is faced by a Doric portico, with a recessed
loggia behind it. From this level other flights of steps, flanked by
great balustraded walls nearly a hundred feet high, descend to a third
terrace, narrower than the others, whence one looks down into
lower-lying gardens, wedged into every projecting shelf of ground
between palace roofs and towering slopes of masonry; while directly
beneath this crowded foreground sparkles the blue expanse of the
Mediterranean.
On a higher ledge, above the Villa Pallavicini, lies the Villa
Durazzo-Grapollo, perhaps also a work of Alessi’s. Here the unusual
extent of ground about the house has permitted an interesting
development of landscape-architecture. A fine pedimented gateway with
rusticated piers gives admission to a straight avenue of plane-trees
leading up to the house, which is a dignified building with two stories,
a _mezzanine_ and an attic. The windows on the ground floor are
square-headed, with oblong sunk panels above; while on the first floor
there is a slightly baroque movement about the architraves, and every
other window is surmounted by a curious shell-shaped pediment. On the
garden side a beautiful marble balcony forms the central motive of the
_piano nobile_, and the roof is enclosed in a balustrade with alternate
solid panels and groups of balusters. The plan is oblong, with slightly
projecting wings, adorned on both stories with coupled pilasters, which
on the lower floor are rusticated and above are fluted Corinthian,
painted on the stucco surface of the house. This painting of
architectural ornament is very characteristic of Genoese architecture,
and was done with such skill that, at a little distance, it is often
impossible to distinguish a projecting architectural member from its
frescoed counterfeit.
In front of the villa is a long narrow formal garden, supported on three
sides by a lofty retaining-wall. Down the middle of this garden, on an
axis with the central doorway of the façade, runs a canal terminated by
reclining figures of river-gods and marble dolphins spouting water. An
ilex-walk flanks it on each side, and at the farther end a balustrade
encloses this upper garden, and two flights of steps, with the usual
central niche, lead to the next level. Here there is a much greater
extent of ground, and the old formal lines have been broken up into the
winding paths and shrubberies of a _jardin anglais_. Even here, however,
traces of the original plan may be discovered, and statues and fountains
are scattered with charming effect among the irregular plantations,
while paths between clipped walls of green lead to beautiful distant
views of the sea and mountains. Specially interesting is the treatment
of the lateral retaining-walls of the upper garden. In these immense
ramparts of masonry have been cut tunnels decorated with shell-work and
stucco ornament, which lead up by a succession of wide steps to the
ground on a level with the house. One of these tunnels contains a series
of pools of water, which finally pour into a stream winding through a
romantic _boschetto_ on a lower level. Here, as at the Villa Scassi, all
the garden-architecture is pure and dignified in style, and there is
great beauty in the broad and simple treatment of the upper terrace,
with its canal and ilex-walks.
From the terraces of the Villa Durazzo one looks forth over the hillside
of San Francesco d’Albaro, the suburb which balances Sampierdarena on
the east. Happily this charming district is still a fashionable
villeggiatura, and the houses which Alessi built on its slopes stand
above an almost unaltered landscape of garden and vineyard. A fine road
crosses the Bisagno and leads up between high walls and beautiful
hanging gardens, passing at every turn some charming villa-façade in its
setting of cypresses and camellias. Among these, one should not overlook
the exquisite little Paradisino, a pale-green toy villa with Ionic
pilasters and classic pediment, perched above a high terrace on the left
of the ascent.
Just above stands the Paradiso (or Villa Cambiaso), another masterpiece
of Alessi’s,[5] to which it is almost impossible to obtain admission.
Unfortunately, the house stands far back from the road, above
intervening terraces and groves, and one can obtain only an imperfect
glimpse of its beautiful façade, which is as ornate and imposing as that
of the Villa Scassi, and of garden-walks lined with clipped hedges and
statues.
Footnote 5:
In his “Baukunst der Renaissance in Italien” (Part II, Vol. V) Dr.
Josef Durm, without citing his authority, says that the Villa Paradiso
was built in 1600 by Andrea Ceresola, called Vanove.
At Alessi’s other Villa Cambiaso, higher up the hill of San Francesco
d’Albaro, a more hospitable welcome awaits the sight-seer. Here
admission is easily obtained, and it is possible to study and photograph
at leisure. This villa is remarkable for the beauty of the central
loggia on the ground floor of the façade: a grand Doric arcade, leading
into a two-storied atrium designed in the severest classical spirit. So
suggestive is this of the great loggia of the Villa Bombicci, near
Florence, that one understands why Alessi was called the pupil of
Michelangelo. At the back of the house there is (as at the Villa
Bombicci) a fine upper loggia, and the wide spacing of the windows on
the ground floor, and the massiveness and simplicity of all the
architectural details, inevitably recall the Tuscan style. Little is
left of the old gardens save a _tapis vert_ flanked by clipped hedges,
which descends to an iron grille on a lower road; but the broad grassy
space about the house has a boundary-wall with a continuous marble
bench, like that at the Villa Pia in the Vatican gardens.
In the valley between San Francesco d’Albaro and the Bisagno lies the
dismal suburb of San Fruttuoso. Here one must seek, through a waste of
dusty streets lined with half-finished tenements, for what must once
have been the most beautiful of Genoese pleasure-houses—the Villa
Imperiali, probably built by Fra Montorsoli. It stands high above broad
terraced grounds of unusual extent, backed by a hanging wood; but all
the old gardens have been destroyed, save the beautiful upper terrace,
and even the house has suffered some injury, though not enough to
detract greatly from its general effect. Here at last one finds that
union of lightness and majesty which characterizes the Villa Medici and
other Roman houses of its kind. The long elevation, with wings set back,
has a rusticated basement, surmounted by two stories and an attic above
the cornice. There is no order, but the whole façade is richly frescoed
in a severe architectural style, with niches, statues in grisaille, and
other ornaments, all executed by a skilful hand. The windows on the
first floor have broken pediments with a shell-like movement, and those
above show the same treatment, alternating with the usual triangular
pediment. But the crowning distinction of the house consists in the two
exquisite loggias which form the angles of the second story. These tall
arcades, resting on slender columns, give a wonderful effect of
spreading lightness to the façade, and break up its great bulk without
disturbing the general impression of strength and dignity. As a skilful
distribution of masses the elevation of the Villa Imperiali deserves the
most careful study, and it is to be regretted that it can no longer be
seen in combination with the wide-spread terraces which once formed a
part of its composition.
LOMBARD VILLAS
[Illustration: VILLA CICOGNA, BISUSCHIO]
VI
LOMBARD VILLAS
On the walls of the muniment-room of the old Borromeo palace in Milan,
Michelino, a little-known painter of the fifteenth century, has depicted
the sports and diversions of that noble family. Here may be seen ladies
in peaked hennins and long drooping sleeves, with their shock-headed
gallants in fur-edged tunics and pointed shoes, engaged in curious games
and dances, against the background of Lake Maggiore and the Borromean
Islands.
It takes the modern traveller an effort of mental readjustment to
recognize in this “clump of peakèd isles”—bare Leonardesque rocks
thrusting themselves splinter-wise above the lake—the smiling groves and
terraces of the Isola Bella and the Isola Madre. For in those days the
Borromei had not converted their rocky islands into the hanging gardens
which to later travellers became one of the most important sights of the
“grand tour”; and one may learn from this curious fresco with what
seemingly hopeless problems the Italian garden-art dealt, and how, while
audaciously remodelling nature, it contrived to keep in harmony with the
surroundings amid which it worked.
The Isola Madre, the largest of the Borromean group, was the first to be
built on and planted. The plain Renaissance palace still looks down on a
series of walled gardens and a grove of cypress, laurel and pine; but
the greater part of the island has been turned into an English park of
no special interest save to the horticulturist, who may study here the
immense variety of exotic plants which flourish in the mild climate of
the lakes. The Isola Bella, that pyramid of flower-laden terraces rising
opposite Stresa, in a lovely bend of the lake, began to take its present
shape about 1632, when Count Carlo III built a _casino di delizie_ on
the rocky pinnacle. His son, Count Vitaliano IV, continued and completed
the work. He levelled the pointed rocks, filled their interstices with
countless loads of soil from the mainland, and summoned Carlo Fontana
and a group of Milanese architects to raise the palace and
garden-pavilions above terraces created by Castelli and Crivelli, while
the waterworks were entrusted to Mora of Rome, the statuary and other
ornamental sculpture to Vismara. The work was completed in 1671, and the
island, which had been created a baronial fief, was renamed Isola
Isabella, after the count’s mother—a name which euphony, and the general
admiration the place excited, soon combined to contract to Isola Bella.
The island is built up in ten terraces, narrowing successively toward
the top, the lowest resting on great vaulted arcades which project into
the lake and are used as a winter shelter for the lemon-trees of the
upper gardens. Each terrace is enclosed in a marble balustrade, richly
ornamented with vases, statues and obelisks, and planted with a
profusion of roses, camellias, jasmine, myrtle and pomegranate, among
which groups of cypresses lift their dark shafts. Against the
retaining-walls oranges and lemons are espaliered, and flowers border
every path and wreathe every balustrade and stairway. It seems probable,
from the old descriptions of the Isola Bella, that it was originally
planted much as it now appears; in fact, the gardens of the Italian
lakes are probably the only old pleasure-grounds of Italy where flowers
have always been used in profusion. In the equable lake climate, neither
cold in winter, like the Lombard plains, nor parched in summer, like the
South, the passion for horticulture seems to have developed early, and
the landscape-architect was accustomed to mingle bright colours with his
architectural masses, instead of relying on a setting of uniform
verdure.
The topmost terrace of the Isola Bella is crowned by a mount, against
which is built a water-theatre of excessively baroque design. This
architectural composition faces the southern front of the palace, a
large and not very interesting building standing to the north of the
gardens; while the southern extremity of the island terminates in a
beautiful garden-pavilion, hexagonal in shape, with rusticated coigns
and a crowning balustrade beset with statues. Even the narrow reef
projecting into the lake below this pavilion has been converted into
another series of terraces, with connecting flights of steps, which
carry down to the water’s edge the exuberant verdure of the upper
gardens.
The palace is more remarkable for what it contains in the way of
furniture and decoration than for any architectural value. Its great
bulk and heavy outline are quite disproportionate to the airy elegance
of the gardens it overlooks, and house and grounds seem in this case to
have been designed without any regard to each other. The palace has,
however, one feature of peculiar interest to the student of
villa-architecture, namely, the beautiful series of rooms in the south
basement, opening on the gardens, and decorated with the most exquisite
ornamentation of pebble-work and seashells, mingled with delicately
tinted stucco. These low vaulted rooms, with marble floors, grotto-like
walls, and fountains dripping into fluted conchs, are like a poet’s
notion of some twilight refuge from summer heats, where the languid
green air has the coolness of water; even the fantastic consoles, tables
and benches, in which cool-glimmering mosaics are combined with carved
wood and stucco painted in faint greens and rose-tints, might have been
made of mother-of-pearl, coral and seaweed for the adornment of some
submarine palace. As examples of the decoration of a garden-house in a
hot climate, these rooms are unmatched in Italy, and their treatment
offers appropriate suggestions to the modern garden-architect in search
of effects of coolness.
To show how little the gardens of the Isola Bella have been changed
since they were first laid out, it is worth while to quote the
description of Bishop Burnet, that delightful artist in orthography and
punctuation, who descended into Italy in the year 1685, with his
“port-mangles” laden upon “mullets.”
“From _Lugane_,” the bishop’s breathless periods begin, “I went to the
_Lago Maggiore_, which is a great and noble Lake, it is six and fifty
Miles long, and in most places six Miles broad, and a hundred Fathoms
deep about the middle of it, it makes a great Bay to the Westward, and
there lies here two Islands called the _Borromean_ Islands, that are
certainly the loveliest spots of ground in the World, there is nothing
in all Italy that can be compared to them, they have the full view of
the Lake, and the ground rises so sweetly in them that nothing can be
imagined like the Terraces here, they belong to two Counts of the
_Borromean_ family. I was only in one of them, which belongs to the head
of the Family, who is Nephew to the famous Cardinal known by the name of
St _Carlo_.... The whole Island is a garden ... and because the figure
of the Island was not made regular by Nature, they have built great
Vaults and Portica’s along the Rock, which are all made Grotesque, and
so they have brought it into a regular form by laying earth over those
Vaults. There is first a Garden to the East that rises up from the Lake
by five rows of Terrasses, on the three sides of the Garden that are
watered by the Lake, the Stairs are noble, the Walls are all covered
with Oranges and Citrons, and a more beautiful spot of a Garden cannot
be seen: There are two buildings in the two corners of this Garden, the
one is only a Mill for fetching up the Water, and the other is a noble
Summer-House [the hexagonal pavilion] all Wainscotted, if I may speak
so, with Alabaster and Marble of a fine colour inclining to red, from
this Garden one goes in a level to all the rest of the Alleys and
Parterres, Herb-Gardens and Flower-Gardens, in all which there are
Varieties of Fountains and Arbors, but the great Parterre is a
surprizing thing, for as it is well furnished with Statues and
Fountains, and is of a vast extent, and justly situated to the Palace,
so at the further-end of it there is a great Mount, that face of it that
looks to the Parterre is made like a Theatre all full of Fountains and
Statues, the height rising up in five several rows ... and round this
Mount, answering to the five rows into which the Theatre is divided,
there goes as Many Terrasses of noble Walks, the Walls are all as close
covered with Oranges and Citrons as any of our Walls in _England_ are
with Laurel: the top of the Mount is seventy foot long and forty broad,
and here is a vast Cistern into which the Mill plays up the water that
must furnish all the Fountains.... The freshness of the Air, it being
both in a Lake and near the Mountains, the fragrant smell, the beautiful
Prospect, and the delighting Variety that is here makes it such a
habitation for Summer that perhaps the whole World hath nothing like
it.”
[Illustration: VILLA ISOLA BELLA, LAKE MAGGIORE]
Seventeenth-century travellers were unanimous in extolling the Isola
Bella, though, as might have been expected, their praise was chiefly for
those elaborations and ingenuities of planning and engineering which
give least pleasure in the present day. Toward the middle of the
eighteenth century a critical reaction set in. Tourists, enamoured of
the new “English garden,” and of Rousseau’s descriptions of the “bosquet
de Julie,” could see nothing to admire in the ordered architecture of
the Borromean Islands. The sentimental sight-seer, sighing for sham
Gothic ruins, for glades planted “after Poussin,” and for all the
laboured naturalism of Repton and Capability Brown, shuddered at the
frank artifice of the old Italian garden-architecture. The quarrel then
begun still goes on, and sympathies are divided between the
artificial-natural and the frankly conventional. The time has come,
however, when it is recognized that both these manners _are_ manners,
the one as artificial as the other, and each to be judged, not by any
ethical standard of “sincerity,” but on its own æsthetic merits. This
has enabled modern critics to take a fairer view of such avowedly
conventional compositions as the Isola Bella, a garden in comparison
with which the grounds of the great Roman villas are as naturalistic as
the age of Rousseau could have desired.
Thus impartially judged, the Isola Bella still seems to many too
complete a negation of nature; nor can it appear otherwise to those who
judge of it only from pictures and photographs, who have not seen it in
its environment. For the landscape surrounding the Borromean Islands has
precisely that quality of artificiality, of exquisitely skilful
arrangement and manipulation, which seems to justify, in the
garden-architect, almost any excesses of the fancy. The Roman landscape,
grandiose and ample, seems an unaltered part of nature; so do the subtly
modelled hills and valleys of central Italy: all these scenes have the
deficiencies, the repetitions, the meannesses and profusions, with which
nature throws her great masses on the canvas of the world; but the lake
scenery appears to have been designed by a lingering and fastidious
hand, bent on eliminating every crudeness and harshness, and on blending
all natural forms, from the bare mountain-peak to the melting curve of
the shore, in one harmony of ever-varying and ever-beautiful lines.
The effect produced is undoubtedly one of artificiality, of a chosen
exclusion of certain natural qualities, such as gloom, barrenness, and
the frank ugliness into which nature sometimes lapses. There is an
almost forced gaiety about the landscape of the lakes, a fixed smile of
perennial loveliness. And it is as a complement to this attitude that
the Borromean gardens justify themselves. Are they real? No; but neither
is the landscape about them. Are they like any other gardens on earth?
No; but neither are the mountains and shores about them like earthly
shores and mountains. They are Armida’s gardens anchored in a lake of
dreams, and they should be compared, not with this or that actual piece
of planted ground, but with a page of Ariosto or Boiardo.
From the garden-student’s point of view, there is nothing in Lombardy as
important as the Isola Bella. In these rich Northern provinces, as in
the environs of Florence, the old gardens have suffered from the
affluence of their owners, and scarcely any have been allowed to retain
their original outline. The enthusiasm for the English garden swept over
Lombardy like a tidal wave, obliterating terraces and grottoes,
substituting winding paths for pleached alleys, and transforming level
box-parterres into rolling lawns which turn as brown as door-mats under
the scorching Lombard sun.
On the lakes, where the garden-architect was often restricted to a
narrow ledge of ground between mountains and water, these
transformations were less easy, for the new style required a
considerable expanse of ground for its development. Along the shores of
Como especially, where the ground rises so abruptly from the lake,
landscape effects were difficult to produce, nor was it easy to discover
a naturalistic substitute for the marble terraces built above the water.
Even here, however, the narrow gardens have been as much modified as
space permitted, the straight paths have been made to wind, and spotty
flower-beds in grass have replaced the ordered box-gardens with their
gravelled walks and their lemon-trees in earthen vases.
The only old garden on Como which keeps more than a fragment of its
original architecture is that of the Villa d’Este at Cernobbio, a mile
or two from the town of Como, at the southern end of the lake. The
villa, built in 1527 by Cardinal Gallio (who was born a fisher-lad of
Cernobbio), has passed through numerous transformations. In 1816 it was
bought by Caroline of Brunswick, who gave it the name of Este, and
turned it into a great structure of the Empire style. Here for several
years the Princess of Wales held the fantastic court of which Bergami,
the courier, was High Chamberlain if not Prince Consort; and, whatever
disadvantages may have accrued to herself from this establishment, her
residence at the Villa d’Este was a benefit to the village, for she
built the road connecting Cernobbio with Moltrasio, which was the first
carriage-drive along the lake, and spent large sums on improvements in
the neighbourhood of her estate.
Since then the villa has suffered a farther change into a large and
fashionable hotel; but though Queen Caroline anglicized a part of the
grounds, the main lines of the old Renaissance garden still exist.
[Illustration: IN THE GARDENS OF ISOLA BELLA, LAKE MAGGIORE]
Behind the Villa d’Este the mountains are sufficiently withdrawn to
leave a gentle acclivity, which was once laid out in a series of
elaborate gardens. Adjoining the villa is a piece of level ground just
above the lake, which evidently formed the “secret garden” with its
parterres and fountains. This has been replaced by a lawn and
flower-beds, but still keeps its boundary-wall at the back, with a
baroque grotto and fountain of pebbles and shell-work. Above this rises
a _tapis vert_ shaded by cypresses, and leading to the usual Hercules in
a temple. The peculiar feature of this ascent is that it is bordered on
each side with narrow steps of channelled stone, down which the water
rushes under overlapping ferns and roses to the fish-pool below the
grotto in the lower garden. Beyond the formal gardens is the _bosco_, a
bit of fine natural woodland climbing the cliff-side, with winding paths
which lead to various summer-houses and sylvan temples. The rich leafage
of walnut, acacia and cypress, the glimpses of the blue lake far below,
the rush of a mountain torrent through a deep glen spanned by a romantic
ivy-clad bridge, make this _bosco_ of the Villa d’Este one of the most
enchanting bits of sylvan gardening in Italy. Scarcely less enchanting
is the grove of old plane-trees by the water-gate on the lake, where, in
a solemn twilight of over-roofing branches, woodland gods keep watch
above the broad marble steps descending to the water. In the gardens of
the Villa d’Este there is much of the Roman spirit—the breadth of
design, the unforced inclusion of natural features, and that
sensitiveness to the quality of the surrounding landscape which
characterizes the great gardens of the Campagna.
Just across the lake, in the deep shade of the wooded cliffs beneath the
Pizzo di Torno, lies another villa still more steeped in the Italian
garden-magic. This is the Villa Pliniana, built in 1570 by the Count
Anguissola of Piacenza, and now the property of the Trotti family of
Milan. The place takes its name from an intermittent spring in the
court, which is supposed to be the one described by Pliny in one of his
letters; and it is farther celebrated as being the coolest villa on
Como. It lies on a small bay on the east side of the lake, and faces due
north, so that, while the villas of Cernobbio are bathed in sunlight, a
deep green shade envelops it. The house stands on a narrow ledge, its
foundations projecting into the lake, and its back built against the
almost vertical wooded cliff which protects it from the southern sun.
Down this cliff pours a foaming mountain torrent from the Val di Calore,
just beneath the peak of Torno; and this torrent the architect of the
Villa Pliniana has captured in its descent to the lake and carried
through the central apartment of the villa.
The effect produced is unlike anything else, even in the wonderland of
Italian gardens. The two wings of the house, a plain and somewhat
melancholy-looking structure, are joined by an open arcaded room,
against the back wall of which the torrent pours down, over stonework
tremulous with moss and ferns, gushing out again beneath the balustrade
of the loggia, where it makes a great semicircle of glittering whiteness
in the dark-green waters of the lake. The old house is saturated with
the freshness and drenched with the flying spray of the caged torrent.
The bare vaulted rooms reverberate with it, the stone floors are green
with its dampness, the air quivers with its cool incessant rush. The
contrast of this dusky dripping loggia, on its perpetually shaded bay,
with the blazing blue waters of the lake and their sun-steeped western
shores, is one of the most wonderful effects in _sensation_ that the
Italian villa-art has ever devised.
The architect, not satisfied with diverting a part of the torrent to
cool his house, has led the rest in a fall down the cliff immediately
adjoining the villa, and has designed winding paths through the woods
from which one may look down on the bright rush of the waters. On the
other side of the house lies a long balustraded terrace, between the
lake and the hanging woods, and here, on the only bit of open and level
ground near the house, are the old formal gardens, now much neglected,
but still full of a melancholy charm.
After the Villa Pliniana, the other gardens of Como seem almost
commonplace. All along both shores are villas which, amid many
alterations, have preserved traces of their old garden-architecture,
such as the Bishop of Como’s villa, south of Leno, with its baroque
saints and prophets perched along the garden-balustrade, and the more
famous Villa Carlotta at Cadenabbia, where the fine gateways and the
architectural treatment of the terraces bear witness to the former
beauty of the grounds. But almost everywhere the old garden-magic has
been driven out by a fury of modern horticulture. The pleached alleys
have made way for lawns dotted with palms and bananas, the box-parterres
have been replaced by star-shaped beds of begonias and cinerarias, and
the groves of laurel and myrtle by thickets of pampas-grass and bamboo.
This description applies to all the principal gardens between Como and
Bellagio. Here and there, indeed, in almost all of them, some
undisturbed corner remains—a flight of steps wreathed in Banksian roses
and descending to a shady water-gate; a fern-lined grotto with a stucco
Pan or Syrinx; a clipped laurel-walk set with marble benches, or a
classic summer-house above the lake—but these old bits are so scattered
and submerged under the new order of gardening that it requires an
effort of the imagination to reconstruct from them an image of what the
old lake-gardens must have been before every rich proprietor tried to
convert his marble terraces into an English park.
[Illustration: VILLA CICOGNA, FROM THE TERRACE ABOVE THE HOUSE]
Almost to be included among lake-villas is the beautiful Villa Cicogna
at Bisuschio. This charming old place lies in the lovely but
little-known hill-country between the Lake of Varese and the southern
end of Lugano. The house, of which the history appears to be unknown to
the present owners, is an early Renaissance building of great beauty,
with a touch of Tuscan austerity in its design. The plain front, with
deep projecting eaves and widely spaced windows, might stand on some
village square above the Arno; and the interior court, with its
two-storied arcade, recalls, in purity and lightness of design, the
inheritors of Brunelleschi’s tradition. So few country houses of the
early sixteenth century are to be found in the Milanese that it would be
instructive to learn whether the Villa Cicogna is in fact due to a
Tuscan hand, or whether this mid-Italian style was at that time also
prevalent in Lombardy.
The villa is built against a hillside, and the interior court forms an
oblong, enclosed on three sides by the house, and continued on the
fourth by a beautiful sunken garden, above which runs a balustraded walk
on a level with the upper story. On the other side of the house is
another garden, consisting of a long terrace bounded by a high
retaining-wall, which is tunnelled down its whole length to form a shady
arcaded walk lined with ferns and dripping with runnels of water. At the
back of the house the ground continues to rise, and a _château d’eau_ is
built against the hillside; while beyond the terrace-garden already
described, a gate leads to a hanging woodland, with shady walks from
which, at every turn, there are enchanting views across the southern bay
of Lake Lugano.
The house itself is as interesting as the garden. The walls of the court
are frescoed in charming cinque-cento designs, and the vaulted ceiling
of the loggia is painted in delicate trellis-work, somewhat in the
manner of the semicircular arcade at the Villa di Papa Giulio. Several
of the rooms also preserve their wall-frescoes and much of their
Renaissance furniture, while a series of smaller apartments on the
ground floor are exquisitely decorated with stucco ornament in the light
style of the eighteenth century; so that the Villa Cicogna still gives a
vivid idea of what an old Italian country house must have been in its
original state.
From the hill-villas of the lakes to the country places of the Milanese
rice-fields the descent is somewhat abrupt; but the student of
garden-architecture may mitigate the transition by carrying on his
researches from the southern end of Como through the smiling landscape
of the Brianza. Here there are many old villas, in a lovely setting of
vineyard and woodland, with distant views of the Alps and of the sunny
Lombard plain; but of old gardens few are to be found. There is one of
great beauty, belonging to the Villa Crivelli, near the village of
Inverigo; but as it is inaccessible to visitors, only tantalizing
glimpses may be obtained of its statues and terraces, its cypress-walks
and towering “Gigante.” Not far from Inverigo is the Rotonda Cagnola,
now the property of the Marchese d’Adda, and built in 1813 by the
Marchese Luigi Cagnola in imitation of the Propylæa of the Acropolis.
The house is beautifully placed on a hilltop, with glorious views over
the Alps and Apennines, and is curious to the student as an example of
the neo-classicism of the Empire; but it has of course no gardens in the
old sense of the term.
The flat environs of Milan were once dotted with country houses, but
with the growth of the city and the increased facilities of travel,
these have been for the most part abandoned for villas in the hills or
on the lakes, and to form an idea of their former splendour one must
turn to the pages of Alberto del Rè’s rare volumes. Here one may see in
all its detail that elaborate style of gardening which the French
landscape-gardeners developed from the “grand manner” acquired by Le
Nôtre in his study of the great Roman country-seats. This style, adapted
to the flat French landscape, and complicated by the mannerisms and
elaborations of the eighteenth century, came back to Italy with the
French fashions which Piedmont and Lombardy were so fond of importing.
The time had passed when Europe modelled itself on Italy: France was now
the glass of fashion, and, in northern Italy especially, French
architecture and gardening were eagerly reproduced.
In Lombardy the natural conditions were so similar that the French
geometrical gardens did not seem out of place; yet even here a
difference is felt, both in the architecture and the gardens. Italy, in
spite of Palladio and the Palladian tradition, never freed herself from
the baroque. Her artistic tendencies were all toward freedom,
improvisation, individual expression, while France was fundamentally
classical and instinctively temperate. Just as the French cabinet-makers
and bronze-chisellers and modellers in stucco produced more delicate and
finished, but less personal, work than the Italian craftsmen, so the
French architects designed with greater precision and restraint, and
less play of personal invention. To establish a rough distinction, it
might be said that French art has always been intellectual and Italian
art emotional; and this distinction is felt even in the treatment of the
pleasure-house and its garden. In Italy the architectural detail
remained baroque till the end of the eighteenth century, and the
architect permitted himself far greater license in the choice of forms
and the combination of materials. The old villas of the Milanese have a
very strong individuality, and it is to be regretted that so few remain
intact to show what a personal style they preserved even under the most
obvious French influences.
[Illustration: VILLA PLINIANA, LAKE COMO]
The Naviglio, the canal which flows through Milan and sends various
branches to the Ticino and the Adda, was formerly lined for miles beyond
the city with suburban villas. Few remain unaltered, and even of these
few the old gardens have disappeared. One of the most interesting houses
in Del Rè’s collection, the Villa Alario (now Visconti di Saliceto), on
the Naviglio near Cernusco, is still in perfect preservation without and
within; and though its old gardens were replaced by an English park
early in the nineteenth century, their general outline is still
discoverable. The villa, a stately pile built by Ruggieri in 1736, looks
on a court divided from the highway by a fine wall and beautiful iron
gates. Low wings containing the chapel and offices, and running at right
angles to the main building, connect the latter with the courtyard
walls; and arched passages through the centre of the wings lead to
outlying courts surrounded by stables and other dependencies. The house,
toward the forecourt, has a central open loggia or atrium, and the upper
windows are framed in baroque architraves and surmounted by square attic
lights. The garden elevation is more elaborate. Here there is a central
projection, three windows wide, flanked by two-storied open loggias, and
crowned by an attic with ornamental pilasters and urns. This central bay
is adorned with beautiful wrought-iron balconies, which are repeated in
the wings at each end of the building. All the wrought-iron of the Villa
Visconti is remarkable for its elegance and originality, and as used on
the terraces, and in the balustrade of the state staircase, in
combination with heavy baroque stone balusters, it is an interesting
example of a peculiarly Lombard style of decoration.
Between the house and the Naviglio there once lay an elaborate _parterre
de broderie_, terminated above the canal by a balustraded retaining-wall
adorned with statues, and flanked on each side by pleached walks,
arbours, trellis-work and fish-ponds. Of this complicated pleasance
little remains save the long terraces extending from each end of the
house, the old flower-garden below one of these, and some bits of
decorative sculpture incorporated in the boundary-walls. The long tank
or canal shown in Del Rè’s print has been turned into an irregular pond
with grass-banks, and the _parterre de broderie_ is now a lawn; even the
balustrade has been removed from the wall along the Naviglio. Still, the
architectural details of the forecourt and the terraces are worthy of
careful study, and the unusual beauty of the old villa, with its
undisturbed group of dependencies, partly atones for the loss of its
original surroundings.
[Illustration: IRON GATES OF THE VILLA ALARIO| (NOW VISCONTI DI
SALICETO)]
Many eighteenth-century country houses in the style of the Villa
Visconti are scattered through the Milanese, though few have retained so
unaltered an outline, or even such faint traces of their formal gardens.
The huge villa of the Duke of Modena at Varese—now the Municipio—is a
good example of the same architecture, and has a beautiful
stone-and-iron balustrade and many wrought-iron balconies in the same
style as those at Cernusco; and its gardens, ascending the hillside
behind the house, and now used as a public park, must once have been
very fine. The Grand Hôtel of Varese is also an old villa, and its
architectural screen and projecting wings form an unusually
characteristic façade of the same period. Here, again, little remains of
the old garden but a charming upper terrace; but the interior
decorations of many of the rooms are undisturbed, and are exceptionally
interesting examples of the more delicate Italian baroque.
Another famous country house, Castellazzo d’Arconate, at Bollate, is
even more palatial than the Duke of Modena’s villa at Varese, and, while
rather heavy in general outline, has an interesting interior façade,
with a long arcade resting on coupled columns, and looking out over a
stately courtyard with statues. This villa is said to have preserved a
part of its old gardens, but it is difficult of access, and could not be
visited at the time when the material for these chapters was collected.
[Illustration: RAILING OF THE VILLA ALARIO]
VILLAS OF VENETIA
[Illustration: GATEWAY OF THE BOTANIC GARDEN, PADUA]
VII
VILLAS OF VENETIA
Writers on Italian architecture have hitherto paid little attention to
the villa-architecture of Venetia. It is only within the last few years
that English and American critics have deigned to recognize any
architectural school in Italy later than that of Vignola and Palladio,
and even these two great masters of the sixteenth century have been held
up as examples of degeneracy to a generation bred in the Ruskinian code
of art ethics. In France, though the influence of Viollet-le-Duc was
nearly as hostile as Ruskin’s to any true understanding of Italian art,
the Latin instinct for form has asserted itself in a revived study of
the classic tradition; but French writers on architecture have hitherto
confined themselves chiefly to the investigation of their national
styles.
It is only in Germany that Italian architecture from Palladio to Juvara
has received careful and sympathetic study. Burckhardt pointed the way
in his “Cicerone” and in “The Architecture of the Renaissance in Italy”;
Herr Gustav Ebe followed with an interesting book on the late
Renaissance throughout Europe; and Herr Gurlitt has produced the most
masterly work yet written on the subject, his “History of the Baroque
Style in Italy.” These authors, however, having to work in a new and
extensive field, have necessarily been obliged to restrict themselves to
its most important divisions. Burckhardt’s invaluable “Renaissance
Architecture,” though full of critical insight, is rather a collection
of memoranda than a history of the subject; and even Herr Gurlitt,
though he goes into much greater detail, cannot forsake the highroad for
the by-paths, and has consequently had to pass by many minor
ramifications of his subject. This is especially to be regretted in
regard to the villa-architecture of Venetia, the interest and
individuality of which he fully appreciates. He points out that the
later Venetian styles spring from two sources, the schools of Palladio
and of Sansovino. The former, greatly as his work was extolled, never
had the full sympathy of the Venetians. His art was too pure and severe
for a race whose taste had been formed on the fantastic mingling of
Gothic and Byzantine and on the glowing decorations of the greatest
school of colourists the world has known. It was from the warm and
picturesque art of Sansovino and Longhena that the Italian baroque
naturally developed; and though the authority of Palladio made itself
felt in the official architecture of Venetia, its minor constructions,
especially the villas and small private houses, seldom show any trace of
his influence save in the grouping of their windows. So little is known
of the Venetian villa-builders that this word as to their general
tendencies must replace the exact information which still remains to be
gathered.
Many delightful examples of the Venetian _maison de plaisance_ are still
to be found in the neighbourhood of Padua and Treviso, along the Brenta,
and in the country between the Euganeans and the Monti Berici.
Unfortunately, in not more than one or two instances have the old
gardens of these houses been preserved in their characteristic form;
and, by a singular perversity of fate, it happens that the villas which
have kept their gardens are not typical of the Venetian style. One of
them, the castle of Cattajo, at Battaglia in the Euganean Hills, stands
in fact quite apart from any contemporary style. This extraordinary
edifice, built for the Obizzi of Venice about 1550, is said to have been
copied from the plans of a castle in Tartary brought home by Marco Polo.
It shows, at any rate, a deliberate reversion, in mid-cinque-cento, to a
kind of Gothicism which had become obsolete in northern Italy three
hundred years earlier; and the mingling of this rude style with classic
detail and Renaissance sculpture has produced an effect picturesque
enough to justify so quaint a tradition.
Cattajo stands on the edge of the smiling Euganean country, its great
fortress-like bulk built up against a wooded knoll with a little river
at its base. Crossing the river by a bridge flanked by huge piers
surmounted with statues, one reaches a portcullis in a massive
gatehouse, also adorned with statues. The portcullis opens on a long
narrow court planted with a hedge of clipped euonymus; and at one end a
splendid balustraded stairway _à cordon_ leads up to a flagged terrace
with yew-trees growing between the flags. To the left of this terrace is
a huge artificial grotto, with a stucco Silenus lolling on an elephant,
and other life-size animals and figures, a composition recalling the
zoölogical wonders of the grotto at Castello. This Italian reversion to
the grotesque, at a time when it was losing its fascination for the
Northern races, might form the subject of an interesting study of race
æsthetics. When the coarse and sombre fancy of mediæval Europe found
expression in grinning gargoyles and baleful or buffoonish images,
Italian art held serenely to the beautiful, and wove the most tragic
themes into a labyrinth of lovely lines; but in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, when the classical graces had taken possession of
northern Europe, the chimerical animals, the gnomes and goblins, the
gargoyles and broomstick-riders, fled south of the Alps, and reappeared
in the queer fauna of Italian grottoes and in the leering dwarfs and
satyrs of the garden-walk.
[Illustration: VIEW AT VAL SAN ZIBIO, NEAR BATTAGLIA]
From the yew-tree terrace at Cattajo an arcaded loggia gives access to
the interior of the castle, which is a bewilderment of low-storied
passageways and long flights of steps hewn in the rock against which the
castle is built. From a vaulted tunnel of stone one passes abruptly into
a suite of lofty apartments decorated with seventeenth-century frescoes
and opening on a balustraded terrace guarded by marble divinities; or,
taking another turn, one finds one’s self in a sham Gothic chapel or in
a mediæval _chemin de ronde_ on the crenelated walls. This fantastic
medley of styles, in conjunction with the unusual site of the castle,
has produced several picturesque bits of garden, wedged between the
walls and the hillside, or on the terraces overhanging the river; but
from the architectural point of view, the most interesting thing about
Cattajo is the original treatment of the great stairway in the court.
Six or seven miles from Battaglia, in a narrow and fertile valley of the
Euganeans, lies one of the most beautiful pleasure-grounds in Italy.
This is the garden of the villa at Val San Zibio. On approaching it, one
sees, across a grassy common, a stately and ornate arch of triumph with
a rusticated façade and a broken pediment enriched with statues. This
arch, which looks as though it were the principal entrance-gate, appears
to have been placed in the high boundary-wall merely in order to afford
from the highway a vista of the _château d’eau_ which is the chief
feature of the gardens. The practice of breaking the wall to give a view
of some special point in the park or garden was very common in France,
but is seldom seen in Italy, though there is a fine instance of it in
the open grille below the Villa Aldobrandini at Frascati.
The house at Val San Zibio is built with its back to the highroad, and
is an unpretentious structure of the seventeenth century, not unlike the
Villa de’ Gori at Siena, though the Palladian grouping of its central
windows shows the nearness of Venice. It looks on a terrace enclosed by
a balustrade, whence a broad flight of steps descends to the gently
sloping gardens. They are remarkable for their long pleached alleys of
beech, their wide _tapis verts_, fountains, marble benches and statues
charmingly placed in niches of clipped verdure. In one direction is a
little lake, in another a “mount” crowned by a statue, while a long
alley leads to a well-preserved maze with a raised platform in its
centre. These labyrinths are now rarely found in Italian gardens, and
were probably never as popular south of the Alps as in Holland and
England. The long _château d’eau_, with its couchant Nereids and
conch-blowing Tritons, descends a gentle slope instead of a steep hill,
and on each side high beech-hedges enclose tall groves of deciduous
trees. These hedges are characteristic of the north Italian gardens,
where the plane, beech and elm replace the “perennial greens” of the
south; and there is one specially charming point at Val San Zibio, where
four grass-alleys walled with clipped beeches converge on a stone basin
sunk in the turf, with four marble putti seated on the curb, dangling
their feet in the water. An added touch of quaintness is given to the
gardens by the fact that the old waterworks are still in action, so that
the unwary visitor, assailed by fierce jets of spray darting up at him
from the terrace steps, the cracks in the flagstones, and all manner of
unexpected ambushes, may form some idea of the aquatic surprises which
afforded his ancestors such inexhaustible amusement.
[Illustration: THE BOTANIC GARDEN OF PADUA]
There are few gardens in Italy comparable with Val San Zibio; but in
Padua there is one of another sort which has kept something of the same
ancient savor. This is the famous Botanic Garden, founded in 1545, and
said to be the oldest in Italy. The accompanying plan, though roughly
sketched from memory, will give some idea of its arrangement. Outside is
a grove of exotic trees, which surrounds a large circular space enclosed
in a beautiful old brick wall surmounted by a marble balustrade and
adorned alternately with busts and statues. The wall is broken by four
gateways, one forming the principal entrance from the grove, the other
three opening on semicircles in which statues are set against a
background of foliage. In the garden itself the beds for “simples” are
enclosed in low iron railings, within which they are again subdivided by
stone edgings, each subdivision containing a different species of plant.
Padua, in spite of its flat surroundings, is one of the most picturesque
cities of upper Italy; and the seeker after gardens will find many
charming bits along the narrow canals, or by the sluggish river skirting
the city walls. Indeed, one might almost include in a study of gardens
the beautiful Prato della Valle, the public square before the church of
Santa Giustina, with its encircling canal crossed by marble bridges, its
range of baroque statues of “worthies,” and its central expanse of turf
and trees. There is no other example in Italy of a square laid out in
this park-like way, and the Prato della Valle would form an admirable
model for the treatment of open spaces in a modern city.
[Illustration: VAL SAN ZIBIO, NEAR BATTAGLIA]
A few miles from Padua, at Ponte di Brenta, begins the long line of
villas which follows the course of the river to its outlet at Fusina.
Dante speaks in the “Inferno” of the villas and castles on the Brenta,
and it continued the favourite villeggiatura of the Venetian nobility
till the middle of the nineteenth century. There dwelt the Signor
Pococurante, whom Candide visited on his travels; and of flesh-and-blood
celebrities many might be cited, from the famous Procuratore Pisani to
Byron, who in 1819 carried off the Guiccioli to his villa at La Mira on
the Brenta.
The houses still remain almost line for line as they were drawn in
Gianfrancesco Costa’s admirable etchings, “Le Delizie del Fiume Brenta,”
published in 1750; but unfortunately almost all the old gardens have
disappeared. One, however, has been preserved, and as it is the one most
often celebrated by travellers and poets of the eighteenth century, it
may be regarded as a good example of a stately Venetian garden. This is
the great villa built at Strà, in 1736, for Alvise Pisani, procurator of
St. Mark’s, by the architects Prati and Frigimelica. In size and
elegance it far surpasses any other house on the Brenta. The prevailing
note of the other villas is one of simplicity and amenity. They stand
near each other, either on the roadside or divided from it by a low wall
bordered with statues and a short strip of garden, also thickly peopled
with nymphs, satyrs, shepherdesses, and the grotesque and comic figures
of the Commedia dell’ Arte; unassuming _villini_ for the most part,
suggesting a life of suburban neighbourliness and sociability. But the
Villa Pisani is a palace. Its majestic façade, with pillared central
_corps de bâtiment_ and far-reaching wings, stands on the highway
bordering the Brenta; behind are the remains of the old formal gardens,
and on each side, the park extends along the road, from which it is
divided by a high wall and several imposing gateways. The palace is
built about two inner courts, and its innumerable rooms are frescoed by
the principal Italian decorative painters of the day, while the great
central saloon has one of Tiepolo’s most riotously splendid ceilings.
Fortunately for the preservation of these treasures, Strà, after being
the property of Eugène Beauharnais, was acquired by the Italian
government, and is now a “villa nazionale,” well kept up and open to the
public.
[Illustration: GATEWAY—VILLA PISANI, STRÀ]
In the etching of Costa, an elaborate formal garden with _parterres de
broderie_ is seen to extend from the back of the villa to the
beautifully composed stables which face it. This garden has
unfortunately been replaced by a level meadow, flanked on both sides by
_boschi_, with long straight walks piercing the dense green leafage of
elm, beech and lime. Here and there fragments of garden-architecture
have survived the evident attempt to convert the grounds into a _jardin
anglais_ of the sentimental type. There is still a maze, with a fanciful
little central tower ascended by winding stairs; there is a little
wooded “mount,” with a moat about it, and a crowning temple; and there
are various charming garden-pavilions, orangeries, gardeners’ houses,
and similar small constructions, all built in the airy and romantic
style of which the Italian villa-architect had not yet lost the secret.
Architecturally, however, the stables are perhaps the most interesting
buildings at Strà. Their classical central façade is flanked by two
curving wings, forming charmingly proportioned lemon-houses, and in the
stables themselves the stalls are sumptuously divided by columns of red
marble, each surmounted by the gilded effigy of a horse.
From Strà to Fusina the shores of the Brenta are lined with charming
pleasure-houses, varying in size from the dignified villa to the little
garden-pavilion, and all full of interest and instruction to the student
of villa-architecture; but unhappily no traces of their old gardens
remain, save the statues which once peopled the parterres and surmounted
the walls. Several of the villas are attributed to Palladio, but only
one is really typical of his style: the melancholy Malcontenta, built by
the Foscari, and now standing ruinous and deserted in a marshy field
beside the river.
The Malcontenta has all the chief characteristics of Palladio’s manner:
the high basement, the projecting pillared portico, the general air of
classical correctness, which seems a little cold beside the bright and
graceful villa-architecture of Venetia. Burckhardt, with his usual
discernment, remarks in this connection that it was a fault of
Palladio’s to substitute for the recessed loggia of the Roman villa a
projecting portico, thus sacrificing one of the most characteristic and
original features of the Italian country house to a not particularly
appropriate adaptation of the Greek temple porch.
But Palladio was a great artist, and if he was great in his civic
architecture rather than in his country houses, if his stately genius
lent itself rather to the grouping of large masses than to the
construction of pretty toys, yet his most famous villa is a distinct and
original contribution to the chief examples of the Italian
pleasure-house. The Villa Capra, better known as the Rotonda, which
stands on a hill above Vicenza, has been criticized for having four
fronts instead of one front, two sides and a back. It is, in fact, a
square building with a projecting Ionic portico on each face—a plan open
to the charge of monotony, but partly justified in this case by the fact
that the house is built on the summit of a knoll from which there are
four views, all equally pleasing, and each as it were entitled to the
distinction of having a loggia to itself. Still, it is certain that
neither in the Rotonda nor in his other villas did Palladio hit on a
style half as appropriate or pleasing as the typical manner of the Roman
villa-architects, with its happy mingling of freedom and classicalism,
its wonderful adaptation to climate and habits of life, its capricious
grace of detail, and its harmony with the garden-architecture which was
designed to surround it.
[Illustration: VILLA VALMARANA, VICENZA]
The Villa Capra has not preserved its old gardens, and at the Villa
Giacomelli, at Maser, Palladio’s other famous country house, the grounds
have been so modernized and stripped of all their characteristic
features that it is difficult to judge of their original design; but one
feels that all Palladio’s rural architecture lacked that touch of fancy
and freedom which, in the Roman school, facilitated the transition of
manner from the house to the garden-pavilion, and from the pavilion to
the half-rustic grotto and the woodland temple.
The Villa Valmarana, also at Vicenza, on the Monte Berico, not far from
the Rotonda, has something of the intimate charm lacking in the latter.
The low and simply designed house is notable only for the charming
frescoes with which Tiepolo adorned its rooms; but the beautiful loggia
in the garden is attributed to Palladio, and this, together with the old
beech-alleys, the charming frescoed fountain, the garden-wall crowned by
Venetian grotesques, forms a composition of exceptional picturesqueness.
The beautiful country-side between Vicenza and Verona is strewn with old
villas, many of which would doubtless repay study; but there are no
gardens of note in this part of Veneto, except the famous Giusti gardens
at Verona, probably better known to sightseers than any others in
northern Italy. In spite of all their charm, however, the dusky massing
of their old cypresses, and their winding walks along the cliff-side,
the Giusti gardens preserve few traces of their original design, and are
therefore not especially important to the student of Italian
garden-architecture. More interesting in this connection is the Villa
Cuzzano, about seven miles from Verona, a beautiful old house standing
above a terrace-garden planted with an elaborate _parterre de broderie_.
Behind the villa is a spacious court bounded by a line of low buildings
with a central chapel. The interior of the house has been little
changed, and is an interesting example of north Italian villa planning
and decoration. The passion of the Italian architects for composition
and continuity of design is seen in the careful placing of the chapel,
which is exactly on an axis with the central saloon of the villa, so
that, standing in the chapel, one looks across the court, through this
lofty saloon, and out on the beautiful hilly landscape beyond. It was by
such means that the villa-architects obtained, with simple materials and
in a limited space, impressions of distance, and sensations of the
unexpected, for which one looks in vain in the haphazard and slipshod
designs of the present day.
LIST OF BOOKS MENTIONED
ITALIAN
Gianfrancesco Costa _Le Delizie del Fiume Brenta._ 1750.
Giovanni Falda _Giardini di Roma._ N. d.
Peter Paul Rubens _Palazzi di Genova._ 1622.
Rafaello Soprani _Vite de’ Pittori, Scultori ed Architetti
Genovesi._ (Second edition, revised, enlarged
and supplied with notes by C. G. Ratti.
1768.)
Giuseppe Zocchi _Vedute delle Ville e d’altri luoghi della
Toscana._ 1744.
FRENCH
Le Président de Brosses _Lettres Familières écrites d’Italie en 1739 et
1740._
L. Dussieux _Artistes Français a l’Etranger._
Michel de Montaigne _Journal du Voyage en Italie par la Suisse et
l’Allemagne en 1580 et 1581._
Percier et Fontaine _Choix des plus célèbres Maisons de Plaisance
de Rome et de ses Environs._ 1809.
Marc Antonio del Rè _Maisons de Plaisance de l’Etat de Milan.
Milan._ 1743.
Georges Riat _L’Art des Jardins._ N. d.
Eugène Emmanuel _Dictionnaire Raisonné de l’Architecture
Viollet-le-Duc Française._ 1858.
GERMAN
Jacob Burckhardt _Der Cicerone._ 1901.
Jacob Burckhardt _Geschichte der Renaissance in Italien._ 1891.
Josef Durm _Die Baustile: Die Baukunst der Renaissance in
Italien._ 1903.
Gustav Ebe _Die Spätrenaissance._ 1886.
Cornelius Gurlitt _Geschichte des Barockstils in Italien._ 1887.
W. C. Tuckermann _Die Gartenkunst der Italienischen
Renaissance-Zeit._ 1884.
ENGLISH
Michael Bryan _Dictionary of Painters and Engravers,
biographical and critical._ Revised and
enlarged by Robert Edmund Graves, B.A., 1886.
G. Burnet, D.D., Bishop Some Letters, containing an Account of what
of Salisbury. seemed most remarkable in Switzerland, Italy,
etc. 1686.
John Evelyn Diary, 1644.
ARCHITECTS AND LANDSCAPE-GARDENERS MENTIONED
ALESSI (GALEAZZO)
1512-1572
Though Alessi was a native of Perugia his best-known buildings were
erected in Genoa. Among them are the Villa Pallavicini alle Peschiere,
the Villa Imperiali (now Scassi), the Villa Giustiniani (now Cambiaso),
the Palazzo Parodi, the public granaries, and the church of the Madonna
di Carignano. He also laid out the Strada Nuova in Genoa. His chief
works in other places are: the Palazzo Marin (now the Municipio) in
Milan; the Palazzo Antinori, and the front of the church of S. Maria del
Popolo at Perugia; and the church of the Madonna degli Angeli near
Assisi.
ALGARDI (ALESSANDRO)
1602-1654
Algardi, a Bolognese architect, was also distinguished as an engraver
and sculptor, and was noted for his figures of children. He built the
Villa Belrespiro or Pamphily on the Janiculan, and the Villa Sauli, both
in Rome.
AMMANATI (BARTOLOMMEO)
1511-1592
Ammanati, the pupil of Bandinelli and Sansovino, was one of the most
distinguished Florentine architects of the sixteenth century, and was
also noted for his garden-sculpture. In Florence some of his best work
is seen in the Boboli garden and in the court of the Palazzo Pitti,
while the bridge of the S. Trinità is considered his masterpiece. In
Rome he built the fine façades of the Palazzo Ruspoli and of the
Collegio Romano. The rusticated loggia of the Villa Fonte all’ Erta is
ascribed to him.
BERNINI (GIOVANNI LORENZO)
1598-1680
Bernini, a Neapolitan by birth, was the greatest Italian architect and
sculptor of the seventeenth century. One of his masterpieces in
architecture is the church of S. Andrea al Noviziato on the Quirinal,
and among his other works in Rome are: the piazza and colonnade of St.
Peter’s, the Scala Regia in the Vatican, the Palazzo di Monte Citorio,
and the fountains of Trevi and the Tritone; at Pistoja the Villa
Rospigliosi, at Terni the cathedral, and at Ravenna the Porta Nuova.
BORROMINI (FRANCESCO)
1599-1667
Borromini, a pupil of Maderna, was, next to Bernini, the most original
and brilliant exponent of _baroque_ architecture in Italy. He was born
in Lombardy, but worked principally in Rome. Among his best-known
buildings are the church of St. Agnes on the Piazza Navona, that of San
Carlo alle quattro fontane, and the College of the Propaganda Fide. In
conjunction with Bernini and Maderna, he built the Palazzo Barberini in
Rome. Some of his best work is seen in the Villa Falconieri at Frascati.
BRAMANTE (DONATO)
1444-1514
Bramante was born at Urbino, but executed all his early work in Milan,
producing the church of S. Maria delle Grazie, the Ospedale Maggiore,
and the sacristy of San Satiro, which he not only built, but decorated
internally. In Lombardy the early Renaissance of building is called the
Bramantesque style. Bramante’s works in Rome are: the Tempietto of San
Pietro in Montorio, the palace of the Cancelleria, a part of the
Vatican, and a part of the Palazzo di San Biagio.
BROWN (LANCELOT)
1715-1783
Lancelot Brown, known as “Capability Brown,” a native of Northumberland,
began his career in a kitchen-garden, but, though without artistic
training and unable to draw, he became for a time a popular designer of
landscape-gardens. He was appointed Royal Gardener at Hampton Court, and
laid out the lake at Blenheim. He was considered to excel in
water-gardens.
BUONTALENTI (BERNARDO TIMANTE)
1536-1608
Buontalenti, one of the leading Florentine architects of the sixteenth
century, was also distinguished as a sculptor and painter. He built the
villa of Pratolino and carried on the planning of the Boboli garden. His
other works in Florence are: the façades of the Palazzi Strozzi and
Riccardi, the Palazzo Acciajuoli (now Corsini), the corridor leading
from the Uffizi to the Pitti Palace, and the casino behind San Marco. At
Siena, Buontalenti built the Palazzo Reale, and at Pisa, the Loggia de’
Banchi.
CAMPORESI (PIETRO)
B. ——, d. 1781
Camporesi, a Roman architect, is mentioned as working with “Moore of
Rome” on the grounds of the Villa Borghese.
CARLONE
Several brothers of this name lived in Genoa between 1550 and 1650. They
were known as sculptors, painters and gilders, and workers in stucco.
The beautiful ceiling of the church of the Santissima Annunziata in
Genoa is known to be by one of the Carloni.
CASTELLI (CARLO)
XVII Century
Castelli, who completed the façade of Santa Maria alla Porta, in Milan,
was an architect of the school of Maderna. With Crivelli he laid out the
gardens of the Isola Bella, near Como.
CASTELLO (GIOVANNI BATTISTA)
CALLED IL BERGAMASCO
1509-1579
Giovanni Castello of Bergamo was a pupil of Alessi’s and distinguished
himself in fresco-painting and sculpture. In Genoa he remodelled the
Palazzo Pallavicini (now Cataldi) and built the Palazzo Imperiali.
Soprani (“Vite de’ Pittori, Scultori ed Architetti Genovesi”) says that
Il Bergamasco was court-architect to Philip II of Spain and worked on
the Escorial. Bryan, in his Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, states
that Il Bergamasco was employed on the Prado by Charles V, while his son
worked for Philip II.
CRIVELLI
XVII Century
This landscape-gardener worked with Carlo Castelli on the grounds of the
Isola Bella, near Como.
FERRI (ANTONIO)
XVII Century
Ferri, a Florentine architect, built the Villa Corsini near Florence,
and remodelled the Palazzo Corsini on the Lungarno.
FONTANA (CARLO)
1634-1714
Fontana, one of the most versatile and accomplished architects of his
day, was born at Bruciato, near Milan. He was called to Rome as
architect of St. Peter’s, and collaborated with Bernini on several
occasions. In Rome he built the palace of Monte Citorio, the façade of
San Marcello, and the Palazzo Torlonia. As a villa-architect his most
famous creation is the Garden Palace of Prince Liechtenstein in Vienna.
He built the palace on the Isola Bella, and the Villa Chigi, at
Cetinale, near Siena, is also attributed to him. He was the author of
works on the Vatican and on the antiquities of Rome.
FONTANA (GIOVANNI)
1546-1614
Giovanni Fontana, of Melide, near Lugano, excelled in everything
relating to hydraulic work. At the Villa Borghese in Rome, and in the
principal villas at Frascati (Aldobrandini, Taverna, Mondragone), he
introduced original designs for the waterworks. In Rome he built the
Palazzi Giustiniani and de’ Gori, and made the design for the Fontana
dell’ Acqua Paola, though he did not live to carry it out.
FRIGIMELICA (COUNT GIROLAMO)
XVIII Century
Count Frigimelica, an accomplished Venetian nobleman, built the church
of S. Gaetano at Vicenza, and collaborated with Prati in the
construction of the Villa Pisani at Strà.
JUVARA (FILIPPO)
1685-1735
Juvara, the most original and interesting Italian architect of the
eighteenth century, was a pupil of Carlo Fontana’s. His most important
work is the church of the Superga near Turin, and his principal
buildings are found in or near Turin: among them being the hunting-lodge
of Stupinigi and the churches of Santa Cristina and Santa Maria in
Carmine. The church of San Filippo in Turin was rebuilt by Juvara, and
the royal villa at Rivoli, as well as other villas in the environs of
Turin, show his hand. He remodelled the Palazzo Madama in Rome; at Lucca
he finished the Palazzo Reale; at Mantua the dome on the church of S.
Andrea is by him, and in Lisbon and Madrid, respectively, he built the
royal palaces.
LE NÔTRE (ANDRÉ)
1613-1700
Le Nôtre, the greatest of French landscape-gardeners, first studied
painting under Simon Vouet, together with Mignard, Lebrun and Lesueur,
then succeeded his father as superintendent of the royal gardens. Among
his great works are the gardens at Vaux-le-Vicomte, at Sceaux, at
Chantilly, and the cascades and park at Saint-Cloud. The park of
Versailles, the gardens of the Trianon, of Clagny and of Marly, are
considered his masterpieces. When he visited Italy he remodelled the
grounds of the Villa Ludovisi. He was frequently consulted by the
Elector of Brandenburg and other notable foreigners.
LIGORIO (PIRRO)
1493-1580
Ligorio, the Neapolitan architect, was also distinguished as antiquary,
sculptor and engineer; he worked much in _sgraffiti_. He built the
beautiful Villa Pia in the Vatican gardens, and the Villa d’Este at
Tivoli, and made additions to the Vatican. The Library in Turin
possesses his numerous manuscripts, some of which have been published.
His best-known works are “An Attempt to Restore Ancient Rome” and “The
Restoration of Hadrian’s Villa,” the plates for which were engraved on
copper by Francesco Contini in 1751.
LIPPI (ANNIBALE)
B. ——, d. 1581
Lippi is generally said to have been the son of Nanni di Baccio Bigio,
the architect and sculptor, though some biographers declare them to have
been the same person. Assuming Lippi to have had a separate identity,
only two of his works are known: the church of S. Maria di Loreto, near
Spoleto, and the Villa Medici in Rome. His fame rests on the latter,
which became the model of the Roman _maison de plaisance_.
LONGHENA (BALDASSARE)
1604-1682
Longhena, the most distinguished architect of the late Renaissance in
Venetia, gave all his time and work to his native city. Among the
buildings he erected there are: S. Maria della Salute, S. Maria al
Scalzi, the Ospedaletto, the cloister and staircase in San Giorgio
Maggiore, the Palazzo Pesaro, and the Palazzo Rezzonico (now Zelinsky).
LUNGHI OR LONGHI (MARTINO) THE ELDER
XVI Century
Lunghi, born at Viggiù in the Milanese, in the second half of the
sixteenth century, built the Villa Mondragone at Frascati, in 1567, for
Cardinal Marco d’Altemps. The villa was enlarged by Gregory VII, and
later by Paul V and his nephew, Cardinal Scipione Borghese.
MARCHIONNE (CARLO)
1704-1780
Marchionne was the architect of the Villa Albani near Rome, built in
1746.
MICHELANGELO (SIMONE BUONARROTI)
1475-1564
The great architect, sculptor and painter, was born in Florence, where
he built the Laurentian Library and the chapel of S. Lorenzo, with the
cupola of the sacristy. In Rome he built the Palazzo de’ Conservatorii
on the Capitoline hill, the cornice of the Palazzo Farnese, the Porta
del Popolo and the Porta Pia. His model for the dome of St. Peter’s was
carried out except as to the lantern. Tradition assigns to him the Villa
ai Collazzi (now Bombicci) near Florence.
MONTORSOLI (FRA GIOVANNI ANGELO)
1507-1563
Fra Giovanni Montorsoli, a Florentine monk of the Servite Order, was a
sculptor, and studied under Michelangelo. He was early called to Genoa,
where he decorated the church of San Matteo (the church of the Doria
family) and built the famous villa in the harbour for the Admiral Andrea
Doria. The Villa Imperiali, at San Fruttuoso, near Genoa, is also
attributed to Montorsoli. One of his best works is the high altar in the
church of the Servi at Bologna.
MOORE (JACOB)
1740-1793
Moore, a Scotch landscape-painter—known as “Moore of Rome”—was
patronized by Prince Borghese, and remodelled the grounds of the Villa
Borghese in the style of the _jardin anglais_.
MORA
XVII Century
A Roman engineer of the name built some of the waterworks on the Isola
Bella, near Como, in the seventeenth century.
NOLLI (ANTONIO)
XVIII Century
Nolli laid out the grounds of the Villa Albani near Rome, in 1746.
NOLLI (PIETRO)
XVIII Century
Pietro Nolli is also mentioned as one of the landscape-gardeners who
laid out the Villa Albani.
OLIVIERI (ORAZIO) OF TIVOLI
XVI Century
Olivieri was employed as an engineer of the waterworks at the Villa
d’Este at Tivoli and the Villa Aldobrandini at Frascati.
PALLADIO (ANDREA)
1508-1580
Palladio, the great Venetian architect, was born at Vicenza. He turned
the development of Italian Renaissance architecture in the direction of
pure classicalism, and was a master of proportion in building. At
Vicenza he rebuilt the Sala della Ragione, and built the Palazzi Tiene
and Valmarana and the Teatro Olimpico; while the Villa Capra or Rotonda,
near Vicenza, is his work, and also the Villa Giacomelli at Maser. In
Venice he erected the churches of San Giorgio Maggiore and Il Redentore,
also the Villa Malcontenta near Fusina on the Brenta. Palladio published
a “Treatise on Architecture” and “The Antiquities of Rome.”
PARIGI (GIULIO)
B. ——, d. 1635
Parigi was a Florentine architect, engineer and designer. As far as is
known, he worked entirely in Florence and its environs. He is the
architect of the court and arcade of Poggio Imperiale, the cloister of
S. Agostino, the Palazzo Marucelli (now Fenci), the Palazzo Scarlatti,
and a part of the Uffizi.
PERUZZI (BALDASSARE)
1481-1537
Peruzzi, who was both architect and painter, divided his time between
Rome and Siena, where he was born. He built the Villa Vicobello near
Siena, as well as that of Belcaro. The well-known Palazzo Massimi alle
Colonne in Rome is his work, also the Villa Trivulzio near Rome.
PIRANESI (GIOVANNI BATTISTA)
1720-1778
Piranesi, the famous Venetian etcher and engraver, was specially noted
for his etchings of famous buildings, and has been called “The Rembrandt
of Architecture.” He was also an architect, and worked on the church of
S. Maria del Popolo in Rome. While there he also remodelled the chapel
of the Priory of the Knights of Malta, and probably laid out the
grounds. Piranesi published over twenty folio volumes of engravings and
etchings.
PONZIO (FLAMINIO)
1575-1620
Ponzio, a Lombard architect, built the loggia of the Villa Mondragone at
Frascati, and the Palazzo Sciarra, and finished the Borghese Chapel in
the church of S. Maria Maggiore in Rome.
PORTA (GIACOMO DELLA)
1541-1604
Della Porta, a Milanese architect, was a pupil of Vignola’s. His great
work was the finishing of the dome of St. Peter’s in Rome, in doing
which he followed Michelangelo’s plan, but improved the curve. His other
works in Rome were: the churches of Il Gesù, S. Luigi de’ Francesi, S.
Catarina de’ Funari, the Palazzo Paluzzi, the façade of the Palazzo
Chigi, the famous fountains in the Piazza d’Araceli and the Piazza
Navona (for which Bernini supplied the sculpture), and the Fontana delle
Tartarughe. In Genoa he finished the church of the S. S. Annunziata, and
he was employed on the Villa d’Este at Tivoli and the Villa Aldobrandini
at Frascati.
PRATI
XVIII Century
Prati collaborated with Count Frigimelica in building the Villa Pisani,
at Strà near Venice, in the eighteenth century.
RAINALDI (GIROLAMO)
1570-1655
Rainaldi was a Roman and his principal works are in Rome. He planned the
church of S. Agnese; built the façade of S. Andrea della Valle, the
façade of S. Maria in Campitelli, and the Palazzo Pamphily on the Piazza
Navona. He added two pavilions to the Farnesina, and designed the
grounds of the Villa Borghese and the gardens of the Villa Mondragone at
Frascati. In Bologna he built the church of S. Lucia.
RAPHAEL SANZIO
1483-1520
Raphael succeeded Bramante as chief architect of St. Peter’s. His most
important villa is the famous Villa Madama near Rome. The Farnesina in
Rome was built by him, and he laid out the gardens of the Vatican. His
other works in Rome are the Palazzo Caffarelli (now Stoppani) and the
Capella Chigi. In Florence he designed the façades of the church of San
Lorenzo and of the Palazzo Pandolfini (now Nencini).
REPTON (HUMPHREY)
1752-1818
Repton, who was born at Bury St. Edmunds, began life as a merchant, but
having failed in his business, became a landscape-gardener. He published
“Observations on Landscape Gardening” (1803), and is the best-known
successor of “Capability Brown” in the naturalistic style of gardening.
ROMANO (GIULIO DEI GIANNUZZI—ALSO CALLED GIULIO PIPPI)
1492-1546
As Raphael’s pupil, Giulio Romano painted the architectural backgrounds
of Raphael’s frescoes in the Vatican, and this led to his studying
architecture. His masterpiece is the Palazzo del Tè at Mantua, where he
also built a part of the Palazzo Ducale. He carried out Raphael’s
decorations in the Villa Madama.
RUGGIERI (ANTONIO MARIA)
XVIII Century
Ruggieri built the Villa Alario (now Visconti di Saliceto) on the
Naviglio near Milan, and the façade of the church of S. Firenze in
Florence. He also remodelled the interior of Santa Felicità in Florence,
and in Milan he built the Palazzo Cusani.
SANGALLO (ANTONIO GIAMBERTI DA)
1455-1534
Antonio da Sangallo was a brother of Giuliano, and famous as a carver of
crucifixes. He altered Hadrian’s tomb in Rome into the Castle of St.
Angelo, and laid out a part of the Vatican gardens. The church of the
Madonna di S. Biagio in Montepulciano and the fortress of Cività
Castellana were built by him.
SANGALLO, THE YOUNGER (ANTONIO CORDIANI DA)
1483-1546
This Sangallo was a nephew of the other Antonio, and a pupil of
Bramante’s. After Raphael’s death he became the leading architect of St.
Peter’s. The fortress at Cività Vecchia is his work. In Rome he planned
the outer gardens of the Vatican and built the right-hand chapel in S.
Giacomo degli Spagnuoli, the beautiful Palazzo Marchionne Baldassini,
the Palazzo Sacchetti, and the greater part of the Palazzo Farnese.
SANGALLO (GIULIANO GIAMBERTI DA)
1445-1516
Giuliano da Sangallo, the Florentine architect, was also noted as an
engineer and a carver in wood. His great work is the villa at Poggio a
Caiano near Florence, with a hall having the widest ceiling then known.
He also built the Villa Petraia at Castello, near Florence, and in or
near Florence the sacristy and cloister of San Spirito, the cloister for
the Frati Eremitani di S. Agostino, and the villa of Poggio Imperiale.
Among his other works are: the Palazzo Rovere near San Pietro in
Vincoli, in Rome, and the Palazzo Rovere at Savona. Sangallo also
constructed many fortresses. After Bramante’s death he worked with
Raphael on St. Peter’s.
SANSOVINO (JACOPO TATTI)
1487-1570
Sansovino, though a Florentine by birth, worked principally in Venice.
He was equally distinguished as sculptor and architect. In the latter
capacity he built in Venice the Zecca or Mint, the Loggietta, the
Palazzo Cornaro, the Palazzo Corner della Cá Grande, the Scala d’Oro in
the Doge’s palace, the churches of San Martino and San Fantino, and his
masterpiece, the Library of San Marco. In Rome the Palazzo Gaddi (now
Nicolini) was built by him.
SAVINO (DOMENICO)
XVIII Century
Savino is mentioned among the landscape-gardeners who remodelled the
grounds of the Villa Borghese.
TITO (SANTI DI) OF FLORENCE
1536-1603
Santi di Tito of Florence was known as an historical painter, and also
as a builder of villas at Casciano and Monte Oliveto. An octagonal villa
at Peretola was built by him, and he did some decorative work in the
Villa Pia. In Florence he built the Palazzo Dardinelli.
IL TRIBOLO (NICCOLÓ PERICOLI)
1485-1550
Il Tribolo, the Florentine sculptor, studied under Sansovino. He became
known for his beautiful designs in tile-work, of which the Villa
Castello near Florence shows many examples. He collaborated with
Ammanati in laying out the Boboli garden, and the great grotto at
Castello is his work.
UDINE (GIOVANNI DA)
1487-1564
Giovanni da Udine, born, as his name indicates, in the chief city of the
province of Friuli, was one of the most celebrated decorative artists of
his day. He studied under Giorgione and Raphael, and became noted for
his stained glass and for the invention of a stucco as durable as that
of the Romans. His stucco-work in the Villa Madama and in the loggias of
the Vatican is famous, and part of the decoration of the Borgia rooms in
the Vatican is his work. Michelangelo’s chapel of the Medici in Florence
was painted and decorated in stucco by Udine, and he carried out, in
painting, some of Raphael’s designs for the great hall of the Farnesina.
The Palazzo Grimani in Venice and the Palazzo Massimi alle Colonne in
Rome were partly decorated by him.
VAGA (PIERIN DEL)
1500-1547
Del Vaga, whose real name was Pietro Buonaccorsi, was born near
Florence. He was a pupil of Raphael’s, and after the latter’s death was
employed in finishing a part of his work in the Vatican. Almost all del
Vaga’s work was done in Genoa, where he painted the state apartments in
the Villa Doria. The charming plaster decorations in the Palazzo
Pallavicini (now Cataldi) are by him, and also the Hercules cycle in the
Palazzo Odero (now Mari).
VASANZIO (GIOVANNI)
B. ——, d. 1622
Vasanzio, known also as Il Fiammingo, but whose real name was John of
Xanten, was a Flemish architect who came to Italy and had considerable
success in Rome. He built the Villa Borghese in Rome and designed the
fountains of the inner court of the Villa Pia. He also worked on the
Villa Mondragone at Frascati and succeeded Flaminio Ponzio as architect
of the Palazzo Rospigliosi in Rome.
VASARI (GIORGIO)
1511-1574
Vasari, who was born at Arezzo, was a pupil of Michelangelo and Andrea
del Sarto. Though he considered himself a better painter than architect,
it is chiefly as the latter that he interests the modern student. He
built the court of the Uffizi in Florence and planned the Villa di Papa
Giulio in Rome; painted the ceiling of the great hall of the Palazzo
Vecchio in Florence, and carved the figure of Architecture on the tomb
of Michelangelo in Santa Croce. He is, however, chiefly famous for his
lives of the Italian painters and architects.
VIGNOLA (GIACOMO BAROZZI DA)
1507-1573
Vignola, one of the greatest architects of the sixteenth century, born
at Vignola, in the province of Modena, followed Michelangelo as the
architect of St. Peter’s. The Villa Lante at Bagnaia, near Viterbo, is
attributed to him. In Rome he built the celebrated Villa di Papa Giulio,
though the plan was Vasari’s; also the garden-architecture of the Orti
Farnesiani on the Palatine. His masterpiece is the palace at Caprarola,
near Viterbo. He also built the great Palazzo Farnese at Piacenza,
various buildings at Bologna, and the loggia of the Villa Mondragone at
Frascati. His church of the Gesù in Rome greatly influenced other
architects. His text-book on the Orders of Architecture is one of the
best-known works on the subject.
INDEX
Acqua Sola, gardens of, 42, 53
Albani, Cardinal, 113
Albani, Villa, Pietro Nolli’s work on, 110;
Antonio Nolli’s work on, 113
d’Albaro, San Francesco, villas at, 188
Alessi, Galeazzo: Strada Nuova, 176;
Villa Imperiali (Scassi), 179;
Villa Paradiso, 189;
Villa Cambiaso, 189
Algardi, Alessandro, 109
Ammanati, Bartolommeo, Boboli garden, 25;
Villa di Papa Giulio, 84
Anguissola, Count, 212
Arethusa, grotto of, at Villa d’Este, 147
Battaglia, castle of Cattajo at, 233
Bernini, 185
Bisuschio: _see_ Villa Cicogna
Boboli garden, 25;
Isola Bella in, 29
Bologna, Giovanni da, 37;
figure of the Apennines, 57
Bombicci, Villa, 53
Borghese, Cardinal Scipione, 148
Borghese, Villa, 107
Borromean Islands, 197
Borromeo, Cardinal Charles, 201
Borromeo, Count Vitaliano IV, 198
Borromini, 163
Botanic Garden at Padua, 239
Bramante: Vatican gardens, 81;
double staircase in the Vatican, 97
Brenta, the, 233, 243
Brown, “Capability,” 205
Brunswick, Caroline of, 184
Buonaccorsi: _see_ Vaga
Buontalenti, 25
Burnet, Bishop: description of Isola Bella,
Cadenabbia, 214
Cafaggiuolo, Villa, 30
_Caffè_ at the Villa Albani, 114
Cagnola, Villa, 219
Cambiaso, Villa, 189
Cambiaso, Villa: _see_ Paradiso
Campi, Villa, 54
Campiobbi, 48
Camporesi, 108
Canopus, Valley of, at Villa of Hadrian, 148
Capra, Villa, at Vicenza, 246
Caprarola, 97;
Vignola’s casino, 131;
_château d’eau_, 131
Careggi, Villa, 30
Carloni, the: statue of Neptune in Villa Doria, 175
Carlotta, Villa, at Cadenabbia, 214
Casino of the Aurora, 119
Casino del Papa: _see_ Villa Pia
Castelli: terraces on the Isola Bella, 198
Castello, Giovanni Battista, 173
Castello, Villa, 30
Cattajo, castle of, 233
Cecchignola, hunting-lodge of, 119
Celimontana, Villa, 119
Cetinale, Villa, 64;
hermitage at, 66
_Châteaux d’eau_ at the Villa Aldobrandini, 152;
Villa Borghese, 107;
Caprarola, 131;
Villa Cicogna, 217;
Palazzo Colonna, 119;
Villa Conti, 155;
Villa d’Este at Tivoli, 144;
Villa Lante, 136;
Lancellotti, 164;
Mondragone, 151;
Val San Zibio, 237
Chigi, Flavio, 65
Chigi, Villa, 117
Cicogna, Villa, 214;
_château d’eau_, 217
Clement VII: _see_ Medici, Giuliano de’
Colonna, Cardinal, 83
Colonna, Palazzo, 118;
_château d’eau_, 119
Como, villa of Bishop of, 213
Conti, Villa: _see_ Torlonia
Cordova, Cardinal Bishop of, 140
Corsini, Villa, 48
Crivelli, Villa, near Inverigo, 218
Crivelli: work on the Isola Bella, 198
Cuzzano, Villa, 250
Danti, Villa, 48, 57
De’ Gori, Villa: _see_ Palazzina, La
Durazzo-Grapollo, Villa, 186
Dussieux, 110
Este, Cardinal Ippolito d’, 140
Este, Villa d’, at Cernobbio, 208
Este, Villa d’, at Tivoli, 139;
grotesque garden-architecture, 29;
Ligorio’s work, 140;
frescoes of the Zuccheri, 143
Evelyn, description of Villa Medici, 89;
of Villa Doria, 175
Falconieri, Villa, 160
Farnese, Cardinal Alexander, 127
Farnese gardens, 97
Ferrara, Alfonso I of, 140
Ferri, Antonio, 48
Fontana, Carlo: Cetinale, 65;
palace and garden-pavilions on the Isola Bella, 198
Fontana, Giovanni: Villa Borghese, 107;
_théâtre d’eau_ at Mondragone, 151;
waterworks at the Villa Aldobrandini, 152
Fonte all’ Erta, 51
Frascati, _jeux d’eaux_ in villas, 107;
characteristic features of villas, 139
Gallio, Cardinal, 184
Gambara, Cardinal, 132
Gamberaia, Villa, 45
Garden, Botanic, at Padua, 239
Garden-house at Caprarola, 131
Garden-house at Strà, 244
Gardens:
Acqua Sola, 185
Boboli, 25
Farnese, 97
Florentine, English influence on, 21
Genoese, characteristics of, 178
Giusti, 250
Pigna, 82
Vatican, 98
Genoa, villas of, 173
Giacomelli, Villa, 249
Giulio, Villa di Papa, 84
Giusti gardens, 250
Giustiniani, Villa, 174
Grotto at Villa Castello, 34;
at Villa d’Este, 147;
at Villa Gamberaia, 45
Hermitage at Cetinale, 66
Imperiali, Villa, at Sampierdarena: _see_ Villa Scassi
Imperiali, Villa, at San Fruttuoso, 190
Isola Bella, Lake of Como, 198;
Bishop Burnet’s description of, 201
Isola Bella in Boboli garden, 29
Isola Madre, Lake of Como, 197
Julius III, 84
Juvara, 231
Lancellotti, Villa, 164
Lante, Villa, 132;
_château d’eau_, 136;
gardens, 97
Le Nôtre, 110, 139
Ligorio, Pirro, 98;
Casino del Papa, 98;
Villa d’Este at Tivoli, 140
Lippi, Annibale, 90
Lomellini, Villa, 174
Longhena, 232
Ludovisi, Villa, 119
_Maison de plaisance_, the, 22
Malcontenta, Villa della, 245
Malta, Villa of the Knights of, 117
Marchionne, Carlo, 113
Mattei, Villa, 119
Medici, Eleonora de’, 25
Medici, Giuliano de’ (Clement VII), 82
Medici, Villa, 89
Michelangelo: Villa Bombicci, 53;
Villa di Papa Giulio, 84
Modena, Villa of Duke of, at Varese, 224
Mondragone, 97;
work by Flaminio Ponzio, 148;
Vignola’s loggia, 151;
Giovanni Fontana’s _théâtre d’eau_, 151
Montaigne: description of Castello, 33
Montalto, Cardinal, 132
Montorsoli, Fra., 174
Moore, Jacob, 108
Mora, 198
Muti, Villa, 159
Naples, King of, 83
Negroni, Villa, 119
Nolli, Antonio, 113
Nolli, Pietro, 110
Olivieri, Orazio, 147
Padua, Botanic Garden, 239;
Prato della Valle, 240
Palazzina, La, 71;
theatre at, 72
Palladio, 180, 232
Pallavicini, Villa, at Pegli, 185
Pallavicini alle Peschiere, Villa, 185, 180
Palmieri, Villa, 57
Pamphily, Villa, 109; _théâtre d’eau_, 110
Papa, Casino del: _see_ Villa Pia
Papa Giulio, Villa di, 84
Paradisino, Villa, 189
Paradiso, Villa, 189
Parigi, Giulio, 38
Parma, Duchess of, 83
Parodi, Palazzo, 177
Peruzzi, Baldassare, at Belcaro, 63;
at Vicobello, 69
Peter Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, 38
Petraia, Villa, 30;
fountain at, 37
Pia, Villa, 140
Pigna, Giardino della, 82
Piranesi, 117
Pisani, Alvise, 243
Pisani, Villa, at Strà, 244
Pius IV, 98
Pliniana, Villa, 212
Poggio a Caiano, 30
Poggio Imperiale, 38
Ponzio, Flaminio, 148
Porta, Giacomo della, 144;
Villa Aldobrandini, 151
Prati, 243
Pratolino, Villa, 30, 57
Priorato, Il: _see_ Villa of the Knights of
Malta
Pulci, Castel, 57
Rainaldi, Girolamo, 107
Raphael, 82
Repton, Humphrey, 205
Riario, Cardinal, 132
Ridolfi, Cardinal, 132
Romano, Giulio, 82
Rotonda Cagnola: _see_ Cagnola
Rotonda Capra: _see_ Capra
Rubens, 176
Ruffini, Cardinal, 163
Ruggieri, 223
Sacchetti, Villa, 119
Sampierdarena, 33
Sangallo, Antonio da, 82;
A. da Sangallo the Younger, 104
Sangallo, Giuliano da, 38, 82
Sansovino, 232
Savino, 107
Scassi, Villa, 179
Sixtus V, 132
Strà, Villa Pisani at, 244
Strada Nuova in Genoa, 176
Tiepolo: Villa Pisani, 244;
Villa Valmarana, 249
Tito, Santi di, 53
Torlonia, Villa, 155
Tribolo, Il: Boboli garden, 25;
fountain at Castello, 33;
at Petraia, 37
Udine, Giovanni da, 83
Vaga, Pierin del, 173
Valmarana, Villa, 249
Val San Zibio, Villa of, 237
Vasanzio, Giovanni (Il Fiammingo), 107
Vasari, 84
Vatican, gardens of, 81
Venetia, villa-architecture of, 232
Vigna del Papa: _see_ Villa di Papa Giulio
Vignola: Villa di Papa Giulio, 84;
Farnese gardens, 97;
Caprarola, 131;
loggia at Mondragone, 151
Villa:
Ai Collazzi: _see_ Bombicci
Alario: _see_ Visconti di Saliceto
Albani, 110, 113
Aldobrandini, 151
Belcaro, 63
Belrespiro: _see_ Pamphily
Bombicci, 53
Borghese, 107
Cafaggiuolo, 30
Cagnola, 219
Cambiaso (Paradiso), 189
Cambiaso, by Alessi, 189
Campi, 54
Capponi at Arcetri, 48
Capra, 246
Caprarola, 97
Careggi, 30
Carlotta, 214
Castel Pulci, 57
Celimontana, 119
Cetinale, 64
Chigi, 117
Cicogna, 214
Conti: _see_ Torlonia
Corsini, 48
Crivelli, 218
Cuzzano, 250
Danti, 48, 57
De’ Gori: _see_ Palazzina, La
Doria in Genoa, 175
Durazzo-Grapollo, 186
d’Este at Cernobbio, 184
d’Este at Tivoli, 139
Falconieri, 160
Fonte all’ Erta, 51
Gamberaia, 41
Giacomelli, 249
Giustiniani, 174
Imperiali at San Fruttuoso, 190
Imperiali: _see_ Scassi
Isola Bella, 198
Lancellotti, 164
Lante, 97
Lappeggi, 57
Lomellini, 174
Ludovisi, 119
Madama, 82
Malcontenta, 245
Malta, of the Knights of, 117
Medici, 89
Mondragone, 97
Muti, 159
Negroni, 119
Palazzina, La, 71
Pallavicini at Pegli, 185
Pallavicini alle Peschiere, 185
Palmieri, 57
Pamphily, 109
di Papa Giulio, 84
Paradisino, 189
Paradiso: _see_ Cambiaso
Petraia, 30
Pia, 140
Pisani, 244
Pliniana, 212
Poggio a Caiano, 30
Poggio Imperiale, 30
Pratolino, 57
Priorato, del: _see_ Malta
Rotonda: _see_ Cagnola and Capra
Sacchetti, 119
Scassi, 179
Torlonia, 155
Valmarana, 249
Val San Zibio, 237
Vicobello, 69
Visconti di Saliceto, 220
_Villa suburbana_, the, 22
Villas of the Brenta, 240;
of the Brianza, 218;
Florentine, 19;
Genoese, 173;
Milanese, 197;
Roman, 81;
Sienese, 63;
Venetian, 231
Vismara, 198
Xanten, John of: _see_ Vasanzio
Zocchi, etchings by, 33
Zuccheri, the, 85, 143
THE HERMIT AND THE WILD WOMAN AND OTHER STORIES
BY
EDITH WHARTON
NEW YORK
MCMVIII
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I _The Hermit and the Wild Woman_
II _The Last Asset_
III _In Trust_
IV _The Pretext_
V _The Verdict_
VI _The Pot-Boiler_
VII _The Best Man_
THE HERMIT AND THE WILD WOMAN
I
THE Hermit lived in a cave in the hollow of a hill. Below him was a
glen, with a stream in a coppice of oaks and alders, and on the farther
side of the valley, half a day's journey distant, another hill, steep
and bristling, which raised aloft a little walled town with Ghibelline
swallow-tails notched against the sky.
When the Hermit was a lad, and lived in the town, the crenellations of
the walls had been square-topped, and a Guelf lord had flown his
standard from the keep. Then one day a steel-coloured line of
men-at-arms rode across the valley, wound up the hill and battered in
the gates. Stones and Greek fire rained from the ramparts, shields
clashed in the streets, blade sprang at blade in passages and
stairways, pikes and lances dripped above huddled flesh, and all the
still familiar place was a stew of dying bodies. The boy fled from it
in horror. He had seen his father go forth and not come back, his
mother drop dead from an arquebuse shot as she leaned from the platform
of the tower, his little sister fall with a slit throat across the
altar steps of the chapel--and he ran, ran for his life, through the
slippery streets, over warm twitching bodies, between legs of soldiers
carousing, out of the gates, past burning farmsteads, trampled
wheat-fields, orchards stripped and broken, till the still woods
received him and he fell face down on the unmutilated earth.
He had no wish to go back. His longing was to live hidden from life. Up
the hillside he found a hollow in the rock, and built before it a porch
of boughs bound together with withies. He fed on nuts and roots, and on
trout which he caught with his hands under the stones in the stream. He
had always been a quiet boy, liking to sit at his mother's feet and
watch the flowers grow on her embroidery frame, while the chaplain read
aloud the histories of the Desert Fathers from a great silver-clasped
volume. He would rather have been bred a clerk and scholar than a
knight's son, and his happiest moments were when he served mass for the
chaplain in the early morning, and felt his heart flutter up and up
like a lark, up and up till it was lost in infinite space and
brightness. Almost as happy were the hours when he sat beside the
foreign painter who came over the mountains to paint the chapel, and
under whose brush celestial faces grew out of the rough wall as if he
had sown some magic seed which flowered while you watched it. With the
appearing of every gold-rimmed face the boy felt he had won another
friend, a friend who would come and bend above him at night, keeping
off the ugly visions which haunted his pillow--visions of the gnawing
monsters about the church-porch, evil-faced bats and dragons, giant
worms and winged bristling hogs, a devil's flock who crept down from
the stone-work at night and hunted the souls of sinful children through
the town. With the growth of the picture the bright mailed angels
thronged so close about the boy's bed that between their interwoven
wings not a snout or a claw could force itself; and he would turn over
sighing on his pillow, which felt as soft and warm as if it had been
lined with down from those sheltering pinions.
All these thoughts came back to him now in his cave on the cliff-side.
The stillness seemed to enclose him with wings, to fold him away from
life and evil. He was never restless or discontented. He loved the long
silent empty days, each one as like the other as pearls in a
well-matched string. Above all he liked to have time to save his soul.
He had been greatly troubled about his soul since a band of Flagellants
had passed through the town, exhibiting their gaunt scourged bodies and
exhorting the people to turn from soft raiment and delicate fare, from
marriage and money-getting and dancing and games, and think only how
they might escape the devil's talons and the great red blaze of hell.
For days that red blaze hung on the edge of the boy's thoughts like the
light of a burning city across a plain. There seemed to be so many
pitfalls to avoid--so many things were wicked which one might have
supposed to be harmless. How could a child of his age tell? He dared
not for a moment think of anything else. And the scene of sack and
slaughter from which he had fled gave shape and distinctness to that
blood-red vision. Hell was like that, only a million million times
worse. Now he knew how flesh looked when devils' pincers tore it, how
the shrieks of the damned sounded, and how roasting bodies smelled. How
could a Christian spare one moment of his days and nights from the long
long struggle to keep safe from the wrath to come?
Gradually the horror faded, leaving only a tranquil pleasure in the
minute performance of his religious duties. His mind was not naturally
given to the contemplation of evil, and in the blessed solitude of his
new life his thoughts dwelt more and more on the beauty of holiness.
His desire was to be perfectly good, and to live in love and charity
with his fellow-men; and how could one do this without fleeing from
them?
At first his life was difficult, for in the winter season he was put to
great straits to feed himself; and there were nights when the sky was
like an iron vault, and a hoarse wind rattled the oakwood in the
valley, and a great fear came on him that was worse than any cold. But
in time it became known to his townsfolk and to the peasants in the
neighbouring valleys that he had withdrawn to the wilderness to lead a
godly life; and after that his worst hardships were over, for pious
persons brought him gifts of oil and dried fruit, one good woman gave
him seeds from her garden, another spun for him a hodden gown, and
others would have brought him all manner of food and clothing, had he
not refused to accept anything but for his bare needs. The good woman
who had given him the seeds showed him also how to build a little
garden on the southern ledge of his cliff, and all one summer the
Hermit carried up soil from the streamside, and the next he carried up
water to keep his garden green. After that the fear of solitude quite
passed from him, for he was so busy all day long that at night he had
much ado to fight off the demon of sleep, which Saint Arsenius the
Abbot has denounced as the chief foe of the solitary. His memory kept
good store of prayers and litanies, besides long passages from the Mass
and other offices, and he marked the hours of his day by different acts
of devotion. On Sundays and feast days, when the wind was set his way,
he could hear the church bells from his native town, and these helped
him to follow the worship of the faithful, and to bear in mind the
seasons of the liturgical year; and what with carrying up water from
the river, digging in the garden, gathering fagots for his fire,
observing his religious duties, and keeping his thoughts continually
upon the salvation of his soul, the Hermit knew not a moment's idleness.
At first, during his night vigils, he had felt a great fear of the
stars, which seemed to set a cruel watch upon him, as though they spied
out the frailty of his heart and took the measure of his littleness.
But one day a wandering clerk, to whom he chanced to give a night's
shelter, explained to him that, in the opinion of the most learned
doctors of theology, the stars were inhabited by the spirits of the
blessed, and this thought brought great consolation to the Hermit. Even
on winter nights, when the eagle's wings clanged among the peaks, and
he heard the long howl of wolves about the sheep-cotes in the valley,
he no longer felt any fear, but thought of those sounds as representing
the evil voices of the world, and hugged himself in the solitude of his
cave. Sometimes, to keep himself awake, he composed lauds in honour of
Christ and the saints, and they seemed to him so pleasant that he
feared to forget them, so after much debate with himself he decided to
ask a friendly priest from the valley, who sometimes visited him, to
write down the lauds; and the priest wrote them down on comely
sheepskin, which the Hermit dried and prepared with his own hands. When
the Hermit saw them written down they appeared to him so beautiful that
he feared to commit the sin of vanity if he looked at them too often,
so he hid them between two smooth stones in his cave, and vowed that he
would take them out only once in the year, at Easter, when our Lord has
risen and it is meet that Christians should rejoice. And this vow he
faithfully kept; but, alas, when Easter drew near, he found he was
looking forward to the blessed festival less because of our Lord's
rising than because he should then be able to read his pleasant lauds
written on fair sheepskin; and thereupon he took a vow that he would
not look upon the lauds till he lay dying.
So the Hermit, for many years, lived to the glory of God and in great
peace of mind.
II
ONE day he resolved to set forth on a visit to the Saint of the Rock,
who lived on the other side of the mountains. Travellers had brought
the Hermit report of this solitary, how he lived in great holiness and
austerity in a desert place among the hills, where snow lay all winter,
and in summer the sun beat down cruelly. The Saint, it appeared, had
vowed that he would withdraw from the world to a spot where there was
neither shade nor water, lest he should be tempted to take his ease and
think less continually upon his Maker; but wherever he went he found a
spreading tree or a gushing spring, till at last he climbed up to the
bare heights where nothing grows, and where the only water comes from
the melting of the snow in spring. Here he found a tall rock rising
from the ground, and in it he scooped a hollow with his own hands,
labouring for five years and wearing his fingers to the bone. Then he
seated himself in the hollow, which faced the west, so that in winter
he should have small warmth of the sun and in summer be consumed by it;
and there he had sat without moving for years beyond number.
The Hermit was greatly drawn by the tale of such austerities, which in
his humility he did not dream of emulating, but desired, for his soul's
good, to contemplate and praise; so one day he bound sandals to his
feet, cut an alder staff from the stream, and set out to visit the
Saint of the Rock.
It was the pleasant spring season, when seeds are shooting and the bud
is on the tree. The Hermit was troubled at the thought of leaving his
plants without water, but he could not travel in winter by reason of
the snows, and in summer he feared the garden would suffer even more
from his absence. So he set out, praying that rain might fall while he
was away, and hoping to return again in five days. The peasants
labouring in the fields left their work to ask his blessing; and they
would even have followed him in great numbers had he not told them that
he was bound on a pilgrimage to the Saint of the Rock, and that it
behoved him to go alone, as one solitary seeking another. So they
respected his wish, and he went on and entered the forest. In the
forest he walked for two days and slept for two nights. He heard the
wolves crying, and foxes rustling in the covert, and once, at twilight,
a shaggy brown man peered at him through the leaves and galloped away
with a soft padding of hoofs; but the Hermit feared neither wild beasts
nor evil-doers, nor even the fauns and satyrs who linger in unhallowed
forest depths where the Cross has not been raised; for he said: "If I
die, I die to the glory of God, and if I live it must be to the same
end." Only he felt a secret pang at the thought that he might die
without seeing his lauds again. But the third day, without
misadventure, he came out on another valley.
Then he began to climb the mountain, first through brown woods of beech
and oak, then through pine and broom, and then across red stony ledges
where only a pinched growth of lentisk and briar spread in patches over
the rock. By this time he thought to have reached his goal, but for two
more days he fared on through the same scene, with the sky close over
him and the green valleys of earth receding far below. Sometimes for
hours he saw only the red glistering slopes tufted with thin bushes,
and the hard blue heaven so close that it seemed his hand could touch
it; then at a turn of the path the rocks rolled apart, the eye plunged
down a long pine-clad defile, and beyond it the forest flowed in mighty
undulations to a plain shining with cities and another mountain-range
many days' journey away. To some eyes this would have been a terrible
spectacle, reminding the wayfarer of his remoteness from his kind, and
of the perils which lurk in waste places and the weakness of man
against them; but the Hermit was so mated to solitude, and felt such
love for all things created, that to him the bare rocks sang of their
Maker and the vast distance bore witness to His greatness. So His
servant journeyed on unafraid.
But one morning, after a long climb over steep and difficult slopes,
the wayfarer halted suddenly at a bend of the way; for beyond the
defile at his feet there was no plain shining with cities, but a bare
expanse of shaken silver that reached away to the rim of the world; and
the Hermit knew it was the sea. Fear seized him then, for it was
terrible to see that great plain move like a heaving bosom, and, as he
looked on it, the earth seemed also to heave beneath him. But presently
he remembered how Christ had walked the waves, and how even Saint Mary
of Egypt, who was a great sinner, had crossed the waters of Jordan
dry-shod to receive the Sacrament from the Abbot Zosimus; and then the
Hermit's heart grew still, and he sang as he went down the mountain:
"The sea shall praise Thee, O Lord."
All day he kept seeing it and then losing it; but toward night he came
to a cleft of the hills, and lay down in a pine-wood to sleep. He had
now been six days gone, and once and again he thought anxiously of his
herbs; but he said to himself: "What though my garden perish, if I see
a holy man face to face and praise God in his company?" So he was never
long cast down.
Before daylight he was afoot under the stars; and leaving the wood
where he had slept, began climbing the face of a tall cliff, where he
had to clutch the jutting ledges with his hands, and with every step he
gained, a rock seemed thrust forth to hurl him back. So, footsore and
bleeding, he reached a little stony plain as the sun dropped to the
sea; and in the red light he saw a hollow rock, and the Saint sitting
in the hollow.
The Hermit fell on his knees, praising God; then he rose and ran across
the plain to the rock. As he drew near he saw that the Saint was a very
old man, clad in goatskin, with a long white beard. He sat motionless,
his hands on his knees, and two red eye-sockets turned to the sunset.
Near him was a young boy in skins who brushed the flies from his face;
but they always came back, and settled on the rheum which ran from his
eyes.
He did not appear to hear or see the approach of the Hermit, but sat
quite still till the boy said: "Father, here is a pilgrim."
Then he lifted up his voice and asked angrily who was there and what
the stranger sought.
The Hermit answered: "Father, the report of your holy practices came to
me a long way off, and being myself a solitary, though not worthy to be
named with you for godliness, it seemed fitting that I should cross the
mountains to visit you, that we might sit together and speak in praise
of solitude."
The Saint replied: "You fool, how can two sit together and praise
solitude, since by so doing they put an end to the thing they pretend
to honour?"
The Hermit, at that, was sorely abashed, for he had thought his speech
out on the way, reciting it many times over; and now it appeared to him
vainer than the crackling of thorns under a pot.
Nevertheless he took heart and said: "True, Father; but may not two
sinners sit together and praise Christ, who has taught them the
blessings of solitude?"
But the other only answered: "If you had really learned the blessings
of solitude you would not squander them in idle wandering." And, the
Hermit not knowing how to reply, he said again: "If two sinners meet
they can best praise Christ by going each his own way in silence."
After that he shut his lips and continued motionless while the boy
brushed the flies from his eye-sockets; but the Hermit's heart sank,
and for the first time he felt all the weariness of the way he had
fared, and the great distance dividing him from home.
He had meant to take counsel with the Saint concerning his lauds, and
whether he ought to destroy them; but now he had no heart to say
another word, and turning away he began to descend the mountain.
Presently he heard steps running behind him, and the boy came up and
pressed a honey-comb in his hand.
"You have come a long way and must be hungry," he said; but before the
Hermit could thank him he had hastened back to his task. So the Hermit
crept down the mountain till he reached the wood where he had slept
before; and there he made his bed again, but he had no mind to eat
before sleeping, for his heart hungered more than his body; and his
salt tears made the honey-comb bitter.
III
ON the fourteenth day he came to the valley below his cliff, and saw
the walls of his native town against the sky. He was footsore and heavy
of heart, for his long pilgrimage had brought him only weariness and
humiliation, and as no drop of rain had fallen he knew that his garden
must have perished. So he climbed the cliff heavily and reached his
cave at the angelus.
But there a great wonder awaited him. For though the scant earth of the
hillside was parched and crumbling, his garden-soil reeked with
moisture, and his plants had shot up, fresh and glistening, to a height
they had never before attained. More wonderful still, the tendrils of
the gourd had been trained about his door, and kneeling down he saw
that the earth had been loosened between the rows of sprouting
vegetables, and that every leaf sparkled with drops as though the rain
had but newly ceased. Then it appeared to the Hermit that he beheld a
miracle, but doubting his own deserts he refused to believe himself
worthy of such grace, and went within doors to ponder on what had
befallen him. And on his bed of rushes he saw a young woman sleeping,
clad in an outlandish garment, with strange amulets about her neck.
The sight was very terrifying to the Hermit, for he recalled how often
the demon, in tempting the Desert Fathers, had taken the form of a
woman for their undoing; but he reflected that, since there was nothing
pleasing to him in the sight of this female, who was brown as a nut and
lean with wayfaring, he ran no great danger in looking at her. At first
he took her for a wandering Egyptian, but as he looked he perceived,
among the heathen charms, an Agnus Dei in her bosom; and this so
surprised him that he bent over and called on her to wake.
She sprang up with a start, but seeing the Hermit's gown and staff, and
his face above her, lay quiet and said to him: "I have watered your
garden daily in return for the beans and oil that I took from your
store."
"Who are you, and how do you come here?" asked the Hermit.
She said: "I am a wild woman and live in the woods."
And when he pressed her again to tell him why she had sought shelter in
his cave, she said that the land to the south, whence she came, was
full of armed companies and bands of marauders, and that great license
and bloodshed prevailed there; and this the Hermit knew to be true, for
he had heard of it on his homeward journey. The Wild Woman went on to
tell him that she had been hunted through the woods like an animal by a
band of drunken men-at-arms, Lansknechts from the north by their
barbarous dress and speech, and at length, starving and spent, had come
on his cave and hidden herself from her pursuers. "For," she said, "I
fear neither wild beasts nor the woodland people, charcoal burners,
Egyptians, wandering minstrels or chapmen; even the highway robbers do
not touch me, because I am poor and brown; but these armed men flown
with blood and wine are more terrible than wolves and tigers."
And the Hermit's heart melted, for he thought of his little sister
lying with her throat slit across the altar steps, and of the scenes of
blood and rapine from which he had fled away into the wilderness. So he
said to the stranger that it was not meet he should house her in his
cave, but that he would send a messenger to the town across the valley,
and beg a pious woman there to give her lodging and work in her
household. "For," said he, "I perceive by the blessed image about your
neck that you are not a heathen wilding, but a child of Christ, though
so far astray from Him in the desert."
"Yes," she said, "I am a Christian, and know as many prayers as you;
but I will never set foot in city walls again, lest I be caught and put
back into the convent."
"What," cried the Hermit with a start, "you are a runagate nun?" And he
crossed himself, and again thought of the demon.
She smiled and said: "It is true I was once a cloistered woman, but I
will never willingly be one again. Now drive me forth if you like; but
I cannot go far, for I have a wounded foot, which I got in climbing the
cliff with water for your garden." And she pointed to a deep cut in her
foot.
At that, for all his fear, the Hermit was moved to pity, and washed the
cut and bound it up; and as he did so he bethought him that perhaps his
strange visitor had been sent to him not for his soul's undoing but for
her own salvation. And from that hour he earnestly yearned to save her.
But it was not fitting that she should remain in his cave; so, having
given her water to drink and a handful of lentils, he raised her up and
putting his staff in her hand guided her to a hollow not far off in the
face of the cliff. And while he was doing this he heard the sunset
bells ring across the valley, and set about reciting the _Angelus
Domini nuntiavit Mariae_; and she joined in very piously, with her
hands folded, not missing a word.
Nevertheless the thought of her wickedness weighed on him, and the next
day when he went to carry her food he asked her to tell him how it came
about that she had fallen into such abominable sin. And this is the
story she told.
IV
I WAS born (said she) in the north country, where the winters are long
and cold, where snow sometimes falls in the valleys, and the high
mountains for months are white with it. My father's castle is in a tall
green wood, where the winds always rustle, and a cold river runs down
from the ice-gorges. South of us was the wide plain, glowing with heat,
but above us were stony passes where the eagle nests and the storms
howl; in winter great fires roared in our chimneys, and even in summer
there was always a cool air off the gorges. But when I was a child my
mother went southward in the great Empress's train and I went with her.
We travelled many days, across plains and mountains, and saw Rome,
where the Pope lives in a golden palace, and many other cities, till we
came to the great Emperor's court. There for two years or more we lived
in pomp and merriment, for it was a wonderful court, full of mimes,
magicians, philosophers and poets; and the Empress's ladies spent their
days in mirth and music, dressed in light silken garments, walking in
gardens of roses, and bathing in a great cool marble tank, while the
Emperor's eunuchs guarded the approach to the gardens. Oh, those baths
in the marble tank, my Father! I used to lie awake through the whole
hot southern night, and think of that plunge at sunrise under the last
stars. For we were in a burning country, and I pined for the tall green
woods and the cold stream of my father's valley; and when I had cooled
my limbs in the tank I lay all day in the scant cypress shade and
dreamed of my next bath.
My mother pined for the coolness till she died; then the Empress put me
in a convent and I was forgotten. The convent was on the side of a bare
yellow hill, where bees made a hot buzzing in the thyme. Below was the
sea, blazing with a million shafts of light; and overhead a blinding
sky, which reflected the sun's glitter like a huge baldric of steel.
Now the convent was built on the site of an old pleasure-house which a
holy Princess had given to our Order; and a part of the house was left
standing with its court and garden. The nuns had built all about the
garden; but they left the cypresses in the middle, and the long marble
tank where the Princess and her ladies had bathed. The tank, however,
as you may conceive, was no longer used as a bath; for the washing of
the body is an indulgence forbidden to cloistered virgins; and our
Abbess, who was famed for her austerities, boasted that, like holy
Sylvia the nun, she never touched water save to bathe her finger-tips
before receiving the Sacrament. With such an example before them, the
nuns were obliged to conform to the same pious rule, and many, having
been bred in the convent from infancy, regarded all ablutions with
horror, and felt no temptation to cleanse the filth from their flesh;
but I, who had bathed daily, had the freshness of clear water in my
veins, and perished slowly for want of it, like your garden herbs in a
drought.
My cell did not look on the garden, but on the steep mule-path leading
up the cliff, where all day long the sun beat as if with flails of
fire, and I saw the sweating peasants toil up and down behind their
thirsty asses, and the beggars whining and scraping their sores in the
heat. Oh, how I hated to look out through the bars on that burning
world! I used to turn away from it, sick with disgust, and lying on my
hard bed, stare up by the hour at the ceiling of my cell. But flies
crawled in hundreds on the ceiling, and the hot noise they made was
worse than the glare. Sometimes, at an hour when I knew myself
unobserved, I tore off my stifling gown, and hung it over the grated
window, that I might no longer see the shaft of hot sunlight lying
across my cell, and the dust dancing in it like fat in the fire. But
the darkness choked me, and I struggled for breath as though I lay at
the bottom of a pit; so that at last I would spring up, and dragging
down the dress, fling myself on my knees before the Cross, and entreat
our Lord to give me the gift of holiness, that I might escape the
everlasting fires of hell, of which this heat was like an awful
foretaste. For if I could not endure the scorching of a summer's day,
with what constancy could I meet the thought of the flame that dieth
not?
This longing to escape the heat of hell made me apply myself to a
devouter way of living, and I reflected that if my bodily distress were
somewhat eased I should be able to throw myself with greater zeal into
the practice of vigils and austerities. And at length, having set forth
to the Abbess that the sultry air of my cell induced in me a grievous
heaviness of sleep, I prevailed on her to lodge me in that part of the
building which overlooked the garden.
For a few days I was quite happy, for instead of the dusty
mountainside, and the sight of the sweating peasants and their asses, I
looked out on dark cypresses and rows of budding vegetables. But
presently I found I had not bettered myself. For with the approach of
midsummer the garden, being all enclosed with buildings, grew as
stifling as my cell. All the green things in it withered and dried off,
leaving trenches of bare red earth, across which the cypresses cast
strips of shade too narrow to cool the aching heads of the nuns who
sought shelter there; and I began to think sorrowfully of my former
cell, where now and then there came a sea-breeze, hot and languid, yet
alive, and where at least I could look out upon the sea. But this was
not the worst; for when the dog-days came I found that the sun, at a
certain hour, cast on the ceiling of my cell the reflection of the
ripples on the garden-tank; and to say how I suffered from this sight
is not within the power of speech. It was indeed agony to watch the
clear water rippling and washing above my head, yet feel no solace of
it on my limbs: as though I had been a senseless brazen image lying at
the bottom of a well. But the image, if it felt no refreshment, would
have suffered no torture; whereas every inch of my skin throbbed with
thirst, and every vein was a mouth of Dives praying for a drop of
water. Oh, Father, how shall I tell you the grievous pains that I
endured? Sometimes I so feared the sight of the mocking ripples
overhead that I hid my eyes from their approach, lying face down on my
burning bed till I knew that they were gone; yet on cloudy days, when
they did not come, the heat was even worse to bear.
By day I hardly dared trust myself in the garden, for the nuns walked
there, and one fiery noon they found me hanging so close above the tank
that they snatched me away, crying out that I had tried to destroy
myself. The scandal of this reaching the Abbess, she sent for me to
know what demon had beset me; and when I wept and said, the longing to
bathe my burning body, she broke into great anger and cried out: "Do
you not know that this is a sin well-nigh as great as the other, and
condemned by all the greatest saints? For a nun may be tempted to take
her life through excess of self-scrutiny and despair of her own
worthiness; but this desire to indulge the despicable body is one of
the lusts of the flesh, to be classed with concupiscence and adultery."
And she ordered me to sleep every night for a month in my heavy gown,
with a veil upon my face.
Now, Father, I believe it was this penance that drove me to sin. For we
were in the dog-days, and it was more than flesh could bear. And on the
third night, after the portress had passed, and the lights were out, I
rose and flung off my veil and gown, and knelt in my window fainting.
There was no moon, but the sky was full of stars. At first the garden
was all blackness; but as I looked I saw a faint twinkle between the
cypress-trunks, and I knew it was the starlight on the tank. The water!
The water! It was there close to me--only a few bolts and bars were
between us.
The portress was a heavy sleeper, and I knew where her keys hung, on a
nail just within the door of her cell. I stole thither, unlatched the
door, seized the keys and crept barefoot down the corridor. The bolts
of the cloister-door were stiff and heavy, and I dragged at them till
the veins in my wrists were bursting. Then I turned the key and it
cried out in the ward. I stood still, my whole body beating with fear
lest the hinges too should have a voice--but no one stirred, and I
pushed open the door and slipped out. The garden was as airless as a
pit, but at least I could stretch my arms in it; and, oh, my Father,
the sweetness of the stars! The stones in the path cut my feet as I
ran, but I thought of the joy of bathing them in the tank, and that
made the wounds sweet to me.... My Father, I have heard of the
temptations which in times past assailed the holy Solitaries of the
desert, flattering the reluctant flesh beyond resistance; but none, I
think, could have surpassed in ecstasy that first touch of the water on
my limbs. To prolong the joy I let myself slip in slowly, resting my
hands on the edge of the tank, and smiling to see my body, as I lowered
it, break up the shining black surface and shatter the starbeams into
splinters. And the water, my Father, seemed to crave me as I craved it.
Its ripples rose about me, first in furtive touches, then in a long
embrace that clung and drew me down; till at length they lay like
kisses on my lips. It was no frank comrade like the mountain pools of
my childhood, but a secret playmate compassionating my pains and
soothing them with noiseless hands. From the first I thought of it as
an accomplice--its whisper seemed to promise me secrecy if I would
promise it love. And I went back and back to it, my Father; all day I
lived in the thought of it; each night I stole to it with fresh
thirst....
But at length the old portress died, and a young lay-sister took her
place. She was a light sleeper, and keen-eared; and I knew the danger
of venturing to her cell. I knew the danger, but when darkness came I
felt the water drawing me. The first night I fought on my bed and held
out; but the second I crept to her door. She made no motion when I
entered, but rose up secretly and stole after me; and the second night
she warned the Abbess, and the two came on me as I stood by the tank.
I was punished with terrible penances: fasting, scourging,
imprisonment, and the privation of drinking water; for the Abbess stood
amazed at the obduracy of my sin, and was resolved to make me an
example to my fellows. For a month I endured the pains of hell; then
one night the Saracen pirates fell on our convent. On a sudden the
darkness was full of flames and blood; but while the other nuns ran
hither and thither, clinging to the Abbess's feet or shrieking on the
steps of the altar, I slipped through an unwatched postern and made my
way to the hills. The next day the Emperor's soldiery descended on the
carousing heathen, slew them and burned their vessels on the beach; the
Abbess and nuns were rescued, the convent walls rebuilt, and peace
restored to the holy precincts. All this I heard from a shepherdess of
the hills, who found me in my hiding, and brought me honeycomb and
water. In her simplicity she offered to lead me home to the convent;
but while she slept I laid off my wimple and scapular, and stealing her
cloak fled away lest she should betray me. And since then I have
wandered alone over the face of the world, living in woods and desert
places, often hungry, often cold and sometimes fearful; yet resigned to
any hardship, and with a front for any peril, if only I may sleep under
the free heaven and wash the dust from my body in cool water.
V
THE Hermit, as may be supposed, was much perturbed by this story, and
dismayed that such sinfulness should cross his path. His first motion
was to drive the woman forth, for he knew the heinousness of the
craving for water, and how Saint Jerome, Saint Augustine and other holy
doctors have taught that they who would purify the soul must not be
distraught by the vain cares of bodily cleanliness; yet, remembering
the lust that drew him to his lauds, he dared not judge his sister's
fault too harshly.
Moreover he was moved by the Wild Woman's story of the hardships she
had suffered, and the godless company she had been driven to
keep--Egyptians, jugglers, outlaws and even sorcerers, who are masters
of the pagan lore of the East, and still practice their dark rites
among the simple folk of the hills. Yet she would not have him think
wholly ill of this vagrant people, from whom she had often received
food and comfort; and her worst danger, as he learned with shame, had
come from the _girovaghi_ or wandering monks, who are the scourge and
dishonour of Christendom; carrying their ribald idleness from one
monastery to another, and leaving on their way a trail of thieving,
revelry and worse. Once or twice the Wild Woman had nearly fallen into
their hands; but had been saved by her own quick wit and skill in
woodcraft. Once, so she assured the Hermit, she had found refuge with a
faun and his female, who fed and sheltered her in their cave, where she
slept on a bed of leaves with their shaggy nurslings; and in this cave
she had seen a stock or idol of wood, extremely seamed and ancient,
before which the wood-creatures, when they thought she slept, laid
garlands and the wild bees' honey-comb.
She told him also of a hill-village of weavers, where she lived many
weeks, and learned to ply their trade in return for her lodging; and
where wayfaring men in the guise of cobblers, charcoal-burners or
goatherds came and taught strange doctrines at midnight in the poor
hovels. What they taught she could not clearly tell, save that they
believed each soul could commune directly with its Maker, without need
of priest or intercessor; also she had heard from some of their
disciples that there are two Gods, one of good and one of evil, and
that the God of evil has his throne in the Pope's palace in Rome. But
in spite of these dark teachings they were a mild and merciful folk,
full of loving-kindness toward poor persons and wayfarers; so that her
heart grieved for them when one day a Dominican monk appeared in the
village with a company of soldiers, and some of the weavers were seized
and dragged to prison, while others, with their wives and babes, fled
to the winter woods. She fled with them, fearing to be charged with
their heresy, and for months they lay hid in desert places, the older
and weaker, who fell sick from want and exposure, being devoutly
ministered to by their brethren, and dying in the sure faith of heaven.
All this she related modestly and simply, not as one who joys in a
godless life, but as having been drawn into it through misadventure;
and she told the Hermit that when she heard the sound of church bells
she never failed to say an Ave or a Pater; and that often, as she lay
in the midnight darkness of the forest, she had hushed her fears by
reciting the versicles from the Evening Hour:
Keep us, O Lord, as the apple of the eye,
Protect us under the shadow of Thy wings.
The wound in her foot healed slowly; and the Hermit, while it was
mending, repaired daily to her cave, reasoning with her in love and
charity, and exhorting her to return to the cloister. But this she
persistently refused to do; and fearing lest she attempt to fly before
her foot was healed, and so expose herself to hunger and ill-usage, he
promised not to betray her presence, or to take any measures toward
restoring her to her Order.
He began indeed to doubt whether she had any calling to the life
enclosed; yet her gentleness and innocency of mind made him feel that
she might be won back to holy living, if only her freedom were assured.
So after many inward struggles (since his promise forbade his taking
counsel with any concerning her) he resolved to let her remain in the
cave till some light should come to him. And one day, visiting her
about the hour of Nones (for it became his pious habit to say the
evening office with her), he found her engaged with a little goatherd,
who in a sudden seizure had fallen from a rock above her cave, and lay
senseless and full of blood at her feet. And the Hermit saw with wonder
how skilfully she bound up his cuts and restored his senses, giving him
to drink of a liquor she had distilled from the wild simples of the
mountain; whereat the boy opened his eyes and praised God, as one
restored by heaven. Now it was known that this lad was subject to
possessions, and had more than once dropped lifeless while he heeded
his flock; and the Hermit, knowing that only great saints or unclean
necromancers can loosen devils, feared that the Wild Woman had
exorcised the spirits by means of unholy spells. But she told him that
the goatherd's sickness was caused only by the heat of the sun, and
that, such seizures being common in the hot countries whence she came,
she had learned from a wise woman how to stay them by a decoction of
the _carduus benedictus_, made in the third night of the waxing moon,
but without the aid of magic.
"But," she continued, "you need not fear my bringing scandal on your
holy retreat, for by the arts of the same wise woman my own wound is
well-nigh healed, and tonight at sunset I set forth on my travels."
The Hermit's heart grew heavy as she spoke, and it seemed to him that
her own look was sorrowful. And suddenly his perplexities were lifted
from him, and he saw what was God's purpose with the Wild Woman.
"Why," said he, "do you fly from this place, where you are safe from
molestation, and can look to the saving of your soul? Is it that your
feet weary for the road, and your spirits are heavy for lack of worldly
discourse?"
She replied that she had no wish to travel, and felt no repugnance to
solitude. "But," said she, "I must go forth to beg my bread, since in
this wilderness there is none but yourself to feed me; and moreover,
when it is known that I have healed the goatherd, curious folk and
scandal-mongers may seek me out, and, learning whence I come, drag me
back to the cloister."
Then the Hermit answered her and said: "In the early days, when the
faith of Christ was first preached, there were holy women who fled to
the desert and lived there in solitude, to the glory of God and the
edification of their sex. If you are minded to embrace so austere a
life, contenting you with such sustenance as the wilderness yields, and
wearing out your days in prayer and vigil, it may be that you shall
make amends for the great sin you have committed, and live and die in
the peace of the Lord Jesus."
He spoke thus, knowing that if she left him and returned to her
roaming, hunger and fear might drive her to fresh sin; whereas in a
life of penance and reclusion her eyes might be opened to her iniquity,
and her soul snatched back from ruin.
He saw that his words moved her, and she seemed about to consent, and
embrace a life of holiness; but suddenly she fell silent, and looked
down on the valley at their feet.
"A stream flows in the glen below us," she said. "Do you forbid me to
bathe in it in the heat of summer?"
"It is not I that forbid you, my daughter, but the laws of God," said
the Hermit; "yet see how miraculously heaven protects you--for in the
hot season, when your lust is upon you, our stream runs dry, and
temptation will be removed from you. Moreover on these heights there is
no excess of heat to madden the body, but always, before dawn and at
the angelus, a cool breeze which refreshes it like water."
And after thinking long on this, and again receiving his promise not to
betray her, the Wild Woman agreed to embrace a life of reclusion; and
the Hermit fell on his knees, worshipping God and rejoicing to think
that, if he saved his sister from sin, his own term of probation would
be shortened.
VI
THEREAFTER for two years the Hermit and the Wild Woman lived side by
side, meeting together to pray on the great feast-days of the year, but
on all other days dwelling apart, engaged in pious practices.
At first the Hermit, knowing the weakness of woman, and her little
aptitude for the life apart, had feared that he might be disturbed by
the nearness of his penitent; but she faithfully held to his commands,
abstaining from all sight of him save on the Days of Obligation; and
when they met, so modest and devout was her demeanour that she raised
his soul to fresh fervency. And gradually it grew sweet to him to think
that, near by though unseen, was one who performed the same tasks at
the same hours; so that, whether he tended his garden, or recited his
chaplet, or rose under the stars to repeat the midnight office, he had
a companion in all his labours and devotions.
Meanwhile the report had spread abroad that a holy woman who cast out
devils had made her dwelling in the Hermit's cliff; and many sick
persons from the valley sought her out, and went away restored by her.
These poor pilgrims brought her oil and flour, and with her own hands
she made a garden like the Hermit's, and planted it with corn and
lentils; but she would never take a trout from the brook, or receive
the gift of a snared wild-fowl, for she said that in her vagrant life
the wild creatures of the wood had befriended her, and as she had slept
in peace among them, so now she would never suffer them to be molested.
In the third year came a plague, and death walked the cities, and many
poor peasants fled to the hills to escape it. These the Hermit and his
penitent faithfully tended, and so skilful were the Wild Woman's
ministrations that the report of them reached the town across the
valley, and a deputation of burgesses came with rich offerings, and
besought her to descend and comfort their sick. The Hermit, seeing her
depart on so dangerous a mission, would have accompanied her, but she
bade him remain and tend those who fled to the hills; and for many days
his heart was consumed in prayer for her, and he feared lest every
fugitive should bring him word of her death.
But at length she returned, wearied-out but whole, and covered with the
blessings of the townsfolk; and thereafter her name for holiness spread
as wide as the Hermit's.
Seeing how constant she remained in her chosen life, and what advance
she had made in the way of perfection, the Hermit now felt that it
behoved him to exhort her again to return to the convent; and more than
once he resolved to speak with her, but his heart hung back. At length
he bethought him that by failing in this duty he imperilled his own
soul, and thereupon, on the next feast-day, when they met, he reminded
her that in spite of her good works she still lived in sin and
excommunicate, and that, now she had once more tasted the sweets of
godliness, it was her duty to confess her fault and give herself up to
her superiors.
She heard him meekly, but when he had spoken she was silent and her
tears ran over; and looking at her he wept also, and said no more. And
they prayed together, and returned each to his cave.
It was not till late winter that the plague abated; and the spring and
early summer following were heavy with rains and great heat. When the
Hermit visited his penitent at the feast of Pentecost, she appeared to
him so weak and wasted that, when they had recited the _Veni, sancte
spiritus_, and the proper psalms, he taxed her with too great rigour of
penitential practices; but she replied that her weakness was not due to
an excess of discipline, but that she had brought back from her labours
among the sick a heaviness of body which the intemperance of the season
no doubt increased. The evil rains continued, falling chiefly at night,
while by day the land reeked with heat and vapours; so that lassitude
fell on the Hermit also, and he could hardly drag himself down to the
spring whence he drew his drinking-water. Thus he fell into the habit
of going down to the glen before cockcrow, after he had recited Matins;
for at that hour the rain commonly ceased, and a faint air was
stirring. Now because of the wet season the stream had not gone dry,
and instead of replenishing his flagon slowly at the trickling spring,
the Hermit went down to the waterside to fill it; and once, as he
descended the steep slope of the glen, he heard the covert rustle, and
saw the leaves stir as though something moved behind them. As he looked
silence fell, and the leaves grew still; but his heart was shaken, for
it seemed to him that what he had seen in the dusk had a human
semblance, such as the wood-people wear. And he was loth to think that
such unhallowed beings haunted the glen.
A few days passed, and again, descending to the stream, he saw a figure
flit by him through the covert; and this time a deeper fear entered
into him; but he put away the thought, and prayed fervently for all
souls in temptation. And when he spoke with the Wild Woman again, on
the feast of the Seven Maccabees, which falls on the first day of
August, he was smitten with fear to see her wasted looks, and besought
her to cease from labouring and let him minister to her in her
weakness. But she denied him gently, and replied that all she asked of
him was to keep her steadfastly in his prayers.
Before the feast of the Assumption the rains ceased, and the plague,
which had begun to show itself, was stayed; but the ardency of the sun
grew greater, and the Hermit's cliff was a fiery furnace. Never had
such heat been known in those regions; but the people did not murmur,
for with the cessation of the rain their crops were saved and the
pestilence banished; and these mercies they ascribed in great part to
the prayers and macerations of the two holy anchorets. Therefore on the
eve of the Assumption they sent a messenger to the Hermit, saying that
at daylight on the morrow the townspeople and all the dwellers in the
valley would come forth, led by their Bishop, who bore the Pope's
blessing to the two solitaries, and who was mindful to celebrate the
Mass of the Assumption in the Hermit's cave in the cliffside. At the
blessed word the Hermit was well-nigh distraught with joy, for he felt
this to be a sign from heaven that his prayers were heard, and that he
had won the Wild Woman's grace as well as his own. And all night he
prayed that on the morrow she might confess her fault and receive the
Sacrament with him.
Before dawn he recited the psalms of the proper nocturn; then he girded
on his gown and sandals, and went forth to meet the Bishop in the
valley.
As he went downward daylight stood on the mountains, and he thought he
had never seen so fair a dawn. It filled the farthest heaven with
brightness, and penetrated even to the woody crevices of the glen, as
the grace of God had entered into the obscurest folds of his heart. The
morning airs were hushed, and he heard only the sound of his own
footfall, and the murmur of the stream which, though diminished, still
poured a swift current between the rocks; but as he reached the bottom
of the glen a sound of chanting came to him, and he knew that the
pilgrims were at hand. His heart leapt up and his feet hastened
forward; but at the streamside they were suddenly stayed, for in a pool
where the water was still deep he saw the shining of a woman's
body--and on a stone hard by lay the Wild Woman's gown and sandals.
Fear and rage possessed the Hermit's heart, and he stood as one smitten
speechless, covering his eyes from the shame. But the song of the
approaching pilgrims swelled ever louder and nearer, and finding voice
he cried to the Wild Woman to come forth and hide herself from the
people.
She made no answer, but in the dusk he saw her limbs sway with the
swaying of the water, and her eyes were turned to him as if in mockery.
At the sight blind fury filled him, and clambering over the rocks to
the pool's edge he bent down and caught her by the shoulder. At that
moment he could have strangled her with his hands, so abhorrent to him
was the touch of her flesh; but as he cried out on her, heaping her
with cruel names, he saw that her eyes returned his look without
wavering; and suddenly it came to him that she was dead. Then through
all his anger and fear a great pang smote him; for here was his work
undone, and one he had loved in Christ laid low in her sin, in spite of
all his labours.
One moment pity possessed him; the next he bethought him how the people
would find him bending above the body of a naked woman, whom he had
held up to them as holy, but whom they might now well take for the
secret instrument of his undoing; and beholding how at her touch all
the slow edifice of his holiness was demolished, and his soul in mortal
jeopardy, he felt the earth reel round him and his sight grew red.
Already the head of the procession had entered the glen, and the
stillness shook with the great sound of the _Salve Regina_. When the
Hermit opened his eyes once more the air was quivering with thronged
candle-flames, which glittered on the gold thread of priestly
vestments, and on the blazing monstrance beneath its canopy; and close
above him was bent the Bishop's face.
The Hermit struggled to his knees.
"My Father in God," he cried, "behold, for my sins I have been visited
by a demon--" But as he spoke he perceived that those about him no
longer heeded him, and that the Bishop and all his clergy had fallen on
their knees about the pool. Then the Hermit, following their gaze, saw
that the brown waters of the pool covered the Wild Woman's limbs as
with a garment, and that about her floating head a great light floated;
and to the utmost edges of the throng a cry of praise went up, for many
were there whom the Wild Woman had healed and comforted, and who read
God's mercy in this wonder. But fresh fear fell on the Hermit, for he
had cursed a dying saint, and denounced her aloud to all the people;
and this new anguish, coming so close upon the other, smote down his
weakened frame, so that his limbs failed him and he sank once more to
the ground.
Again the earth reeled about him, and the bending faces grew remote;
but as he forced his weak voice once more to proclaim his sins he felt
the blessed touch of absolution, and the holy oils of the last voyage
laid on his lips and eyes. Peace returned to him then, and with it a
great longing to look once more upon his lauds, as he had dreamed of
doing at his last hour; but he was too far gone to make this longing
known, and so tried to banish it from his mind. Yet in his weakness the
wish held him, and the tears ran down his face.
Then, as he lay there, feeling the earth slip from under him, and the
Everlasting Arms replace it, he heard a great peal of voices that
seemed to come down from the sky and mingle with the singing of the
throng; and the words of the chant were the words of his own lauds, so
long hidden in the secret of his breast, and now rejoicing above him
through the spheres. And his soul rose on the chant, and soared with it
to the seat of mercy.
THE LAST ASSET
I
"THE devil!" Paul Garnett exclaimed as he re-read his note; and the dry
old gentleman who was at the moment his only neighbour in the quiet
restaurant they both frequented, remarked with a smile: "You don't seem
particularly annoyed at meeting him."
Garnett returned the smile. "I don't know why I apostrophized him, for
he's not in the least present--except inasmuch as he may prove to be at
the bottom of anything unexpected."
The old gentleman who, like Garnett, was an American, and spoke in the
thin rarefied voice which seems best fitted to emit sententious truths,
twisted his lean neck toward the younger man and cackled out shrewdly:
"Ah, it's generally a woman who is at the bottom of the unexpected.
Not," he added, leaning forward with deliberation to select a
tooth-pick, "that that precludes the devil's being there too."
Garnett uttered the requisite laugh, and his neighbour, pushing back
his plate, called out with a perfectly unbending American intonation:
"Gassong! L'addition, silver play."
His repast, as usual, had been a simple one, and he left only thirty
centimes in the plate on which his account was presented; but the
waiter, to whom he was evidently a familiar presence, received the
tribute with Latin affability, and hovered helpfully about the table
while the old gentleman cut and lighted his cigar.
"Yes," the latter proceeded, revolving the cigar meditatively between
his thin lips, "they're generally both in the same hole, like the owl
and the prairie-dog in the natural history books of my youth. I believe
it was all a mistake about the owl and the prairie-dog, but it isn't
about the unexpected. The fact is, the unexpected _is_ the devil--the
sooner you find that out, the happier you'll be." He leaned back,
tilting his smooth bald head against the blotched mirror behind him,
and rambling on with gentle garrulity while Garnett attacked his omelet.
"Get your life down to routine--eliminate surprises. Arrange things so
that, when you get up in the morning, you'll know exactly what is going
to happen to you during the day--and the next day and the next. I don't
say it's funny--it ain't. But it's better than being hit on the head by
a brick-bat. That's why I always take my meals at this restaurant. I
know just how much onion they put in things--if I went to the next
place I shouldn't. And I always take the same streets to come
here--I've been doing it for ten years now. I know at which crossings
to look out--I know what I'm going to see in the shop-windows. It saves
a lot of wear and tear to know what's coming. For a good many years I
never did know, from one minute to another, and now I like to think
that everything's cut-and-dried, and nothing unexpected can jump out at
me like a tramp from a ditch."
He paused calmly to knock the ashes from his cigar, and Garnett said
with a smile: "Doesn't such a plan of life cut off nearly all the
possibilities?"
The old gentleman made a contemptuous motion. "Possibilities of what?
Of being multifariously miserable? There are lots of ways of being
miserable, but there's only one way of being comfortable, and that is
to stop running round after happiness. If you make up your mind not to
be happy there's no reason why you shouldn't have a fairly good time."
"That was Schopenhauer's idea, I believe," the young man said, pouring
his wine with the smile of youthful incredulity.
"I guess he hadn't the monopoly," responded his friend. "Lots of people
have found out the secret--the trouble is that so few live up to it."
He rose from his seat, pushing the table forward, and standing passive
while the waiter advanced with his shabby overcoat and umbrella. Then
he nodded to Garnett, lifted his hat politely to the broad-bosomed lady
behind the desk, and passed out into the street.
Garnett looked after him with a musing smile. The two had exchanged
views on life for two years without so much as knowing each other's
names. Garnett was a newspaper correspondent whose work kept him mainly
in London, but on his periodic visits to Paris he lodged in a dingy
hotel of the Latin Quarter, the chief merit of which was its nearness
to the cheap and excellent restaurant where the two Americans had made
acquaintance. But Garnett's assiduity in frequenting the place arose,
in the end, less from the excellence of the food than from the
enjoyment of his old friend's conversation. Amid the flashy
sophistications of the Parisian life to which Garnett's trade
introduced him, the American sage's conversation had the crisp and
homely flavor of a native dish--one of the domestic compounds for which
the exiled palate is supposed to yearn. It was a mark of the old man's
impersonality that, in spite of the interest he inspired, Garnett had
never got beyond idly wondering who he might be, where he lived, and
what his occupations were. He was presumably a bachelor--a man of
family ties, however relaxed, though he might have been as often absent
from home would not have been as regularly present in the same
place--and there was about him a boundless desultoriness which renewed
Garnett's conviction that there is no one on earth as idle as an
American who is not busy. From certain allusions it was plain that he
had lived many years in Paris, yet he had not taken the trouble to
adapt his tongue to the local inflections, but spoke French with the
accent of one who has formed his conception of the language from a
phrase-book.
The city itself seemed to have made as little impression on him as its
speech. He appeared to have no artistic or intellectual curiosities, to
remain untouched by the complex appeal of Paris, while preserving,
perhaps the more strikingly from his very detachment, that odd American
astuteness which seems the fruit of innocence rather than of
experience. His nationality revealed itself again in a mild interest in
the political problems of his adopted country, though they appeared to
preoccupy him only as illustrating the boundless perversity of mankind.
The exhibition of human folly never ceased to divert him, and though
his examples of it seemed mainly drawn from the columns of one exiguous
daily paper, he found there matter for endless variations on his
favorite theme. If this monotony of topic did not weary the younger
man, it was because he fancied he could detect under it the tragic
implication of the fixed idea--of some great moral upheaval which had
flung his friend stripped and starving on the desert island of the
little cafe where they met. He hardly knew wherein he read this
revelation--whether in the resigned shabbiness of the sage's dress, the
impartial courtesy of his manner, or the shade of apprehension which
lurked, indescribably, in his guileless yet suspicious eye. There were
moments when Garnett could only define him by saying that he looked
like a man who had seen a ghost.
II
AN apparition almost as startling had come to Garnett himself in the
shape of the mauve note received from his _concierge_ as he was leaving
the hotel for luncheon.
Not that, on the face of it, a missive announcing Mrs. Sam Newell's
arrival at Ritz's, and her need of his presence there that afternoon at
five, carried any special mark of the portentous. It was not her being
at Ritz's that surprised him. The fact that she was chronically hard
up, and had once or twice lately been so brutally confronted with the
consequences as to accept--indeed solicit--a loan of five pounds from
him: this circumstance, as Garnett knew, would never be allowed to
affect the general tenor of her existence. If one came to Paris, where
could one go but to Ritz's? Did he see her in some grubby hole across
the river? Or in a family _pension_ near the Place de l'Etoile? There
was no affectation in her tendency to gravitate toward what was
costliest and most conspicuous. In doing so she obeyed one of the
profoundest instincts of her nature, and it was another instinct which
taught her to gratify the first at any cost, even to that of dipping
into the pocket of an impecunious newspaper correspondent. It was a
part of her strength--and of her charm too--that she did such things
naturally, openly, without any of the ugly grimaces of dissimulation or
compunction.
Her recourse to Garnett had of course marked a specially low ebb in her
fortunes. Save in moments of exceptional dearth she had richer sources
of supply; and he was nearly sure that, by running over the "society
column" of the Paris _Herald_, he should find an explanation, not
perhaps of her presence at Ritz's, but of her means of subsistence
there. What really perplexed him was not the financial but the social
aspect of the case. When Mrs. Newell had left London in July she had
told him that, between Cowes and Scotland, she and Hermy were provided
for till the middle of October: after that, as she put it, they would
have to look about. Why, then, when she had in her hand the opportunity
of living for three months at the expense of the British aristocracy,
did she rush off to Paris at heaven knew whose expense in the beginning
of September? She was not a woman to act incoherently; if she made
mistakes they were not of that kind. Garnett felt sure she would never
willingly relax her hold on her distinguished friends--was it possible
that it was they who had somewhat violently let go of her?
As Garnett reviewed the situation he began to see that this possibility
had for some time been latent in it. He had felt that something might
happen at any moment--and was not this the something he had obscurely
foreseen? Mrs. Newell really moved too fast: her position was as
perilous as that of an invading army without a base of supplies. She
used up everything too quickly--friends, credit, influence,
forbearance. It was so easy for her to acquire all these--what a pity
she had never learned to keep them! He himself, for instance--the most
insignificant of her acquisitions--was beginning to feel like a
squeezed sponge at the mere thought of her; and it was this sense of
exhaustion, of the inability to provide more, either materially or
morally, which had provoked his exclamation on opening her note. From
the first days of their acquaintance her prodigality had amazed him,
but he had believed it to be surpassed by the infinity of her
resources. If she exhausted old supplies she always found new ones to
replace them. When one set of people began to find her impossible,
another was always beginning to find her indispensable. Yes--but there
were limits--there were only so many sets of people, at least in her
social classification, and when she came to an end of them, what then?
Was this flight to Paris a sign that she had come to an end--was she
going to try Paris because London had failed her? The time of year
precluded such a conjecture. Mrs. Newell's Paris was non-existent in
September. The town was a desert of gaping trippers--he could as soon
think of her seeking social restoration at Margate.
For a moment it occurred to him that she might have to come over to
replenish her wardrobe; but he knew her dates too well to dwell long on
this hope. It was in April and December that she visited the
dress-makers: before December, he had heard her explain, one got
nothing but "the American fashions." Mrs. Newell's scorn of all things
American was somewhat illogically coupled with the determination to use
her own Americanism to the utmost as a means of social advance. She had
found out long ago that, on certain lines, it paid in London to be
American, and she had manufactured for herself a personality
independent of geographical or social demarcations, and presenting that
remarkable blend of plantation dialect, Bowery slang and hyperbolic
statement, which is the British nobility's favorite idea of an
unadulterated Americanism. Mrs. Newell, for all her talents, was not
naturally either humorous or hyperbolic, and there were times when it
would doubtless have been a relief to her to be as monumentally stolid
as some of the persons whose dulness it was her fate to enliven. It was
perhaps the need of relaxing which had drawn her into her odd intimacy
with Garnett, with whom she did not have to be either scrupulously
English or artificially American, since the impression she made on him
was of no more consequence than that which she produced on her footman.
Garnett was perfectly aware that he owed his success to his
insignificance, but the fact affected him only as adding one more
element to his knowledge of Mrs. Newell's character. He was as ready to
sacrifice his personal vanity in such a cause as he had been, at the
outset of their acquaintance, to sacrifice his professional pride to
the opportunity of knowing her.
When he had accepted the position of "London correspondent" (with an
occasional side-glance at Paris) to the New York _Searchlight_, he had
not understood that his work was to include the obligation of
"interviewing"; indeed, had the possibility presented itself in
advance, he would have met it by unpacking his valise and returning to
the drudgery of his assistant-editorship in New York. But when, after
three months in Europe, he received a letter from his chief, suggesting
that he should enliven the Sunday _Searchlight_ by a series of "Talks
with Smart Americans in London" (beginning, say, with Mrs. Sam Newell),
the change of focus already enabled him to view the proposal without
passion. For his life on the edge of the great world-caldron of art,
politics and pleasure--of that high-spiced brew which is nowhere else
so subtly and variously compounded--had bred in him an eager appetite
to taste of the heady mixture. He knew he should never have the full
spoon at his lips, but he recalled the peasant-girl in one of
Browning's plays, who has once eaten polenta cut with a knife which has
carved an ortolan. Might not Mrs. Newell, who had so successfully cut a
way into the dense and succulent mass of English society, serve as the
knife to season his polenta?
He had expected, as the result of the interview, to which she promptly,
almost eagerly, assented, no more than the glimpse of brightly lit
vistas which a waiting messenger may catch through open doors; but
instead he had found himself drawn at once into the inner sanctuary,
not of London society, but of Mrs. Newell's relation to it. She had
been candidly charmed by the idea of the interview: it struck him that
she was conscious of the need of being freshened up. Her appearance was
brilliantly fresh, with the inveterate freshness of the toilet-table;
her paint was as impenetrable as armor. But her personality was a
little tarnished: she was in want of social renovation. She had been
doing and saying the same things for too long a time. London, Cowes,
Homburg, Scotland, Monte Carlo--that had been the round since Hermy was
a baby. Hermy was her daughter, Miss Hermione Newell, who was called in
presently to be shown off to the interviewer and add a paragraph to the
celebration of her mother's charms.
Miss Newell's appearance was so full of an unassisted freshness that
for a moment Garnett made the mistake of fancying that she could fill a
paragraph of her own. But he soon found that her vague personality was
merely tributary to her parent's; that her youth and grace were, in
some mysterious way, her mother's rather than her own. She smiled
obediently on Garnett, but could contribute little beyond her smile and
the general sweetness of her presence, to the picture of Mrs. Newell's
existence which it was the young man's business to draw. And presently
he found that she had left the room without his noticing it.
He learned in time that this unnoticeableness was the most conspicuous
thing about her. Burning at best with a mild light, she became
invisible in the glare of her mother's personality. It was in fact only
as a product of her environment that poor Hermione struck the
imagination. With the smartest woman in London as her guide and example
she had never developed a taste for dress, and with opportunities for
enlightenment from which Garnett's fancy recoiled she remained simple,
unsuspicious and tender, with an inclination to good works and
afternoon church, a taste for the society of dull girls, and a clinging
fidelity to old governesses and retired nurse-maids. Mrs. Newell, whose
boast it was that she looked facts in the face, frankly owned that she
had not been able to make anything of Hermione. "If she has a role I
haven't discovered it," she confessed to Garnett. "I've tried
everything, but she doesn't fit in anywhere."
Mrs. Newell spoke as if her daughter were a piece of furniture acquired
without due reflection, and for which no suitable place could be found.
She got, of course, what she could out of Hermione, who wrote her
notes, ran her errands, saw tiresome people for her, and occupied an
intermediate office between that of lady's maid and secretary; but such
small returns on her investment were not what Mrs. Newell had counted
on. What was the use of producing and educating a handsome daughter if
she did not, in some more positive way, contribute to her parent's
advancement?
III
"IT'S about Hermy," Mrs. Newell said, rising from the heap of
embroidered cushions which formed the background of her afternoon
repose.
Her sitting-room at Ritz's was full of penetrating warmth and
fragrance. Long-stemmed roses filled the vases on the chimney-piece, in
which a fire sparkled with that effect of luxury which fires produce
when the weather is not cold enough to justify them. On the
writing-table, among notes and cards, and signed photographs of
celebrities, Mrs. Newell's gold inkstand, her jewelled penholder, her
heavily-monogrammed despatch-box, gave back from their expensive
surfaces the glint of the flame, which sought out and magnified the
orient of the pearls among the lady's laces and found a mirror in the
pinky polish of her finger-tips. It was just such a scene as a little
September fire, lit for show and not for warmth, would delight to dwell
on and pick out in all its opulent details; and even Garnett, inured to
Mrs. Newell's capacity for extracting manna from the desert, reflected
that she must have found new fields to glean.
"It's about Hermy," she repeated, making room for him among the
cushions. "I had to see you at once. We came over yesterday from
London."
Garnett, seating himself, continued his leisurely survey of the room.
In the glitter of Mrs. Newell's magnificence Hermione, as usual, faded
out of sight, and he hardly noticed her mother's allusion.
"I have never seen you more resplendent," he remarked.
She received the tribute with complacency. "The rooms are not bad, are
they? We came over with the Woolsey Hubbards (you've heard of them, of
course?--they're from Detroit), and really they do things very
decently. Their motor-car met us at Boulogne, and the courier always
wires ahead to have the rooms filled with flowers. This _salon,_ is
really a part of their suite. I simply couldn't have afforded it
myself."
She delivered these facts in a high decisive voice, which had a note
akin to the clink of her many bracelets and the rattle of her ringed
hands against the enamelled cigarette-case which she extended to
Garnett after helping herself from its contents.
"You are always meeting such charming people," said Garnett with mild
irony; and, reverting to her first remark, he bethought himself to add:
"I hope Miss Hermione is not ill?"
"Ill? She was never ill in her life," exclaimed Mrs. Newell, as though
her daughter had been accused of an indelicacy.
"It was only that you said you had come over on her account."
"So I have. Hermione is to be married."
Mrs. Newell brought out the words impressively, drawing back to observe
their effect on her visitor. It was such that he received them with a
long silent stare, which finally passed into a cry of wonder. "Married?
For heaven's sake, to whom?"
Mrs. Newell continued to regard him with a smile so serene and
victorious that he saw she took his somewhat unseemly astonishment as a
merited tribute to her genius. Presently she extended a glittering hand
and took a sheet of note paper from the blotter.
"You can have that put in to-morrow's _Herald_," she said.
Garnett, receiving the paper, read in Hermione's own finished hand: "A
marriage has been arranged, and will shortly take place, between the
Comte Louis du Trayas, son of the Marquis du Trayas de la Baume, and
Miss Hermione Newell, daughter of Samuel C. Newell Esqre. of Elmira, N.
Y. Comte Louis du Trayas belongs to one of the oldest and most
distinguished families in France, and is equally well connected in
England, being the nephew of Lord Saint Priscoe and a cousin of the
Countess of Morningfield, whom he frequently visits at Adham and
Portlow."
The perusal of this document filled Garnett with such deepening wonder
that he could not, for the moment, even do justice to the strangeness
of its being written out for publication in the bride's own hand.
Hermione a bride! Hermione a future countess! Hermione on the brink of
a marriage which would give her not only a great "situation" in the
Parisian world but a footing in some of the best houses in England!
Regardless of its unflattering implications, Garnett prolonged his
stare of mute amazement till Mrs. Newell somewhat sharply
exclaimed--"Well, didn't I always tell you that she would marry a
Frenchman?"
Garnett, in spite of himself, smiled at this revised version of his
hostess's frequent assertion that Hermione was too goody-goody to take
in England, but that with her little dowdy air she might very well "go
off" in the Faubourg if only a _dot_ could be raked up for her--and the
recollection flashed a new light on the versatility of Mrs. Newell's
genius.
"But how did you do it--?" was on the tip of his tongue; and he had
barely time to give the query the more conventional turn of: "How did
it happen?"
"Oh, we were up at Glaish with the Edmund Fitzarthurs. Lady Edmund is a
sort of cousin of the Morningfields', who have a shooting-lodge near
Glaish--a place called Portlow--and young Trayas was there with them.
Lady Edmund, who is a dear, drove Hermy over to Portlow, and the thing
was done in no time. He simply fell over head and ears in love with
her. You know Hermy is really very handsome in her peculiar way. I
don't think you have ever appreciated her," Mrs. Newell summed up with
a note of exquisite reproach.
"I've appreciated her, I assure you; but one somehow didn't think of
her marrying--so soon."
"Soon? She's three-and-twenty; but you've no imagination," said Mrs.
Newell; and Garnett inwardly admitted that he had not enough to soar to
the heights of her invention. For the marriage, of course, was an
invention of her own, a superlative stroke of business, in which he was
sure the principal parties had all been passive agents, in which
everyone, from the bankrupt and disreputable Fitzarthurs to the rich
and immaculate Morningfields, had by some mysterious sleight of hand
been made to fit into Mrs. Newell's designs. But it was not enough for
Garnett to marvel at her work--he wanted to understand it, to take it
apart, to find out how the trick had been done. It was true that Mrs.
Newell had always said Hermy might go off in the Faubourg if she had a
_dot_--but even Mrs. Newell's juggling could hardly conjure up a _dot:_
such feats as she was able to perform in this line were usually made to
serve her own urgent necessities. And besides, who was likely to take
sufficient interest in Hermione to supply her with the means of
marrying a French nobleman? The flowers ordered in advance by the
Woolsey Hubbards' courier made Garnett wonder if that accomplished
functionary had also wired over to have Miss Newell's settlements drawn
up. But of all the comments hovering on his lips the only one he could
decently formulate was the remark that he supposed Mrs. Newell and her
daughter had come over to see the young man's family and make the final
arrangements.
"Oh, they're made--everything is settled," said Mrs. Newell, looking
him squarely in the eye. "You're wondering, of course, about the
_dot_--Frenchmen never go off their heads to the extent of forgetting
_that;_ or at least their parents don't allow them to."
Garnett murmured a vague assent, and she went on without the least
appearance of resenting his curiosity: "It all came about so
fortunately. Only fancy, just the week they met I got a little legacy
from an aunt in Elmira--a good soul I hadn't seen or heard of for
years. I suppose I ought to have put on mourning for her, by the way,
but it would have eaten up a good bit of the legacy, and I really
needed it all for poor Hermy. Oh, it's not a fortune, you
understand--but the young man is madly in love, and has always had his
own way, so after a lot of correspondence it's been arranged. They saw
Hermy this morning, and they're enchanted."
"And the marriage takes place very soon?"
"Yes, in a few weeks, here. His mother is an invalid and couldn't have
gone to England. Besides, the French don't travel. And as Hermy has
become a Catholic--"
"Already?"
Mrs. Newell stared. "It doesn't take long. And it suits Hermy
exactly--she can go to church so much oftener. So I thought," Mrs.
Newell concluded with dignity, "that a wedding at Saint Philippe du
Roule would be the most suitable thing at this season."
"Dear me," said Garnett, "I am left breathless--I can't catch up with
you. I suppose even the day is fixed, though Miss Hermione doesn't
mention it," and he indicated the official announcement in his hand.
Mrs. Newell laughed. "Hermy had to write that herself, poor dear,
because my scrawl's too hideous--but I dictated it. No, the day isn't
fixed--that's why I sent for you." There was a splendid directness
about Mrs. Newell. It would never have occurred to her to pretend to
Garnett that she had summoned him for the pleasure of his company.
"You've sent for me--to fix the day?" he enquired humourously.
"To remove the last obstacle to its being fixed."
"I? What kind of an obstacle could I have the least effect on?"
Mrs. Newell met his banter with a look which quelled it. "I want you to
find her father."
"Her father? Miss Hermione's--?"
"My husband, of course. I suppose you know he's living."
Garnett blushed at his own clumsiness. "I--yes--that is, I really knew
nothing--" he stammered, feeling that each word added to it. If
Hermione was unnoticeable, Mr. Newell had always been invisible. The
young man had never so much as given him a thought, and it was awkward
to come on him so suddenly at a turn of the talk.
"Well, he is--living here in Paris," said Mrs. Newell, with a note of
asperity which seemed to imply that her friend might have taken the
trouble to post himself on this point.
"In Paris? But in that case isn't it quite simple--?"
"To find him? I daresay it won't be difficult, though he is rather
mysterious. But the point is that I can't go to him--and that if I
write to him he won't answer."
"Ah," said Garnett thoughtfully.
"And so you've got to find him for me, and tell him."
"Tell him what?"
"That he must come to the wedding--that we must show ourselves together
at church and at the breakfast."
She delivered the behest in her sharp imperative key, the tone of the
born commander. But for once Garnett ventured to question her orders.
"And supposing he won't come?"
"He must if he cares for his daughter's happiness. She can't be married
without him."
"Can't be married?"
"The French are like that--especially the old families. I was given to
understand at once that my husband must appear--if only to establish
the fact that we're not divorced."
"Ah--you're _not_, then?" escaped from Garnett.
"Mercy, no! Divorce is stupid. They don't like it in Europe. And in
this case it would have been the end of Hermy's marriage. They wouldn't
think of letting their son marry the child of divorced parents."
"How fortunate, then--"
"Yes; but I always think of such things beforehand. And of course I've
told them that my husband will be present."
"You think he will consent?"
"No; not at first; but you must make him. You must tell him how sweet
Hermione is--and you must see Louis, and be able to describe their
happiness. You must dine here to-night--he is coming. We're all dining
with the Hubbards, and they expect you. They have given Hermy some very
good diamonds--though I should have preferred a cheque, as she'll be
horribly poor. But I think Kate Hubbard means to do something about the
trousseau--Hermy is at Paquin's with her now. You've no idea how
delightful all our friends have been.--Ah, here is one of them now,"
she broke off smiling, as the door opened to admit, without preliminary
announcement, a gentleman so glossy and ancient, with such a fixed
unnatural freshness of smile and eye, that he gave Garnett the effect
of having been embalmed and then enamelled. It needed not the
exotic-looking ribbon in the visitor's button-hole, nor Mrs. Newell's
introduction of him as her friend Baron Schenkelderff, to assure
Garnett of his connection with a race as ancient as his appearance.
Baron Schenkelderff greeted his hostess with paternal playfulness, and
the young man with an ease which might have been acquired on the Stock
Exchange and in the dressing-rooms of "leading ladies." He spoke a
faultless, colourless English, from which one felt he might pass with
equal mastery to half a dozen other languages. He enquired
patronizingly for the excellent Hubbards, asked his hostess if she did
not mean to give him a drop of tea and a cigarette, remarked that he
need not ask if Hermione was still closeted with the dress-maker, and,
on the waiter's coming in answer to his ring, ordered the tea himself,
and added a request for _fine champagne_. It was not the first time
that Garnett had seen such minor liberties taken in Mrs. Newell's
drawing-room, but they had hitherto been taken by persons who had at
least the superiority of knowing what they were permitting themselves,
whereas the young man felt almost sure that Baron Schenkelderff's
manner was the most distinguished he could achieve; and this deepened
the disgust with which, as the minutes passed, he yielded to the
conviction that the Baron was Mrs. Newell's aunt.
IV
GARNETT had always foreseen that Mrs. Newell might some day ask him to
do something he should greatly dislike. He had never gone so far as to
conjecture what it might be, but had simply felt that if he allowed his
acquaintance with her to pass from spectatorship to participation he
must be prepared to find himself, at any moment, in a queer situation.
The moment had come; and he was relieved to find that he could meet it
by refusing her request. He had not always been sure that she would
leave him this alternative. She had a way of involving people in her
complications without their being aware of it, and Garnett had pictured
himself in holes so tight that there might not be room for a wriggle.
Happily in this case he could still move freely. Nothing compelled him
to act as an intermediary between Mrs. Newell and her husband, and it
was preposterous to suppose that, even in a life of such perpetual
upheaval as hers, there were no roots which struck deeper than her
casual intimacy with himself. She had simply laid hands on him because
he happened to be within reach, and he would put himself out of reach
by leaving for London on the morrow.
Having thus inwardly asserted his independence, he felt free to let his
fancy dwell on the strangeness of the situation. He had always supposed
that Mrs. Newell, in her flight through life, must have thrown a good
many victims to the wolves, and had assumed that Mr. Newell had been
among the number. That he had been dropped overboard at an early stage
in the lady's career seemed probable from the fact that neither his
wife nor his daughter ever mentioned him. Mrs. Newell was incapable of
reticence, and if her husband had still been an active element in her
life he would certainly have figured in her conversation. Garnett, if
he thought of the matter at all, had concluded that divorce must long
since have eliminated Mr. Newell; but he now saw how he had underrated
his friend's faculty for using up the waste material of life. She had
always struck him as the most extravagant of women, yet it turned out
that by a miracle of thrift she had for years kept a superfluous
husband on the chance that he might some day be useful to her. The day
had come, and Mr. Newell was to be called from his obscurity. Garnett
wondered what had become of him in the interval, and in what shape he
would respond to the evocation. The fact that his wife feared he might
not respond to it at all, seemed to show that his exile was voluntary,
or had at least come to appear preferable to other alternatives; but if
that were the case it was curious that he should not have taken legal
means to free himself. He could hardly have had his wife's motives for
wishing to maintain the vague tie between them; but conjecture lost
itself in trying to picture what his point of view was likely to be,
and Garnett, on his way to the Hubbards' dinner that evening, could not
help regretting that circumstances denied him the opportunity of
meeting so enigmatic a person. The young man's knowledge of Mrs.
Newell's methods made him feel that her husband might be an interesting
study. This, however, did not affect his resolve to keep clear of the
business. He entered the Hubbards' dining-room with the firm intention
of refusing to execute Mrs. Newell's commission, and if he changed his
mind in the course of the evening it was not owing to that lady's
persuasions.
Garnett's curiosity as to the Hubbards' share in Hermione's marriage
was appeased before he had been seated five minutes at their table.
Mrs. Woolsey Hubbard was an expansive blonde, whose ample but
disciplined outline seemed the result of a well-matched struggle
between her cook and her corset-maker. She talked a great deal of what
was appropriate in dress and conduct, and seemed to regard Mrs. Newell
as a final arbiter on both points. To do or to wear anything
inappropriate would have been extremely mortifying to Mrs. Hubbard, and
she was evidently resolved, at the price of eternal vigilance, to prove
her familiarity with what she frequently referred to as "the right
thing." Mr. Hubbard appeared to have no such preoccupations. Garnett,
if called upon to describe him, would have done so by saying that he
was the American who always pays. The young man, in the course of his
foreign wanderings, had come across many fellow-citizens of Mr.
Hubbard's type, in the most diverse company and surroundings; and
wherever they were to be found, they always had their hands in their
pockets. Mr. Hubbard's standard of gentility was the extent of a man's
capacity to "foot the bill"; and as no one but an occasional compatriot
cared to dispute the privilege with him, he seldom had reason to doubt
his social superiority.
Garnett, nevertheless, did not believe that this lavish pair were, as
Mrs. Newell would have phrased it, "putting up" Hermione's _dot_. They
would go very far in diamonds, but they would hang back from
securities. Their readiness to pay was indefinably mingled with a dread
of being expected to, and their prodigalities would take flight at the
first hint of coercion. Mrs. Newell, who had had a good deal of
experience in managing this type of millionaire, could be trusted not
to arouse their susceptibilities, and Garnett was therefore certain
that the chimerical legacy had been extracted from other pockets. There
were none in view but those of Baron Schenkelderff, who, seated at Mrs.
Hubbard's right, with a new order in his button-hole, and a fresh glaze
upon his features, enchanted that lady by his careless references to
crowned heads and his condescending approval of the champagne. Garnett
was more than ever certain that it was the Baron who was paying; and it
was this conviction which made him suddenly feel that, at any cost,
Hermione's marriage must take place. He had felt no special interest in
the marriage except as one more proof of Mrs. Newell's extraordinary
capacity; but now it appealed to him from the girl's own stand-point.
For he saw, with a touch of compunction, that in the mephitic air of
her surroundings a love-story of surprising freshness had miraculously
flowered. He had only to intercept the glances which the young couple
exchanged to find himself transported to the candid region of romance.
It was evident that Hermione adored and was adored; that the lovers
believed in each other and in every one about them, and that even the
legacy of the defunct aunt had not been too great a strain on their
faith in human nature.
His first glance at the Comte Louis du Trayas showed Garnett that, by
some marvel of fitness, Hermione had happened upon a kindred nature. If
the young man's long mild features and short-sighted glance revealed no
special force of character, they showed a benevolence and simplicity as
incorruptible as her own, and declared that their possessor, whatever
his failings, would never imperil the illusions she had so miraculously
preserved. The fact that the girl took her good fortune naturally, and
did not regard herself as suddenly snatched from the jaws of death,
added poignancy to the situation; for if she missed this way of escape,
and was thrown back on her former life, the day of discovery could not
be long deferred. It made Garnett shiver to think of her growing old
between her mother and Schenkelderff, or such successors of the Baron's
as might probably attend on Mrs. Newell's waning fortunes; for it was
clear to him that the Baron marked the first stage in his friend's
decline. When Garnett took leave that evening he had promised Mrs.
Newell that he would try to find her husband.
V
IF Mr. Newell read in the papers the announcement of his daughter's
marriage it did not cause him to lift the veil of seclusion in which
his wife represented him as shrouded.
A round of the American banks in Paris failed to give Garnett his
address, and it was only in chance talk with one of the young
secretaries of the Embassy that he was put on Mr. Newell's track. The
secretary's father, it appeared, had known the Newells some twenty
years earlier. He had had business relations with Mr. Newell, who was
then a man of property, with factories or something of the kind, the
narrator thought, somewhere in Western New York. There had been at this
period, for Mrs. Newell, a phase of large hospitality and showy
carriages in Washington and at Narragansett. Then her husband had had
reverses, had lost heavily in Wall Street, and had finally drifted
abroad and been lost to sight. The young man did not know at what point
in his financial decline Mr. Newell had parted company with his wife
and daughter; "though you may bet your hat," he philosophically
concluded, "that the old girl hung on as long as there were any
pickings." He did not himself know Mr. Newell's address, but opined
that it might be extracted from a certain official at the Consulate, if
Garnett could give a sufficiently good reason for the request; and here
in fact Mrs. Newell's emissary learned that her husband was to be found
in an obscure street of the Luxembourg quarter.
In order to be near the scene of action, Garnett went to breakfast at
his usual haunt, determined to despatch his business as early in the
day as politeness allowed. The head waiter welcomed him to a table near
that of the transatlantic sage, who sat in his customary corner, his
head tilted back against the blistered mirror at an angle suggesting
that in a freer civilization his feet would have sought the same level.
He greeted Garnett affably and the two exchanged their usual
generalizations on life till the sage rose to go; whereupon it occurred
to Garnett to accompany him. His friend took the offer in good part,
merely remarking that he was going to the Luxembourg gardens, where it
was his invariable habit, on good days, to feed the sparrows with the
remains of his breakfast roll; and Garnett replied that, as it
happened, his own business lay in the same direction.
"Perhaps, by the way," he added, "you can tell me how to find the rue
Panonceaux where I must go presently. I thought I knew this quarter
fairly well, but I have never heard of it."
His companion came to a sudden halt on the narrow sidewalk, to the
confusion of the dense and desultory traffic which marks the old
streets of the Latin quarter. He fixed his mild eye on Garnett and gave
a twist to the cigar which lingered in the corner of his mouth.
"The rue Panonceaux? It _is_ an out of the way hole, but I can tell you
how to find it," he answered.
He made no motion to do so, however, but continued to bend on the young
man the full force of his interrogative gaze; then he added abruptly:
"Would you mind telling me your object in going there?"
Garnett looked at him with surprise: a question so unblushingly
personal was strangely out of keeping with his friend's usual attitude
of detachment. Before he could reply, however, the other had quietly
continued: "Do you happen to be in search of Samuel C. Newell?"
"Why, yes, I am," said Garnett with a start of conjecture.
His companion uttered a sigh. "I supposed so," he said resignedly; "and
in that case," he added, "we may as well have the matter out in the
Luxembourg."
Garnett had halted before him with deepening astonishment. "But you
don't mean to tell me--?" he stammered.
The little man made a motion of assent. "I am Samuel C. Newell," he
said drily; "and if you have no objection, I prefer not to break
through my habit of feeding the sparrows. We are five minutes late as
it is."
He quickened his pace without awaiting any reply from Garnett, who
walked beside him in unsubdued wonder till they reached the Luxembourg
gardens, where Mr. Newell, making for one of the less frequented
alleys, seated himself on a bench and drew the fragment of a roll from
his pocket. His coming was evidently expected, for a shower of little
dusky bodies at once descended on him, and the gravel fluttered with
battling wings and beaks as he distributed his dole with impartial
gestures.
It was not till the ground was white with crumbs, and the first frenzy
of his pensioners appeased, that he turned to Garnett and said: "I
presume, sir, that you come from my wife."
Garnett coloured with embarrassment: the more simply the old man took
his mission the more complicated it appeared to himself.
"From your wife--and from Miss Newell," he said at length. "You have
perhaps heard that she is to be married."
"Oh, yes--I read the _Herald_ pretty faithfully," said Miss Newell's
parent, shaking out another handful of crumbs.
Garnett cleared his throat. "Then you have no doubt thought it natural
that, under the circumstances, they should wish to communicate with
you."
The sage continued to fix his attention on the sparrows. "My wife," he
remarked, "might have written to me."
"Mrs. Newell was afraid she might not hear from you in reply."
"In reply? Why should she? I suppose she merely wishes to announce the
marriage. She knows I have no money left to buy wedding-presents," said
Mr. Newell astonishingly.
Garnett felt his colour deepen: he had a vague sense of standing as the
representative of something guilty and enormous, with which he had
rashly identified himself.
"I don't think you understand," he said. "Mrs. Newell and your daughter
have asked me to see you because they are anxious that you should
consent to appear at the wedding."
Mr. Newell, at this, ceased to give his attention to the birds, and
turned a compassionate gaze upon Garnett.
"My dear sir--I don't know your name--" he remarked, "would you mind
telling me how long you have been acquainted with Mrs. Newell?" And
without waiting for an answer he added judicially: "If you wait long
enough she will ask you to do some very disagreeable things for her."
This echo of his own thoughts gave Garnett a sharp twinge of
discomfort, but he made shift to answer good-humouredly: "If you refer
to my present errand, I must tell you that I don't find it disagreeable
to do anything which may be of service to Miss Hermione."
Mr. Newell fumbled in his pocket, as though searching unavailingly for
another morsel of bread; then he said: "From her point of view I shall
not be the most important person at the ceremony."
Garnett smiled. "That is hardly a reason--" he began; but he was
checked by the brevity of tone with which his companion replied: "I am
not aware that I am called upon to give you my reasons."
"You are certainly not," the young man rejoined, "except in so far as
you are willing to consider me as the messenger of your wife and
daughter."
"Oh, I accept your credentials," said the other with his dry smile;
"what I don't recognize is their right to send a message."
This reduced Garnett to silence, and after a moment's pause Mr. Newell
drew his watch from his pocket.
"I am sorry to cut the conversation short, but my days are mapped out
with a certain regularity, and this is the hour for my nap." He rose as
he spoke and held out his hand with a glint of melancholy humour in his
small clear eyes.
"You dismiss me, then? I am to take back a refusal?" the young man
exclaimed.
"My dear sir, those ladies have got on very well without me for a
number of years: I imagine they can put through this wedding without my
help."
"You are mistaken, then; if it were not for that I shouldn't have
undertaken this errand."
Mr. Newell paused as he was turning away. "Not for what?" he enquired.
"The fact that, as it happens, the wedding can't be put through without
your help."
Mr. Newell's thin lips formed a noiseless whistle. "They've got to have
my consent, have they? Well, is he a good young man?"
"The bridegroom?" Garnett echoed in surprise. "I hear the best accounts
of him--and Miss Newell is very much in love."
Her parent met this with an odd smile. "Well, then, I give my
consent--it's all I've got left to give," he added philosophically.
Garnett hesitated. "But if you consent--if you approve--why do you
refuse your daughter's request?"
Mr. Newell looked at him a moment. "Ask Mrs. Newell!" he said. And as
Garnett was again silent, he turned away with a slight gesture of
leave-taking.
But in an instant the young man was at his side. "I will not ask your
reasons, sir," he said, "but I will give you mine for being here. Miss
Newell cannot be married unless you are present at the ceremony. The
young man's parents know that she has a father living, and they give
their consent only on condition that he appears at her marriage. I
believe it is customary in old French families--."
"Old French families be damned!" said Mr. Newell with sudden vigour.
"She had better marry an American." And he made a more decided motion
to free himself from Garnett's importunities.
But his resistance only strengthened the young man's. The more
unpleasant the latter's task became, the more unwilling he grew to see
his efforts end in failure. During the three days which had been
consumed in his quest it had become clear to him that the bridegroom's
parents, having been surprised into a reluctant consent, were but too
ready to withdraw it on the plea of Mr. Newell's non-appearance. Mrs.
Newell, on the last edge of tension, had confided to Garnett that the
Morningfields were "being nasty"; and he could picture the whole
powerful clan, on both sides of the Channel, arrayed in a common
resolve to exclude poor Hermione from their ranks. The very inequality
of the contest stirred his blood, and made him vow that in this case at
least the sins of the parents should not be visited on the children. In
his talk with the young secretary he had obtained some glimpses of
Baron Schenkelderff's past which fortified this resolve. The Baron, at
one time a familiar figure in a much-observed London set, had been
mixed up in an ugly money-lending business ending in suicide, which had
excluded him from the society most accessible to his race. His alliance
with Mrs. Newell was doubtless a desperate attempt at rehabilitation, a
forlorn hope on both sides, but likely to be an enduring tie because it
represented, to both partners, their last chance of escape from social
extinction. That Hermione's marriage was a mere stake in their game did
not in the least affect Garnett's view of its urgency. If on their part
it was a sordid speculation, to her it had the freshness of the first
wooing. If it made of her a mere pawn in their hands, it would put her,
so Garnett hoped, beyond farther risk of such base uses; and to achieve
this had become a necessity to him.
The sense that, if he lost sight of Mr. Newell, the latter might not
easily be found again, nerved Garnett to hold his ground in spite of
the resistance he encountered; and he tried to put the full force of
his plea into the tone with which he cried: "Ah, you don't know your
daughter!"
VI
MRS. NEWELL, that afternoon, met him on the threshold of her
sitting-room with a "Well?" of pent-up anxiety.
In the room itself, Baron Schenkelderff sat with crossed legs and head
thrown back, in an attitude which he did not see fit to alter at the
young man's approach.
Garnett hesitated; but it was not the summariness of the Baron's
greeting which he resented.
"You've found him?" Mrs. Newell exclaimed.
"Yes; but--"
She followed his glance and answered it with a slight shrug. "I can't
take you into my room, because there's a dress-maker there, and she
won't go because she is waiting to be paid. Schenkelderff," she
exclaimed, "you're not wanted; please go and look out of the window."
The Baron rose and, lighting a cigarette, laughingly retired to the
embrasure. Mrs. Newell flung herself down and signed to Garnett to take
a seat at her side.
"Well--you've found him? You've talked with him?"
"Yes; I have talked with him--for an hour."
She made an impatient movement. "That's too long! Does he refuse?"
"He doesn't consent."
"Then you mean--?"
"He wants time to think it over."
"Time? There _is_ no time--did you tell him so?"
"I told him so; but you must remember that he has plenty. He has taken
twenty-four hours."
Mrs. Newell groaned. "Oh, that's too much. When he thinks things over
he always refuses."
"Well, he would have refused at once if I had not agreed to the delay."
She rose nervously from her seat and pressed her hands to her forehead.
"It's too hard, after all I've done! The trousseau is ordered--think
how disgraceful! You must have managed him badly; I'll go and see him
myself."
The Baron, at this, turned abruptly from his study of the Place Vendome.
"My dear creature, for heaven's sake don't spoil everything!" he
exclaimed.
Mrs. Newell coloured furiously. "What's the meaning of that brilliant
speech?"
"I was merely putting myself in the place of a man on whom you have
ceased to smile."
He picked up his hat and stick, nodded knowingly to Garnett, and walked
toward the door with an air of creaking jauntiness.
But on the threshold Mrs. Newell waylaid him.
"Don't go--I must speak to you," she said, following him into the
antechamber; and Garnett remembered the dress-maker who was not to be
dislodged from her bedroom.
In a moment Mrs. Newell returned, with a small flat packet which she
vainly sought to dissemble in an inaccessible pocket.
"He makes everything too odious!" she exclaimed; but whether she
referred to her husband or the Baron it was left to Garnett to decide.
She sat silent, nervously twisting her cigarette-case between her
fingers, while her visitor rehearsed the details of his conversation
with Mr. Newell. He did not indeed tell her the arguments he had used
to shake her husband's resolve, since in his eloquent sketch of
Hermione's situation there had perforce entered hints unflattering to
her mother; but he gave the impression that his hearer had in the end
been moved, and for that reason had consented to defer his refusal.
"Ah, it's not that--it's to prolong our misery!" Mrs. Newell exclaimed;
and after a moment she added drearily: "He has been waiting for such an
opportunity for years."
It seemed needless for Garnett to protract his visit, and he took leave
with the promise to report at once the result of his final talk with
Mr. Newell. But as he was passing through the ante-chamber a side-door
opened and Hermione stood before him. Her face was flushed and shaken
out of its usual repose of line, and he saw at once that she had been
waiting for him.
"Mr. Garnett!" she said in a whisper.
He paused, considering her with surprise: he had never supposed her
capable of such emotion as her voice and eyes revealed.
"I want to speak to you; we are quite safe here. Mamma is with the
dress-maker," she explained, closing the door behind her, while Garnett
laid aside his hat and stick.
"I am at your service," he said.
"You have seen my father? Mamma told me that you were to see him
to-day," the girl went on, standing close to him in order that she
might not have to raise her voice.
"Yes; I have seen him," Garnett replied with increasing wonder.
Hermione had never before mentioned her father to him, and it was by a
slight stretch of veracity that he had included her name in her
mother's plea to Mr. Newell. He had supposed her to be either
unconscious of the transaction, or else too much engrossed in her own
happiness to give it a thought; and he had forgiven her the last
alternative in consideration of the abnormal character of her filial
relations. But now he saw that he must readjust his view of her.
"You went to ask him to come to my wedding; I know about it," Hermione
continued. "Of course it is the custom--people will think it odd if he
does not come." She paused, and then asked: "Does he consent?"
"No; he has not yet consented."
"Ah, I thought so when I saw Mamma just now!"
"But he hasn't quite refused--he has promised to think it over."
"But he hated it--he hated the idea?"
Garnett hesitated. "It seemed to arouse painful associations."
"Ah, it would--it would!" she exclaimed.
He was astonished at the passion of her accent; astonished still more
at the tone with which she went on, laying her hand on his arm: "Mr.
Garnett, he must not be asked--he has been asked too often to do things
that he hated!"
Garnett looked at the girl with a shock of awe. What abysses of
knowledge did her purity hide?
"But, my dear Miss Hermione--" he began.
"I know what you are going to say," she interrupted him. "It is
necessary that he should be present at the marriage or the du Trayas
will break it off. They don't want it very much, at any rate," she
added with a strange candour, "and they will not be sorry, perhaps--for
of course Louis would have to obey them."
"So I explained to your father," Garnett assured her.
"Yes--yes; I knew you would put it to him. But that makes no
difference, Mr. Garnett. He must not be forced to come unwillingly."
"But if he sees the point--after all, no one can force him!"
"No; but if it is painful to him--if it reminds him too much ... Oh,
Mr. Garnett, I was not a child when he left us.... I was old enough to
see ... to see how it must hurt him even now to be reminded. Peace was
all he asked for, and I want him to be left in peace!"
Garnett paused in deep embarrassment. "My dear child, there is no need
to remind you that your own future--"
She had a gesture that recalled her mother. "My future must take care
of itself; he must not be made to see us!" she said imperatively. And
as Garnett remained silent she went on: "I have always hoped he did not
hate me, but he would hate me now if he were forced to see me."
"Not if he could see you at this moment!" he exclaimed.
She lifted her face with swimming eyes.
"Well, go to him, then; tell him what I have said to you!"
Garnett continued to stand before her, deeply struck. "It might be the
best thing," he reflected inwardly; but he did not give utterance to
the thought. He merely put out his hand, holding Hermione's in a long
pressure.
"I will do whatever you wish," he replied.
"You understand that I am in earnest?" she urged tenaciously.
"I am quite sure of it."
"Then I want you to repeat to him what I have said--I want him to be
left undisturbed. I don't want him ever to hear of us again!"
The next day, at the appointed hour, Garnett resorted to the Luxembourg
gardens, which Mr. Newell had named as a meeting-place in preference to
his own lodgings. It was clear that he did not wish to admit the young
man any further into his privacy than the occasion required, and the
extreme shabbiness of his dress hinted that pride might be the cause of
his reluctance.
Garnett found him feeding the sparrows, but he desisted at the young
man's approach, and said at once: "You will not thank me for bringing
you all this distance."
"If that means that you are going to send me away with a refusal, I
have come to spare you the necessity," Garnett answered.
Mr. Newell turned on him a glance of undisguised wonder, in which an
undertone of disappointment might almost have been detected.
"Ah--they've got no use for me, after all?" he said ironically.
Garnett, in reply, related without comment his conversation with
Hermione, and the message with which she had charged him. He remembered
her words exactly and repeated them without modification, heedless of
what they implied or revealed.
Mr. Newell listened with an immovable face, occasionally casting a
crumb to his flock. When Garnett ended he asked: "Does her mother know
of this?"
"Assuredly not!" cried Garnett with a movement of disgust.
"You must pardon me; but Mrs. Newell is a very ingenious woman." Mr.
Newell shook out his remaining crumbs and turned thoughtfully toward
Garnett.
"You believe it's quite clear to Hermione that these people will use my
refusal as a pretext for backing out of the marriage?"
"Perfectly clear--she told me so herself."
"Doesn't she consider the young man rather chicken-hearted?"
"No; he has already put up a big fight for her, and you know the French
look at these things differently. He's only twenty-three and his
marrying against his parents' approval is in itself an act of heroism."
"Yes; I believe they look at it that way," Mr. Newell assented. He rose
and picked up the half-smoked cigar which he had laid on the bench
beside him.
"What do they wear at these French weddings, anyhow? A dress-suit,
isn't it?" he asked.
The question was such a surprise to Garnett that for the moment he
could only stammer out--"You consent then? I may go and tell her?"
"You may tell my girl--yes." He gave a vague laugh and added: "One way
or another, my wife always gets what she wants."
VII
MR. NEWELL'S consent brought with it no accompanying concessions. In
the first flush of his success Garnett had pictured himself as bringing
together the father and daughter, and hovering in an attitude of
benediction over a family group in which Mrs. Newell did not very
distinctly figure.
But Mr. Newell's conditions were inflexible. He would "see the thing
through" for his daughter's sake; but he stipulated that in the
meantime there should be no meetings or farther communications of any
kind. He agreed to be ready when Garnett called for him, at the
appointed hour on the wedding-day; but until then he begged to be left
alone. To this decision he adhered immovably, and when Garnett conveyed
it to Hermione she accepted it with a deep look of understanding. As
for Mrs. Newell she was too much engrossed in the nuptial preparations
to give her husband another thought. She had gained her point, she had
disarmed her foes, and in the first flush of success she had no time to
remember by what means her victory had been won. Even Garnett's
services received little recognition, unless he found them sufficiently
compensated by the new look in Hermione's eyes.
The principal figures in Mrs. Newell's foreground were the Woolsey
Hubbards and Baron Schenkelderff. With these she was in hourly
consultation, and Mrs. Hubbard went about aureoled with the importance
of her close connection with an "aristocratic marriage," and dazzled by
the Baron's familiarity with the intricacies of the Almanach de Gotha.
In his society and Mrs. Newell's, Mrs. Hubbard evidently felt that she
had penetrated to the sacred precincts where "the right thing"
flourished in its native soil. As for Hermione, her look of happiness
had returned, but with an undertint of melancholy, visible perhaps only
to Garnett, but to him always hauntingly present. Outwardly she sank
back into her passive self, resigned to serve as the brilliant
lay-figure on which Mrs. Newell hung the trophies of conquest.
Preparations for the wedding were zealously pressed. Mrs. Newell knew
the danger of giving people time to think things over, and her fears
about her husband being allayed, she began to dread a new attempt
at evasion on the part of the bridegroom's family.
"The sooner it's over the sounder I shall sleep!" she declared to
Garnett; and all the mitigations of art could not conceal the fact that
she was desperately in need of that restorative. There were moments,
indeed, when he was sorrier for her than for her husband or her
daughter; so black and unfathomable appeared the abyss into which she
must slip back if she lost her hold on this last spar of safety.
But she did not lose her hold; his own experience, as well as her
husband's declaration, might have told him that she always got what she
wanted. How much she had wanted this particular thing was shown by the
way in which, on the last day, when all peril was over, she bloomed out
in renovated splendour. It gave Garnett a shivering sense of the
ugliness of the alternative which had confronted her.
The day came; the showy coupe provided by Mrs. Newell presented itself
punctually at Garnett's door, and the young man entered it and drove to
the rue Panonceaus. It was a little melancholy back street, with lean
old houses sweating rust and damp, and glimpses of pit-life gardens,
black and sunless, between walls bristling with iron spikes. On the
narrow pavement a blind man pottered along led by a red-eyed poodle: a
little farther on a dishevelled woman sat grinding coffee on the
threshold of a _buvette_. The bridal carriage stopped before one of the
doorways, with a clatter of hoofs and harness which drew the
neighbourhood to its windows, and Garnett started to mount the
ill-smelling stairs to the fourth floor, on which he learned from the
_concierge_ that Mr. Newell lodged. But half-way up he met the latter
descending, and they turned and went down together.
Hermione's parent wore his usual imperturbable look, and his eye seemed
as full as ever of generalisations on human folly; but there was
something oddly shrunken and submerged in his appearance, as though he
had grown smaller or his clothes larger. And on the last hypothesis
Garnett paused--for it became evident to him that Mr. Newell had hired
his dress-suit.
Seated at the young man's side on the satin cushions, he remained
silent while the carriage rolled smoothly and rapidly through the
net-work of streets leading to the Boulevard Saint-Germain; only once
he remarked, glancing at the elaborate fittings of the coupe: "Is this
Mrs. Newell's carriage?"
"I believe so--yes," Garnett assented, with the guilty sense that in
defining that lady's possessions it was impossible not to trespass on
those of her friends.
Mr. Newell made no farther comment, but presently requested his
companion to rehearse to him once more the exact duties which were to
devolve on him during the coming ceremony. Having mastered these he
remained silent, fixing a dry speculative eye on the panorama of the
brilliant streets, till the carriage drew up at the entrance of Saint
Philippe du Roule.
With the same air of composure he followed his guide through the mob of
spectators, and up the crimson velvet steps, at the head of which, but
for a word from Garnett, a formidable Suisse, glittering with cocked
hat and mace, would have checked the advance of the small crumpled
figure so oddly out of keeping with the magnificence of the bridal
party. The French fashion prescribing that the family _cortege_ shall
follow the bride to the altar, the vestibule of the church was thronged
with the participatore in the coming procession; but if Mr. Newell felt
any nervousness at his sudden projection into this unfamiliar group,
nothing in his look or manner betrayed it. He stood beside Garnett till
a white-favoured carriage, dashing up to the church with a superlative
glitter of highly groomed horseflesh and silver-plated harness,
deposited the snowy apparition of the bride, supported by her mother;
then, as Hermione entered the vestibule, he went forward quietly to
meet her.
The girl, wrapped in the haze of her bridal veil, and a little
confused, perhaps, by the anticipation of the meeting, paused a moment,
as if in doubt, before the small oddly-clad figure which blocked her
path--a horrible moment to Garnett, who felt a pang of misery at this
satire on the infallibility of the filial instinct. He longed to make
some sign, to break in some way the pause of uncertainty; but before he
could move he saw Mrs. Newell give her daughter a sharp push, he saw a
blush of compunction flood Hermione's face, and the girl, throwing back
her veil, bent her tall head and flung her arms about her father.
Mr. Newell emerged unshaken from the embrace: it seemed to have no
effect beyond giving an odder twist to his tie. He stood beside his
daughter till the church doors were thrown open; then, at a sign from
the verger, he gave her his arm, and the strange couple, with the long
train of fashion and finery behind them, started on their march to the
altar.
Garnett had already slipped into the church and secured a post of
vantage which gave him a side-view over the assemblage. The building
was thronged--Mrs. Newell had attained her ambition and given Hermione
a smart wedding. Garnett's eye travelled curiously from one group to
another--from the numerous representatives of the bridegroom's family,
all stamped with the same air of somewhat dowdy distinction, the air of
having had their thinking done for them for so long that they could no
longer perform the act individually, and the heterogeneous company of
Mrs. Newell's friends, who presented, on the opposite side of the nave,
every variety of individual conviction in dress and conduct. Of the two
groups the latter was decidedly the more interesting to Garnett, who
observed that it comprised not only such recent acquisitions as the
Woolsey Hubbards and the Baron, but also sundry more important figures
which of late had faded to the verse of Mrs. Newell's horizon.
Hermione's marriage had drawn them back, had once more made her mother
a social entity, had in short already accomplished the object for which
it had been planned and executed.
And as he looked about him Garnett saw that all the other actors in the
show faded into insignificance beside the dominant figure of Mrs.
Newell, became mere marionettes pulled hither and thither by the hidden
wires of her intention. One and all they were there to serve her ends
and accomplish her purpose: Schenkelderff and the Hubbards to pay for
the show, the bride and bridegroom to seal and symbolize her social
rehabilitation, Garnett himself as the humble instrument adjusting the
different parts of the complicated machinery, and her husband, finally,
as the last stake in her game, the last asset on which she could draw
to rebuild her fallen fortunes. At the thought Garnett was filled with
a deep disgust for what the scene signified, and for his own share in
it. He had been her tool and dupe like the others; if he imagined that
he was serving Hermione, it was for her mother's ends that he had
worked. What right had he to sentimentalise a marriage founded on such
base connivances, and how could he have imagined that in so doing he
was acting a disinterested part?
While these thoughts were passing through his mind the ceremony had
already begun, and the principal personages in the drama were ranged
before him in the row of crimson velvet chairs which fills the
foreground of a Catholic marriage. Through the glow of lights and the
perfumed haze about the altar, Garnett's eyes rested on the central
figures of the group, and gradually the others disappeared from his
view and his mind. After all, neither Mrs. Newell's schemes nor his own
share in them could ever unsanctify Hermione's marriage. It was one
more testimony to life's indefatigable renewals, to nature's secret of
drawing fragrance from corruption; and as his eyes turned from the
girl's illuminated presence to the resigned and stoical figure sunk in
the adjoining chair, it occured to him that he had perhaps worked
better than he knew in placing them, if only for a moment, side by side.
IN TRUST
IN the good days, just after we all left college, Ned Halidon and I
used to listen, laughing and smoking, while Paul Ambrose set forth his
plans.
They were immense, these plans, involving, as it sometimes seemed, the
ultimate aesthetic redemption of the whole human race; and
provisionally restoring the sense of beauty to those unhappy millions
of our fellow country-men who, as Ambrose movingly pointed out, now
live and die in surroundings of unperceived and unmitigated ugliness.
"I want to bring the poor starved wretches back to their lost
inheritance, to the divine past they've thrown away--I want to make 'em
hate ugliness so that they'll smash nearly everything in sight," he
would passionately exclaim, stretching his arms across the shabby
black-walnut writing-table and shaking his thin consumptive fist in the
fact of all the accumulated ugliness in the world.
"You might set the example by smashing that table," I once suggested
with youthful brutality; and Paul, pulling himself up, cast a surprised
glance at me, and then looked slowly about the parental library, in
which we sat.
His parents were dead, and he had inherited the house in Seventeenth
Street, where his grandfather Ambrose had lived in a setting of black
walnut and pier glasses, giving Madeira dinners, and saying to his
guests, as they rejoined the ladies across a florid waste of Aubusson
carpet: "This, sir, is Dabney's first study for the Niagara--the
Grecian Slave in the bay window was executed for me in Rome twenty
years ago by my old friend Ezra Stimpson--" by token of which he passed
for a Maecenas in the New York of the 'forties,' and a poem had once
been published in the Keepsake or the Book of Beauty "On a picture in
the possession of Jonathan Ambrose, Esqre."
Since then the house had remained unchanged. Paul's father, a frugal
liver and hard-headed manipulator of investments, did not inherit old
Jonathan's artistic sensibilities, and was content to live and die in
the unmodified black walnut and red rep of his predecessor. It was only
in Paul that the grandfather's aesthetic faculty revived, and Mrs.
Ambrose used often to say to her husband, as they watched the little
pale-browed boy poring over an old number of the _Art Journal:_ "Paul
will know how to appreciate your father's treasures."
In recognition of these transmitted gifts Paul, on leaving Harvard, was
sent to Paris with a tutor, and established in a studio in which
nothing was ever done. He could not paint, and recognized the fact
early enough to save himself much wasted labor and his friends many
painful efforts in dissimulation. But he brought back a touching
enthusiasm for the forms of beauty which an old civilization had
revealed to him and an apostolic ardour in the cause of their
dissemination.
He had paused in his harangue to take in my ill-timed parenthesis, and
the color mounted slowly to his thin cheek-bones.
"It _is_ an ugly room," he owned, as though he had noticed the library
for the first time.
The desk was carved at the angles with the heads of helmeted knights
with long black-walnut moustaches. The red cloth top was worn
thread-bare, and patterned like a map with islands and peninsulas of
ink; and in its centre throned a massive bronze inkstand representing a
Syrian maiden slumbering by a well beneath a palm-tree.
"The fact is," I said, walking home that evening with Ned Halidon, "old
Paul will never do anything, for the simple reason that he's too
stingy."
Ned, who was an idealist, shook his handsome head. "It's not that, my
dear fellow. He simply doesn't see things when they're too close to
him. I'm glad you woke him up to that desk."
The next time I dined with Paul he said, when we entered the library,
and I had gently rejected one of his cheap cigars in favour of a
superior article of my own: "Look here, I've been looking round for a
decent writing-table. I don't care, as a rule, to turn out old things,
especially when they've done good service, but I see now that this is
too monstrous--"
"For an apostle of beauty to write his evangel on," I agreed, "it _is_
a little inappropriate, except as an awful warning."
Paul colored. "Well, but, my dear fellow, I'd no idea how much a table
of this kind costs. I find I can't get anything decent--the plainest
mahogany--under a hundred and fifty." He hung his head, and pretended
not to notice that I was taking out my own cigar.
"Well, what's a hundred and fifty to you?" I rejoined. "You talk as if
you had to live on a book-keeper's salary, with a large family to
support."
He smiled nervously and twirled the ring on his thin finger. "I know--I
know--that's all very well. But for twenty tables that I _don't_ buy I
can send some fellow abroad and unseal his eyes."
"Oh, hang it, do both!" I exclaimed impatiently; but the writing-table
was never bought. The library remained as it was, and so did the
contention between Halidon and myself, as to whether this inconsistent
acceptance of his surroundings was due, on our friend's part, to a
congenital inability to put his hand in his pocket, or to a real
unconsciousness of the ugliness that happened to fall inside his point
of vision.
"But he owned that the table was ugly," I agreed.
"Yes, but not till you'd called his attention to the fact; and I'll
wager he became unconscious of it again as soon as your back was
turned."
"Not before he'd had time to look at a lot of others, and make up his
mind that he couldn't afford to buy one."
"That was just his excuse. He'd rather be thought mean than insensible
to ugliness. But the truth is that he doesn't mind the table and is
used to it. He knows his way about the drawers."
"But he could get another with the same number of drawers."
"Too much trouble," argued Halidon.
"Too much money," I persisted.
"Oh, hang it, now, if he were mean would he have founded three
travelling scholarships and be planning this big Academy of Arts?"
"Well, he's mean to himself, at any rate."
"Yes; and magnificently, royally generous to all the world besides!"
Halidon exclaimed with one of his great flushes of enthusiasm.
But if, on the whole, the last word remained with Halidon, and
Ambrose's personal chariness seemed a trifling foible compared to his
altruistic breadth of intention, yet neither of us could help
observing, as time went on, that the habit of thrift was beginning to
impede the execution of his schemes of art-philanthropy. The three
travelling scholarships had been founded in the first blaze of his
ardour, and before the personal management of his property had awakened
in him the sleeping instincts of parsimony. But as his capital
accumulated, and problems of investment and considerations of interest
began to encroach upon his visionary hours, we saw a gradual arrest in
the practical development of his plan.
"For every thousand dollars he talks of spending on his work, I believe
he knocks off a cigar, or buys one less newspaper," Halidon grumbled
affectionately; "but after all," he went on, with one of the quick
revivals of optimism that gave a perpetual freshness to his spirit,
"after all, it makes one admire him all the more when one sees such a
nature condemned to be at war with the petty inherited instinct of
greed."
Still, I could see it was a disappointment to Halidon that the great
project of the Academy of Arts should languish on paper long after all
its details had been discussed and settled to the satisfaction of the
projector, and of the expert advisers he had called in council.
"He's quite right to do nothing in a hurry--to take advice and compare
ideas and points of view--to collect and classify his material in
advance," Halidon argued, in answer to a taunt of mine about Paul's
perpetually reiterated plea that he was still waiting for So-and-so's
report; "but now that the plan's mature--and _such_ a plan! You'll
grant it's magnificent?--I should think he'd burn to see it carried
out, instead of pottering over it till his enthusiasm cools and the
whole business turns stale on his hands."
That summer Ambrose went to Europe, and spent his holiday in a frugal
walking-tour through Brittany. When he came back he seemed refreshed by
his respite from business cares and from the interminable revision of
his cherished scheme; while contact with the concrete manifestations of
beauty had, as usual, renewed his flagging ardour.
"By Jove," he cried, "whenever I indulged my unworthy eyes in a long
gaze at one of those big things--picture or church or statue--I kept
saying to myself: 'You lucky devil, you, to be able to provide such a
sight as that for eyes that can make some good use of it! Isn't it
better to give fifty fellows a chance to paint or carve or build, than
to be able to daub canvas or punch clay in a corner all by yourself?'"
"Well," I said, when he had worked off his first ebullition, "when is
the foundation stone to be laid?"
His excitement dropped. "The foundation stone--?"
"When are you going to touch the electric button that sets the thing
going?"
Paul, with his hands in his sagging pockets, began to pace the library
hearth-rug--I can see him now, setting his shabby red slippers between
its ramified cabbages.
"My dear fellow, there are one or two points to be considered
still--one or two new suggestions I picked up over there--"
I sat silent, and he paused before me, flushing to the roots of his
thin hair. "You think I've had time enough--that I ought to have put
the thing through before this? I suppose you're right; I can see that
even Ned Halidon thinks so; and he has always understood my
difficulties better than you have."
This insinuation exasperated me. "Ned would have put it through years
ago!" I broke out.
Paul pulled at his straggling moustache. "You mean he has more
executive capacity? More--no, it's not that; he's not afraid to spend
money, and I am!" he suddenly exclaimed.
He had never before alluded to this weakness to either of us, and I sat
abashed, suffering from his evident distress. But he remained planted
before me, his little legs wide apart, his eyes fixed on mine in an
agony of voluntary self-exposure.
"That's my trouble, and I know it. Big sums frighten me--I can't look
them in the face. By George, I wish Ned had the carrying out of this
scheme--I wish he could spend my money for me!" His face was lit by the
reflection of a passing thought. "Do you know, I shouldn't wonder if I
dropped out of the running before either of you chaps, and in case I do
I've half a mind to leave everything in trust to Halidon, and let him
put the job through for me."
"Much better have your own fun with it," I retorted; but he shook his
head, saying with a sigh as he turned away: "It's _not_ fun to
me--that's the worst of it."
Halidon, to whom I could not help repeating our talk, was amused and
touched by his friend's thought.
"Heaven knows what will become of the scheme, if Paul doesn't live to
carry it out. There are a lot of hungry Ambrose cousins who will make
one gulp of his money, and never give a dollar to the work. Jove, it
_would_ be a fine thing to have the carrying out of such a plan--but
he'll do it yet, you'll see he'll do it yet!" cried Ned, his old faith
in his friend flaming up again through the wet blanket of fact.
II
PAUL AMBROSE did not die and leave his fortune to Halidon, but the
following summer he did something far more unexpected. He went abroad
again, and came back married. Now our busy fancy had never seen Paul
married. Even Ned recognized the vague unlikelihood of such a
metamorphosis.
"He'd stick at the parson's fee--not to mention the best man's
scarf-pin. And I should hate," Ned added sentimentally, "to see 'the
touch of a woman's hand' desecrate the sublime ugliness of the
ancestral home. Think of such a house made 'cozy'!"
But when the news came he would own neither to surprise nor to
disappointment.
"Goodbye, poor Academy!" I exclaimed, tossing over the bridegroom's
eight-page rhapsody to Halidon, who had received its duplicate by the
same post.
"Now, why the deuce do you say that?" he growled. "I never saw such a
beast as you are for imputing mean motives."
To defend myself from this accusation I put out my hand and recovered
Paul's letter.
"Here: listen to this. 'Studying art in Paris when I met her--"the
vision and the faculty divine, but lacking the accomplishment," etc....
A little ethereal profile, like one of Piero della Francesca's angels
... not rich, thank heaven, _but not afraid of money_, and already
enamored of my project for fertilizing my sterile millions...'"
"Well, why the deuce--?" Ned began again, as though I had convicted
myself out of my friend's mouth; and I could only grumble obscurely:
"It's all too pat."
He brushed aside my misgivings. "Thank heaven, she can't paint, anyhow.
And now that I think of it, Paul's just the kind of chap who ought
to have a dozen children."
"Ah, then indeed: goodbye, poor Academy!" I croaked.
The lady was lovely, of that there could be no doubt; and if Paul now
for a time forgot the Academy, his doing so was but a vindication of
his sex. Halidon had only a glimpse of the returning couple before he
was himself snatched up in one of the chariots of adventure that seemed
perpetually waiting at his door. This time he was going to the far East
in the train of a "special mission," and his head was humming with new
hopes and ardors; but he had time for a last word with me about Ambrose.
"You'll see--you'll see!" he summed up hopefully as we parted; and what
I was to see was, of course, the crowning pinnacle of the Academy
lifting itself against the horizon of the immediate future.
It was in the nature of things that I should, meanwhile, see less than
formerly of the projector of that unrealized structure. Paul had a
personal dread of society, but he wished to show his wife to the world,
and I was not often a spectator on these occasions. Paul indeed, good
fellow, tried to maintain the pretense of an unbroken intercourse, and
to this end I was asked to dine now and then; but when I went I found
guests of a new type, who, after dinner, talked of sport and stocks,
while their host blinked at them silently through the smoke of his
cheap cigars.
The first innovation that struck me was a sudden improvement in the
quality of the cigars. Was this Daisy's doing? (Mrs. Ambrose was
Daisy.) It was hard to tell--she produced her results so noiselessly.
With her fair bent head and vague smile, she seemed to watch life flow
by without, as yet, trusting anything of her own to its current. But
she was watching, at any rate, and anything might come of that. Such
modifications as she produced were as yet almost imperceptible to any
but the trained observer. I saw that Paul wished her to be well
dressed, but also that he suffered her to drive in a hired brougham,
and to have her door opened by the raw-boned Celt who had bumped down
the dishes on his bachelor table. The drawing-room curtains were
renewed, but this change served only to accentuate the enormities of
the carpet, and perhaps discouraged Mrs. Ambrose from farther
experiments. At any rate, the desecrating touch that Halidon had
affected to dread made no other inroads on the serried ugliness of the
Ambrose interior.
In the early summer, when Ned returned, the Ambroses had flown to
Europe again--and the Academy was still on paper.
"Well, what do you make of her?" the traveller asked, as we sat over
our first dinner together.
"Too many things--and they don't hang together. Perhaps she's still in
the chrysalis stage."
"Has Paul chucked the scheme altogether?"
"No. He sent for me and we had a talk about it just before he sailed."
"And what impression did you get?"
"That he had waited to send for me _till_ just before he sailed."
"Oh, there you go again!" I offered no denial, and after a pause he
asked: "Did _she_ ever talk to you about it?"
"Yes. Once or twice--in snatches."
"Well--?"
"She thinks it all _too_ beautiful. She would like to see beauty put
within the reach of everyone."
"And the practical side--?"
"She says she doesn't understand business."
Halidon rose with a shrug. "Very likely you frightened her with your
ugly sardonic grin."
"It's not my fault if my smile doesn't add to the sum-total of beauty."
"Well," he said, ignoring me, "next winter we shall see."
But the next winter did not bring Ambrose back. A brief line, written
in November from the Italian lakes, told me that he had "a rotten
cough," and that the doctors were packing him off to Egypt. Would I see
the architects for him, and explain to the trustees? (The Academy
already had trustees, and all the rest of its official hierarchy.) And
would they all excuse his not writing more than a word? He was really
too groggy--but a little warm weather would set him up again, and he
would certainly come home in the spring.
He came home in the spring--in the hold of the ship, with his widow
several decks above. The funeral services were attended by all the
officers of the Academy, and by two of the young fellows who had won
the travelling scholarships, and who shed tears of genuine grief when
their benefactor was committed to the grave.
After that there was a pause of suspense--and then the newspapers
announced that the late Paul Ambrose had left his entire estate to his
widow. The board of the Academy dissolved like a summer cloud, and the
secretary lighted his pipe for a year with the official paper of the
still-born institution.
After a decent lapse of time I called at the house in Seventeenth
Street, and found a man attaching a real-estate agent's sign to the
window and a van-load of luggage backing away from the door. The
care-taker told me that Mrs. Ambrose was sailing the next morning. Not
long afterward I saw the library table with the helmeted knights
standing before an auctioneer's door in University Place; and I looked
with a pang at the familiar ink-stains, in which I had so often traced
the geography of Paul's visionary world.
Halidon, who had picked up another job in the Orient, wrote me an
elegiac letter on Paul's death, ending with--"And what about the
Academy?" and for all answer I sent him a newspaper clipping recording
the terms of the will, and another announcing the sale of the house and
Mrs. Ambrose's departure for Europe.
Though Ned and I corresponded with tolerable regularity I received no
direct answer to this communication till about eighteen months later,
when he surprised me by a letter dated from Florence. It began: "Though
she tells me you have never understood her--" and when I had reached
that point I laid it down and stared out of my office window at the
chimney-pots and the dirty snow on the roof.
"Ned Halidon and Paul's wife!" I murmured; and, incongruously enough,
my next thought was: "I wish I'd bought the library table that day."
The letter went on with waxing eloquence: "I could not stand the money
if it were not that, to her as well as to me, it represents the sacred
opportunity of at last giving speech to his inarticulateness ..."
"Oh, damn it, they're too glib!" I muttered, dashing the letter down;
then, controlling my unreasoning resentment, I read on. "You remember,
old man, those words of his that you repeated to me three or four years
ago: 'I've half a mind to leave my money in trust to Ned'? Well, it
_has_ come to me in trust--as if in mysterious fulfillment of his
thought; and, oh, dear chap--" I dashed the letter down again, and
plunged into my work.
III
"WON'T you own yourself a beast, dear boy?" Halidon asked me gently,
one afternoon of the following spring.
I had escaped for a six weeks' holiday, and was lying outstretched
beside him in a willow chair on the terrace of their villa above
Florence.
My eyes turned from the happy vale at our feet to the illuminated face
beside me. A little way off, at the other end of the terrace, Mrs.
Halidon was bending over a pot of carnations on the balustrade.
"Oh, cheerfully," I assented.
"You see," he continued, glowing, "living here costs us next to
nothing, and it was quite _her_ idea, our founding that fourth
scholarship in memory of Paul."
I had already heard of the fourth scholarship, but I may have betrayed
my surprise at the plural pronoun, for the blood rose under Ned's
sensitive skin, and he said with an embarrassed laugh: "Ah, she so
completely makes me forget that it's not mine too."
"Well, the great thing is that you both think of it chiefly as his."
"Oh, chiefly--altogether. I should be no more than a wretched parasite
if I didn't live first of all for that!"
Mrs. Halidon had turned and was advancing toward us with the slow step
of leisurely enjoyment. The bud of her beauty had at last unfolded: her
vague enigmatical gaze had given way to the clear look of the woman
whose hand is on the clue of life.
"_She's_ not living for anything but her own happiness," I mused, "and
why in heaven's name should she? But Ned--"
"My wife," Halidon continued, his eyes following mine, "my wife feels
it too, even more strongly. You know a woman's sensitiveness.
She's--there's nothing she wouldn't do for his memory--because--in
other ways.... You understand," he added, lowering his tone as she drew
nearer, "that as soon as the child is born we mean to go home for good,
and take up his work--Paul's work."
Mrs. Halidon recovered slowly after the birth of her child: the return
to America was deferred for six months, and then again for a whole
year. I heard of the Halidons as established first at Biarritz, then in
Rome. The second summer Ned wrote me a line from St. Moritz. He said
the place agreed so well with his wife--who was still delicate--that
they were "thinking of building a house there: a mere cleft in the
rocks, to hide our happiness in when it becomes too exuberant"--and the
rest of the letter, very properly, was filled with a rhapsody upon his
little daughter. He spoke of her as Paula.
The following year the Halidons reappeared in New York, and I heard
with surprise that they had taken the Brereton house for the winter.
"Well, why not?" I argued with myself. "After all, the money is hers:
as far as I know the will didn't even hint at a restriction. Why should
I expect a pretty woman with two children" (for now there was an heir)
"to spend her fortune on a visionary scheme that its originator hadn't
the heart to carry out?"
"Yes," cried the devil's advocate--"but Ned?"
My first impression of Halidon was that he had thickened--thickened all
through. He was heavier, physically, with the ruddiness of good living
rather than of hard training; he spoke more deliberately, and had less
frequent bursts of subversive enthusiasm. Well, he was a father, a
householder--yes, and a capitalist now. It was fitting that his manner
should show a sense of these responsibilities. As for Mrs. Halidon, it
was evident that the only responsibilities she was conscious of were
those of the handsome woman and the accomplished hostess. She was
handsomer than ever, with her two babies at her knee--perfect mother as
she was perfect wife. Poor Paul! I wonder if he ever dreamed what a
flower was hidden in the folded bud?
Not long after their arrival, I dined alone with the Halidons, and
lingered on to smoke with Ned while his wife went alone to the opera.
He seemed dull and out of sorts, and complained of a twinge of gout.
"Fact is, I don't get enough exercise--I must look about for a horse."
He had gone afoot for a good many years, and kept his clear skin and
quick eye on that homely regimen--but I had to remind myself that,
after all, we were both older; and also that the Halidons had champagne
every evening.
"How do you like these cigars? They're some I've just got out from
London, but I'm not quite satisfied with them myself," he grumbled,
pushing toward me the silver box and its attendant taper.
I leaned to the flame, and our eyes met as I lit my cigar. Ned flushed
and laughed uneasily. "Poor Paul! Were you thinking of those execrable
weeds of his?--I wonder how I knew you were? Probably because I have
been wanting to talk to you of our plan--I sent Daisy off alone so that
we might have a quiet evening. Not that she isn't interested, only the
technical details bore her."
I hesitated. "Are there many technical details left to settle?"
Halidon pushed his armchair back from the fire-light, and twirled his
cigar between his fingers. "I didn't suppose there were till I began to
look into things a little more closely. You know I never had much of a
head for business, and it was chiefly with you that Paul used to go
over the figures."
"The figures--?"
"There it is, you see." He paused. "Have you any idea how much this
thing is going to cost?"
"Approximately, yes."
"And have you any idea how much we--how much Daisy's fortune amounts
to?"
"None whatever," I hastened to assert.
He looked relieved. "Well, we simply can't do it--and live."
"Live?"
"Paul didn't _live_," he said impatiently. "I can't ask a woman with
two children to think of--hang it, she's under no actual obligation--"
He rose and began to walk the floor. Presently he paused and halted in
front of me, defensively, as Paul had once done years before. "It's not
that I've lost the sense of _my_ obligation--it grows keener with the
growth of my happiness; but my position's a delicate one--"
"Ah, my dear fellow--"
"You _do_ see it? I knew you would." (Yes, he was duller!) "That's the
point. I can't strip my wife and children to carry out a plan--a plan
so nebulous that even its inventor.... The long and short of it is that
the whole scheme must be re-studied, reorganized. Paul lived in a world
of dreams."
I rose and tossed my cigar into the fire. "There were some things he
never dreamed of," I said.
Halidon rose too, facing me uneasily. "You mean--?"
"That _you_ would taunt him with not having spent that money."
He pulled himself up with darkening brows; then the muscles of his
forehead relaxed, a flush suffused it, and he held out his hand in
boyish penitence.
"I stand a good deal from you," he said.
He kept up his idea of going over the Academy question--threshing it
out once for all, as he expressed it; but my suggestion that we should
provisionally resuscitate the extinct board did not meet with his
approval.
"Not till the whole business is settled. I shouldn't have the
face-- Wait till I can go to them and say: 'We're laying the
foundation-stone on such a day.'"
We had one or two conferences, and Ned speedily lost himself in a maze
of figures. His nimble fancy was recalcitrant to mental discipline, and
he excused his inattention with the plea that he had no head for
business.
"All I know is that it's a colossal undertaking, and that short of
living on bread and water--" and then we turned anew to the hard
problem of retrenchment.
At the close of the second conference we fixed a date for a third, when
Ned's business adviser was to be called in; but before the day came, I
learned casually that the Halidons had gone south. Some weeks later Ned
wrote me from Florida, apologizing for his remissness. They had rushed
off suddenly--his wife had a cough, he explained.
When they returned in the spring, I heard that they had bought the
Brereton house, for what seemed to my inexperienced ears a very large
sum. But Ned, whom I met one day at the club, explained to me
convincingly that it was really the most economical thing they could
do. "You don't understand about such things, dear boy, living in your
Diogenes tub; but wait till there's a Mrs. Diogenes. I can assure you
it's a lot cheaper than building, which is what Daisy would have
preferred, and of course," he added, his color rising as our eyes met,
"of course, once the Academy's going, I shall have to make my
head-quarters here; and I suppose even you won't grudge me a roof over
my head."
The Brereton roof was a vast one, with a marble balustrade about it;
and I could quite understand, without Ned's halting explanation, that
"under the circumstances" it would be necessary to defer what he called
"our work--" "Of course, after we've rallied from this amputation, we
shall grow fresh supplies--I mean my wife's investments will," he
laughingly corrected, "and then we'll have no big outlays ahead and
shall know exactly where we stand. After all, my dear fellow, charity
begins at home!"
IV
THE Halidons floated off to Europe for the summer. In due course their
return was announced in the social chronicle, and walking up Fifth
Avenue one afternoon I saw the back of the Brereton house sheathed in
scaffolding, and realized that they were adding a wing.
I did not look up Halidon, nor did I hear from him till the middle of
the winter. Once or twice, meanwhile, I had seen him in the back of his
wife's opera box; but Mrs. Halidon had grown so resplendent that she
reduced her handsome husband to a supernumerary. In January the papers
began to talk of the Halidon ball; and in due course I received a card
for it. I was not a frequenter of balls, and had no intention of going
to this one; but when the day came some obscure impulse moved me to set
aside my rule, and toward midnight I presented myself at Ned's
illuminated portals.
I shall never forget his look when I accosted him on the threshold of
the big new ballroom. With celibate egoism I had rather fancied he
would be gratified by my departure from custom; but one glance showed
me my mistake. He smiled warmly, indeed, and threw into his hand-clasp
an artificial energy of welcome--"You of all people--my dear fellow!
Have you seen Daisy?"--but the look behind the smile made me feel cold
in the crowded room.
Nor was Mrs. Halidon's greeting calculated to restore my circulation.
"Have you come to spy on us?" her frosty smile seemed to say; and I
crept home early, wondering if she had not found me out.
It was the following week that Halidon turned up one day in my office.
He looked pale and thinner, and for the first time I noticed a dash of
gray in his hair. I was startled at the change in him, but I reflected
that it was nearly a year since we had looked at each other by
daylight, and that my shaving-glass had doubtless a similar tale to
tell.
He fidgeted about the office, told me a funny story about his little
boy, and then dropped into a chair.
"Look here," he said, "I want to go into business."
"Business?" I stared.
"Well, why not? I suppose men have gone to work, even at my age, and
not made a complete failure of it. The fact is, I want to make some
money." He paused, and added: "I've heard of an opportunity to pick up
for next to nothing a site for the Academy, and if I could lay my hands
on a little cash--"
"Do you want to speculate?" I interposed.
"Heaven forbid! But don't you see that, if I had a fixed job--so much a
quarter--I could borrow the money and pay it off gradually?"
I meditated upon this astounding proposition. "Do you really think it's
wise to buy a site before--"
"Before what?"
"Well--seeing ahead a little?"
His face fell for a moment, but he rejoined cheerfully: "It's an
exceptional chance, and after all, I _shall_ see ahead if I can get
regular work. I can put by a little every month, and by and bye, when
our living expenses diminish, my wife means to come forward--her idea
would be to give the building--"
He broke off and drummed on the table, waiting nervously for me to
speak. He did not say on what grounds he still counted on a diminution
of his household expenses, and I had not the cruelty to press this
point; but I murmured, after a moment: "I think you're right--I should
try to buy the land."
We discussed his potentialities for work, which were obviously still an
unknown quantity, and the conference ended in my sending him to a firm
of real-estate brokers who were looking out for a partner with a little
money to invest. Halidon had a few thousands of his own, which he
decided to embark in the venture; and thereafter, for the remaining
months of the winter, he appeared punctually at a desk in the brokers'
office, and sketched plans of the Academy on the back of their business
paper. The site for the future building had meanwhile been bought, and
I rather deplored the publicity which Ned gave to the fact; but, after
all, since this publicity served to commit him more deeply, to pledge
him conspicuously to the completion of his task, it was perhaps a wise
instinct of self-coercion that had prompted him.
It was a dull winter in realty, and toward spring, when the market
began to revive, one of the Halidon children showed symptoms of a
delicate throat, and the fashionable doctor who humoured the family
ailments counselled--nay, commanded--a prompt flight to the
Mediterranean.
"He says a New York spring would be simply criminal--and as for those
ghastly southern places, my wife won't hear of them; so we're off. But
I shall be back in July, and I mean to stick to the office all summer."
He was true to his word, and reappeared just as all his friends were
deserting town. For two torrid months he sat at his desk, drawing fresh
plans of the Academy, and waiting for the wind-fall of a "big deal";
but in September he broke down from the effect of the unwonted
confinement, and his indignant wife swept him off to the mountains.
"Why Ned should work when we have the money--I wish he would sell that
wretched piece of land!" And sell it he did one day: I chanced on a
record of the transaction in the realty column of the morning paper. He
afterward explained the sale to me at length. Owing to some spasmodic
effort at municipal improvement, there had been an unforeseen rise in
the adjoining property, and it would have been foolish--yes, I agreed
that it would have been foolish. He had made $10,000 on the sale, and
that would go toward paying off what he had borrowed for the original
purchase. Meanwhile he could be looking about for another site.
Later in the winter he told me it was a bad time to look. His position
in the real-estate business enabled him to follow the trend of the
market, and that trend was obstinately upward. But of course there
would be a reaction--and he was keeping his eyes open.
As the resuscitated Academy scheme once more fell into abeyance, I saw
Halidon less and less frequently; and we had not met for several
months, when one day of June, my morning paper startled me with the
announcement that the President had appointed Edward Halidon of New
York to be Civil Commissioner of our newly acquired Eastern possession,
the Manana Islands. "The unhealthy climate of the islands, and the
defective sanitation of the towns, make it necessary that vigorous
measures should be taken to protect the health of the American citizens
established there, and it is believed that Mr. Halidon's large
experience of Eastern life and well-known energy of character--" I read
the paragraph twice; then I dropped the paper, and projected myself
through the subway to Halidon's office. But he was not there; he had
not been there for a month. One of the clerks believed he was in
Washington.
"It's true, then!" I said to myself. "But Mrs. Halidon in the
Mananas--?"
A day or two later Ned appeared in my office. He looked better than
when we had last met, and there was a determined line about his lips.
"My wife? Heaven forbid! You don't suppose I should think of taking
her? But the job is a tremendously interesting one, and it's the kind
of work I believe I can do--the only kind," he added, smiling rather
ruefully.
"But my dear Ned--"
He faced me with a look of quiet resolution. "I think I've been through
all the _buts_. It's an infernal climate, of course, but then I am used
to the East--I know what precautions to take. And it would be a big
thing to clean up that Augean stable."
"But consider your wife and children--"
He met this with deliberation. "I _have_ considered my children--that's
the point. I don't want them to be able to say, when they look back:
'He was content to go on living on that money--'"
"My dear Ned--"
"That's the one thing they _shan't_ say of me," he pressed on
vehemently. "I've tried other ways--but I'm no good at business. I see
now that I shall never make money enough to carry out the scheme
myself; but at least I can clear out, and not go on being _his_
pensioner--seeing his dreams turned into horses and carpets and
clothes--"
He broke off, and leaning on my desk hid his face in his hands. When he
looked up again his flush of wrath had subsided.
"Just understand me--it's not _her_ fault. Don't fancy I'm trying for
an instant to shift the blame. A woman with children simply obeys the
instinct of her sex; she puts them first--and I wouldn't have it
otherwise. As far as she's concerned there were no conditions
attached--there's no reason why she should make any sacrifice." He
paused, and added painfully: "The trouble is, I can't make her see that
I am differently situated."
"But, Ned, the climate--what are you going to gain by chucking yourself
away?"
He lifted his brows. "That's a queer argument from _you_. And, besides,
I'm up to the tricks of all those ague-holes. And I've _got_ to live,
you see: I've got something to put through." He saw my look of enquiry,
and added with a shy, poignant laugh--how I hear it still!--: "I don't
mean only the job in hand, though that's enough in itself; but Paul's
work--you understand.--It won't come in _my_ day, of course--I've got
to accept that--but my boy's a splendid chap" (the boy was three), "and
I tell you what it is, old man, I believe when he grows up _he'll put
it through_."
Halidon went to the Mananas, and for two years the journals brought me
incidental reports of the work he was accomplishing. He certainly had
found a job to his hand: official words of commendation rang through
the country, and there were lengthy newspaper leaders on the efficiency
with which our representative was prosecuting his task in that lost
corner of our colonies. Then one day a brief paragraph announced his
death--"one of the last victims of the pestilence he had so
successfully combated."
That evening, at my club, I heard men talking of him. One said: "What's
the use of a fellow wasting himself on a lot of savages?" and another
wiseacre opined: "Oh, he went off because there was friction at home. A
fellow like that, who knew the East, would have got through all right
if he'd taken the proper precautions. I saw him before he left, and I
never saw a man look less as if he wanted to live."
I turned on the last speaker, and my voice made him drop his lighted
cigar on his complacent knuckles.
"I never knew a man," I exclaimed, "who had better reasons for wanting
to live!"
A handsome youth mused: "Yes, his wife is very beautiful--but it
doesn't follow--"
And then some one nudged him, for they knew I was Halidon's friend.
THE PRETEXT
I
MRS. RANSOM, when the front door had closed on her visitor, passed with
a spring from the drawing-room to the narrow hall, and thence up the
narrow stairs to her bedroom.
Though slender, and still light of foot, she did not always move so
quickly: hitherto, in her life, there had not been much to hurry for,
save the recurring domestic tasks that compel haste without fostering
elasticity; but some impetus of youth revived, communicated to her by
her talk with Guy Dawnish, now found expression in her girlish flight
upstairs, her girlish impatience to bolt herself into her room with her
throbs and her blushes.
Her blushes? Was she really blushing?
She approached the cramped eagle-topped mirror above her plain prim
dressing-table: just such a meagre concession to the weakness of the
flesh as every old-fashioned house in Wentworth counted among its
relics. The face reflected in this unflattering surface--for even the
mirrors of Wentworth erred on the side of depreciation--did not seem,
at first sight, a suitable theatre for the display of the tenderer
emotions, and its owner blushed more deeply as the fact was forced upon
her.
Her fair hair had grown too thin--it no longer quite hid the blue veins
in her candid forehead--a forehead that one seemed to see turned toward
professorial desks, in large bare halls where a snowy winter light fell
uncompromisingly on rows of "thoughtful women." Her mouth was thin,
too, and a little strained; her lips were too pale; and there were
lines in the corners of her eyes. It was a face which had grown
middle-aged while it waited for the joys of youth.
Well--but if she could still blush? Instinctively she drew back a
little, so that her scrutiny became less microscopic, and the pretty
lingering pink threw a veil over her pallor, the hollows in her
temples, the faint wrinkles of inexperience about her lips and eyes.
How a little colour helped! It made her eyes so deep and shining. She
saw now why bad women rouged.... Her redness deepened at the thought.
But suddenly she noticed for the first time that the collar of her
dress was cut too low. It showed the shrunken lines of the throat. She
rummaged feverishly in a tidy scentless drawer, and snatching out a bit
of black velvet, bound it about her neck. Yes--that was better. It gave
her the relief she needed. Relief--contrast--that was it! She had never
had any, either in her appearance or in her setting. She was as flat as
the pattern of the wall-paper--and so was her life. And all the people
about her had the same look. Wentworth was the kind of place where
husbands and wives gradually grew to resemble each other--one or two of
her friends, she remembered, had told her lately that she and Ransom
were beginning to look alike....
But why had she always, so tamely, allowed her aspect to conform to her
situation? Perhaps a gayer exterior would have provoked a brighter
fate. Even now--she turned back to the glass, loosened the tight
strands of hair above her brow, ran the fine end of the comb under them
with a rapid frizzing motion, and then disposed them, more lightly and
amply, above her eager face. Yes--it was really better; it made a
difference. She smiled at herself with a timid coquetry, and her lips
seemed rosier as she smiled. Then she laid down the comb and the smile
faded. It made a difference, certainly--but was it right to try to make
one's hair look thicker and wavier than it really was? Between that and
rouging the ethical line seemed almost impalpable, and the spectre of
her rigid New England ancestry rose reprovingly before her. She was
sure that none of her grandmothers had ever simulated a curl or
encouraged a blush. A blush, indeed! What had any of them ever had to
blush for in all their frozen lives? And what, in Heaven's name, had
she? She sat down in the stiff mahogany rocking-chair beside her
work-table and tried to collect herself. From childhood she had been
taught to "collect herself"--but never before had her small sensations
and aspirations been so widely scattered, diffused over so vague and
uncharted an expanse. Hitherto they had lain in neatly sorted and
easily accessible bundles on the high shelves of a perfectly ordered
moral consciousness. And now--now that for the first time they _needed_
collecting--now that the little winged and scattered bits of self were
dancing madly down the vagrant winds of fancy, she knew no spell to
call them to the fold again. The best way, no doubt--if only her
bewilderment permitted--was to go back to the beginning--the beginning,
at least, of to-day's visit--to recapitulate, word for word and look
for look....
She clasped her hands on the arms of the chair, checked its swaying
with a firm thrust of her foot, and fixed her eyes upon the inward
vision....
To begin with, what had made to-day's visit so different from the
others? It became suddenly vivid to her that there had been many,
almost daily, others, since Guy Dawnish's coming to Wentworth. Even the
previous winter--the winter of his arrival from England--his visits had
been numerous enough to make Wentworth aware that--very naturally--Mrs.
Ransom was "looking after" the stray young Englishman committed to her
husband's care by an eminent Q. C. whom the Ransoms had known on one of
their brief London visits, and with whom Ransom had since maintained
professional relations. All this was in the natural order of things, as
sanctioned by the social code of Wentworth. Every one was kind to Guy
Dawnish--some rather importunately so, as Margaret Ransom had smiled to
observe--but it was recognized as fitting that she should be kindest,
since he was in a sense her property, since his people in England, by
profusely acknowledging her kindness, had given it the domestic
sanction without which, to Wentworth, any social relation between the
sexes remained unhallowed and to be viewed askance. Yes! And even this
second winter, when the visits had become so much more frequent, so
admitted a part of the day's routine, there had not been, from any one,
a hint of surprise or of conjecture....
Mrs. Ransom smiled with a faint bitterness. She was protected by her
age, no doubt--her age and her past, and the image her mirror gave back
to her....
Her door-handle turned suddenly, and the bolt's resistance was met by
an impatient knock.
"Margaret!"
She started up, her brightness fading, and unbolted the door to admit
her husband.
"Why are you locked in? Why, you're not dressed yet!" he exclaimed.
It was possible for Ransom to reach his dressing-room by a slight
circuit through the passage; but it was characteristic of the
relentless domesticity of their relation that he chose, as a matter of
course, the directer way through his wife's bedroom. She had never
before been disturbed by this practice, which she accepted as
inevitable, but had merely adapted her own habits to it, delaying her
hasty toilet till he was safely in his room, or completing it before
she heard his step on the stair; since a scrupulous traditional prudery
had miraculously survived this massacre of all the privacies.
"Oh, I shan't dress this evening--I shall just have some tea in the
library after you've gone," she answered absently. "Your things are
laid out," she added, rousing herself.
He looked surprised. "The dinner's at seven. I suppose the speeches
will begin at nine. I thought you were coming to hear them."
She wavered. "I don't know. I think not. Mrs. Sperry's ill, and I've no
one else to go with."
He glanced at his watch. "Why not get hold of Dawnish? Wasn't he here
just now? Why didn't you ask him?"
She turned toward her dressing-table, and straightened the comb and
brush with a nervous hand. Her husband had given her, that morning, two
tickets for the ladies' gallery in Hamblin Hall, where the great public
dinner of the evening was to take place--a banquet offered by the
faculty of Wentworth to visitors of academic eminence--and she had
meant to ask Dawnish to go with her: it had seemed the most natural
thing to do, till the end of his visit came, and then, after all, she
had not spoken....
"It's too late now," she murmured, bending over her pin cushion.
"Too late? Not if you telephone him."
Her husband came toward her, and she turned quickly to face him, lest
he should suspect her of trying to avoid his eye. To what duplicity was
she already committed!
Ransom laid a friendly hand on her arm: "Come along, Margaret. You know
I speak for the bar." She was aware, in his voice, of a little note of
surprise at his having to remind her of this.
"Oh, yes. I meant to go, of course--"
"Well, then--" He opened his dressing-room door, and caught a glimpse
of the retreating house-maid's skirt. "Here's Maria now. Maria! Call up
Mr. Dawnish--at Mrs. Creswell's, you know. Tell him Mrs. Ransom wants
him to go with her to hear the speeches this evening--the _speeches_,
you understand?--and he's to call for her at a quarter before nine."
Margaret heard the Irish "Yessir" on the stairs, and stood motionless,
while her husband added loudly: "And bring me some towels when you come
up." Then he turned back into his wife's room.
"Why, it would be a thousand pities for Guy to miss this. He's so
interested in the way we do things over here--and I don't know that
he's ever heard me speak in public." Again the slight note of fatuity!
Was it possible that Ransom was a fatuous man?
He paused in front of her, his short-sighted unobservant glance
concentrating itself unexpectedly on her face.
"You're not going like that, are you?" he asked, with glaring
eye-glasses.
"Like what?" she faltered, lifting a conscious hand to the velvet at
her throat.
"With your hair in such a fearful mess. Have you been shampooing it?
You look like the Brant girl at the end of a tennis-match."
The Brant girl was their horror--the horror of all right-thinking
Wentworth; a laced, whale-boned, frizzle-headed, high-heeled daughter
of iniquity, who came--from New York, of course--on long, disturbing,
tumultuous visits to a Wentworth aunt, working havoc among the
freshmen, and leaving, when she departed, an angry wake of criticism
that ruffled the social waters for weeks. _She_, too, had tried her
hand at Guy--with ludicrous unsuccess. And now, to be compared to
her--to be accused of looking "New Yorky!" Ah, there are times when
husbands are obtuse; and Ransom, as he stood there, thick and yet
juiceless, in his dry legal middle age, with his wiry dust-coloured
beard, and his perpetual _pince-nez_, seemed to his wife a sudden
embodiment of this traditional attribute. Not that she had ever fancied
herself, poor soul, a "_femme incomprise_." She had, on the contrary,
prided herself on being understood by her husband, almost as much as on
her own complete comprehension of him. Wentworth laid a good deal of
stress on "motives"; and Margaret Ransom and her husband had dwelt in a
complete community of motive. It had been the proudest day of her life
when, without consulting her, he had refused an offer of partnership in
an eminent New York firm because he preferred the distinction of
practising in Wentworth, of being known as the legal representative of
the University. Wentworth, in fact, had always been the bond between
the two; they were united in their veneration for that estimable seat
of learning, and in their modest yet vivid consciousness of possessing
its tone. The Wentworth "tone" is unmistakable: it permeates every part
of the social economy, from the _coiffure_ of the ladies to the
preparation of the food. It has its sumptuary laws as well as its
curriculum of learning. It sits in judgment not only on its own
townsmen but on the rest of the world--enlightening, criticising,
ostracizing a heedless universe--and non-conformity to Wentworth
standards involves obliteration from Wentworth's consciousness.
In a world without traditions, without reverence, without stability,
such little expiring centres of prejudice and precedent make an
irresistible appeal to those instincts for which a democracy has
neglected to provide. Wentworth, with its "tone," its backward
references, its inflexible aversions and condemnations, its hard moral
outline preserved intact against a whirling background of experiment,
had been all the poetry and history of Margaret Ransom's life. Yes,
what she had really esteemed in her husband was the fact of his being
so intense an embodiment of Wentworth; so long and closely identified,
for instance, with its legal affairs, that he was almost a part of its
university existence, that of course, at a college banquet, he would
inevitably speak for the bar!
It was wonderful of how much consequence all this had seemed till
now....
II
WHEN, punctually at ten minutes to seven, her husband had emerged from
the house, Margaret Ransom remained seated in her bedroom, addressing
herself anew to the difficult process of self-collection. As an aid to
this endeavour, she bent forward and looked out of the window,
following Ransom's figure as it receded down the elm-shaded street. He
moved almost alone between the prim flowerless grass-plots, the white
porches, the protrusion of irrelevant shingled gables, which stamped
the empty street as part of an American college town. She had always
been proud of living in Hill Street, where the university people
congregated, proud to associate her husband's retreating back, as he
walked daily to his office, with backs literary and pedagogic, backs of
which it was whispered, for the edification of duly-impressed visitors:
"Wait till that old boy turns--that's so-and-so."
This had been her world, a world destitute of personal experience, but
filled with a rich sense of privilege and distinction, of being not as
those millions were who, denied the inestimable advantage of living at
Wentworth, pursued elsewhere careers foredoomed to futility by that
very fact.
And now--!
She rose and turned to her work-table where she had dropped, on
entering, the handful of photographs that Guy Dawnish had left with
her. While he sat so close, pointing out and explaining, she had hardly
taken in the details; but now, on the full tones of his low young
voice, they came back with redoubled distinctness. This was Guise
Abbey, his uncle's place in Wiltshire, where, under his grandfather's
rule, Guy's own boyhood had been spent: a long gabled Jacobean facade,
many-chimneyed, ivy-draped, overhung (she felt sure) by the boughs of a
venerable rookery. And in this other picture--the walled garden at
Guise--that was his uncle, Lord Askern, a hale gouty-looking figure,
planted robustly on the terrace, a gun on his shoulder and a couple of
setters at his feet. And here was the river below the park, with Guy
"punting" a girl in a flapping hat--how Margaret hated the flap that
hid the girl's face! And here was the tennis-court, with Guy among a
jolly cross-legged group of youths in flannels, and pretty girls about
the tea-table under the big lime: in the centre the curate handing
bread and butter, and in the middle distance a footman approaching with
more cups.
Margaret raised this picture closer to her eyes, puzzling, in the
diminished light, over the face of the girl nearest to Guy
Dawnish--bent above him in profile, while he laughingly lifted his
head. No hat hid this profile, which stood out clearly against the
foliage behind it.
"And who is that handsome girl?" Margaret had said, detaining the
photograph as he pushed it aside, and struck by the fact that, of the
whole group, he had left only this member unnamed.
"Oh, only Gwendolen Matcher--I've always known her--. Look at this: the
almshouses at Guise. Aren't they jolly?"
And then--without her having had the courage to ask if the girl in the
punt were also Gwendolen Matcher--they passed on to photographs of his
rooms at Oxford, of a cousin's studio in London--one of Lord Askern's
grandsons was "artistic"--of the rose-hung cottage in Wales to which,
on the old Earl's death, his daughter-in-law, Guy's mother, had retired.
Every one of the photographs opened a window on the life Margaret had
been trying to picture since she had known him--a life so rich, so
romantic, so packed--in the mere casual vocabulary of daily life--with
historic reference and poetic allusion, that she felt almost oppressed
by this distant whiff of its air. The very words he used fascinated and
bewildered her. He seemed to have been born into all sorts of
connections, political, historical, official, that made the Ransom
situation at Wentworth as featureless as the top shelf of a dark
closet. Some one in the family had "asked for the Chiltern
Hundreds"--one uncle was an Elder Brother of the Trinity House--some
one else was the Master of a College--some one was in command at
Devonport--the Army, the Navy, the House of Commons, the House of
Lords, the most venerable seats of learning, were all woven into the
dense background of this young man's light unconscious talk. For the
unconsciousness was unmistakable. Margaret was not without experience
of the transatlantic visitor who sounds loud names and evokes
reverberating connections. The poetry of Guy Dawnish's situation lay in
the fact that it was so completely a part of early associations and
accepted facts. Life was like that in England--in Wentworth of course
(where he had been sent, through his uncle's influence, for two years'
training in the neighbouring electrical works at Smedden)--in
Wentworth, though "immensely jolly," it was different. The fact that he
was qualifying to be an electrical engineer--with the hope of a
secretaryship at the London end of the great Smedden Company--that, at
best, he was returning home to a life of industrial "grind," this fact,
though avowedly a bore, did not disconnect him from that brilliant
pinnacled past, that many-faceted life in which the brightest episodes
of the whole body of English fiction seemed collectively reflected. Of
course he would have to work--younger sons' sons almost always had
to--but his uncle Askern (like Wentworth) was "immensely jolly," and
Guise always open to him, and his other uncle, the Master, a capital
old boy too--and in town he could always put up with his clever aunt,
Lady Caroline Duckett, who had made a "beastly marriage" and was
horribly poor, but who knew everybody jolly and amusing, and had always
been particularly kind to him.
It was not--and Margaret had not, even in her own thoughts, to defend
herself from the imputation--it was not what Wentworth would have
called the "material side" of her friend's situation that captivated
her. She was austerely proof against such appeals: her enthusiasms were
all of the imaginative order. What subjugated her was the unexampled
prodigality with which he poured for her the same draught of tradition
of which Wentworth held out its little teacupful. He besieged her with
a million Wentworths in one--saying, as it were: "All these are mine
for the asking--and I choose you instead!"
For this, she told herself somewhat dizzily, was what it came to--the
summing-up toward which her conscientious efforts at self-collection
had been gradually pushing her: with all this in reach, Guy Dawnish was
leaving Wentworth reluctantly.
"I _was_ a bit lonely here at first--but _now!_" And again: "It will be
jolly, of course, to see them all again--but there are some things one
doesn't easily give up...."
If he had known only Wentworth, it would have been wonderful enough
that he should have chosen her out of all Wentworth--but to have known
that other life, and to set her in the balance against it--poor
Margaret Ransom, in whom, at the moment, nothing seemed of weight but
her years! Ah, it might well produce, in nerves and brain, and poor
unpractised pulses, a flushed tumult of sensation, the rush of a great
wave of life, under which memory struggled in vain to reassert itself,
to particularize again just what his last words--the very last--had
been....
When consciousness emerged, quivering, from this retrospective assault,
it pushed Margaret Ransom--feeling herself a mere leaf in the
blast--toward the writing-table from which her innocent and voluminous
correspondence habitually flowed. She had a letter to write now--much
shorter but more difficult than any she had ever been called on to
indite.
"Dear Mr. Dawnish," she began, "since telephoning you just now I have
decided not--"
Maria's voice, at the door, announced that tea was in the library: "And
I s'pose it's the brown silk you'll wear to the speaking?"
In the usual order of the Ransom existence, its mistress's toilet was
performed unassisted; and the mere enquiry--at once friendly and
deferential--projected, for Margaret, a strong light on the importance
of the occasion. That she should answer: "But I am not going," when the
going was so manifestly part of a household solemnity about which the
thoughts below stairs fluttered in proud participation; that in face of
such participation she should utter a word implying indifference or
hesitation--nay, revealing herself the transposed, uprooted thing she
had been on the verge of becoming; to do this was--well! infinitely
harder than to perform the alternative act of tearing up the sheet of
note-paper under her reluctant pen.
Yes, she said, she would wear the brown silk....
III
ALL the heat and glare from the long illuminated table, about which the
fumes of many courses still hung in a savoury fog, seemed to surge up
to the ladies' gallery, and concentrate themselves in the burning
cheeks of a slender figure withdrawn behind the projection of a pillar.
It never occurred to Margaret Ransom that she was sitting in the shade.
She supposed that the full light of the chandeliers was beating on her
face--and there were moments when it seemed as though all the heads
about the great horse-shoe below, bald, shaggy, sleek, close-thatched,
or thinly latticed, were equipped with an additional pair of eyes, set
at an angle which enabled them to rake her face as relentlessly as the
electric burners.
In the lull after a speech, the gallery was fluttering with the rustle
of programmes consulted, and Mrs. Sheff (the Brant girl's aunt) leaned
forward to say enthusiastically: "And now we're to hear Mr. Ransom!"
A louder buzz rose from the table, and the heads (without relaxing
their upward vigilance) seemed to merge, and flow together, like an
attentive flood, toward the upper end of the horse-shoe, where all the
threads of Margaret Ransom's consciousness were suddenly drawn into
what seemed a small speck, no more--a black speck that rose, hung in
air, dissolved into gyrating gestures, became distended, enormous,
preponderant--became her husband "speaking."
"It's the heat--" Margaret gasped, pressing her handkerchief to her
whitening lips, and finding just strength enough left to push back
farther into the shadow.
She felt a touch on her arm. "It _is_ horrible--shall we go?" a voice
suggested; and, "Yes, yes, let us go," she whispered, feeling, with a
great throb of relief, _that_ to be the only possible, the only
conceivable, solution. To sit and listen to her husband _now_--how
could she ever have thought she could survive it? Luckily, under the
lingering hubbub from below, his opening words were inaudible, and she
had only to run the gauntlet of sympathetic feminine glances, shot
after her between waving fans and programmes, as, guided by Guy
Dawnish, she managed to reach the door. It was really so hot that even
Mrs. Sheff was not much surprised--till long afterward....
The winding staircase was empty, half dark and blessedly silent. In a
committee room below Dawnish found the inevitable water jug, and filled
a glass for her, while she leaned back, confronted only by a frowning
college President in an emblazoned frame. The academic frown descended
on her like an anathema when she rose and followed her companion out of
the building.
Hamblin Hall stands at the end of the long green "Campus" with its
sextuple line of elms--the boast and the singularity of Wentworth. A
pale spring moon, rising above the dome of the University library at
the opposite end of the elm-walk, diffused a pearly mildness in the
sky, melted to thin haze the shadows of the trees, and turned to golden
yellow the lights of the college windows. Against this soft suffusion
of light the Library cupola assumed a Bramantesque grace, the white
steeple of the congregational church became a campanile topped by a
winged spirit, and the scant porticoes of the older halls the
colonnades of classic temples.
"This is better--" Dawnish said, as they passed down the steps and
under the shadow of the elms.
They moved on a little way in silence before he began again: "You're
too tired to walk. Let us sit down a few minutes."
Her feet, in truth, were leaden, and not far off a group of park
benches, encircling the pedestal of a patriot in bronze, invited them
to rest. But Dawnish was guiding her toward a lateral path which bent,
through shrubberies, toward a strip of turf between two of the
buildings.
"It will be cooler by the river," he said, moving on without waiting
for a possible protest. None came: it seemed easier, for the moment, to
let herself be led without any conventional feint of resistance. And
besides, there was nothing wrong about _this_--the wrong would have
been in sitting up there in the glare, pretending to listen to her
husband, a dutiful wife among her kind....
The path descended, as both knew, to the chosen, the inimitable spot of
Wentworth: that fugitive curve of the river, where, before hurrying on
to glut the brutal industries of South Wentworth and Smedden, it
simulated for a few hundred yards the leisurely pace of an ancient
university stream, with willows on its banks and a stretch of turf
extending from the grounds of Hamblin Hall to the boat houses at the
farther bend. Here too were benches, beneath the willows, and so close
to the river that the voice of its gliding softened and filled out the
reverberating silence between Margaret and her companion, and made her
feel that she knew why he had brought her there.
"Do you feel better?" he asked gently as he sat down beside her.
"Oh, yes. I only needed a little air."
"I'm so glad you did. Of course the speeches were tremendously
interesting--but I prefer this. What a good night!"
"Yes."
There was a pause, which now, after all, the soothing accompaniment of
the river seemed hardly sufficient to fill.
"I wonder what time it is. I ought to be going home," Margaret began at
length.
"Oh, it's not late. They'll be at it for hours in there--yet."
She made a faint inarticulate sound. She wanted to say: "No--Robert's
speech was to be the last--" but she could not bring herself to
pronounce Ransom's name, and at the moment no other way of refuting her
companion's statement occurred to her.
The young man leaned back luxuriously, reassured by her silence.
"You see it's my last chance--and I want to make the most of it."
"Your last chance?" How stupid of her to repeat his words on that
cooing note of interrogation! It was just such a lead as the Brant girl
might have given him.
"To be with you--like this. I haven't had so many. And there's less
than a week left."
She attempted to laugh. "Perhaps it will sound longer if you call it
five days."
The flatness of that, again! And she knew there were people who called
her intelligent. Fortunately he did not seem to notice it; but her
laugh continued to sound in her own ears--the coquettish chirp of
middle age! She decided that if he spoke again--if he _said
anything_--she would make no farther effort at evasion: she would take
it directly, seriously, frankly--she would not be doubly disloyal.
"Besides," he continued, throwing his arm along the back of the bench,
and turning toward her so that his face was like a dusky bas-relief
with a silver rim--"besides, there's something I've been wanting to
tell you."
The sound of the river seemed to cease altogether: the whole world
became silent.
Margaret had trusted her inspiration farther than it appeared likely to
carry her. Again she could think of nothing happier than to repeat, on
the same witless note of interrogation: "To tell me?"
"You only."
The constraint, the difficulty, seemed to be on his side now: she
divined it by the renewed shifting of his attitude--he was capable,
usually, of such fine intervals of immobility--and by a confusion in
his utterance that set her own voice throbbing in her throat.
"You've been so perfect to me," he began again. "It's not my fault if
you've made me feel that you would understand everything--make
allowances for everything--see just how a man may have held out, and
fought against a thing--as long as he had the strength.... This may be
my only chance; and I can't go away without telling you."
He had turned from her now, and was staring at the river, so that his
profile was projected against the moonlight in all its beautiful young
dejection.
There was a slight pause, as though he waited for her to speak; then
she leaned forward and laid her hand on his.
"If I have really been--if I have done for you even the least part of
what you say ... what you imagine ... will you do for me, now, just one
thing in return?"
He sat motionless, as if fearing to frighten away the shy touch on his
hand, and she left it there, conscious of her gesture only as part of
the high ritual of their farewell.
"What do you want me to do?" he asked in a low tone.
"_Not_ to tell me!" she breathed on a deep note of entreaty.
"_Not_ to tell you--?"
"Anything--_anything_--just to leave our ... our friendship ... as it
has been--as--as a painter, if a friend asked him, might leave a
picture--not quite finished, perhaps ... but all the more exquisite...."
She felt the hand under hers slip away, recover itself, and seek her
own, which had flashed out of reach in the same instant--felt the start
that swept him round on her as if he had been caught and turned about
by the shoulders.
"You--_you_--?" he stammered, in a strange voice full of fear and
tenderness; but she held fast, so centred in her inexorable resolve
that she was hardly conscious of the effect her words might be
producing.
"Don't you see," she hurried on, "don't you _feel_ how much safer it
is--yes, I'm willing to put it so!--how much safer to leave everything
undisturbed ... just as ... as it has grown of itself ... without
trying to say: 'It's this or that'...? It's what we each choose to call
it to ourselves, after all, isn't it? Don't let us try to find a name
that ... that we should both agree upon ... we probably shouldn't
succeed." She laughed abruptly. "And ghosts vanish when one names
them!" she ended with a break in her voice.
When she ceased her heart was beating so violently that there was a
rush in her ears like the noise of the river after rain, and she did
not immediately make out what he was answering. But as she recovered
her lucidity she said to herself that, whatever he was saying, she must
not hear it; and she began to speak again, half playfully, half
appealingly, with an eloquence of entreaty, an ingenuity in argument,
of which she had never dreamed herself capable. And then, suddenly,
strangling hands seemed to reach up from her heart to her throat, and
she had to stop.
Her companion remained motionless. He had not tried to regain her hand,
and his eyes were away from her, on the river. But his nearness had
become something formidable and exquisite--something she had never
before imagined. A flush of guilt swept over her--vague reminiscences
of French novels and of opera plots. This was what such women felt,
then ... this was "shame." ... Phrases of the newspaper and the pulpit
danced before her.... She dared not speak, and his silence began to
frighten her. Had ever a heart beat so wildly before in Wentworth?
He turned at last, and taking her two hands, quite simply, kissed them
one after the other.
"I shall never forget--" he said in a confused voice, unlike his own.
A return of strength enabled her to rise, and even to let her eyes meet
his for a moment.
"Thank you," she said, simply also.
She turned away from the bench, regaining the path that led back to the
college buildings, and he walked beside her in silence. When they
reached the elm walk it was dotted with dispersing groups. The
"speaking" was over, and Hamblin Hall had poured its audience out into
the moonlight. Margaret felt a rush of relief, followed by a receding
wave of regret. She had the distinct sensation that her hour--her one
hour--was over.
One of the groups just ahead broke up as they approached, and projected
Ransom's solid bulk against the moonlight.
"My husband," she said, hastening forward; and she never afterward
forgot the look of his back--heavy, round-shouldered, yet a little
pompous--in a badly fitting overcoat that stood out at the neck and hid
his collar. She had never before noticed how he dressed.
IV
THEY met again, inevitably, before Dawnish left; but the thing she
feared did not happen--he did not try to see her alone.
It even became clear to her, in looking back, that he had deliberately
avoided doing so; and this seemed merely an added proof of his
"understanding," of that deep undefinable communion that set them alone
in an empty world, as if on a peak above the clouds.
The five days passed in a flash; and when the last one came, it brought
to Margaret Ransom an hour of weakness, of profound disorganization,
when old barriers fell, old convictions faded--when to be alone with
him for a moment became, after all, the one craving of her heart. She
knew he was coming that afternoon to say "good-by"--and she knew also
that Ransom was to be away at South Wentworth. She waited alone in her
pale little drawing-room, with its scant kakemonos, its one or two
chilly reproductions from the antique, its slippery Chippendale chairs.
At length the bell rang, and her world became a rosy blur--through
which she presently discerned the austere form of Mrs. Sperry, wife of
the Professor of palaeontology, who had come to talk over with her the
next winter's programme for the Higher Thought Club. They debated the
question for an hour, and when Mrs. Sperry departed Margaret had a
confused impression that the course was to deal with the influence of
the First Crusade on the development of European architecture--but the
sentient part of her knew only that Dawnish had not come.
He "bobbed in," as he would have put it, after dinner--having, it
appeared, run across Ransom early in the day, and learned that the
latter would be absent till evening. Margaret was in the study with her
husband when the door opened and Dawnish stood there. Ransom--who had
not had time to dress--was seated at his desk, a pile of shabby law
books at his elbow, the light from a hanging lamp falling on his
grayish stubble of hair, his sallow forehead and spectacled eyes.
Dawnish, towering higher than usual against the shadows of the room,
and refined by his unusual pallor, hung a moment on the threshold, then
came in, explaining himself profusely--laughing, accepting a cigar,
letting Ransom push an arm-chair forward--a Dawnish she had never seen,
ill at ease, ejaculatory, yet somehow more mature, more obscurely in
command of himself.
Margaret drew back, seating herself in the shade, in such a way that
she saw her husband's head first, and beyond it their visitor's,
relieved against the dusk of the book shelves. Her heart was still--she
felt no throbbing in her throat or temples: all her life seemed
concentrated in the hand that lay on her knee, the hand he would touch
when they said good-by.
Afterward her heart rang all the changes, and there was a mood in which
she reproached herself for cowardice--for having deliberately missed
her one moment with him, the moment in which she might have sounded the
depths of life, for joy or anguish. But that mood was fleeting and
infrequent. In quieter hours she blushed for it--she even trembled to
think that he might have guessed such a regret in her. It seemed to
convict her of a lack of fineness that he should have had, in his youth
and his power, a tenderer, surer sense of the peril of a rash
touch--should have handled the case so much more delicately.
At first her days were fire and the nights long solemn vigils. Her
thoughts were no longer vulgarized and defaced by any notion of
"guilt," of mental disloyalty. She was ashamed now of her shame. What
had happened was as much outside the sphere of her marriage as some
transaction in a star. It had simply given her a secret life of
incommunicable joys, as if all the wasted springs of her youth had been
stored in some hidden pool, and she could return there now to bathe in
them.
After that there came a phase of loneliness, through which the life
about her loomed phantasmal and remote. She thought the dead must feel
thus, repeating the vain gestures of the living beside some Stygian
shore. She wondered if any other woman had lived to whom _nothing had
ever happened?_ And then his first letter came....
It was a charming letter--a perfect letter. The little touch of
awkwardness and constraint under its boyish spontaneity told her more
than whole pages of eloquence. He spoke of their friendship--of their
good days together.... Ransom, chancing to come in while she read,
noticed the foreign stamps; and she was able to hand him the letter,
saying gaily: "There's a message for you," and knowing all the while
that _her_ message was safe in her heart.
On the days when the letters came the outlines of things grew
indistinct, and she could never afterward remember what she had done or
how the business of life had been carried on. It was always a surprise
when she found dinner on the table as usual, and Ransom seated opposite
to her, running over the evening paper.
But though Dawnish continued to write, with all the English loyalty to
the outward observances of friendship, his communications came only at
intervals of several weeks, and between them she had time to repossess
herself, to regain some sort of normal contact with life. And the
customary, the recurring, gradually reclaimed her, the net of habit
tightened again--her daily life became real, and her one momentary
escape from it an exquisite illusion. Not that she ceased to believe in
the miracle that had befallen her: she still treasured the reality of
her one moment beside the river. What reason was there for doubting it?
She could hear the ring of truth in young Dawnish's voice: "It's not my
fault if you've made me feel that you would understand everything...."
No! she believed in her miracle, and the belief sweetened and illumined
her life; but she came to see that what was for her the transformation
of her whole being might well have been, for her companion, a mere
passing explosion of gratitude, of boyish good-fellowship touched with
the pang of leave-taking. She even reached the point of telling herself
that it was "better so": this view of the episode so defended it from
the alternating extremes of self-reproach and derision, so enshrined it
in a pale immortality to which she could make her secret pilgrimages
without reproach.
For a long time she had not been able to pass by the bench under the
willows--she even avoided the elm walk till autumn had stripped its
branches. But every day, now, she noted a step toward recovery; and at
last a day came when, walking along the river, she said to herself, as
she approached the bench: "I used not to be able to pass here without
thinking of him; _and now I am not thinking of him at all!_"
This seemed such convincing proof of her recovery that she began, as
spring returned, to permit herself, now and then, a quiet session on
the bench--a dedicated hour from which she went back fortified to her
task.
She had not heard from her friend for six weeks or more--the intervals
between his letters were growing longer. But that was "best" too, and
she was not anxious, for she knew he had obtained the post he had been
preparing for, and that his active life in London had begun. The
thought reminded her, one mild March day, that in leaving the house she
had thrust in her reticule a letter from a Wentworth friend who was
abroad on a holiday. The envelope bore the London post mark, a fact
showing that the lady's face was turned toward home. Margaret seated
herself on her bench, and drawing out the letter began to read it.
The London described was that of shops and museums--as remote as
possible from the setting of Guy Dawnish's existence. But suddenly
Margaret's eye fell on his name, and the page began to tremble in her
hands.
"I heard such a funny thing yesterday about your friend Mr. Dawnish. We
went to a tea at Professor Bunce's (I do wish you knew the
Bunces--their atmosphere is so _uplifting_), and there I met that Miss
Bruce-Pringle who came out last year to take a course in histology at
the Annex. Of course she asked about you and Mr. Ransom, and then she
told me she had just seen Mr. Dawnish's aunt--the clever one he was
always talking about, Lady Caroline something--and that they were all
in a dreadful state about him. I wonder if you knew he was engaged when
he went to America? He never mentioned it to _us_. She said it was not
a positive engagement, but an understanding with a girl he has always
been devoted to, who lives near their place in Wiltshire; and both
families expected the marriage to take place as soon as he got back. It
seems the girl is an heiress (you know _how low_ the English ideals are
compared with ours), and Miss Bruce-Pringle said his relations were
perfectly delighted at his 'being provided for,' as she called it.
Well, when he got back he asked the girl to release him; and she and
her family were furious, and so were his people; but he holds out, and
won't marry her, and won't give a reason, except that he has 'formed an
unfortunate attachment.' Did you ever hear anything so peculiar? His
aunt, who is quite wild about it, says it must have happened at
Wentworth, because he didn't go anywhere else in America. Do you
suppose it _could_ have been the Brant girl? But why 'unfortunate' when
everybody knows she would have jumped at him?"
Margaret folded the letter and looked out across the river. It was not
the same river, but a mystic current shot with moonlight. The bare
willows wove a leafy veil above her head, and beside her she felt the
nearness of youth and tempestuous tenderness. It had all happened just
here, on this very seat by the river--it had come to her, and passed
her by, and she had not held out a hand to detain it....
Well! Was it not, by that very abstention, made more deeply and
ineffaceably hers? She could argue thus while she had thought the
episode, on his side, a mere transient effect of propinquity; but now
that she knew it had altered the whole course of his life, now that it
took on substance and reality, asserted a separate existence outside of
her own troubled consciousness--now it seemed almost cowardly to have
missed her share in it.
She walked home in a dream. Now and then, when she passed an
acquaintance, she wondered if the pain and glory were written on her
face. But Mrs. Sperry, who stopped her at the corner of Maverick Street
to say a word about the next meeting of the Higher Thought Club, seemed
to remark no change in her.
When she reached home Ransom had not yet returned from the office, and
she went straight to the library to tidy his writing-table. It was part
of her daily duty to bring order out of the chaos of his papers, and of
late she had fastened on such small recurring tasks as some one falling
over a precipice might snatch at the weak bushes in its clefts.
When she had sorted the letters she took up some pamphlets and
newspapers, glancing over them to see if they were to be kept. Among
the papers was a page torn from a London _Times_ of the previous month.
Her eye ran down its columns and suddenly a paragraph flamed out.
"We are requested to state that the marriage arranged between Mr. Guy
Dawnish, son of the late Colonel the Hon. Roderick Dawnish, of Malby,
Wilts, and Gwendolen, daughter of Samuel Matcher, Esq. of Armingham
Towers, Wilts, will not take place."
Margaret dropped the paper and sat down, hiding her face against the
stained baize of the desk. She remembered the photograph of the
tennis-court at Guise--she remembered the handsome girl at whom Guy
Dawnish looked up, laughing. A gust of tears shook her, loosening the
dry surface of conventional feeling, welling up from unsuspected
depths. She was sorry--very sorry, yet so glad--so ineffably,
impenitently glad.
V
THERE came a reaction in which she decided to write to him. She even
sketched out a letter of sisterly, almost motherly, remonstrance, in
which she reminded him that he "still had all his life before him." But
she reflected that so, after all, had she; and that seemed to weaken
the argument.
In the end she decided not to send the letter. He had never spoken to
her of his engagement to Gwendolen Matcher, and his letters had
contained no allusion to any sentimental disturbance in his life. She
had only his few broken words, that night by the river, on which to
build her theory of the case. But illuminated by the phrase "an
unfortunate attachment" the theory towered up, distinct and immovable,
like some high landmark by which travellers shape their course. She had
been loved--extraordinarily loved. But he had chosen that she should
know of it by his silence rather than by his speech. He had understood
that only on those terms could their transcendant communion
continue--that he must lose her to keep her. To break that silence
would be like spilling a cup of water in a waste of sand. There would
be nothing left for her thirst.
Her life, thenceforward, was bathed in a tranquil beauty. The days
flowed by like a river beneath the moon--each ripple caught the
brightness and passed it on. She began to take a renewed interest in
her familiar round of duties. The tasks which had once seemed
colourless and irksome had now a kind of sacrificial sweetness, a
symbolic meaning into which she alone was initiated. She had been
restless--had longed to travel; now she felt that she should never
again care to leave Wentworth. But if her desire to wander had ceased,
she travelled in spirit, performing invisible pilgrimages in the
footsteps of her friend. She regretted that her one short visit to
England had taken her so little out of London--that her acquaintance
with the landscape had been formed chiefly through the windows of a
railway carriage. She threw herself into the architectural studies of
the Higher Thought Club, and distinguished herself, at the spring
meetings, by her fluency, her competence, her inexhaustible curiosity
on the subject of the growth of English Gothic. She ransacked the
shelves of the college library, she borrowed photographs of the
cathedrals, she pored over the folio pages of "The Seats of Noblemen
and Gentlemen." She was like some banished princess who learns that she
has inherited a domain in her own country, who knows that she will
never see it, yet feels, wherever she walks, its soil beneath her feet.
May was half over, and the Higher Thought Club was to hold its last
meeting, previous to the college festivities which, in early June,
agreeably disorganized the social routine of Wentworth. The meeting was
to take place in Margaret Ransom's drawing-room, and on the day before
she sat upstairs preparing for her dual duties as hostess and
orator--for she had been invited to read the final paper of the course.
In order to sum up with precision her conclusions on the subject of
English Gothic she had been rereading an analysis of the structural
features of the principal English cathedrals; and she was murmuring
over to herself the phrase: "The longitudinal arches of Lincoln have an
approximately elliptical form," when there came a knock on the door,
and Maria's voice announced: "There's a lady down in the parlour."
Margaret's soul dropped from the heights of the shadowy vaulting to the
dead level of an afternoon call at Wentworth.
"A lady? Did she give no name?"
Maria became confused. "She only said she was a lady--" and in reply to
her mistress's look of mild surprise: "Well, ma'am, she told me so
three or four times over."
Margaret laid her book down, leaving it open at the description of
Lincoln, and slowly descended the stairs. As she did so, she repeated
to herself: "The longitudinal arches are elliptical."
On the threshold below, she had the odd impression that her bare and
inanimate drawing-room was brimming with life and noise--an impression
produced, as she presently perceived, by the resolute forward dash--it
was almost a pounce--of the one small figure restlessly measuring its
length.
The dash checked itself within a yard of Margaret, and the lady--a
stranger--held back long enough to stamp on her hostess a sharp
impression of sallowness, leanness, keenness, before she said, in a
voice that might have been addressing an unruly committee meeting: "I
am Lady Caroline Duckett--a fact I found it impossible to make clear to
the young woman who let me in."
A warm wave rushed up from Margaret's heart to her throat and forehead.
She held out both hands impulsively. "Oh, I'm so glad--I'd no idea--"
Her voice sank under her visitor's impartial scrutiny.
"I don't wonder," said the latter drily. "I suppose she didn't mention,
either, that my object in calling here was to see Mrs. Ransom?"
"Oh, yes--won't you sit down?" Margaret pushed a chair forward. She
seated herself at a little distance, brain and heart humming with a
confused interchange of signals. This dark sharp woman was his
aunt--the "clever aunt" who had had such a hard life, but had always
managed to keep her head above water. Margaret remembered that Guy had
spoken of her kindness--perhaps she would seem kinder when they had
talked together a little. Meanwhile the first impression she produced
was of an amplitude out of all proportion to her somewhat scant
exterior. With her small flat figure, her shabby heterogeneous dress,
she was as dowdy as any Professor's wife at Wentworth; but her
dowdiness (Margaret borrowed a literary analogy to define it), her
dowdiness was somehow "of the centre." Like the insignificant emissary
of a great power, she was to be judged rather by her passports than her
person.
While Margaret was receiving these impressions, Lady Caroline, with
quick bird-like twists of her head, was gathering others from the pale
void spaces of the drawing-room. Her eyes, divided by a sharp nose like
a bill, seemed to be set far enough apart to see at separate angles;
but suddenly she bent both of them on Margaret.
"This _is_ Mrs. Ransom's house?" she asked, with an emphasis on the
verb that gave a distinct hint of unfulfilled expectations.
Margaret assented.
"Because your American houses, especially in the provincial towns, all
look so remarkably alike, that I thought I might have been mistaken;
and as my time is extremely limited--in fact I'm sailing on Wednesday--"
She paused long enough to let Margaret say: "I had no idea you were in
this country."
Lady Caroline made no attempt to take this up. "And so much of it," she
carried on her sentence, "has been wasted in talking to people I really
hadn't the slightest desire to see, that you must excuse me if I go
straight to the point."
Margaret felt a sudden tension of the heart. "Of course," she said
while a voice within her cried: "He is dead--he has left me a message."
There was another pause; then Lady Caroline went on, with increasing
asperity: "So that--in short--if I _could_ see Mrs. Ransom at once--"
Margaret looked up in surprise. "I am Mrs. Ransom," she said.
The other stared a moment, with much the same look of cautious
incredulity that had marked her inspection of the drawing-room. Then
light came to her.
"Oh, I beg your pardon. I should have said that I wished to see Mrs.
_Robert_ Ransom, not Mrs. Ransom. But I understood that in the States
you don't make those distinctions." She paused a moment, and then went
on, before Margaret could answer: "Perhaps, after all, it's as well
that I should see you instead, since you're evidently one of the
household--your son and his wife live with you, I suppose? Yes, on the
whole, then, it's better--I shall be able to talk so much more
frankly." She spoke as if, as a rule, circumstances prevented her
giving rein to this propensity. "And frankness, of course, is the only
way out of this--this extremely tiresome complication. You know, I
suppose, that my nephew thinks he's in love with your daughter-in-law?"
Margaret made a slight movement, but her visitor pressed on without
heeding it. "Oh, don't fancy, please, that I'm pretending to take a
high moral ground--though his mother does, poor dear! I can perfectly
imagine that in a place like this--I've just been driving about it for
two hours--a young man of Guy's age would _have_ to provide himself
with some sort of distraction, and he's not the kind to go in for
anything objectionable. Oh, we quite allow for that--we should allow
for the whole affair, if it hadn't so preposterously ended in his
throwing over the girl he was engaged to, and upsetting an arrangement
that affected a number of people besides himself. I understand that in
the States it's different--the young people have only themselves to
consider. In England--in our class, I mean--a great deal may depend on
a young man's making a good match; and in Guy's case I may say that his
mother and sisters (I won't include myself, though I might) have been
simply stranded--thrown overboard--by his freak. You can understand how
serious it is when I tell you that it's that and nothing else that has
brought me all the way to America. And my first idea was to go straight
to your daughter-in-law, since her influence is the only thing we can
count on now, and put it to her fairly, as I'm putting it to you. But,
on the whole, I dare say it's better to see you first--you might give
me an idea of the line to take with her. I'm prepared to throw myself
on her mercy!"
Margaret rose from her chair, outwardly rigid in proportion to her
inward tremor.
"You don't understand--" she began.
Lady Caroline brushed the interruption aside. "Oh, but I
do--completely! I cast no reflection on your daughter-in-law. Guy has
made it quite clear to us that his attachment is--has, in short, not
been rewarded. But don't you see that that's the worst part of it?
There'd be much more hope of his recovering if Mrs. Robert Ransom
had--had--"
Margaret's voice broke from her in a cry. "I am Mrs. Robert Ransom,"
she said.
If Lady Caroline Duckett had hitherto given her hostess the impression
of a person not easily silenced, this fact added sensibly to the effect
produced by the intense stillness which now fell on her.
She sat quite motionless, her large bangled hands clasped about the
meagre fur boa she had unwound from her neck on entering, her rusty
black veil pushed up to the edge of a "fringe" of doubtful
authenticity, her thin lips parted on a gasp that seemed to sharpen
itself on the edges of her teeth. So overwhelming and helpless was her
silence that Margaret began to feel a motion of pity beneath her
indignation--a desire at least to facilitate the excuses which must
terminate their disastrous colloquy. But when Lady Caroline found voice
she did not use it to excuse herself.
"You _can't_ be," she said, quite simply.
"Can't be?" Margaret stammered, with a flushing cheek.
"I mean, it's some mistake. Are there _two_ Mrs. Robert Ransoms in the
same town? Your family arrangements are so extremely puzzling." She had
a farther rush of enlightenment. "Oh, I _see!_ I ought of course to
have asked for Mrs. Robert Ransom 'Junior'!"
The idea sent her to her feet with a haste which showed her impatience
to make up for lost time.
"There is no other Mrs. Robert Ransom at Wentworth," said Margaret.
"No other--no 'Junior'? Are you _sure?_" Lady Caroline fell back into
her seat again. "Then I simply don't see," she murmured helplessly.
Margaret's blush had fixed itself on her throbbing forehead. She
remained standing, while her strange visitor continued to gaze at her
with a perturbation in which the consciousness of indiscretion had
evidently as yet no part.
"I simply don't see," she repeated.
Suddenly she sprang up, and advancing to Margaret laid an inspired hand
on her arm. "But, my dear woman, you can help us out all the same; you
can help us to find out _who it is_--and you will, won't you? Because,
as it's not you, you can't in the least mind what I've been saying--"
Margaret, freeing her arm from her visitor's hold, drew back a step;
but Lady Caroline instantly rejoined her.
"Of course, I can see that if it _had_ been, you might have been
annoyed: I dare say I put the case stupidly--but I'm so bewildered by
this new development--by his using you all this time as a pretext--that
I really don't know where to turn for light on the mystery--"
She had Margaret in her imperious grasp again, but the latter broke
from her with a more resolute gesture.
"I'm afraid I have no light to give you," she began; but once more Lady
Caroline caught her up.
"Oh, but do please understand me! I condemn Guy most strongly for using
your name--when we all know you'd been so amazingly kind to him! I
haven't a word to say in his defence--but of course the important thing
now is: _who is the woman, since you're not?_"
The question rang out loudly, as if all the pale puritan corners of the
room flung it back with a shudder at the speaker. In the silence that
ensued Margaret felt the blood ebbing back to her heart; then she said,
in a distinct and level voice: "I know nothing of the history of Mr.
Dawnish."
Lady Caroline gave a stare and a gasp. Her distracted hand groped for
her boa and she began to wind it mechanically about her long neck.
"It would really be an enormous help to us--and to poor Gwendolen
Matcher," she persisted pleadingly. "And you'd be doing Guy himself a
good turn."
Margaret remained silent and motionless while her visitor drew on one
of the worn gloves she had pulled off to adjust her veil. Lady Caroline
gave the veil a final twitch.
"I've come a tremendously long way," she said, "and, since it isn't
you, I can't think why you won't help me...."
When the door had closed on her visitor Margaret Ransom went slowly up
the stairs to her room. As she dragged her feet from one step to
another, she remembered how she had sprung up the same steep flight
after that visit of Guy Dawnish's when she had looked in the glass and
seen on her face the blush of youth.
When she reached her room she bolted the door as she had done that day,
and again looked at herself in the narrow mirror above her
dressing-table. It was just a year since then--the elms were budding
again, the willows hanging their green veil above the bench by the
river. But there was no trace of youth left in her face--she saw it now
as others had doubtless always seen it. If it seemed as it did to Lady
Caroline Duckett, what look must it have worn to the fresh gaze of
young Guy Dawnish?
A pretext--she had been a pretext. He had used her name to screen some
one else--or perhaps merely to escape from a situation of which he was
weary. She did not care to conjecture what his motive had
been--everything connected with him had grown so remote and alien. She
felt no anger--only an unspeakable sadness, a sadness which she knew
would never be appeased.
She looked at herself long and steadily; she wished to clear her eyes
of all illusions. Then she turned away and took her usual seat beside
her work-table. From where she sat she could look down the empty
elm-shaded street, up which, at this hour every day, she was sure to
see her husband's figure advancing. She would see it presently--she
would see it for many years to come. She had a sudden aching sense of
the length of the years that stretched before her. Strange that one who
was not young should still, in all likelihood, have so long to live!
Nothing was changed in the setting of her life, perhaps nothing would
ever change in it. She would certainly live and die in Wentworth. And
meanwhile the days would go on as usual, bringing the usual
obligations. As the word flitted through her brain she remembered that
she had still to put the finishing touches to the paper she was to read
the next afternoon at the meeting of the Higher Thought Club.
The book she had been reading lay face downward beside her, where she
had left it an hour ago. She took it up, and slowly and painfully, like
a child laboriously spelling out the syllables, she went on with the
rest of the sentence:
--"and they spring from a level not much above that of the springing of
the transverse and diagonal ribs, which are so arranged as to give a
convex curve to the surface of the vaulting conoid."
THE VERDICT
I HAD always thought Jack Gisburn rather a cheap genius--though a good
fellow enough--so it was no great surprise to me to hear that, in the
height of his glory, he had dropped his painting, married a rich widow,
and established himself in a villa on the Riviera. (Though I rather
thought it would have been Rome or Florence.)
"The height of his glory"--that was what the women called it. I can
hear Mrs. Gideon Thwing--his last Chicago sitter--deploring his
unaccountable abdication. "Of course it's going to send the value of my
picture 'way up; but I don't think of that, Mr. Rickham--the loss to
Arrt is all I think of." The word, on Mrs. Thwing's lips, multiplied
its _rs_ as though they were reflected in an endless vista of mirrors.
And it was not only the Mrs. Thwings who mourned. Had not the exquisite
Hermia Croft, at the last Grafton Gallery show, stopped me before
Gisburn's "Moon-dancers" to say, with tears in her eyes: "We shall not
look upon its like again"?
Well!--even through the prism of Hermia's tears I felt able to face the
fact with equanimity. Poor Jack Gisburn! The women had made him--it was
fitting that they should mourn him. Among his own sex fewer regrets
were heard, and in his own trade hardly a murmur. Professional
jealousy? Perhaps. If it were, the honour of the craft was vindicated
by little Claude Nutley, who, in all good faith, brought out in the
Burlington a very handsome "obituary" on Jack--one of those showy
articles stocked with random technicalities that I have heard (I won't
say by whom) compared to Gisburn's painting. And so--his resolve being
apparently irrevocable--the discussion gradually died out, and, as Mrs.
Thwing had predicted, the price of "Gisburns" went up.
It was not till three years later that, in the course of a few weeks'
idling on the Riviera, it suddenly occurred to me to wonder why Gisburn
had given up his painting. On reflection, it really was a tempting
problem. To accuse his wife would have been too easy--his fair sitters
had been denied the solace of saying that Mrs. Gisburn had "dragged him
down." For Mrs. Gisburn--as such--had not existed till nearly a year
after Jack's resolve had been taken. It might be that he had married
her--since he liked his ease--because he didn't want to go on painting;
but it would have been hard to prove that he had given up his painting
because he had married her.
Of course, if she had not dragged him down, she had equally, as Miss
Croft contended, failed to "lift him up"--she had not led him back to
the easel. To put the brush into his hand again--what a vocation for a
wife! But Mrs. Gisburn appeared to have disdained it--and I felt it
might be interesting to find out why.
The desultory life of the Riviera lends itself to such purely academic
speculations; and having, on my way to Monte Carlo, caught a glimpse of
Jack's balustraded terraces between the pines, I had myself borne
thither the next day.
I found the couple at tea beneath their palm-trees; and Mrs. Gisburn's
welcome was so genial that, in the ensuing weeks, I claimed it
frequently. It was not that my hostess was "interesting": on that point
I could have given Miss Croft the fullest reassurance. It was just
because she was _not_ interesting--if I may be pardoned the bull--that
I found her so. For Jack, all his life, had been surrounded by
interesting women: they had fostered his art, it had been reared in the
hot-house of their adulation. And it was therefore instructive to note
what effect the "deadening atmosphere of mediocrity" (I quote Miss
Croft) was having on him.
I have mentioned that Mrs. Gisburn was rich; and it was immediately
perceptible that her husband was extracting from this circumstance a
delicate but substantial satisfaction. It is, as a rule, the people who
scorn money who get most out of it; and Jack's elegant disdain of his
wife's big balance enabled him, with an appearance of perfect
good-breeding, to transmute it into objects of art and luxury. To the
latter, I must add, he remained relatively indifferent; but he was
buying Renaissance bronzes and eighteenth-century pictures with a
discrimination that bespoke the amplest resources.
"Money's only excuse is to put beauty into circulation," was one of the
axioms he laid down across the Sevres and silver of an exquisitely
appointed luncheon-table, when, on a later day, I had again run over
from Monte Carlo; and Mrs. Gisburn, beaming on him, added for my
enlightenment: "Jack is so morbidly sensitive to every form of beauty."
Poor Jack! It had always been his fate to have women say such things of
him: the fact should be set down in extenuation. What struck me now was
that, for the first time, he resented the tone. I had seen him, so
often, basking under similar tributes--was it the conjugal note that
robbed them of their savour? No--for, oddly enough, it became apparent
that he was fond of Mrs. Gisburn--fond enough not to see her absurdity.
It was his own absurdity he seemed to be wincing under--his own
attitude as an object for garlands and incense.
"My dear, since I've chucked painting people don't say that stuff about
me--they say it about Victor Grindle," was his only protest, as he rose
from the table and strolled out onto the sunlit terrace.
I glanced after him, struck by his last word. Victor Grindle was, in
fact, becoming the man of the moment--as Jack himself, one might put
it, had been the man of the hour. The younger artist was said to have
formed himself at my friend's feet, and I wondered if a tinge of
jealousy underlay the latter's mysterious abdication. But no--for it
was not till after that event that the _rose Dubarry_ drawing-rooms had
begun to display their "Grindles."
I turned to Mrs. Gisburn, who had lingered to give a lump of sugar to
her spaniel in the dining-room.
"Why _has_ he chucked painting?" I asked abruptly.
She raised her eyebrows with a hint of good-humoured surprise.
"Oh, he doesn't _have_ to now, you know; and I want him to enjoy
himself," she said quite simply.
I looked about the spacious white-panelled room, with its
_famille-verte_ vases repeating the tones of the pale damask curtains,
and its eighteenth-century pastels in delicate faded frames.
"Has he chucked his pictures too? I haven't seen a single one in the
house."
A slight shade of constraint crossed Mrs. Gisburn's open countenance.
"It's his ridiculous modesty, you know. He says they're not fit to have
about; he's sent them all away except one--my portrait--and that I have
to keep upstairs."
His ridiculous modesty--Jack's modesty about his pictures? My curiosity
was growing like the bean-stalk. I said persuasively to my hostess: "I
must really see your portrait, you know."
She glanced out almost timorously at the terrace where her husband,
lounging in a hooded chair, had lit a cigar and drawn the Russian
deerhound's head between his knees.
"Well, come while he's not looking," she said, with a laugh that tried
to hide her nervousness; and I followed her between the marble Emperors
of the hall, and up the wide stairs with terra-cotta nymphs poised
among flowers at each landing.
In the dimmest corner of her boudoir, amid a profusion of delicate and
distinguished objects, hung one of the familiar oval canvases, in the
inevitable garlanded frame. The mere outline of the frame called up all
Gisburn's past!
Mrs. Gisburn drew back the window-curtains, moved aside a _jardiniere_
full of pink azaleas, pushed an arm-chair away, and said: "If you stand
here you can just manage to see it. I had it over the mantel-piece, but
he wouldn't let it stay."
Yes--I could just manage to see it--the first portrait of Jack's I had
ever had to strain my eyes over! Usually they had the place of
honour--say the central panel in a pale yellow or _rose Dubarry_
drawing-room, or a monumental easel placed so that it took the light
through curtains of old Venetian point. The more modest place became
the picture better; yet, as my eyes grew accustomed to the half-light,
all the characteristic qualities came out--all the hesitations
disguised as audacities, the tricks of prestidigitation by which, with
such consummate skill, he managed to divert attention from the real
business of the picture to some pretty irrelevance of detail. Mrs.
Gisburn, presenting a neutral surface to work on--forming, as it were,
so inevitably the background of her own picture--had lent herself in an
unusual degree to the display of this false virtuosity. The picture was
one of Jack's "strongest," as his admirers would have put it--it
represented, on his part, a swelling of muscles, a congesting of veins,
a balancing, straddling and straining, that reminded one of the
circus-clown's ironic efforts to lift a feather. It met, in short, at
every point the demand of lovely woman to be painted "strongly" because
she was tired of being painted "sweetly"--and yet not to lose an atom
of the sweetness.
"It's the last he painted, you know," Mrs. Gisburn said with pardonable
pride. "The last but one," she corrected herself--"but the other
doesn't count, because he destroyed it."
"Destroyed it?" I was about to follow up this clue when I heard a
footstep and saw Jack himself on the threshold.
As he stood there, his hands in the pockets of his velveteen coat, the
thin brown waves of hair pushed back from his white forehead, his lean
sunburnt cheeks furrowed by a smile that lifted the tips of a
self-confident moustache, I felt to what a degree he had the same
quality as his pictures--the quality of looking cleverer than he was.
His wife glanced at him deprecatingly, but his eyes travelled past her
to the portrait.
"Mr. Rickham wanted to see it," she began, as if excusing herself. He
shrugged his shoulders, still smiling.
"Oh, Rickham found me out long ago," he said lightly; then, passing his
arm through mine: "Come and see the rest of the house."
He showed it to me with a kind of naive suburban pride: the bath-rooms,
the speaking-tubes, the dress-closets, the trouser-presses--all the
complex simplifications of the millionaire's domestic economy. And
whenever my wonder paid the expected tribute he said, throwing out his
chest a little: "Yes, I really don't see how people manage to live
without that."
Well--it was just the end one might have foreseen for him. Only he was,
through it all and in spite of it all--as he had been through, and in
spite of, his pictures--so handsome, so charming, so disarming, that
one longed to cry out: "Be dissatisfied with your leisure!" as once one
had longed to say: "Be dissatisfied with your work!"
But, with the cry on my lips, my diagnosis suffered an unexpected check.
"This is my own lair," he said, leading me into a dark plain room at
the end of the florid vista. It was square and brown and leathery: no
"effects"; no bric-a-brac, none of the air of posing for reproduction
in a picture weekly--above all, no least sign of ever having been used
as a studio.
The fact brought home to me the absolute finality of Jack's break with
his old life.
"Don't you ever dabble with paint any more?" I asked, still looking
about for a trace of such activity.
"Never," he said briefly.
"Or water-colour--or etching?"
His confident eyes grew dim, and his cheeks paled a little under their
handsome sunburn.
"Never think of it, my dear fellow--any more than if I'd never touched
a brush."
And his tone told me in a flash that he never thought of anything else.
I moved away, instinctively embarrassed by my unexpected discovery; and
as I turned, my eye fell on a small picture above the mantel-piece--the
only object breaking the plain oak panelling of the room.
"Oh, by Jove!" I said.
It was a sketch of a donkey--an old tired donkey, standing in the rain
under a wall.
"By Jove--a Stroud!" I cried.
He was silent; but I felt him close behind me, breathing a little
quickly.
"What a wonder! Made with a dozen lines--but on everlasting
foundations. You lucky chap, where did you get it?"
He answered slowly: "Mrs. Stroud gave it to me."
"Ah--I didn't know you even knew the Strouds. He was such an inflexible
hermit."
"I didn't--till after.... She sent for me to paint him when he was
dead."
"When he was dead? You?"
I must have let a little too much amazement escape through my surprise,
for he answered with a deprecating laugh: "Yes--she's an awful
simpleton, you know, Mrs. Stroud. Her only idea was to have him done by
a fashionable painter--ah, poor Stroud! She thought it the surest way
of proclaiming his greatness--of forcing it on a purblind public. And
at the moment I was _the_ fashionable painter."
"Ah, poor Stroud--as you say. Was _that_ his history?"
"That was his history. She believed in him, gloried in him--or thought
she did. But she couldn't bear not to have all the drawing-rooms with
her. She couldn't bear the fact that, on varnishing days, one could
always get near enough to see his pictures. Poor woman! She's just a
fragment groping for other fragments. Stroud is the only whole I ever
knew."
"You ever knew? But you just said--"
Gisburn had a curious smile in his eyes.
"Oh, I knew him, and he knew me--only it happened after he was dead."
I dropped my voice instinctively. "When she sent for you?"
"Yes--quite insensible to the irony. She wanted him vindicated--and by
me!"
He laughed again, and threw back his head to look up at the sketch of
the donkey. "There were days when I couldn't look at that
thing--couldn't face it. But I forced myself to put it here; and now
it's cured me--cured me. That's the reason why I don't dabble any more,
my dear Rickham; or rather Stroud himself is the reason."
For the first time my idle curiosity about my companion turned into a
serious desire to understand him better.
"I wish you'd tell me how it happened," I said.
He stood looking up at the sketch, and twirling between his fingers a
cigarette he had forgotten to light. Suddenly he turned toward me.
"I'd rather like to tell you--because I've always suspected you of
loathing my work."
I made a deprecating gesture, which he negatived with a good-humoured
shrug.
"Oh, I didn't care a straw when I believed in myself--and now it's an
added tie between us!"
He laughed slightly, without bitterness, and pushed one of the deep
arm-chairs forward. "There: make yourself comfortable--and here are the
cigars you like."
He placed them at my elbow and continued to wander up and down the
room, stopping now and then beneath the picture.
"How it happened? I can tell you in five minutes--and it didn't take
much longer to happen.... I can remember now how surprised and pleased
I was when I got Mrs. Stroud's note. Of course, deep down, I had always
_felt_ there was no one like him--only I had gone with the stream,
echoed the usual platitudes about him, till I half got to think he was
a failure, one of the kind that are left behind. By Jove, and he _was_
left behind--because he had come to stay! The rest of us had to let
ourselves be swept along or go under, but he was high above the
current--on everlasting foundations, as you say.
"Well, I went off to the house in my most egregious mood--rather moved,
Lord forgive me, at the pathos of poor Stroud's career of failure being
crowned by the glory of my painting him! Of course I meant to do the
picture for nothing--I told Mrs. Stroud so when she began to stammer
something about her poverty. I remember getting off a prodigious phrase
about the honour being _mine_--oh, I was princely, my dear Rickham! I
was posing to myself like one of my own sitters.
"Then I was taken up and left alone with him. I had sent all my traps
in advance, and I had only to set up the easel and get to work. He had
been dead only twenty-four hours, and he died suddenly, of heart
disease, so that there had been no preliminary work of destruction--his
face was clear and untouched. I had met him once or twice, years
before, and thought him insignificant and dingy. Now I saw that he was
superb.
"I was glad at first, with a merely aesthetic satisfaction: glad to
have my hand on such a 'subject.' Then his strange life-likeness began
to affect me queerly--as I blocked the head in I felt as if he were
watching me do it. The sensation was followed by the thought: if he
_were_ watching me, what would he say to my way of working? My strokes
began to go a little wild--I felt nervous and uncertain.
"Once, when I looked up, I seemed to see a smile behind his close
grayish beard--as if he had the secret, and were amusing himself by
holding it back from me. That exasperated me still more. The secret?
Why, I had a secret worth twenty of his! I dashed at the canvas
furiously, and tried some of my bravura tricks. But they failed me,
they crumbled. I saw that he wasn't watching the showy bits--I couldn't
distract his attention; he just kept his eyes on the hard passages
between. Those were the ones I had always shirked, or covered up with
some lying paint. And how he saw through my lies!
"I looked up again, and caught sight of that sketch of the donkey
hanging on the wall near his bed. His wife told me afterward it was the
last thing he had done--just a note taken with a shaking hand, when he
was down in Devonshire recovering from a previous heart attack. Just a
note! But it tells his whole history. There are years of patient
scornful persistence in every line. A man who had swum with the current
could never have learned that mighty up-stream stroke....
"I turned back to my work, and went on groping and muddling; then I
looked at the donkey again. I saw that, when Stroud laid in the first
stroke, he knew just what the end would be. He had possessed his
subject, absorbed it, recreated it. When had I done that with any of my
things? They hadn't been born of me--I had just adopted them....
"Hang it, Rickham, with that face watching me I couldn't do another
stroke. The plain truth was, I didn't know where to put it--_I had
never known_. Only, with my sitters and my public, a showy splash of
colour covered up the fact--I just threw paint into their faces....
Well, paint was the one medium those dead eyes could see through--see
straight to the tottering foundations underneath. Don't you know how,
in talking a foreign language, even fluently, one says half the time
not what one wants to but what one can? Well--that was the way I
painted; and as he lay there and watched me, the thing they called my
'technique' collapsed like a house of cards. He didn't sneer, you
understand, poor Stroud--he just lay there quietly watching, and on his
lips, through the gray beard, I seemed to hear the question: 'Are you
sure you know where you're coming out?'
"If I could have painted that face, with that question on it, I should
have done a great thing. The next greatest thing was to see that I
couldn't--and that grace was given me. But, oh, at that minute,
Rickham, was there anything on earth I wouldn't have given to have
Stroud alive before me, and to hear him say: 'It's not too late--I'll
show you how'?
"It _was_ too late--it would have been, even if he'd been alive. I
packed up my traps, and went down and told Mrs. Stroud. Of course I
didn't tell her _that_--it would have been Greek to her. I simply said
I couldn't paint him, that I was too moved. She rather liked the
idea--she's so romantic! It was that that made her give me the donkey.
But she was terribly upset at not getting the portrait--she did so want
him 'done' by some one showy! At first I was afraid she wouldn't let me
off--and at my wits' end I suggested Grindle. Yes, it was I who started
Grindle: I told Mrs. Stroud he was the 'coming' man, and she told
somebody else, and so it got to be true.... And he painted Stroud
without wincing; and she hung the picture among her husband's
things...."
He flung himself down in the arm-chair near mine, laid back his head,
and clasping his arms beneath it, looked up at the picture above the
chimney-piece.
"I like to fancy that Stroud himself would have given it to me, if he'd
been able to say what he thought that day."
And, in answer to a question I put half-mechanically--"Begin again?" he
flashed out. "When the one thing that brings me anywhere near him is
that I knew enough to leave off?"
He stood up and laid his hand on my shoulder with a laugh. "Only the
irony of it is that I _am_ still painting--since Grindle's doing it for
me! The Strouds stand alone, and happen once--but there's no
exterminating our kind of art."
THE POT-BOILER
I
The studio faced north, looking out over a dismal reach of roofs and
chimneys, and rusty fire-escapes hung with heterogeneous garments. A
crust of dirty snow covered the level surfaces, and a December sky with
more snow in it lowered over them.
The room was bare and gaunt, with blotched walls and a stained uneven
floor. On a divan lay a pile of "properties"--limp draperies, an
Algerian scarf, a moth-eaten fan of peacock feathers. The janitor had
forgotten to fill the coal-scuttle over-night, and the cast-iron stove
projected its cold flanks into the room like a black iceberg. Ned
Stanwell, who had just added his hat and great-coat to the
miscellaneous heap on the divan, turned from the empty stove with a
shiver.
"By Jove, this is a little too much like the last act of _Boheme_," he
said, slipping into his coat again after a vain glance at the
coal-scuttle. Much solitude, and a lively habit of mind, had bred in
him the habit of audible soliloquy, and having flung a shout for the
janitor down the seven flights dividing the studio from the basement,
he turned back, picking up the thread of his monologue. "Exactly like
_Boheme_, really--that crack in the wall is much more like a
stage-crack than a real one--just the sort of crack Mungold would paint
if he were doing a Humble Interior."
Mungold, the fashionable portrait-painter of the hour, was the
favourite object of the younger men's irony.
"It only needs Kate Arran to be borne in dying," Stanwell continued
with a laugh. "Much more likely to be poor little Caspar, though," he
concluded.
His neighbour across the landing--the little sculptor, Caspar Arran,
humorously called "Gasper" on account of his bronchial asthma--had
lately been joined by a sister, Kate Arran, a strapping girl, fresh
from the country, who had installed herself in the little room off her
brother's studio, keeping house for him with a chafing-dish and a
coffee-machine, to the mirth and envy of the other young men in the
building.
Poor little Gasper had been very bad all the autumn, and it was
surmised that his sister's presence, which he spoke of growlingly, as a
troublesome necessity devolved on him by the inopportune death of an
aunt, was really an indication of his failing ability to take care of
himself. Kate Arran took his complaints with unfailing good-humour,
darned his socks, brushed his clothes, fed him with steaming broths and
foaming milk-punches, and listened with reverential assent to his
interminable disquisitions on art. Every one in the house was sorry for
little Gasper, and the other fellows liked him all the more because it
was so impossible to like his sculpture; but his talk was a bore, and
when his colleagues ran in to see him they were apt to keep a hand on
the door-knob and to plead a pressing engagement. At least they had
been till Kate came; but now they began to show a disposition to enter
and sit down. Caspar, who was no fool, perceived the change, and
perhaps detected its cause; at any rate, he showed no special
gratification at the increased cordiality of his friends, and Kate, who
followed him in everything, took this as a sign that guests were to be
discouraged.
There was one exception, however: Ned Stanwell, who was deplorably
good-natured, had always lent a patient ear to Caspar, and he now
reaped his reward by being taken into Kate's favour. Before she had
been a month in the building they were on confidential terms as to
Caspar's health, and lately Stanwell had penetrated farther, even to
the inmost recesses of her anxiety about her brother's career. Caspar
had recently had a bad blow in the refusal of his _magnum opus_--a vast
allegorical group--by the Commissioners of the Minneapolis Exhibition.
He took the rejection with Promethean irony, proclaimed it as the
clinching proof of his ability, and abounded in reasons why, even in an
age of such crass artistic ignorance, a refusal so egregious must react
to the advantage of its object. But his sister's indignation, if as
glowing, was a shade less hopeful. Of course Caspar was going to
succeed--she knew it was only a question of time--but she paled at the
word and turned imploring eyes on Stanwell. _Was there time enough?_ It
was the one element in the combination that she could not count on; and
Stanwell, reddening under her look of interrogation, and cursing his
own glaring robustness, would affirm that of course, of course, of
course, by everything that was holy there was time enough--with the
mental reservation that there wouldn't be, even if poor Caspar lived to
be a hundred.
"Vos that you yelling for the shanitor, Mr. Sdanwell?" inquired an
affable voice through the doorway; and Stanwell, turning with a laugh,
confronted the squat figure of a middle-aged man in an expensive fur
coat, who looked as if his face secreted the oil which he used on his
hair.
"Hullo, Shepson--I should say I was yelling. Did you ever feel such an
atmosphere? That fool has forgotten to light the stove. Come in, but
for heaven's sake don't take off your coat."
Mr. Shepson glanced about the studio with a look which seemed to say
that, where so much else was lacking, the absence of a fire hardly
added to the general sense of destitution.
"Vell, you ain't as vell fixed as Mr. Mungold--ever been to his studio,
Mr. Sdanwell? De most ex_quis_ite blush hangings, and a gas-fire,
choost as natural--"
"Oh, hang it, Shepson, do you call _that_ a studio? It's like a
manicure's parlour--or a beauty-doctor's. By George," broke off
Stanwell, "and that's just what he is!"
"A peauty-doctor?"
"Yes--oh, well, you wouldn't see," murmured Stanwell, mentally storing
his epigram for more appreciative ears. "But you didn't come just to
make me envious of Mungold's studio, did you?" And he pushed forward a
chair for his visitor.
The latter, however, declined it with an affable motion. "Of gourse
not, of gourse not--but Mr. Mungold is a sensible man. He makes a lot
of money, you know."
"Is that what you came to tell me?" said Stanwell, still humorously.
"My gootness, no--I was downstairs looking at Holbrook's sdained class,
and I shoost thought I'd sdep up a minute and take a beep at your vork."
"Much obliged, I'm sure--especially as I assume that you don't want any
of it." Try as he would, Stanwell could not keep a note of eagerness
from his voice. Mr. Shepson caught the note, and eyed him shrewdly
through gold-rimmed glasses.
"Vell, vell, vell--I'm not prepared to commit myself. Shoost let me
take a look round, vill you?"
"With the greatest pleasure--and I'll give another shout for the coal."
Stanwell went out on the landing, and Mr. Shepson, left to himself,
began a meditative progress about the room. On an easel facing the
improvised dais stood a canvas on which a young woman's head had been
blocked in. It was just in that happy state of semi-evocation when a
picture seems to detach itself from the grossness of its medium and
live a wondrous moment in the actual; and the quality of the head in
question--a vigorous dusky youthfulness, a kind of virgin majesty--lent
itself to this illusion of vitality. Stanwell, who had re-entered the
studio, could not help drawing a sharp breath as he saw the
picture-dealer pausing with tilted head before this portrait: it
seemed, at one moment, so impossible that he should not be struck with
it, at the next so incredible that he should be.
Shepson cocked his parrot-eye at the canvas with a desultory "Vat's
dat?" which sent a twinge through the young man.
"That? Oh--a sketch of a young lady," stammered Stanwell, flushing at
the imbecility of his reply. "It's Miss Arran, you know," he added,
"the sister of my neighbour here, the sculptor."
"Sgulpture? There's no market for modern sgulpture except tombstones,"
said Shepson disparagingly, passing on as if he included the sister's
portrait in his condemnation of her brother's trade.
Stanwell smiled, but more at himself than Shepson. How could he ever
have supposed that the gross fool would see anything in his sketch of
Kate Arran? He stood aside, straining after detachment, while the
dealer continued his round of exploration, waddling up to the canvases
on the walls, prodding with his stick at those stacked in corners,
prying and peering sideways like a great bird rummaging for seed. He
seemed to find little nutriment in the course of his search, for the
sounds he emitted expressed a weary distaste for misdirected effort,
and he completed his round without having thought it worth while to
draw a single canvas from its obscurity.
As his visits always had the same result, Stanwell was reduced to
wondering why he had come again; but Shepson was not the man to indulge
in vague roamings through the field of art, and it was safe to conclude
that his purpose would in due course reveal itself. His tour brought
him at length face to face with the painter, where he paused, clasping
his plump gloved hands behind his back, and shaking an admonitory head.
"Gleffer--very gleffer, of course--I suppose you'll let me know when
you want to sell anything?"
"Let you know?" gasped Stanwell, to whom the room grew so glowingly hot
that he thought for a moment the janitor must have made up the fire.
Shepson gave a dry laugh. "Vell, it doesn't sdrike me that you want to
now--doing this kind of thing, you know!" And he swept a comprehensive
hand about the studio.
"Ah," said Stanwell, who could not keep a note of flatness out of his
laugh.
"See here, Mr. Sdanwell, vot do you do it for? If you do it for
yourself and the other fellows, vell and good--only don't ask me round.
I sell pictures, I don't theorize about them. Ven you vant to sell,
gome to me with what my gustomers vant. You can do it--you're smart
enough. You can do most anything. Vere's dat bortrait of Gladys Glyde
dat you showed at the Fake Club last autumn? Dat little thing in de
Romney sdyle? Dat vas a little shem, now," exclaimed Mr. Shepson, whose
pronunciation became increasingly Semitic in moments of excitement.
Stanwell stared. Called upon a few months previously to contribute to
an exhibition of skits on well-known artists, he had used the
photograph of a favourite music-hall "star" as the basis of a picture
in the pseudo-historical style affected by the popular
portrait-painters of the day.
"That thing?" he said contemptuously. "How on earth did you happen to
see it?"
"I see everything," returned the dealer with an oracular smile. "If
you've got it here let me look at it, please."
It cost Stanwell a few minutes' search to unearth his skit--a clever
blending of dash and sentimentality, in just the right proportion to
create the impression of a powerful brush subdued to mildness by the
charms of the sitter. Stanwell had thrown it off in a burst of
imitative frenzy, beginning for the mere joy of the satire, but
gradually fascinated by the problem of producing the requisite mingling
of attributes. He was surprised now to see how well he had caught the
note, and Shepson's face reflected his approval.
"By George! Dat's something like," the dealer ejaculated.
"Like what? Like Mungold?" Stanwell laughed.
"Like business! Like a big order for a bortrait, Mr. Sdanwell--dat's
what it's like!" cried Shepson, swinging round on him.
Stanwell's stare widened. "An order for me?"
"Vy not? Accidents _vill_ happen," said Shepson jocosely. "De fact is,
Mrs. Archer Millington wants to be bainted--you know her sdyle? Well,
she prides herself on her likeness to little Gladys. And so ven she saw
dat bicture of yours at de Fake Show she made a note of your name, and
de udder day she sent for me and she says: 'Mr. Shepson, I'm tired of
Mungold--all my friends are done by Mungold. I vant to break away and
be orishinal--I vant to be done by the bainter that did Gladys Glyde."
Shepson waited to observe the result of this overwhelming announcement,
and Stanwell, after a momentary halt of surprise, brought out
laughingly: "But this _is_ a Mungold. Is this what she calls being
original?"
"Shoost exactly," said Shepson, with unexpected acuteness. "That's vat
dey all want--something different from what all deir friends have got,
but shoost like it all de same. Dat's de public all over! Mrs.
Millington don't want a Mungold, because everybody's got a Mungold, but
she wants a picture that's in the same sdyle, because dat's _de_ sdyle,
and she's afraid of any oder!"
Stanwell was listening with real enjoyment. "Ah, you know your public,"
he murmured.
"Vell, you do, too, or you couldn't have painted dat," the dealer
retorted. "And I don't say dey're wrong--mind dat. I like a bretty
picture myself. And I understand the way dey feel. Dey're villing to
let Sargent take liberties vid them, because it's like being punched in
de ribs by a King; but if anybody else baints them, they vant to look
as sweet as an obituary." He turned earnestly to Stanwell. "The thing
is to attract their notice. Vonce you got it they von't gif you dime to
sleep. And dat's why I'm here to-day--you've attracted Mrs.
Millington's notice, and vonce you're hung in dat new ball-room--dat's
vere she vants you, in a big gold panel--vonce you're dere, vy, you'll
be like the Pianola--no home gompleat without you. And I ain't going to
charge you any commission on the first job!"
He stood before the painter, exuding a mixture of deference and
patronage in which either element might predominate as events
developed; but Stanwell could see in the incident only the stuff for a
good story.
"My dear Shepson," he said, "what are you talking about? This is no
picture of mine. Why don't you ask me to do you a Corot at once? I hear
there's a great demand for them still in the West. Or an Arthur
Schracker--I can do Schracker as well as Mungold," he added, turning
around a small canvas at which a paint-pot seemed to have been hurled
with violence from a considerable distance.
Shepson ignored the allusion to Corot, but screwed his eyes at the
picture. "Ah, Schracker--vell, the Schracker sdyle would take first
rate if you were a foreigner--but, for goodness sake, don't try it on
Mrs. Millington!"
Stanwell pushed the two skits aside. "Oh, you can trust me," he cried
humorously. "The pearls and the eyes very large--the extremities very
small. Isn't that about the size of it?"
"Dat's it--dat's it. And the cheque as big as you vant to make it! Mrs.
Millington vants the picture finished in time for her first barty in
the new ball-room, and if you rush the job she won't sdickle at an
extra thousand. Vill you come along with me now and arrange for your
first sitting?"
He stood before the young man, urgent, paternal, and so imbued with the
importance of his mission that his face stretched to a ludicrous length
of dismay when Stanwell, administering a good-humoured push to his
shoulder, cried gaily: "My dear fellow, it will make my price rise
still higher when the lady hears I'm too busy to take any orders at
present--and that I'm actually obliged to turn you out now because I'm
expecting a sitter!"
It was part of Shepson's business to have a quick ear for the note of
finality, and he offered no resistance to Stanwell's friendly
impulsion; but on the threshold he paused to murmur, with a regretful
glance at the denuded studio: "You could haf done it, Mr. Sdanwell--you
could haf done it!"
II
KATE ARRAN was Stanwell's sitter; but the janitor had hardly filled the
stove when she came in to say that she could not sit. Caspar had had a
bad night: he was depressed and feverish, and in spite of his protests
she had resolved to fetch the doctor. Care sat on her usually tranquil
features, and Stanwell, as he offered to go for the doctor, wished he
could have caught in his picture the wide gloom of her brow. There was
always a kind of Biblical breadth in the expression of her emotions,
and today she suggested a text from Isaiah.
"But you're not busy?" she hesitated; in the full voice which seemed
tuned to a solemn rhetoric.
"I meant to be--with you. But since that's off I'm quite unemployed."
She smiled interrogatively. "I thought perhaps you had an order. I met
Mr. Shepson rubbing his hands on the landing."
"Was he rubbing his hands? Well, it was not over me. He says that from
the style of my pictures he doesn't suppose I want to sell."
She looked at him superbly. "Well, do you?"
He embraced his bleak walls in a circular gesture. "Judge for yourself!"
"Ah, but it's splendidly furnished!"
"With rejected pictures, you mean?"
"With ideals!" she exclaimed in a tone caught from her brother, and
which would have been irritating to Stanwell if it had not been moving.
He gave a slight shrug and took up his hat; but she interposed to say
that if it didn't make any difference she would prefer to have him go
and sit with poor Caspar, while she ran for the doctor and did some
household errands by the way. Stanwell divined in her request the need
for a brief respite from Caspar, and though he shivered at the thought
of her facing the cold in the scant jacket which had been her only wear
since he had known her, he let her go without a protest, and betook
himself to Arran's studio.
He found the little sculptor dressed and roaming fretfully about the
melancholy room in which he and his plastic off-spring lodged together.
In one corner, where Kate's chair and work-table stood, a scrupulous
order prevailed; but the rest of the apartment had the dreary
untidiness, the damp grey look, which the worker in clay usually
creates about him. In the centre of this desert stood the shrouded
image of Caspar's disappointment: the colossal rejected group as to
which his friends could seldom remember whether it represented Jove
hurling a Titan from Olympus or Science Subjugating Religion. Caspar
was the sworn foe of religion, which he appeared to regard as
indirectly connected with his inability to sell his statues.
The sculptor was too ill to work, and Stanwell's appearance loosed the
pent-up springs of his talk.
"Hullo! What are you doing here? I thought Kate had gone over to sit to
you. She wanted a little fresh air? I should say enough of it came in
through these windows. How like a woman, when she's agreed to do a
certain thing, to make up her mind at once that she's got to do
another! They don't call it caprice--it's always duty: that's the
humour of it. I'll be bound Kate alleged a pressing engagement. Sorry
she should waste your time so, my dear fellow. Here am I with plenty of
it to burn--look at my hand shake; I can't do a thing! Well, luckily
nobody wants me to--posterity may suffer, but the present generation
isn't worrying. The present generation wants to be carved in
sugar-candy, or painted in maple syrup. It doesn't want to be told the
truth about itself or about anything in the universe. The prophets have
always lived in a garret, my dear fellow--only the ravens don't always
find out their address! Speaking of ravens, though, Kate told me she
saw old Shepson coming out of your place--I say, old man, you're not
meditating an apostasy? You're not doing the kind of thing that Shepson
would look at?"
Stanwell laughed. "Oh, he looked at them--but only to confirm his
reasons for rejecting them."
"Ha! ha! That's right--he wanted to refresh his memory with their
badness. But how on earth did he happen to have any doubts on the
subject? I should as soon have thought of his coming in here!"
Stanwell winced at the analogy, but replied in Caspar's key: "Oh, he's
not as sure of any of us as he is of you!"
The sculptor received this tribute with a joyous expletive. "By God,
no, he's sure of me, as you say! He and his tribe know that I'll starve
in my tracks sooner than make a concession--a single concession. A
fellow came after me once to do an angel on a tombstone--an angel
leaning against a broken column, and looking as if it was waiting for
the elevator and wondering why in hell it didn't come. He said he
wanted me to show that the deceased was pining to get to heaven. As she
was his wife I didn't dispute the proposition, but when I asked him
what he understood by _heaven_ he grabbed his hat and walked out of the
studio. _He_ didn't wait for the elevator."
Stanwell listened with a practised smile. The story of the man who had
come to order the angel was so familiar to Arran's friends that its
only interest consisted in waiting to see what variation he would give
to the retort which had put the mourner to flight. It was generally
supposed that this visit represented the sculptor's nearest approach to
an order, and one of his fellow-craftsmen had been heard to remark that
if Caspar _had_ made the tombstone, the lady under it would have tried
harder than ever to get to heaven. To Stanwell's present mood, however,
there was something more than usually irritating in the gratuitous
assumption that Arran had only to derogate from his altitude to have a
press of purchasers at his door.
"Well--what did you gain by kicking your widower out?" he objected.
"Why can't a man do two kinds of work--one to please himself and the
other to boil the pot?"
Caspar stopped in his jerky walk--the stride of a tall man attempted
with short legs (it sometimes appeared to Stanwell to symbolize his
artistic endeavour).
"Why can't a man--why can't he? You ask me that, Stanwell?" he blazed
out.
"Yes; and what's more, I'll answer you: it isn't everybody who can
adapt his art as he wants to!"
Caspar stood before him, gasping with incredulous scorn. "Adapt his
art? As he wants to? Unhappy wretch, what lingo are you talking? If you
mean that it isn't every honest man who can be a renegade--"
"That's just what I do mean: he can't unless he's clever enough to see
the other side."
The deep groan with which Caspar met this casuistry was cut short by a
knock at the studio door, which thereupon opened to admit a small
dapperly-dressed man with a silky moustache and mildly-bulging eyes.
"Ah, Mungold," exclaimed Stanwell, to cover the gloomy silence with
which Arran received the new-comer; whereat the latter, with the air of
a man who does not easily believe himself unwelcome, bestowed a
sympathetic pressure on the sculptor's hand.
"My dear chap, I've just met Miss Arran, and she told me you were laid
up with a bad cold, so I thought I'd pop in and cheer you up a little."
He looked about him with a smile evidently intended as the first act in
his beneficent programme.
Mr. Mungold, freshly soaped and scented, with a neat glaze of gentility
extending from his varnished boot-tips to his glossy hat, looked like
the "flattered" portrait of a common man--just such an idealized
presentment as his own brush might have produced. As a rule, however,
he devoted himself to the portrayal of the other sex, painting ladies
in syrup, as Arran said, with marsh-mallow children leaning against
their knees. He was as quick as a dressmaker at catching new ideas, and
the style of his pictures changed as rapidly as that of the
fashion-plates. One year all his sitters were done on oval canvases,
with gauzy draperies and a background of clouds; the next they were
seated under an immemorial elm, caressing enormous dogs obviously
constructed out of door-mats. Whatever their occupation they always
looked straight out of the canvas, giving the impression that their
eyes were fixed on an invisible camera. This gave rise to the rumour
that Mungold "did" his portraits from photographs; it was even said
that he had invented a way of transferring an enlarged photograph to
the canvas, so that all that remained was to fill in the colours. If he
heard of this charge he took it calmly, but probably it had not reached
the high spheres in which he moved, and in which he was esteemed for
painting pearls better, and making unsuggestive children look lovelier,
than any of his fellow-craftsmen. Mr. Mungold, in fact, deemed it a
part of his professional duty to study his sitters in their home-life;
and as this life was chiefly led in the homes of others, he was too
busy dining out and going to the opera to mingle much with his
colleagues. But as no one is wholly consistent, Mr. Mungold had lately
belied his ambitions by falling in love with Kate Arran; and with that
gentle persistency which made him so wonderful in managing obstreperous
infantile sitters, he had contrived to establish a precarious footing
in her brother's studio.
Part of his success was due to the fact that he could not easily think
himself the object of a rebuff. If it seemed to hit him he regarded it
as deflected from its aim, and brushed it aside with a discreet
gesture. A touch of comedy was lent to the situation by the fact that,
till Kate Arran's coming, Mungold had always served as her brother's
Awful Example. It was a mark of Arran's lack of humour that he
persisted in regarding the little man as a conscious apostate, instead
of perceiving that he painted as he could, in a world which really
looked to him like a vast confectioner's window. Stanwell had never
quite divined how Mungold had won over the sister, to whom her
brother's prejudices were a religion; but he suspected the painter of
having united a deep belief in Caspar's gifts with the occasional offer
of opportune delicacies--the port-wine or game which Kate had no other
means of procuring for her patient.
Stanwell, persuaded that Mungold would stick to his post till Miss
Arran's return, felt himself freed from his promise to the latter and
left the incongruous pair to themselves. There had been a time when it
amused him to see Caspar submerge the painter in a torrent of turbid
eloquence, and to watch poor Mungold sputtering under the rush of
denunciation, yet emitting little bland phrases of assent, like a
gentleman drowning correctly, in gloves and eye-glasses. But Stanwell
was beginning to find less food for gaiety than for envy in the
contemplation of his colleague. After all, Mungold held his ground, he
did not go under. Spite of his manifest absurdity he had succeeded in
propitiating the sister, in making himself tolerated by the brother;
and the fact that his success was due to the ability to purchase
port-wine and game was not in this case a mitigating circumstance.
Stanwell knew that the Arrans really preferred him to Mungold, but the
knowledge only sharpened his envy of the latter, whose friendship could
command visible tokens of expression, while poor Stanwell's remained
gloomily inarticulate. As he returned to his over-populated studio and
surveyed anew the pictures of which Shepson had not offered to relieve
him, he found himself wishing, not for Mungold's lack of scruples, for
he believed him to be the most scrupulous of men, but for that happy
mean of talent which so completely satisfied the artistic requirements
of the inartistic. Mungold was not to be despised as an apostate--he
was to be congratulated as a man whose aptitudes were exactly in line
with the taste of the persons he liked to dine with.
At this point in his meditations, Stanwell's eye fell on the portrait
of Miss Gladys Glyde. It was really, as Shepson said, as good as a
Mungold; yet it could never be made to serve the same purpose, because
it was the work of a man who knew it was bad art. That at least would
have been Caspar Arran's contention--poor Caspar, who produced as bad
art in the service of the loftiest convictions! The distinction began
to look like mere casuistry to Stanwell. He had never been very proud
of his own adaptability. It had seemed to him to indicate the lack of
an individual stand-point, and he had tried to counteract it by the
cultivation of an aggressively personal style. But the cursed knack was
in his fingers--he was always at the mercy of some other man's
sensations, and there were moments when he blushed to remember that his
grandfather had spent a laborious life-time in Rome, copying the Old
Masters for a generation which lacked the facile resource of the
camera. Now, however, it struck him that the ancestral versatility
might be a useful inheritance. In art, after all, the greatest of them
did what they could; and if a man could do several things instead of
one, why should he not profit by the multiplicity of his gifts? If one
had two talents why not serve two masters?
III
STANWELL, while seeing Caspar through the attack which had been the
cause of his sister's arrival, had struck up a friendship with the
young doctor who climbed the patient's seven flights with unremitting
fidelity. The two, since then, had continued to exchange confidences
regarding the sculptor's health, and Stanwell, anxious to waylay the
doctor after his visit, left the studio door ajar, and went out when he
heard a sound of leave-taking across the landing. But it appeared that
the doctor had just come, and that it was Mungold who was making his
adieux.
The latter at once assumed that Stanwell had been on the alert for him,
and met the supposed advance by affably inviting himself into the
studio.
"May I come and take a look around, my dear fellow? I have been meaning
to drop in for an age--" Mungold always spoke with a girlish emphasis
and effusiveness--"but I have been so busy getting up Mrs. Van Orley's
tableaux--English eighteenth century portraits, you know--that really,
what with that and my sittings, I've hardly had time to think. And then
you know you owe me about a dozen visits! But you're a savage--you
don't pay visits. You stay here and _piocher_--which is wiser, as the
results prove. Ah, you're very strong--immensely strong!" He paused in
the middle of the studio, glancing about a little apprehensively, as
though he thought the stored energy of the pictures might result in an
explosion. "Very original--very striking--ah, Miss Arran! A powerful
head; but--excuse the suggestion--isn't there just the least little
lack of sweetness? You don't think she has the sweet type? Perhaps
not--but could she be so lovely if she were not intensely feminine?
Just at present, though, she is not looking her best--she is horribly
tired. I am afraid there is very little money left--and poor dear
Caspar is so impossible: he won't hear of a loan. Otherwise I should be
most happy--. But I came just now to propose a piece of work--in fact
to give him an order. Mrs. Archer Millington has built a new ball-room,
as I daresay you may have seen in the papers, and she has been kind
enough to ask me for some hints--oh, merely as a friend: I don't
presume to do more than advise. But her decorator wants to do something
with Cupids--something light and playful, you understand. And so I
ventured to say that I knew a very clever sculptor--well, I _do_
believe Caspar has talent--latent talent, you know--and at any rate a
job of that sort would be a big lift for him. At least I thought he
would regard it so; but you should have heard him when I showed him the
decorator's sketch. He asked me what the Cupids were to be done
in--lard? And if I thought he had had his training at a confectioner's?
And I don't know what more besides--but he worked himself up to such a
degree that he brought on a frightful fit of coughing, and Miss Arran,
I'm afraid, was rather annoyed with me when she came in, though I'm
sure an order from Mrs. Archer Millington is not a thing that would
annoy most people!"
Mr. Mungold paused, breathless with the rehearsal of his wrongs, and
Stanwell said with a smile: "You know poor Caspar is terribly stiff on
the purity of the artist's aim."
"The artist's aim?" Mr. Mungold stared. "What is the artist's aim but
to please--isn't that the purpose of all true art? But his theories are
so extravagant. I really don't know what I shall say to Mrs.
Millington--she is not used to being refused. I suppose I had better
put it on the ground of ill-health." The artist glanced at his handsome
repeater. "Dear me, I promised to be at Mrs. Van Orley's before twelve
o'clock. We are to settle about the curtain before luncheon. My dear
fellow, it has been a privilege to see your work. By the way, you have
never done any modelling, I suppose? You're so extraordinarily
versatile--I didn't know whether you might care to undertake the Cupids
yourself."
Stanwell had to wait a long time for the doctor; and when the latter
came out he looked grave. Worse? No, he couldn't say that Caspar was
worse--but then he wasn't any better. There was nothing mortal the
matter, but the question was how long he could hold out. It was the
kind of case where there is no use in drugs--he had just scribbled a
prescription to quiet Miss Arran.
"It's the cold, I suppose," Stanwell groaned. "He ought to be shipped
off to Florida."
The doctor made a negative gesture. "Florida be hanged! What he wants
is to sell his group. That would set him up quicker than sitting on the
equator."
"Sell his group?" Stanwell echoed. "But he's so indifferent to
recognition--he believes in himself so thoroughly. I thought at first
he would be hard hit when the Exhibition Committee refused it, but he
seems to regard that as another proof of its superiority."
His visitor turned on him the penetrating eye of the confessor.
"Indifferent to recognition? He's eating his heart out for it. Can't
you see that all that talk is just so much whistling to keep his
courage up? The name of his disease is failure--and I can't write the
prescription that will cure that complaint. But if somebody would come
along and take a fancy to those two naked parties who are breaking each
other's heads, we'd have Mr. Caspar putting on a pound a day."
The truth of this diagnosis became suddenly vivid to Stanwell. How dull
of him not to have seen before that it was not cold or privation which
was killing Caspar--not anxiety for his sister's future, nor the ache
of watching her daily struggle--but simply the cankering thought that
he might die before he had made himself known! It was his vanity that
was starving to death, and all Mungold's hampers could not appease that
hunger. Stanwell was not shocked by the discovery--he was only the more
sorry for the little man, who was, after all, denied that solace of
self-sufficiency which his talk so noisily proclaimed. His lot seemed
hard enough when Stanwell had pictured him as buoyed up by the scorn of
public opinion--it became tragic if he was denied that support. The
artist wondered if Kate had guessed her brother's secret, or if she
were still the dupe of his stoicism. Stanwell was sure that the
sculptor would take no one into his confidence, and least of all his
sister, whose faith in his artistic independence was the chief prop of
that tottering pose. Kate's penetration was not great, and Stanwell
recalled the incredulous smile with which she had heard him defend poor
Mungold's "sincerity" against Caspar's assaults; but she had the
insight of the heart, and where her brother's happiness was concerned
she might have seen deeper than any of them. It was this last
consideration which took the strongest hold on Stanwell--he felt
Caspar's sufferings chiefly through the thought of his sister's
possible disillusionment.
IV
WITHIN three months two events had set the studio building talking.
Stanwell had painted a full-length portrait of Mrs. Archer Millington,
and Caspar Arran had received an order to execute his group in marble.
The name of the sculptor's patron had not been divulged. The order came
through Shepson, who explained that an American customer living abroad,
having seen a photograph of the group in one of the papers, had at once
cabled home to secure it. He intended to bestow it on a public building
in America, and not wishing to advertise his munificence, had preferred
that even the sculptor should remain ignorant of his name. The group
bought by an enlightened compatriot for the adornment of a civic
building in his native land! There could hardly be a more complete
vindication of unappreciated genius, and Caspar made the most of the
argument. He was not exultant, he was sublimely magnanimous. He had
always said that he could afford to await the Verdict of Posterity, and
his unknown patron's act clearly shadowed forth that impressive
decision. Happily it also found expression in a cheque which it would
have taken more philosophy to await. The group was paid for in advance,
and Kate's joy in her brother's recognition was deliciously mingled
with the thrill of ordering him some new clothes, and coaxing him out
to dine succulently at a neighbouring restaurant. Caspar flourished
insufferably on this regime: he began to strike the attitude of the
recognized Great Master, who gives advice and encouragement to the
struggling neophyte. He held himself up as an example of the reward of
disinterestedness, of the triumph of the artist who clings obstinately
to his convictions.
"A man must believe in his star--look at Napoleon! It's the dogged
trust in one's convictions that tells--it always ends by forcing the
public into line. Only be sure you make no concessions--don't give in
to any of their humbug! An artist who listens to the critics is
ruined--they never have any use for the poor devils who do what they
tell them to. Run after fame and she'll keep you running, but stay in
your own corner and do your own work, and by George, sir, she'll come
crawling up to you and ask to have her likeness done!"
These exhortations were chiefly directed to Stanwell, partly because
the inmates of the other studios were apt to elude them, partly also
because the rumours concerning Stanwell's portrait of Mrs. Millington
had begun to disquiet the sculptor. At first he had taken a
condescending interest in the fact of his friend's receiving an order,
and had admonished him not to lose the chance of "showing up" his
sitter and her environment. It was a splendid opportunity for a fellow
with a "message" to be introduced into the tents of the Philistine, and
Stanwell was charged to drive a long sharp nail into the enemy's skull.
But presently Arran began to suspect that the portrait was not as
comminatory as he could have wished. Mungold, the most kindly of
rivals, let drop a word of injudicious praise: the picture, he said,
promised to be delightfully "in keeping" with the decorations of the
ball-room, and the lady's gown harmonized exquisitely with the
window-curtains. Stanwell, called to account by his monitor, reminded
the latter that he himself had been selected by Mungold to do the
Cupids for Mrs. Millington's ball-room, and that the friendly artist's
praise could, therefore, not be taken as positive evidence of
incapacity.
"Ah, but I didn't do them--I kicked him out!" Caspar rejoined; and
Stanwell could only plead that, even in the cause of art, one could
hardly kick a lady.
"Ah, that's the worst of it. If the women get at you you're lost.
You're young, you're impressionable, you won't mind my saying that
you're not built for a stoic, and hang it, they'll coddle you, they'll
enervate you, they'll sentimentalize you, they'll make a Mungold of
you!"
"Ah, poor Mungold," Stanwell laughed. "If he lived the life of an
anchorite he couldn't help painting pictures that would please Mrs.
Millington."
"Whereas you could," Kate interjected, raising her head from the
ironing-board where, Sphinx-like, magnificent, she swung a splendid arm
above her brother's shirts.
"Oh, well, perhaps I shan't please her; perhaps I shall elevate her
taste."
Caspar directed a groan to his sister. "That's what they all think at
first--Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came. But inside the Dark Tower
there's the Venusberg. Oh, I don't mean that you'll be taken with
truffles and plush footmen, like Mungold. But praise, my poor
Ned--praise is a deadly drug! It's the absinthe of the artist--and
they'll stupefy you with it. You'll wallow in the mire of success."
Stanwell raised a protesting hand. "Really, for one order, you're a
little lurid!"
"One? Haven't you already had a dozen others?"
"Only one other, so far--and I'm not sure I shall do that."
"Not sure--wavering already! That's the way the mischief begins. If the
women get a fad for you they'll work you like a galley-slave. You'll
have to do your round of 'copy' every morning. What becomes of
inspiration then? How are you going to loaf and invite the soul? Don't
barter your birthright for a mess of pottage! Oh, I understand the
temptation--I know the taste of money and success. But look at me,
Stanwell. You know how long I had to wait for recognition. Well, now
it's come to me I don't mean to let it knock me off my feet. I don't
mean to let myself be overworked; I have already made it known that I
will not be bullied into taking more orders than I can do full justice
to. And my sister is with me, God bless her; Kate would rather go on
ironing my shirts in a garret than see me prostitute my art!"
Kate's glance radiantly confirmed this declaration of independence, and
Stanwell, with his evasive laugh, asked her if, meanwhile, she should
object to his investing a part of his ill-gotten gains in theatre
tickets for the party that evening.
It appeared that Stanwell had also been paid in advance, and well paid;
for he began to permit himself various mild distractions, in which he
generally contrived to have the Arrans share. It seemed perfectly
natural to Kate that Caspar's friends should spend their money for his
recreation, and by one of the most touching sophistries of her sex she
thus reconciled herself to the anomaly of taking a little pleasure on
her own account. Mungold was less often in the way, for she had never
been able to forgive him for proposing that Caspar should do Mrs.
Millington's Cupids; and for a few radiant weeks Stanwell had the
undisputed enjoyment of her pride in her brother's achievement.
Stanwell had "rushed through" Mrs. Millington's portrait in time for
the opening of her new ball-room; and it was perhaps in return for this
favour that she consented to let the picture be exhibited at a big
Portrait Show which was held in April for the benefit of a fashionable
charity.
In Mrs. Millington's ball-room the picture had been seen and approved
only by the distinguished few who had access to that social sanctuary;
but on the walls of the exhibition it became a centre of comment and
discussion. One of the immediate results of this publicity was a visit
from Shepson, with two or three orders in his pocket, as he put it. He
surveyed the studio with fresh disgust, asked Stanwell why he did not
move, and was impressed rather than downcast on learning that the
painter had not decided whether he would take any more orders that
spring.
"You might haf a studio at Newport," he suggested. "It would be rather
new to do your sitters out of doors, with the sea behind them--showing
they had a blace on the gliffs!"
The picture produced a different and less flattering effect on the
critics. They gave it, indeed, more space than they had ever before
accorded to the artist's efforts, but their estimate seemed to confirm
Caspar Arran's forebodings, and Stanwell had perhaps never despised
them so little as when he read their comments on his work. On the
whole, however, neither praise nor blame disquieted him greatly. He was
engrossed in the contemplation of Kate Arran's happiness, and basking
in the refracted warmth it shed about her. The doctor's
prognostications had come true. Caspar was putting on a pound a week,
and had plunged into a fresh "creation" more symbolic and encumbering
than the monument of which he had been so opportunely relieved. If
there was any cloud on Stanwell's enjoyment of life, it was caused by
the discovery that success had quadrupled Caspar's artistic energies.
Meanwhile it was delightful to see Kate's joy in her brother's
recovered capacity for work, and to listen to the axioms which, for
Stanwell's guidance, she deduced from the example of Caspar's heroic
pursuit of the ideal. There was nothing repellent in Kate's borrowed
didacticism, and if it sometimes bored Stanwell to hear her quote her
brother, he was sure it would never bore him to be quoted by her
himself; and there were moments when he felt he had nearly achieved
that distinction.
Caspar was not addicted to the visiting of art exhibitions. He took
little interest in any productions save his own, and was moreover
disposed to believe that good pictures, like clever criminals, are apt
to go unhung. Stanwell therefore thought it unlikely that his portrait
of Mrs. Millington would be seen by Kate, who was not given to
independent explorations in the field of art; but one day, on entering
the exhibition--which he had hitherto rather nervously shunned--he saw
the Arrans at the end of the gallery in which the portrait hung. They
were not looking at it, they were moving away from it, and to
Stanwell's quickened perceptions their attitude seemed almost that of
flight. For a moment he thought of flying too; then a desperate resolve
nerved him to meet them, and stemming the crowd, he made a circuit
which brought him face to face with their retreat.
The room in which they met was momentarily empty, and there was nothing
to intervene between the shock of their inter-changed glances. Caspar
was flushed and bristling: his little body quivered like a machine from
which the steam has just been turned off. Kate lifted a stricken
glance. Stanwell read in it the reflexion of her brother's tirade, but
she held out her hand in silence.
For a moment Caspar was silent too; then, with a terrible smile: "My
dear fellow, I congratulate you; Mungold will have to look to his
laurels," he said.
The shot delivered, he stalked away with his seven-league stride, and
Kate moved tragically through the room in his wake.
V
SHEPSON took up his hat with a despairing gesture.
"Vell, I gif you up--I gif you up!" he said.
"Don't--yet," protested Stanwell from the divan.
It was winter again, and though the janitor had not forgotten the fire,
the studio gave no other evidence of its master's increasing
prosperity. If Stanwell spent his money it was not upon himself.
He leaned back against the wall, his hands in his pockets, a cigarette
between his lips, while Shepson paced the dirty floor or halted
impatiently before an untouched canvas on the easel.
"I tell you vat it is, Mr. Sdanwell, I can't make you out!" he
lamented. "Last vinter you got a sdart that vould have kept most men
going for years. After making dat hit vith Mrs. Millington's picture
you could have bainted half the town. And here you are sitting on your
divan and saying you can't make up your mind to take another order.
Vell, I can only say that if you take much longer to make it up, you'll
find some other chap has cut in and got your job. Mrs. Van Orley has
been waiting since last August, and she dells me you haven't even
answered her letter."
"How could I? I didn't know if I wanted to paint her."
"My goodness! Don't you know if you vant three thousand tollars?"
Stanwell surveyed his cigarette. "No, I'm not sure I do," he said.
Shepson flung out his hands. "Ask more den--but do it quick!" he
exclaimed.
Left to himself, Stanwell stood in silent contemplation of the canvas
on which the dealer had riveted his reproachful gaze. It had been
destined to reflect the opulent image of Mrs. Alpheus Van Orley, but
some secret reluctance of Stanwell's had stayed the execution of the
task. He had painted two of Mrs. Millington's friends in the spring,
had been much praised and liberally paid for his work, and then,
declining several recent orders to be executed at Newport, had
surprised his friends by remaining quietly in town. It was not till
August that he hired a little cottage on the New Jersey coast and
invited the Arrans to visit him. They accepted the invitation, and the
three had spent together six weeks of seashore idleness, during which
Stanwell's modest rafters shook with Caspar's denunciations of his
host's venality, and the brightness of Kate's gratitude was tempered by
a tinge of reproach. But her grief over Stanwell's apostasy could not
efface the fact that he had offered her brother the means of escape
from town, and Stanwell himself was consoled by the reflection that but
for Mrs. Millington's portrait he could not have performed even this
trifling service for his friends.
When the Arrans left him in September he went to pay a few visits in
the country, and on his return, a month later, to the studio building
he found that things had not gone well with Caspar. The little sculptor
had caught cold, and the labour and expense of converting his gigantic
offspring into marble seemed to hang heavily upon him. He and Kate were
living in a damp company of amorphous clay monsters, unfinished
witnesses to the creative frenzy which had seized him after the sale of
his group; and the doctor had urged that his patient should be removed
to warmer and drier lodgings. But to uproot Caspar was impossible, and
his sister could only feed the stove, and swaddle him in mufflers and
felt slippers.
Stanwell found that during his absence Mungold had reappeared, fresh
and rosy from a summer in Europe, and as prodigal as ever of the only
form of attention which Kate could be counted on not to resent. The
game and champagne reappeared with him, and he seemed as ready as
Stanwell to lend a patient ear to Caspar's homilies. But Stanwell could
see that, even now, Kate had not forgiven him for the Cupids. Stanwell
himself had spent the early winter months in idleness. The sight of his
tools filled him with a strange repugnance, and he absented himself as
much as possible from the studio. But Shepson's visit roused him to the
fact that he must decide on some definite course of action. If he
wished to follow up his success of the previous spring he must refuse
no more orders: he must not let Mrs. Van Orley slip away from him. He
knew there were competitors enough ready to profit by his hesitations,
and since his success was the result of a whim, a whim might undo it.
With a sudden gesture of decision he caught up his hat and left the
studio.
On the landing he met Kate Arran. She too was going out, drawn forth by
the sudden radiance of the January afternoon. She met him with a smile
which seemed the answer to his uncertainties, and he asked abruptly if
she had time to take a walk with him.
Yes; for once she had time, for Mr. Mungold was sitting with Caspar,
and had promised to remain till she came in. It mattered little to
Stanwell that Mungold was with Caspar as long as he himself was with
Kate; and he instantly soared to the suggestion that they should
prolong the painter's vigil by taking the "elevated" to the Park. In
this too his companion acquiesced after a moment of surprise: she
seemed in a consenting mood, and Stanwell augured well from the fact.
The Park was clothed in the double glitter of snow and sunshine. They
roamed the hard white alleys to a continuous tinkle of sleigh-bells,
and Kate brightened with the exhilaration of the scene. It was not
often that she permitted herself such an escape from routine, and in
this new environment, which seemed to detach her from her daily
setting, Stanwell had his first complete vision of her. To the girl
also their unwonted isolation seemed to create a sense of fuller
communion, for she began presently, as they reached the leafless
solitude of the Ramble, to speak with sudden freedom of her brother. It
appeared that the orders against which Caspar had so heroically steeled
himself were slow in coming: he had received no commission since the
sale of his group, and he was beginning to suffer from a reaction of
discouragement. Oh, it was not the craving for popularity--Stanwell
knew how far above that he stood. But it had been exquisite, yes,
exquisite to him to find himself believed in, understood. He had
fancied that the purchase of the group was the dawn of a tardy
recognition--and now the darkness of indifference had set in again, no
one spoke of him, no one wrote of him, no one cared.
"If he were in good health it would not matter--he would throw off such
weakness, he would live only for the joy of his work; but he is losing
ground, his strength is failing, and he is so afraid there will not be
time enough left--time enough for full recognition," she explained.
The quiver in her voice silenced Stanwell: he was afraid of echoing it
with his own. At length he said: "Oh, more orders will come. Success is
a gradual growth."
"Yes, _real_ success," she said, with a solemn note in which he
caught--and forgave--a reflection on his own facile triumphs.
"But when the orders do come," she continued, "will he have strength to
carry them out? Last winter the doctor thought he only needed work to
set him up; now he talks of rest instead! He says we ought to go to a
warm climate--but how can Caspar leave the group?"
"Oh, hang the group--let him chuck the order!" cried Stanwell.
She looked at him tragically. "The money is spent," she said.
He coloured to the roots of his hair. "But ill-health--ill-health
excuses everything. If he goes away now he will come back good for
twice the amount of work in the spring. A sculptor is not expected to
deliver a statue on a given day, like a package of groceries! You must
do as the doctor says--you must make him chuck everything and go."
They had reached a windless nook above the lake, and, pausing in the
stress of their talk, she let herself sink on a bench beside the path.
The movement encouraged him, and he seated himself at her side.
"You must take him away at once," he repeated urgently. "He must be
made comfortable--you must both be free from worry. And I want you to
let me manage it for you--"
He broke off, silenced by her rising blush, her protesting murmur.
"Oh, stop, please; let me explain. I'm not talking of lending you
money; I'm talking of giving you--myself. The offer may be just as
unacceptable, but it's of a kind to which it's customary to accord it a
hearing. I should have made it a year ago--the first day I saw you, I
believe!--but that, then, it wasn't in my power to make things easier
for you. But now, you know, I've had a little luck. Since I painted
Mrs. Millington things have changed. I believe I can get as many orders
as I choose--there are two or three people waiting now. What's the use
of it all, if it doesn't bring me a little happiness? And the only
happiness I know is the kind that you can give me."
He paused, suddenly losing the courage to look at her, so that her
pained murmur was framed for him in a glittering vision of the frozen
lake. He turned with a start and met the refusal in her eyes.
"No--really no?" he repeated.
She shook her head silently.
"I could have helped you--I could have helped you!" he sighed.
She flushed distressfully, but kept her eyes on his.
"It's just that--don't you see?" she reproached him.
"Just that--the fact that I could be of use to you?"
"The fact that, as you say, things have changed since you painted Mrs.
Millington. I haven't seen the later portraits, but they tell me--"
"Oh, they're just as bad!" Stanwell jeered.
"You've sold your talent, and you know it: that's the dreadful part.
You did it deliberately," she cried with passion.
"Oh, deliberately," he interjected.
"And you're not ashamed--you talk of going on."
"I'm not ashamed; I talk of going on."
She received this with a long shuddering sigh, and turned her eyes away
from him.
"Oh, why--why--why?" she lamented.
It was on the tip of Stanwell's tongue to answer, "That I might say to
you what I am just saying now--" but he replied instead: "A man may
paint bad pictures and be a decent fellow. Look at Mungold, after all!"
The adjuration had an unexpected effect. Kate's colour faded suddenly,
and she sat motionless, with a stricken face.
"There's a difference--" she began at length abruptly; "the difference
you've always insisted on. Mr. Mungold paints as well as he can. He has
no idea that his pictures are--less good than they might be."
"Well--?"
"So he can't be accused of doing what he does for money--of sacrificing
anything better." She turned on him with troubled eyes. "It was you who
made me understand that, when Caspar used to make fun of him."
Stanwell smiled. "I'm glad you still think me a better painter than
Mungold. But isn't it hard that for that very reason I should starve in
a hole? If I painted badly enough you'd see no objection to my living
at the Waldorf!"
"Ah, don't joke about it," she murmured. "Don't triumph in it."
"I see no reason to at present," said Stanwell drily. "But I won't
pretend to be ashamed when I'm not. I think there are occasions when a
man is justified in doing what I've done."
She looked at him solemnly. "What occasions?"
"Why, when he wants money, hang it!"
She drew a deep breath. "Money--money? Has Caspar's example been
nothing to you, then?"
"It hasn't proved to me that I must starve while Mungold lives on
truffles!"
Again her face changed and she stirred uneasily, and then rose to her
feet.
"There is no occasion which can justify an artist's sacrificing his
convictions!" she exclaimed.
Stanwell rose too, facing her with a mounting urgency which sent a
flush to his cheek.
"Can't you conceive such an occasion in my case? The wish, I mean, to
make things easier for Caspar--to help you in any way you might let me?"
Her face reflected his blush, and she stood gazing at him with a
wounded wonder.
"Caspar and I--you imagine we could live on money earned in _that_ way?"
Stanwell made an impatient gesture. "You've got to live on
something--or he has, even if you don't include yourself!"
Her blush deepened miserably, but she held her head high.
"That's just it--that's what I came here to say to you." She stood a
moment gazing away from him at the lake.
He looked at her in surprise. "You came here to say something to me?"
"Yes. That we've got to live on something, Caspar and I, as you say;
and since an artist cannot sacrifice his convictions, the sacrifice
must--I mean--I wanted you to know that I have promised to marry Mr.
Mungold."
"Mungold!" Stanwell cried with a sharp note of irony; but her white
look checked it on his lips.
"I know all you are going to say," she murmured, with a kind of
nobleness which moved him even through his sense of its grotesqueness.
"But you must see the distinction, because you first made it clear to
me. I can take money earned in good faith--I can let Caspar live on it.
I can marry Mr. Mungold; because, though his pictures are bad, he does
not prostitute his art."
She began to move away from him slowly, and he followed her in silence
along the frozen path.
When Stanwell re-entered his studio the dusk had fallen. He lit his
lamp and rummaged out some writing-materials. Having found them, he
wrote to Shepson to say that he could not paint Mrs. Van Orley, and did
not care to accept any more orders for the present. He sealed and
stamped the letter and flung it over the banisters for the janitor to
post; then he dragged out his unfinished head of Kate Arran, replaced
it on the easel, and sat down before it with a grim smile.
THE BEST MAN
I
DUSK had fallen, and the circle of light shed by the lamp of Governor
Mornway's writing-table just rescued from the surrounding dimness his
own imposing bulk, thrown back in a deep chair in the lounging attitude
habitual to him at that hour.
When the Governor of Midsylvania rested he rested completely. Five
minutes earlier he had been bowed over his office desk, an Atlas with
the State on his shoulders; now, his working hours over, he had the air
of a man who has spent his day in desultory pleasure, and means to end
it in the enjoyment of a good dinner. This freedom from care threw into
relief the hovering fidgetiness of his sister, Mrs. Nimick, who, just
outside the circle of lamplight, haunted the warm gloom of the hearth,
from which the wood fire now and then sent up an exploring flash into
her face.
Mrs. Nimick's presence did not usually minister to repose; but the
Governor's serenity was too deep to be easily disturbed, and he felt
the calmness of a man who knows there is a mosquito in the room, but
has drawn the netting close about his head. This calmness reflected
itself in the accent with which he said, throwing himself back to smile
up at his sister: "You know I am not going to make any appointments for
a week."
It was the day after the great reform victory which had put John
Mornway for the second time at the head of his State, a triumph
compared with which even the mighty battle of his first election sank
into insignificance, and he leaned back with the sense of unassailable
placidity which follows upon successful effort.
Mrs. Nimick murmured an apology. "I didn't understand--I saw in this
morning's papers that the Attorney-General was reappointed."
"Oh, Fleetwood--his reappointment was involved in the campaign. He's
one of the principles I represent!"
Mrs. Nimick smiled a little tartly. "It seems odd to some people to
think of Mr. Fleetwood in connection with principles."
The Governor's smile had no answering acerbity; the mention of his
Attorney-General's name had set his blood humming with the thrill of
the fight, and he wondered how it was that Fleetwood had not already
been in to clasp hands with him over their triumph.
"No," he said, good-humoredly, "two years ago Fleetwood's name didn't
stand for principles of any sort; but I believed in him, and look what
he's done for me! I thought he was too big a man not to see in time
that statesmanship is a finer thing than practical politics, and now
that I've given him a chance to make the discovery, he's on the way to
becoming just such a statesman as the country needs."
"Oh, it's a great deal easier and pleasanter to believe in people,"
replied Mrs. Nimick, in a tone full of occult allusion, "and, of
course, we all knew that Mr. Fleetwood would have a hearing before any
one else."
The Governor took this imperturbably. "Well, at any rate, he isn't
going to fill all the offices in the State; there will probably be one
or two to spare after he has helped himself, and when the time comes
I'll think over your man. I'll consider him."
Mrs. Nimick brightened. "It would make _such_ a difference to Jack--it
might mean anything to the poor boy to have Mr. Ashford appointed!"
The Governor held up a warning hand.
"Oh, I know, one mustn't say that, or at least you mustn't listen.
You're so dreadfully afraid of nepotism. But I'm not asking for
anything for Jack--I have never asked for a crust for any of us, thank
Heaven! No one can point to _me_--" Mrs. Nimick checked herself
suddenly and continued in a more impersonal tone: "But there's no harm,
surely, in my saying a word for Mr. Ashford, when I know that he's
actually under consideration, and I don't see why the fact that Jack is
in his office should prevent my speaking."
"On the contrary," said the Governor, "it implies, on your part, a
personal knowledge of Mr. Ashford's qualifications which may be of
great help to me in reaching a decision."
Mrs. Nimick never quite knew how to meet him when he took that tone,
and the flickering fire made her face for a moment the picture of
uncertainty; then at all hazards she launched out: "Well, I have Ella's
promise, at any rate."
The Governor sat upright. "Ella's promise?"
"To back me up. She thoroughly approves of him!"
The Governor smiled. "You talk as if Ella had a political _salon_ and
distributed _lettres de cachet_! I'm glad she approves of Ashford; but
if you think my wife makes my appointments for me--" He broke off with
a laugh at the superfluity of such a protest.
Mrs. Nimick reddened. "One never knows how you will take the simplest
thing. What harm is there in my saying that Ella approves of Mr.
Ashford? I thought you liked her to take an interest in your work."
"I like it immensely. But I shouldn't care to have it take that form."
"What form?"
"That of promising to use her influence to get people appointed. But
you always talk of politics in the vocabulary of European courts. Thank
Heaven, Ella has less imagination. She has her sympathies, of course,
but she doesn't think they can affect the distribution of offices."
Mrs. Nimick gathered up her furs with an air at once crestfallen and
resentful. "I'm sorry--I always seem to say the wrong thing. I'm sure I
came with the best intentions--it's natural that your sister should
want to be with you at such a happy moment."
"Of course it is, my dear," exclaimed the Governor genially, as he rose
to grasp the hands with which she was nervously adjusting her wraps.
Mrs. Nimick, who lived a little way out of town, and whose visits to
her brother were apparently achieved at the cost of immense effort and
mysterious complications, had come to congratulate him on his victory,
and to sound him regarding the nomination to a coveted post of the
lawyer in whose firm her eldest son was a clerk. In the urgency of the
latter errand she had rather lost sight of the former, but her face
softened as the Governor, keeping both her hands in his, said in the
voice which always seemed to put the most generous interpretation on
her motives: "I was sure you would be one of the first to give me your
blessing."
"Oh, your success--no one feels it more than I do!" sighed Mrs. Nimick,
always at home in the emotional key. "I keep in the background. I make
no noise, I claim no credit, but whatever happens, no one shall ever
prevent my rejoicing in my brother's success!"
Mrs. Nimick's felicitations were always couched in the conditional,
with a side-glance at dark contingencies, and the Governor, smiling at
the familiar construction, returned cheerfully: "I don't see why any
one should want to deprive you of that privilege."
"They couldn't--they couldn't--" Mrs. Nimick heroically affirmed.
"Well, I'm in the saddle for another two years at any rate, so you had
better put in all the rejoicing you can."
"Whatever happens--whatever happens!" cried Mrs. Nimick, melting on his
bosom.
"The only thing likely to happen at present is that you will miss your
train if I let you go on saying nice things to me much longer."
Mrs. Nimick at this dried her eyes, renewed her clutch on her
draperies, and stood glancing sentimentally about the room while her
brother rang for the carriage.
"I take away a lovely picture of you," she murmured. "It's wonderful
what you've made of this hideous house."
"Ah, not I, but Ella--there she _does_ reign undisputed," he
acknowledged, following her glance about the library, which wore an air
of permanent habitation, of slowly formed intimacy with its inmates, in
marked contrast to the gaudy impersonality of the usual executive
apartment.
"Oh, she's wonderful, quite wonderful. I see she has got those imported
damask curtains she was looking at the other day at Fielding's. When I
am asked how she does it all, I always say it's beyond me!" Mrs. Nimick
murmured.
"It's an art like another," smiled the Governor. "Ella has been used to
living in tents and she has the knack of giving them a wonderful look
of permanence."
"She certainly makes the most extraordinary bargains--all the knack in
the world won't take the place of such curtains and carpets."
"Are they good? I'm glad to hear it. But all the good curtains and
carpets won't make a house comfortable to live in. There's where the
knack comes in, you see."
He recalled with a shudder the lean Congressional years--the years
before his marriage--when Mrs. Nimick had lived with him in Washington,
and the daily struggle in the House had been combined with domestic
conflicts almost equally recurrent. The offer of a foreign mission,
though disconnecting him from active politics, had the advantage of
freeing him from his sister's tutelage, and in Europe, where he
remained for two years, he had met the lady who was to become his wife.
Mrs. Renfield was the widow of one of the diplomatists who languish in
perpetual first secretary-ship at our various embassies. Her life had
given her ease without triviality, and a sense of the importance of
politics seldom found in ladies of her nationality. She regarded a
public life as the noblest and most engrossing of careers, and combined
with great social versatility an equal gift for reading blue-books and
studying debates. So sincere was the latter taste that she passed
without regret from the amenities of a European life well stocked with
picturesque intimacies to the rawness of the Midsylvanian capital. She
helped Mornway in his fight for the Governorship as a man likes to be
helped by a woman--by her tact, her good looks, her memory for faces,
her knack of saying the right thing to the right person, and her
capacity for obscure hard work in the background of his public
activity. But, above all, she helped him by making his private life
smooth and harmonious. For a man careless of personal ease, Mornway was
singularly alive to the domestic amenities. Attentive service,
well-ordered dinners, brightly burning fires, and a scent of flowers in
the house--these material details, which had come to seem the extension
of his wife's personality, the inevitable result of her nearness, were
as agreeable to him after five years of marriage as in the first
surprise of his introduction to them. Mrs. Nimick had kept house
jerkily and vociferously; Ella performed the same task silently and
imperceptibly, and the results were all in favor of the latter method.
Though neither the Governor nor his wife had large means, the
household, under Mrs. Mornway's guidance, took on an air of sober
luxury as agreeable to her husband as it was exasperating to her
sister-in-law. The domestic machinery ran without a jar. There were no
upheavals, no debts, no squalid cookless hiatuses between intervals of
showy hospitality; the household moved along on lines of quiet elegance
and comfort, behind which only the eye of the housekeeping sex could
have detected a gradually increasing scale of expense.
Such an eye was now projected on the Governor's surroundings, and its
explorations were summed up in the tone in which Mrs. Nimick repeated
from the threshold: "I always say I don't see how she does it!"
The tone did not escape the Governor, but it disturbed him no more than
the buzz of a baffled insect. Poor Grace! It was not his fault if her
husband was given to chimerical investments, if her sons were
"unsatisfactory," and her cooks would not stay with her; but it was
natural that these facts should throw into irritating contrast the ease
and harmony of his own domestic life. It made him all the sorrier for
his sister to know that her envy did not penetrate to the essence of
his happiness, but lingered on those external signs of well-being which
counted for so little in the sum total of his advantages. Poor Mrs.
Nimick's life seemed doubly thin and mean when one remembered that,
beneath its shabby surface, there were no compensating riches of the
spirit.
II
IT was the custodian of his own hidden treasure who at this moment
broke in upon his musings. Mrs. Mornway, fresh from her afternoon walk,
entered the room with that air of ease and lightness which seemed to
diffuse a social warmth about her; fine, slender, pliant, so polished
and modeled by an intelligent experience of life that youth seemed
clumsy in her presence. She looked down at her husband and shook her
head.
"You promised to keep the afternoon to yourself, and I hear Grace has
been here."
"Poor Grace--she didn't stay long, and I should have been a brute not
to see her."
He leaned back, filling his gaze to the brim with her charming image,
which obliterated at a stroke the fretful ghost of Mrs. Nimick.
"She came to congratulate you, I suppose?"
"Yes, and to ask me to do something for Ashford."
"Ah--on account of Jack. What does she want for him?"
The Governor laughed. "She said you were in her confidence--that you
were backing her up. She seemed to think your support would ensure her
success."
Mrs. Mornway smiled; her smile, always full of delicate implications,
seemed to caress her husband while it gently mocked his sister.
"Poor Grace! I suppose you undeceived her."
"As to your influence? I told her it was paramount where it ought to
be."
"And where is that?"
"In the choice of carpets and curtains. It seems ours are almost too
good."
"Thanks for the compliment! Too good for what?"
"Our station in life, I suppose. At least they seemed to bother Grace."
"Poor Grace! I've always bothered her." She paused, removing her gloves
reflectively and laying her long fine hands on his shoulders as she
stood behind him. "Then you don't believe in Ashford?" Feeling his
slight start, she drew away her hands and raised them to detach her
veil.
"What makes you think I don't believe in Ashford?" he asked.
"I asked out of curiosity. I wondered whether you had decided anything."
"No, and I don't mean to for a week. I'm dead beat, and I want to bring
a fresh mind to the question. There is hardly one appointment I'm sure
of except, of course, Fleetwood's."
She turned away from him, smoothing her hair in the mirror above the
mantelpiece. "You're sure of that?" she asked after a moment.
"Of George Fleetwood? And poor Grace thinks you are deep in my
counsels! I am as sure of re-appointing Fleetwood as I am that I have
just been re-elected myself. I've never made any secret of the fact
that if they wanted me back they must have him, too."
"You are tremendously generous!" she murmured.
"Generous? What a strange word to use! Fleetwood is my trump card--the
one man I can count on to carry out my ideas through thick and thin."
She mused on this, smiling a little. "That's why I call you
generous--when I remember how you disliked him two years ago!"
"What of that? I was prejudiced against him, I own; or rather, I had a
just distrust of a man with such a past. But how splendidly he's wiped
it out! What a record he has written on the new leaf he promised to
turn over if I gave him the chance! Do you know," the Governor
interrupted himself with a pleasantly reminiscent laugh, "I was rather
annoyed with Grace when she hinted that you had promised to back up
Ashford--I told her you didn't aspire to distribute patronage. But she
might have reminded me--if she'd known--that it _was_ you who persuaded
me to give Fleetwood that chance."
Mrs. Mornway turned with a slight heightening of color. "Grace--how
could she possibly have known?"
"She couldn't, of course, unless she'd read my weakness in my face. But
why do you look so startled at my little joke?"
"It's only that I so dislike Grace's ineradicable idea that I am a
wire-puller. Why should she imagine I would help her about Ashford?"
"Oh, Grace has always been a mild and ineffectual conspirator, and she
thinks every other woman is built on the same plan. But you _did_ get
Fleetwood's job for him, you know," he repeated with laughing
insistence.
"I had more faith than you in human nature, that's all." She paused a
moment, and then added: "Personally, you know, I have always rather
disliked him."
"Oh, I never doubted your disinterestedness. But you are not going to
turn against your candidate, are you?"
She hesitated. "I am not sure; circumstances alter cases. When you made
Fleetwood Attorney-General two years ago he was the inevitable man for
the place."
"Well--is there a better one now?"
"I don't say there is--it's not my business to look for him, at any
rate. What I mean is that at that time Fleetwood was worth risking
anything for--now I don't know that he is."
"But, even if he were not, what do I risk for him now? I don't see your
point. Since he didn't cost me my re-election, what can he possibly
cost me now I'm in?"
"He's immensely unpopular. He will cost you a great deal of popularity,
and you have never pretended to despise that."
"No, nor ever sacrificed anything essential to it. Are you really
asking me to offer up Fleetwood to it now?"
"I don't ask you to do anything--except to consider if he _is_
essential. You said you were over-tired and wanted to bring a fresh
mind to bear on the other appointments. Why not delay this one too?"
Mornway turned in his chair and looked at her searchingly. "This means
something, Ella. What have you heard?"
"Just what you have, probably, but with more attentive ears. The very
record you are so proud of has made George Fleetwood innumerable
enemies in the last two years. The Lead Trust people are determined to
ruin him, and if his reappointment is attacked you will not be spared."
"Attacked? In the papers, you mean?"
She paused. "You know the 'Spy' has always threatened a campaign. And
he has a past, as you say."
"Which was public property long before I first appointed him. Nothing
could be gained by raking up his old political history. Everybody knows
he didn't come to me with clean hands, but to hurt him now the 'Spy'
would have to fasten a new scandal on him, and that would not be easy."
"It would be easy to invent one!"
"Unproved accusations don't count much against a man of such proved
capacity. The best answer is his record of the last two years. That is
what the public looks at."
"The public looks wherever the press points. And besides, you have your
own future to consider. It would be a pity to sacrifice such a career
as yours for the sake of backing up even as useful a man as George
Fleetwood." She paused, as if checked by his gathering frown, but went
on with fresh decision: "Oh, I'm not speaking of personal ambition; I'm
thinking of the good you can do. Will Fleetwood's reappointment secure
the greatest good of the greatest number, if his unpopularity reacts on
you to the extent of hindering your career?"
The Governor's brow cleared and he rose with a smile. "My dear, your
reasoning is admirable, but we must leave my career to take care of
itself. Whatever I may be to-morrow, I am Governor of Midsylvania
to-day, and my business as Governor is to appoint as Attorney-General
the best man I can find for the place--and that man is George
Fleetwood, unless you have a better one to propose." She met this with
perfect good-humor. "No, I have told you already that that is not my
business. But I _have_ a candidate of my own for another office, so
Grace was not quite wrong, after all."
"Well, who is your candidate, and for what office? I only hope you
don't want to change cooks!"
"Oh, I do that without your authority, and you never even know it has
been done." She hesitated, and then said with a bright directness: "I
want you to do something for poor Gregg."
"Gregg? Rufus Gregg?" He stared. "What an extraordinary request! What
can I do for a man I've had to kick out for dishonesty?"
"Not much, perhaps; I know it's difficult. But, after all, it was your
kicking him out that ruined him."
"It was his dishonesty that ruined him. He was getting a good salary as
my stenographer, and if he hadn't sold those letters to the 'Spy' he
would have been getting it still."
She wavered. "After all, nothing was proved--he always denied it."
"Good heavens, Ella! Have you ever doubted his guilt?"
"No--no; I don't mean that. But, of course, his wife and children
believe in him, and think you were cruel, and he has been out of work
so long that they are starving."
"Send them some money, then; I wonder you thought it necessary to ask."
"I shouldn't have thought it so, but money is not what I want. Mrs.
Gregg is proud, and it is hard to help her in that way. Couldn't you
give him work of some kind--just a little post in a corner?"
"My dear child, the little posts in the corner are just the ones where
honesty is essential. A footpad doesn't wait under a street-lamp!
Besides, how can I recommend a man whom I have dismissed for theft? I
won't say a word to hinder his getting a place, but on my conscience I
can't give him one."
She paused and turned toward the door silently, though without any show
of resentment; but on the threshold she lingered long enough to say:
"Yet you gave Fleetwood his chance!"
"Fleetwood? You class Fleetwood with Gregg? The best man in the State
with a little beggarly thieving nonentity? It's evident enough you're
new at wire-pulling, or you would show more skill at it!"
She met this with a laugh. "I'm not likely to have much practice if my
first attempt is such a failure. Well, I will see if Mrs. Gregg will
let me help her a little--I suppose there is nothing else to be done."
"Nothing that we can do. If Gregg wants a place he had better get one
on the staff of the 'Spy.' He served them better than he did me."
III
THE Governor stared at the card with a frown. Half an hour had elapsed
since his wife had gone upstairs to dress for the big dinner from which
official duties excused him, and he was still lingering over the fire
before preparing for his own solitary meal. He expected no one that
evening but his old friend Hadley Shackwell, with whom it was his
long-established habit to talk over his defeats and victories in the
first lull after the conflict; and Shackwell was not likely to turn up
till nine o'clock. The unwonted stillness of the room, and the
knowledge that he had a quiet evening before him, filled the Governor
with a luxurious sense of repose. The world seemed to him a good place
to be in, and his complacency was shadowed only by the fear that he had
perhaps been a trifle over-harsh in refusing his wife's plea for the
stenographer. There seemed, therefore, a certain fitness in the
appearance of the man's card, and the Governor with a sigh gave orders
that Gregg should be shown in.
Gregg was still the soft-stepping scoundrel who invited the toe of
honesty, and Mornway, as he entered, was conscious of a sharp revulsion
of feeling. But it was impossible to evade the interview, and he sat
silent while the man stated his case.
Mrs. Mornway had represented the stenographer as being in desperate
straits, and ready to accept any job that could be found, but though
his appearance might have seemed to corroborate her account, he
evidently took a less hopeless view of his case, and the Governor found
with surprise that he had fixed his eye on a clerkship in one of the
Government offices, a post which had been half promised him before the
incident of the letters. His plea was that the Governor's charge,
though unproved, had so injured his reputation that he could only hope
to clear himself by getting some sort of small job under the
Administration. After that, it would be easy for him to obtain any
employment he wanted.
He met Mornway's refusal with civility, but remarked after a moment: "I
hadn't expected this, Governor. Mrs. Mornway led me to think that
something might be arranged."
The Governor's tone was brief. "Mrs. Mornway is sorry for your wife and
children, and for their sake would be glad to find work for you, but
she could not have led you to think that there was any chance of your
getting a clerkship."
"Well, that's just it; she said she thought she could manage it."
"You have misinterpreted my wife's interest in your family. Mrs.
Mornway has nothing to do with the distribution of Government offices."
The Governor broke off, annoyed to find himself asseverating for the
second time so obvious a fact.
There was a moment's silence; then Gregg said, still in a perfectly
equable tone: "You've always been hard on me, Governor, but I don't
bear malice. You accused me of selling those letters to the 'Spy'--"
The Governor made an impatient gesture.
"You couldn't prove your case," Gregg went on imperturbably, "but you
were right in one respect. I _was_ on confidential terms with the
'Spy.'" He paused and glanced at Mornway, whose face remained
immovable. "I'm on the same terms with them still, and I'm ready to let
you have the benefit of it if you'll give _me_ the chance to retrieve
my good name."
In spite of his irritation the Governor could not repress a smile.
"In other words, you will do a dirty trick for me if I undertake to
convince people that you are the soul of honor."
Gregg smiled also.
"There are always two ways of putting a thing. Why not call it a plain
case of give and take? I want something and can pay for it."
"Not in any coin I have a use for," said Mornway, pushing back his
chair.
Gregg hesitated; then he said: "Perhaps you don't mean to reappoint
Fleetwood." The Governor was silent, and he continued: "If you do,
don't kick me out a second time. I'm not threatening you--I'm speaking
as a friend. Mrs. Mornway has been kind to my wife, and I'd like to
help her."
The Governor rose, gripping his chair-back sternly. "You will be kind
enough to leave my wife's name out of the discussion. I supposed you
knew me well enough to know that I don't buy newspaper secrets at any
price, least of all at that of the public money!"
Gregg, who had risen also, stood a few feet off, looking at him
inscrutably.
"Is that final, Governor?"
"Quite final."
"Well, good evening, then."
IV
SHACKWELL and the Governor sat over the evening embers. It was after
ten o'clock, and the servant had carried away the coffee and liqueurs,
leaving the two men to their cigars. Mornway had once more lapsed into
his arm-chair, and sat with out-stretched feet, gazing comfortably at
his friend.
Shackwell was a small dry man of fifty, with a face as sallow and
freckled as a winter pear, a limp mustache, and shrewd, melancholy eyes.
"I am glad you have given yourself a day's rest," he said, looking at
the Governor.
"Well, I don't know that I needed it. There's such exhilaration in
victory that I never felt fresher."
"Ah, but the fight's just beginning."
"I know--but I'm ready for it. You mean the campaign against Fleetwood.
I understand there is to be a big row. Well, he and I are used to rows."
Shackwell paused, surveying his cigar. "You knew the 'Spy' meant to
lead the attack?"
"Yes. I was offered a glimpse of the documents this afternoon."
Shackwell started up. "You didn't refuse?"
Mornway related the incident of Gregg's visit. "I could hardly buy my
information at that price," he said, "and, besides, it is really
Fleetwood's business this time. I suppose he has heard the report, but
it doesn't seem to bother him. I rather thought he would have looked in
to-day to talk things over, but I haven't seen him."
Shackwell continued to twist his cigar through his sallow fingers
without remembering to light it. "You're determined to reappoint
Fleetwood?" he asked at length.
The Governor caught him up. "You're the fourth person who has asked me
that to-day! You haven't lost faith in him, have you, Hadley?"
"Not an atom!" said the other with emphasis.
"Well, then, what are you all thinking of, to suppose I can be
frightened by a little newspaper talk? Besides, if Fleetwood is not
afraid, why should I be?"
"Because you'll be involved in it with him."
The Governor laughed. "What have they got against me now?"
Shackwell, standing up, confronted his friend solemnly. "This--that
Fleetwood bought his appointment two years ago."
"Ah--bought it of me? Why didn't it come out at the time?"
"Because it wasn't known then. It has only been found out lately."
"Known--found out? This is magnificent! What was my price, and what did
I do with the money?"
Shackwell glanced about the room, and his eyes returned to Mornway's
face.
"Look here, John, Fleetwood is not the only man in the world."
"The only man?"
"The only Attorney-General. The 'Spy' has the Lead Trust behind it and
means to put up a savage fight. Mud sticks, and--"
"Hadley, is this a conspiracy? You're saying to me just what Ella said
this afternoon."
At the mention of Mrs. Mornway's name a silence fell between the two
men and the Governor moved uneasily in his chair.
"You are not advising me to chuck Fleetwood because the 'Spy' is going
to accuse me of having sold him his first appointment?" he said at
length.
Shackwell drew a deep breath. "You say yourself that Mrs. Mornway gave
you the same advice this afternoon."
"Well, what of that? Do you imagine that my wife distrib--" The
Governor broke off with an exasperated laugh.
Shackwell, leaning against the mantelpiece, looked down into the
embers. "I didn't say the 'Spy' meant to accuse _you_ of having sold
the office."
Mornway stood up slowly, his eyes on his friend's averted face. The
ashes dropped from his cigar, scattering a white trail across the
carpet which had excited Mrs. Nimick's envy.
"The office is in my gift. If I didn't sell it, who did?" he demanded.
Shackwell laid a hand on his arm. "For heaven's sake, John--"
"Who did, who did?" the Governor violently repeated.
The two men faced each other in the closely curtained silence of the
dim luxurious room. Shackwell's eyes again wandered, as if summoning
the walls to reply. Then he said, "I have positive information that the
'Spy' will say nothing if you don't appoint Fleetwood."
"And what will it say if I do appoint him?"
"That he bought his first appointment from your wife."
The Governor stood silent, immovable, while the blood crept slowly from
his strong neck to his lowering brows. Once he laughed, then he set his
lips and continued to gaze into the fire. After a while he looked at
his cigar and shook the freshly formed cone of ashes carefully upon the
hearth. He had just turned again to Shackwell when the door opened and
the butler announced: "Mr. Fleetwood."
The room swam about Shackwell, and when he recovered himself, Mornway,
with outstretched hand, was advancing quietly to meet his guest.
Fleetwood was a smaller man than the Governor. He was erect and
compact, with a face full of dry energy, which seemed to press forward
with the spring of his prominent features, as though it were the weapon
with which he cleared his way through the world. He was in evening
dress, scrupulously appointed, but pale and nervous. Of the two men, it
was Mornway who was the more composed.
"I thought I should have seen you before this," he said.
Fleetwood returned his grasp and shook hands with Shackwell.
"I knew you needed to be let alone. I didn't mean to come to-night, but
I wanted to say a word to you."
At this, Shackwell, who had fallen into the background, made a motion
of leave-taking, but the Governor arrested it.
"We haven't any secrets from Hadley, have we, Fleetwood?"
"Certainly not. I am glad to have him stay. I have simply come to say
that I have been thinking over my future arrangements, and that I find
it will not be possible for me to continue in office."
There was a long pause, during which Shackwell kept his eyes on
Mornway. The Governor had turned pale, but when he spoke his voice was
full and firm.
"This is sudden," he said.
Fleetwood stood leaning against a high chair-back, fretting its carved
ornaments with restless fingers. "It is sudden--yes. I--there are a
variety of reasons."
"Is one of them the fact that you are afraid of what the 'Spy' is going
to say?"
The Attorney-General flushed deeply and moved away a few steps. "I'm
sick of mud-throwing," he muttered.
"George Fleetwood!" Mornway exclaimed. He had advanced toward his
friend, and the two stood confronting each other, already oblivious of
Shackwell's presence.
"It's not only that, of course. I've been frightfully hard-worked. My
health has given way--"
"Since yesterday?"
Fleetwood forced a smile. "My dear fellow, what a slave-driver you are!
Hasn't a man the right to take a rest?"
"Not a soldier on the eve of battle. You have never failed me before."
"I don't want to fail you now. But it isn't the eve of battle--you're
in, and that's the main thing."
"The main thing at present is that you promised to stay in with me, and
that I must have your real reason for breaking your word."
Fleetwood made a deprecatory movement. "My dear Governor, if you only
knew it, I'm doing you a service in backing out."
"A service--why?"
"Because I'm hated--because the Lead Trust wants my blood, and will
have yours too if you appoint me."
"Ah, that's the real reason, then--you're afraid of the 'Spy'?"
"Afraid--?"
The Governor continued to speak with dry deliberation. "Evidently,
then, you know what they mean to say."
Fleetwood laughed. "One needn't do that to be sure it will be
abominable!"
"Who cares how abominable it is if it isn't true?"
Fleetwood shrugged his shoulders and was silent. Shackwell, from a
distant seat, uttered a faint protesting sound, but no one heeded him.
The Governor stood squarely before Fleetwood, his hands in his pockets.
"It _is_ true, then?" he demanded.
"What is true?"
"What the 'Spy' means to say--that you bought my wife's influence to
get your first appointment."
In the silence Shackwell started suddenly to his feet. A sound of
carriage-wheels had disturbed the quiet street. They paused and then
rolled up the semicircle to the door of the Executive Mansion.
"John!" Shackwell warned him.
The Governor turned impatiently; there was the sound of a servant's
steps in the hall, followed by the opening and closing of the outer
door.
"Your wife--Mrs. Mornway!" Shackwell cried.
Another step, accompanied by a soft rustle of skirts, was advancing
toward the library.
"My wife? Let her come!" said the Governor.
V
She stood before them in her bright evening dress, with an arrested
brilliancy of aspect like the sparkle of a fountain suddenly caught in
ice. Her look moved rapidly from one to the other; then she came
forward, while Shackwell slipped behind her to close the door.
"What has happened?" she said.
Shackwell began to speak, but the Governor interposed calmly:
"Fleetwood has come to tell me that he does not wish to remain in
office."
"Ah!" she murmured.
There was another silence. Fleetwood broke it by saying: "It is getting
late. If you want to see me to-morrow--"
The Governor looked from his face to Ella's. "Yes; go now," he said.
Shackwell moved in Fleetwood's wake to the door. Mrs. Mornway stood
with her head high, smiling slightly. She shook hands with each of the
men in turn; then she moved toward the sofa and laid aside her shining
cloak. All her gestures were calm and noble, but as she raised her hand
to unclasp the cloak her husband uttered a sudden exclamation.
"Where did you get that bracelet? I don't remember it."
"This?" She looked at him with astonishment. "It belonged to my mother.
I don't often wear it."
"Ah--I shall suspect everything now," he groaned.
He turned away and flung himself with bowed head in the chair behind
his writing-table. He wanted to collect himself, to question her, to
get to the bottom of the hideous abyss over which his imagination hung.
But what was the use? What did the facts matter? He had only to put his
memories together--they led him straight to the truth. Every incident
of the day seemed to point a leering finger in the same direction, from
Mrs. Nimick's allusion to the imported damask curtains to Gregg's
confident appeal for rehabilitation.
"If you imagine that my wife distributes patronage--" he heard himself
repeating inanely, and the walls seemed to reverberate with the
laughter which his sister and Gregg had suppressed. He heard Ella rise
from the sofa and lifted his head sharply.
"Sit still!" he commanded. She sank back without speaking, and he hid
his face again. The past months, the past years, were dancing a
witches' dance about him. He remembered a hundred significant
things.... _Oh, God_, he cried to himself, _if only she does not lie
about it!_ Suddenly he recalled having pitied Mrs. Nimick because she
could not penetrate to the essence of his happiness. Those were the
very words he had used! He heard himself laugh aloud. The clock
struck--it went on striking interminably. At length he heard his wife
rise again and say with sudden authority: "John, you must speak."
Authority--she spoke to him with authority! He laughed again, and
through his laugh he heard the senseless rattle of the words, "If you
imagine that my wife distributes patronage ..."
He looked up haggardly and saw her standing before him. If only she
would not lie about it! He said: "You see what has happened."
"I suppose some one has told you about the 'Spy.'"
"Who told you? Gregg?" he interposed.
"Yes," she said quietly.
"That was why you wanted--?"
"Why I wanted you to help him? Yes."
"Oh, God! ... He wouldn't take money?"
"No, he wouldn't take money."
He sat silent, looking at her, noting with a morbid minuteness the
exquisite finish of her dress, that finish which seemed so much a part
of herself that it had never before struck him as a merely purchasable
accessory. He knew so little what a woman's dresses cost! For a moment
he lost himself in vague calculations; finally, he said: "What did you
do it for?"
"Do what?"
"Take money from Fleetwood."
She paused a moment and then said: "If you will let me explain--"
And then he saw that, all along, he had thought she would be able to
disprove it! A smothering blackness closed in on him, and he had a
physical struggle for breath. Then he forced himself to his feet and
said: "He was your lover?"
"Oh, no, no, _no!_" she cried with conviction. He hardly knew whether
the shadow lifted or deepened; the fact that he instantly believed her
seemed only to increase his bewilderment. Presently he found that she
was still speaking, and he began to listen to her, catching a phrase
now and then through the deafening clamor of his thoughts.
It amounted to this--that just after her husband's first election, when
Fleetwood's claims for the Attorney-Generalship were being vainly
pressed by a group of his political backers, Mrs. Mornway had chanced
to sit next to him once or twice at dinner. One day, on the strength of
these meetings, he had called and asked her frankly if she would not
help him with her husband. He had made a clean breast of his past, but
had said that, under a man like Mornway, he felt he could wipe out his
political sins and purify himself while he served the party. She knew
the party needed his brains, and she believed in him--she was sure he
would keep his word. She would have spoken in his favor in any
case--she would have used all her influence to overcome her husband's
prejudice--and it was by a mere accident that, in the course of one of
their talks, he happened to give her a "tip" (his past connections were
still useful for such purposes), a "tip" which, in the first invading
pressure of debt after Mornway's election, she had not had the courage
to refuse. Fleetwood had made some money for her--yes, about thirty
thousand dollars. She had repaid what he had lent her, and there had
been no further transactions of the kind between them. But it appeared
that Gregg, before his dismissal, had got hold of an old check-book
which gave a hint of the story, and had pieced the rest together with
the help of a clerk in Fleetwood's office. The "Spy" was in possession
of the facts, but did not mean to use them if Fleetwood was not
reappointed, the Lead Trust having no personal grudge against Mornway.
Her story ended there, and she sat silent while he continued to look at
her. So much had perished in the wreck of his faith that he did not
attach much value to what remained. It scarcely mattered that he
believed her when the truth was so sordid. There had been, after all,
nothing to envy him for but what Mrs. Nimick had seen; the core of his
life was as mean and miserable as his sister's....
His wife rose at length, pale but still calm. She had a kind of
external dignity which she wore like one of her rich dresses. It seemed
as little a part of her now as the finery of which his gaze
contemptuously reckoned the cost.
"John--" she said, laying her hand on his shoulder.
He looked up wearily. "You had better go to bed," he interjected.
"Don't look at me in that way. I am prepared for your being angry with
me--I made a dreadful mistake and must bear my punishment: any
punishment you choose to inflict. But you must think of yourself
first--you must spare yourself. Why should you be so horribly unhappy?
Don't you see that since Mr. Fleetwood has behaved so well we are quite
safe? And I swear to you I have paid back every penny of the money."
VI
THREE days later Shackwell was summoned by telephone to the Governor's
office in the Capitol. There had been, in the interval, no
communication between the two men, and the papers had been silent or
non-committal.
In the lobby Shackwell met Fleetwood leaving the building. For a moment
the Attorney-General seemed about to speak; then he nodded and passed
on, leaving to Shackwell the impression of a face more than ever thrust
forward like a weapon.
The Governor sat behind his desk in the clear autumn sunlight. In
contrast to Fleetwood he seemed relaxed and unwieldy, and the face he
turned to his friend had a gray look of convalescence. Shackwell
wondered, with a start of apprehension, if he and Fleetwood had been
together.
He relieved himself of his overcoat without speaking, and when he
turned again toward Mornway he was surprised to find the latter
watching him with a smile.
"It's good to see you, Hadley," the Governor said.
"I waited to be sent for; I knew you'd let me know when you wanted me,"
Shackwell replied.
"I didn't send for you on purpose. If I had, I might have asked your
advice, and I didn't want to ask anybody's advice but my own." The
Governor spoke steadily, but in a voice a trifle too well disciplined
to be natural. "I've had a three days' conference with myself," he
continued, "and now that everything is settled I want you to do me a
favor."
"Yes?" Shackwell assented. The private issues of the affair were still
wrapped in mystery to him, but he had never had a moment's doubt as to
its public solution, and he had no difficulty in conjecturing the
nature of the service he was to render. His heart ached for Mornway,
but he was glad the inevitable step was to be taken without further
delay.
"Everything is settled," the Governor repeated, "and I want you to
notify the press that I have decided to reappoint Fleetwood."
Shackwell bounded from his seat. "Good heavens!" he ejaculated.
"To reappoint Fleetwood," the Governor repeated, "because at the
present juncture of affairs he is the only man for the place. The work
we began together is not finished, and I can't finish it without him.
Remember the vistas opened by the Lead Trust investigation--he knows
where they lead and no one else does. We must put that inquiry through,
no matter what it costs us, and that is why I have sent for you to take
this letter to the 'Spy.'"
Shackwell's hand drew back from the proffered envelope.
"You say you don't want my advice, but you can't expect me to go on
such an errand with my eyes shut. What on earth are you driving at? Of
course Fleetwood will persist in refusing."
Mornway smiled. "He did persist--for three hours. But when he left here
just now he had given me his word to accept."
Shackwell groaned. "Then I am dealing with two madmen instead of one."
The Governor laughed. "My poor Hadley, you're worse than I expected. I
thought you would understand me."
"Understand you? How can I, in heaven's name, when I don't understand
the situation?
"The situation--the situation?" Mornway repeated slowly. "Whose? His or
mine? I don't either--I haven't had time to think of them."
"What on earth have you been thinking of then?"
The Governor rose, with a gesture toward the window, through which,
below the slope of the Capitol grounds, the roofs and steeples of the
city spread their smoky mass to the mild air.
"Of all that is left," he said. "Of everything except Fleetwood and
myself."
"Ah--" Shackwell murmured.
Mornway turned back and sank into his seat. "Don't you see that was all
I had to turn to? The State--the country--it's big enough, in all
conscience, to fill a good deal of a void! My own walls had grown too
cramped for me, so I just stepped outside. You have no idea how it
simplified matters at once. All I had to do was to say to myself: 'Go
ahead, and do the best you can for the country.' The personal issue
simply didn't exist."
"Yes--and then?"
"Then I turned over for three days this question of the
Attorney-Generalship. I couldn't see that it was changed--how should
_my_ feelings have affected it? Fleetwood hasn't betrayed the State.
There isn't a scar on his public record--he is still the best man for
the place. My business is to appoint the best man I can find, and I
can't find any one as good as Fleetwood."
"But--but--your wife?" Shackwell stammered.
The Governor looked up with surprise. Shackwell could almost have sworn
that he had indeed forgotten the private issue.
"My wife is ready to face the consequences," he said.
Shackwell returned to his former attitude of incredulity.
"But Fleetwood? Fleetwood has no right to sacrifice--"
"To sacrifice my wife to the State? Oh, let us beware of big words.
Fleetwood was inclined to use them at first, but I managed to restore
his sense of proportion. I showed him that our private lives are only a
few feet square anyhow, and that really, to breathe freely, one must
get out of them into the open." He paused and broke out with sudden
violence, "My God, Hadley, didn't you see that Fleetwood had to obey
me?"
"Yes--I see that," said Shackwell, with reviving obstinacy. "But if
you've reached such a height and pulled him up to your side it seems to
me that from that standpoint you ought to get an even clearer view of
the madness of your position. You say you have decided to sacrifice
your own feelings and your wife's--though I'm not so sure of your right
to dispose of _her_ voice in the matter; but what if you sacrifice the
party and the State as well, in this transcendental attempt to
distinguish between private and public honor? You'll have to answer
that before you can get me to carry this letter."
The Governor did not blanch under the attack.
"I think the letter will answer you," he said calmly.
"The letter?"
"Yes. It's something more than a notification of Fleetwood's
reappointment." Mornway paused and looked steadily at his friend.
"You're afraid of an investigation--an impeachment? Well, the letter
anticipates that."
"How, in heaven's name?"
"By a plain statement of the facts. My wife has told me that she did
borrow of Fleetwood. He speculated for her and made a considerable sum,
out of which she repaid his loan. The 'Spy's' accusation is true. If it
can be proved that my wife induced me to appoint Fleetwood, it may be
argued that she sold him the appointment. But it can't be proved, and
the 'Spy' won't waste its breath in trying to, because my statement
will take the sting out of its innuendoes. I propose to anticipate its
attack by setting forth the facts in its columns, and asking the public
to decide between us. On one side is the private fact that my wife,
without my knowledge, borrowed money from Fleetwood just before I
appointed him to an important post; on the other side is his public
record and mine. I want people to see both sides and judge between
them, not in the red glare of a newspaper denunciation, but in the
plain daylight of common-sense. Charges against the private morality of
a public man are usually made in such a blare of headlines and cloud of
mud-throwing that the voice he lifts up in his defence can not make
itself heard. In this case I want the public to hear what I have to say
before the yelping begins. My letter will take the wind out of the
'Spy's' sails, and if the verdict goes against me, the case will have
been decided on its own merits, and not at the dictation of the writers
of scare heads. Even if I don't gain my end, it will be a good thing,
for once, for the public to consider dispassionately how far a private
calamity should be allowed to affect a career of public usefulness, and
the next man who goes through what I am undergoing may have cause to
thank me if no one else does."
Shackwell sat silent for a moment, with the ring of the last words in
his ears.
Suddenly he rose and held out his hand. "Give me the letter," he said.
The Governor caught him up with a kindling eye. "It's all right, then?
You see, and you'll take it?"
Shackwell met his glance with one of melancholy interrogation. "I think
I see a magnificent suicide, but it's the kind of way I shouldn't mind
dying myself."
He pulled himself silently into his coat and put the letter into one of
its pockets, but as he was turning to the door the Governor called
after him cheerfully: "By the way, Hadley, aren't you and Mrs.
Shackwell giving a big dinner to-morrow?"
Shackwell paused with a start. "I believe we are--why?"
"Because, if there is room for two more, my wife and I would like to be
invited."
Shackwell nodded his assent and turned away without answering. As he
came out of the lobby into the clear sunset radiance he saw a victoria
drive up the long sweep to the Capitol and pause before the central
portion. He descended the steps, and Mrs. Mornway leaned from her furs
to greet him.
"I have called for my husband," she said, smiling. "He promised to get
away in time for a little turn in the Park before dinner."
XINGU
By Edith Wharton
Copyright, 1916, By Charles Scribner’s Sons
I
Mrs. Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands, as
though it were dangerous to meet alone. To this end she had founded
the Lunch Club, an association composed of herself and several other
indomitable huntresses of erudition. The Lunch Club, after three or four
winters of lunching and debate, had acquired such local distinction that
the entertainment of distinguished strangers became one of its accepted
functions; in recognition of which it duly extended to the celebrated
“Osric Dane,” on the day of her arrival in Hillbridge, an invitation to
be present at the next meeting.
The club was to meet at Mrs. Bellinger’s. The other members, behind
her back, were of one voice in deploring her unwillingness to cede
her rights in favor of Mrs. Plinth, whose house made a more impressive
setting for the entertainment of celebrities; while, as Mrs. Leveret
observed, there was always the picture-gallery to fall back on.
Mrs. Plinth made no secret of sharing this view. She had always regarded
it as one of her obligations to entertain the Lunch Club’s distinguished
guests. Mrs. Plinth was almost as proud of her obligations as she was
of her picture-gallery; she was in fact fond of implying that the one
possession implied the other, and that only a woman of her wealth
could afford to live up to a standard as high as that which she had set
herself. An all-round sense of duty, roughly adaptable to various ends,
was, in her opinion, all that Providence exacted of the more humbly
stationed; but the power which had predestined Mrs. Plinth to keep a
footman clearly intended her to maintain an equally specialized staff of
responsibilities. It was the more to be regretted that Mrs. Ballinger,
whose obligations to society were bounded by the narrow scope of two
parlour-maids, should have been so tenacious of the right to entertain
Osric Dane.
The question of that lady’s reception had for a month past profoundly
moved the members of the Lunch Club. It was not that they felt
themselves unequal to the task, but that their sense of the opportunity
plunged them into the agreeable uncertainty of the lady who weighs the
alternatives of a well-stocked wardrobe. If such subsidiary members as
Mrs. Leveret were fluttered by the thought of exchanging ideas with the
author of “The Wings of Death,” no forebodings disturbed the conscious
adequacy of Mrs. Plinth, Mrs. Ballinger and Miss Van Vluyck. “The Wings
of Death” had, in fact, at Miss Van Vluyck’s suggestion, been chosen as
the subject of discussion at the last club meeting, and each member had
thus been enabled to express her own opinion or to appropriate whatever
sounded well in the comments of the others.
Mrs. Roby alone had abstained from profiting by the opportunity; but it
was now openly recognised that, as a member of the Lunch Club, Mrs. Roby
was a failure. “It all comes,” as Miss Van Vluyck put it, “of accepting
a woman on a man’s estimation.” Mrs. Roby, returning to Hillbridge from
a prolonged sojourn in exotic lands--the other ladies no longer took
the trouble to remember where--had been heralded by the distinguished
biologist, Professor Foreland, as the most agreeable woman he had ever
met; and the members of the Lunch Club, impressed by an encomium
that carried the weight of a diploma, and rashly assuming that the
Professor’s social sympathies would follow the line of his professional
bent, had seized the chance of annexing a biological member. Their
disillusionment was complete. At Miss Van Vluyck’s first off-hand
mention of the pterodactyl Mrs. Roby had confusedly murmured: “I know so
little about metres--” and after that painful betrayal of incompetence
she had prudently withdrawn from farther participation in the mental
gymnastics of the club.
“I suppose she flattered him,” Miss Van Vluyck summed up--“or else it’s
the way she does her hair.”
The dimensions of Miss Van Vluyck’s dining-room having restricted the
membership of the club to six, the nonconductiveness of one member was
a serious obstacle to the exchange of ideas, and some wonder had already
been expressed that Mrs. Roby should care to live, as it were, on the
intellectual bounty of the others. This feeling was increased by the
discovery that she had not yet read “The Wings of Death.” She owned
to having heard the name of Osric Dane; but that--incredible as it
appeared--was the extent of her acquaintance with the celebrated
novelist. The ladies could not conceal their surprise; but Mrs.
Ballinger, whose pride in the club made her wish to put even Mrs. Roby
in the best possible light, gently insinuated that, though she had not
had time to acquaint herself with “The Wings of Death,” she must at
least be familiar with its equally remarkable predecessor, “The Supreme
Instant.”
Mrs. Roby wrinkled her sunny brows in a conscientious effort of memory,
as a result of which she recalled that, oh, yes, she _had_ seen the book
at her brother’s, when she was staying with him in Brazil, and had even
carried it off to read one day on a boating party; but they had all
got to shying things at each other in the boat, and the book had gone
overboard, so she had never had the chance--
The picture evoked by this anecdote did not increase Mrs. Roby’s credit
with the club, and there was a painful pause, which was broken by Mrs.
Plinth’s remarking:
“I can understand that, with all your other pursuits, you should not
find much time for reading; but I should have thought you might at least
have _got up_ ‘The Wings of Death’ before Osric Dane’s arrival.”
Mrs. Roby took this rebuke good-humouredly. She had meant, she owned,
to glance through the book; but she had been so absorbed in a novel of
Trollope’s that--
“No one reads Trollope now,” Mrs. Ballinger interrupted.
Mrs. Roby looked pained. “I’m only just beginning,” she confessed.
“And does he interest you?” Mrs. Plinth enquired.
“He amuses me.”
“Amusement,” said Mrs. Plinth, “is hardly what I look for in my choice
of books.”
“Oh, certainly, ‘The Wings of Death’ is not amusing,” ventured Mrs.
Leveret, whose manner of putting forth an opinion was like that of an
obliging salesman with a variety of other styles to submit if his first
selection does not suit.
“Was it _meant_ to be?” enquired Mrs. Plinth, who was fond of asking
questions that she permitted no one but herself to answer. “Assuredly
not.”
“Assuredly not--that is what I was going to say,” assented Mrs. Leveret,
hastily rolling up her opinion and reaching for another. “It was meant
to--to elevate.”
Miss Van Vluyck adjusted her spectacles as though they were the black
cap of condemnation. “I hardly see,” she interposed, “how a book steeped
in the bitterest pessimism can be said to elevate however much it may
instruct.”
“I meant, of course, to instruct,” said Mrs. Leveret, flurried by the
unexpected distinction between two terms which she had supposed to be
synonymous. Mrs. Leveret’s enjoyment of the Lunch Club was frequently
marred by such surprises; and not knowing her own value to the other
ladies as a mirror for their mental complacency she was sometimes
troubled by a doubt of her worthiness to join in their debates. It was
only the fact of having a dull sister who thought her clever that saved
her, from a sense of hopeless inferiority.
“Do they get married in the end?” Mrs. Roby interposed.
“They--who?” the Lunch Club collectively exclaimed.
“Why, the girl and man. It’s a novel, isn’t it? I always think that’s
the one thing that matters. If they’re parted it spoils my dinner.”
Mrs. Plinth and Mrs. Ballinger exchanged scandalised glances, and the
latter said: “I should hardly advise you to read ‘The Wings of Death’
in that spirit. For my part, when there are so many books one _has_
to read; I wonder how any one can find time for those that are merely
amusing.”
“The beautiful part of it,” Laura Glyde murmured, “is surely just
this--that no one can tell how ‘The Wings of Death’ ends. Osric Dane,
overcome by the awful significance of her own meaning, has mercifully
veiled it--perhaps even from herself--as Apelles, in representing the
sacrifice of Iphigenia, veiled the face of Agamemnon.”
“What’s that? Is it poetry?” whispered Mrs. Leveret to Mrs. Plinth,
who, disdaining a definite reply, said coldly: “You should look it up.
I always make it a point to look things up.” Her tone added--“though I
might easily have it done for me by the footman.”
“I was about to say,” Miss Van Vluyck resumed, “that it must always be a
question whether a book _can_ instruct unless it elevates.”
“Oh--” murmured Mrs. Leveret, now feeling herself hopelessly astray.
“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Ballinger, scenting in Miss Van Vluyck’s tone
a tendency to depreciate the coveted distinction of entertaining Osric
Dane; “I don’t know that such a question can seriously be raised as to a
book which has attracted more attention among thoughtful people than any
novel since ‘Robert Elsmere.’”
“Oh, but don’t you see,” exclaimed Laura Glyde, “that it’s just the
dark hopelessness of it all--the wonderful tone-scheme of black on
black--that makes it such an artistic achievement? It reminded me when
I read it of Prince Rupert’s _manière noire_...the book is etched, not
painted, yet one feels the colour-values so intensely....”
“Who is he?” Mrs. Leveret whispered to her neighbour. “Some one she’s
met abroad?”
“The wonderful part of the book,” Mrs. Bellinger conceded, “is that it
may be looked at from so many points of view. I hear that as a study of
determinism Professor Lupton ranks it with ‘The Data of Ethics.’”
“I’m told that Osric Dane spent ten years in preparatory studies
before beginning to write it,” said Mrs. Plinth. “She looks up
everything--verifies everything. It has always been my principle, as
you know. Nothing would induce me, now, to put aside a book before I’d
finished it, just because I can buy as many more as I want.”
“And what do _you_ think of ‘The Wings of Death’?” Mrs. Roby abruptly
asked her.
It was the kind of question that might be termed out of order, and the
ladies glanced at each other as though disclaiming any share in such
a breach of discipline. They all knew there was nothing Mrs. Plinth so
much disliked as being asked her opinion of a book. Books were written
to read; if one read them what more could be expected? To be questioned
in detail regarding the contents of a volume seemed to her as great an
outrage as being searched for smuggled laces at the Custom House. The
club had always respected this idiosyncrasy of Mrs. Plinth’s. Such
opinions as she had were imposing and substantial: her mind, like her
house, was furnished with monumental “pieces” that were not meant to
be disarranged; and it was one of the unwritten rules of the Lunch Club
that, within her own province, each member’s habits of thought should be
respected. The meeting therefore closed with an increased sense, on the
part of the other ladies, of Mrs. Roby’s hopeless unfitness to be one of
them.
II
Mrs. Leveret, on the eventful day, arrived early at Mrs. Ballinger’s,
her volume of Appropriate Allusions in her pocket.
It always flustered Mrs. Leveret to be late at the Lunch Club: she liked
to collect her thoughts and gather a hint, as the others assembled, of
the turn the conversation was likely to take. To-day, however, she
felt herself completely at a loss; and even the familiar contact of
Appropriate Allusions, which stuck into her as she sat down, failed to
give her any reassurance. It was an admirable little volume, compiled
to meet all the social emergencies; so that, whether on the occasion
of Anniversaries, joyful or melancholy (as the classification ran),
of Banquets, social or municipal, or of Baptisms, Church of England
or sectarian, its student need never be at a loss for a pertinent
reference. Mrs. Leveret, though she had for years devoutly conned its
pages, valued it, however, rather for its moral support than for its
practical services; for though in the privacy of her own room she
commanded an army of quotations, these invariably deserted her at the
critical moment, and the only phrase she retained--_Canst thou draw out
leviathan with a hook_?--was one she had never yet found occasion to
apply.
To-day she felt that even the complete mastery of the volume would
hardly have insured her self-possession; for she thought it probable
that, even if she _did_, in some miraculous way, remember an Allusion,
it would be only to find that Osric Dane used a different volume (Mrs.
Leveret was convinced that literary people always carried them), and
would consequently not recognise her quotations.
Mrs. Leveret’s sense of being adrift was intensified by the appearance
of Mrs. Ballinger’s drawing-room. To a careless eye its aspect was
unchanged; but those acquainted with Mrs. Ballinger’s way of
arranging her books would instantly have detected the marks of recent
perturbation. Mrs. Ballinger’s province, as a member of the Lunch Club,
was the Book of the Day. On that, whatever it was, from a novel to
a treatise on experimental psychology, she was confidently,
authoritatively “up.” What became of last year’s books, or last week’s
even; what she did with the “subjects” she had previously professed with
equal authority; no one had ever yet discovered. ‘Her mind was an hotel
where facts came and went like transient lodgers, without leaving their
address behind, and frequently without paying for their board. It was
Mrs. Ballinger’s boast that she was “abreast with the Thought of the
Day,” and her pride that this advanced position should be expressed by
the books on her table. These volumes, frequently renewed, and almost
always damp from the press, bore names generally unfamiliar to Mrs.
Leveret, and giving her, as she furtively scanned them, a disheartening
glimpse of new fields of knowledge to be breathlessly traversed in Mrs.
Ballinger’s wake. But to-day a number of maturer-looking volumes were
adroitly mingled with the _primeurs_ of the press--Karl Marx jostled
Professor Bergson, and the “Confessions of St. Augustine” lay beside
the last work on “Mendelism”; so that even to Mrs. Leveret’s fluttered
perceptions it was clear that Mrs. Ballinger didn’t in the least know
what Osric Dane was likely to talk about, and had taken measures to be
prepared for anything. Mrs. Leveret felt like a passenger on an ocean
steamer who is told that there is no immediate danger, but that she had
better put on her life-belt.
It was a relief to be roused from these forebodings by Miss Van Vluyck’s
arrival.
“Well, my dear,” the new-comer briskly asked her hostess, “what subjects
are we to discuss to-day?”
Mrs. Ballinger was furtively replacing a volume of Wordsworth by a copy
of Verlaine. “I hardly know,” she said, somewhat nervously. “Perhaps we
had better leave that to circumstances.”
“Circumstances?” said Miss Van Vluyck drily. “That means, I suppose,
that Laura Glyde will take the floor as usual, and we shall be deluged
with literature.”
Philanthropy and statistics were Miss Van Vluyck’s province, and she
resented any tendency to divert their guest’s attention from these
topics.
Mrs. Plinth at this moment appeared.
“Literature?” she protested in a tone of remonstrance. “But this is
perfectly unexpected. I understood we were to talk of Osric Dane’s
novel.”
Mrs. Ballinger winced at the discrimination, but let it pass. “We can
hardly make that our chief subject--at least not _too_ intentionally,”
she suggested. “Of course we can let our talk _drift_ in that direction;
but we ought to have some other topic as an introduction, and that is
what I wanted to consult you about. The fact is, we know so little
of Osric Dane’s tastes and interests that it is difficult to make any
special preparation.”
“It may be difficult,” said Mrs. Plinth with decision, “but it is
necessary. I know what that happy-go-lucky principle leads to. As I told
one of my nieces the other day, there are certain emergencies for which
a lady should always be prepared. It’s in shocking taste to wear colours
when one pays a visit of condolence, or a last year’s dress when there
are reports that one’s husband is on the wrong side of the market; and
so it is with conversation. All I ask is that I should know beforehand
what is to be talked about; then I feel sure of being able to say the
proper thing.”
“I quite agree with you,” Mrs. Ballinger assented; “but--”
And at that instant, heralded by the fluttered parlourmaid, Osric Dane
appeared upon the threshold.
Mrs. Leveret told her sister afterward that she had known at a glance
what was coming. She saw that Osric Dane was not going to meet them
half way. That distinguished personage had indeed entered with an air of
compulsion not calculated to promote the easy exercise of hospitality.
She looked as though she were about to be photographed for a new edition
of her books.
The desire to propitiate a divinity is generally in inverse ratio to its
responsiveness, and the sense of discouragement produced by Osric Dane’s
entrance visibly increased the Lunch Club’s eagerness to please her. Any
lingering idea that she might consider herself under an obligation to
her entertainers was at once dispelled by her manner: as Mrs. Leveret
said afterward to her sister, she had a way of looking at you that made
you feel as if there was something wrong with your hat. This evidence
of greatness produced such an immediate impression on the ladies that a
shudder of awe ran through them when Mrs. Roby, as their hostess led
the great personage into the dining-room, turned back to whisper to the
others: “What a brute she is!”
The hour about the table did not tend to revise this verdict. It was
passed by Osric Dane in the silent deglutition of Mrs. Bollinger’s menu,
and by the members of the club in the emission of tentative platitudes
which their guest seemed to swallow as perfunctorily as the successive
courses of the luncheon.
Mrs. Ballinger’s reluctance to fix a topic had thrown the club into a
mental disarray which increased with the return to the drawing-room,
where the actual business of discussion was to open. Each lady waited
for the other to speak; and there was a general shock of disappointment
when their hostess opened the conversation by the painfully commonplace
enquiry. “Is this your first visit to Hillbridge?”
Even Mrs. Leveret was conscious that this was a bad beginning; and a
vague impulse of deprecation made Miss Glyde interject: “It is a very
small place indeed.”
Mrs. Plinth bristled. “We have a great many representative people,” she
said, in the tone of one who speaks for her order.
Osric Dane turned to her. “What do they represent?” she asked.
Mrs. Plinth’s constitutional dislike to being questioned was intensified
by her sense of unpreparedness; and her reproachful glance passed the
question on to Mrs. Ballinger.
“Why,” said that lady, glancing in turn at the other members, “as a
community I hope it is not too much to say that we stand for culture.”
“For art--” Miss Glyde interjected.
“For art and literature,” Mrs. Ballinger emended.
“And for sociology, I trust,” snapped Miss Van Vluyck.
“We have a standard,” said Mrs. Plinth, feeling herself suddenly secure
on the vast expanse of a generalisation; and Mrs. Leveret, thinking
there must be room for more than one on so broad a statement, took
courage to murmur: “Oh, certainly; we have a standard.”
“The object of our little club,” Mrs. Ballinger continued, “is to
concentrate the highest tendencies of Hillbridge--to centralise and
focus its intellectual effort.”
This was felt to be so happy that the ladies drew an almost audible
breath of relief.
“We aspire,” the President went on, “to be in touch with whatever is
highest in art, literature and ethics.”
Osric Dane again turned to her. “What ethics?” she asked.
A tremor of apprehension encircled the room. None of the ladies required
any preparation to pronounce on a question of morals; but when they
were called ethics it was different. The club, when fresh from
the “Encyclopaedia Britannica,” the “Reader’s Handbook” or Smith’s
“Classical Dictionary,” could deal confidently with any subject; but
when taken unawares it had been known to define agnosticism as a heresy
of the Early Church and Professor Froude as a distinguished histologist;
and such minor members as Mrs. Leveret still secretly regarded ethics as
something vaguely pagan.
Even to Mrs. Ballinger, Osric Dane’s question was unsettling, and there
was a general sense of gratitude when Laura Glyde leaned forward to say,
with her most sympathetic accent: “You must excuse us, Mrs. Dane, for
not being able, just at present, to talk of anything but ‘The Wings of
Death.”’
“Yes,” said Miss Van Vluyck, with a sudden resolve to carry the war into
the enemy’s camp. “We are so anxious to know the exact purpose you had
in mind in writing your wonderful book.”
“You will find,” Mrs. Plinth interposed, “that we are not superficial
readers.”
“We are eager to hear from you,” Miss Van Vluyck continued, “if
the pessimistic tendency of the book is an expression of your own
convictions or--”
“Or merely,” Miss Glyde thrust in, “a sombre background brushed in
to throw your figures into more vivid relief. _Are_ you not primarily
plastic?”
“I have always maintained,” Mrs. Ballinger interposed, “that you
represent the purely objective method--”
Osric Dane helped herself critically to coffee. “How do you define
objective?” she then enquired.
There was a flurried pause before Laura Glyde intensely murmured: “In
reading _you_ we don’t define, we feel.”
Otsric Dane smiled. “The cerebellum,” she remarked, “is not infrequently
the seat of the literary emotions.” And she took a second lump of sugar.
The sting that this remark was vaguely felt to conceal was almost
neutralised by the satisfaction of being addressed in such technical
language.
“Ah, the cerebellum,” said Miss Van Vluyck complacently. “The club took
a course in psychology last winter.”
“Which psychology?” asked Osric Dane.
There was an agonising pause, during which each member of the club
secretly deplored the distressing inefficiency of the others. Only Mrs.
Roby went on placidly sipping her chartreuse. At last Mrs. Ballinger
said, with an attempt at a high tone: “Well, really, you know, it was
last year that we took psychology, and this winter we have been so
absorbed in--”
She broke off, nervously trying to recall some of the club’s
discussions; but her faculties seemed to be paralysed by the petrifying
stare of Osric Dane. What _had_ the club been absorbed in? Mrs.
Ballinger, with a vague purpose of gaining time, repeated slowly: “We’ve
been so intensely absorbed in--”
Mrs. Roby put down her liqueur glass and drew near the group with a
smile.
“In Xingu?” she gently prompted.
A thrill ran through the other members. They exchanged confused
glances, and then, with one accord, turned a gaze of mingled relief
and interrogation on their rescuer. The expression of each denoted
a different phase of the same emotion. Mrs. Plinth was the first to
compose her features to an air of reassurance: after a moment’s hasty
adjustment her look almost implied that it was she who had given the
word to Mrs. Ballinger.
“Xingu, of course!” exclaimed the latter with her accustomed promptness,
while Miss Van Vluyck and Laura Glyde seemed to be plumbing the depths
of memory, and Mrs. Leveret, feeling apprehensively for Appropriate
Allusions, was somehow reassured by the uncomfortable pressure of its
bulk against her person.
Osric Dane’s change of countenance was no less striking than that of
her entertainers. She too put down her coffee-cup, but with a look of
distinct annoyance; she too wore, for a brief moment, what Mrs. Roby
afterward described as the look of feeling for something in the back
of her head; and before she could dissemble these momentary signs of
weakness, Mrs. Roby, turning to her with a deferential smile, had said:
“And we’ve been so hoping that to-day you would tell us just what you
think of it.”
Osric Dane received the homage of the smile as a matter of course; but
the accompanying question obviously embarrassed her, and it became clear
to her observers that she was not quick at shifting her facial scenery.
It was as though her countenance had so long been set in an expression
of unchallenged superiority that the muscles had stiffened, and refused
to obey her orders.
“Xingu--” she said, as if seeking in her turn to gain time.
Mrs. Roby continued to press her. “Knowing how engrossing the subject
is, you will understand how it happens that the club has let everything
else go to the wall for the moment. Since we took up Xingu I might
almost say--were it not for your books--that nothing else seems to us
worth remembering.”
Osric Dane’s stern features were darkened rather than lit up by an
uneasy smile. “I am glad to hear that you make one exception,” she gave
out between narrowed lips.
“Oh, of course,” Mrs. Roby said prettily; “but as you have shown us
that--so very naturally!--you don’t care to talk of your own things, we
really can’t let you off from telling us exactly what you think about
Xingu; especially,” she added, with a still more persuasive smile, “as
some people say that one of your last books was saturated with it.”
It was an _it_, then--the assurance sped like fire through the parched
minds of the other members. In their eagerness to gain the least
little clue to Xingu they almost forgot the joy of assisting at the
discomfiture of Mrs. Dane.
The latter reddened nervously under her antagonist’s challenge. “May I
ask,” she faltered out, “to which of my books you refer?”
Mrs. Roby did not falter. “That’s just what I want you to tell us;
because, though I was present, I didn’t actually take part.”
“Present at what?” Mrs. Dane took her up; and for an instant the
trembling members of the Lunch Club thought that the champion Providence
had raised up for them had lost a point. But Mrs. Roby explained herself
gaily: “At the discussion, of course. And so we’re dreadfully anxious to
know just how it was that you went into the Xingu.”
There was a portentous pause, a silence so big with incalculable dangers
that the members with one accord checked the words on their lips, like
soldiers dropping their arms to watch a single combat between their
leaders. Then Mrs. Dane gave expression to their inmost dread by saying
sharply: “Ah--you say _the_ Xingu, do you?”
Mrs. Roby smiled undauntedly. “It is a shade pedantic, isn’t it?
Personally, I always drop the article; but I don’t know how the other
members feel about it.”
The other members looked as though they would willingly have dispensed
with this appeal to their opinion, and Mrs. Roby, after a bright glance
about the group, went on: “They probably think, as I do, that nothing
really matters except the thing itself--except Xingu.”
No immediate reply seemed to occur to Mrs. Dane, and Mrs. Ballinger
gathered courage to say: “Surely every one must feel that about Xingu.”
Mrs. Plinth came to her support with a heavy murmur of assent, and Laura
Glyde sighed out emotionally: “I have known cases where it has changed a
whole life.”
“It has done me worlds of good,” Mrs. Leveret interjected, seeming to
herself to remember that she had either taken it or read it the winter
before.
“Of course,” Mrs. Roby admitted, “the difficulty is that one must give
up so much time to it. It’s very long.”
“I can’t imagine,” said Miss Van Vluyck, “grudging the time given to
such a subject.”
“And deep in places,” Mrs. Roby pursued; (so then it was a book!) “And
it isn’t easy to skip.”
“I never skip,” said Mrs. Plinth dogmatically.
“Ah, it’s dangerous to, in Xingu. Even at the start there are places
where one can’t. One must just wade through.”
“I should hardly call it _wading_,” said Mrs. Ballinger sarcastically.
Mrs. Roby sent her a look of interest. “Ah--you always found it went
swimmingly?”
Mrs. Ballinger hesitated. “Of course there are difficult passages,” she
conceded.
“Yes; some are not at all clear--even,” Mrs. Roby added, “if one is
familiar with the original.”
“As I suppose you are?” Osric Dane interposed, suddenly fixing her with
a look of challenge.
Mrs. Roby met it by a deprecating gesture. “Oh, it’s really not
difficult up to a certain point; though some of the branches are very
little known, and it’s almost impossible to get at the source.”
“Have you ever tried?” Mrs. Plinth enquired, still distrustful of Mrs.
Roby’s thoroughness.
Mrs. Roby was silent for a moment; then she replied with lowered lids:
“No--but a friend of mine did; a very brilliant man; and he told me it
was best for women--not to....”
A shudder ran around the room. Mrs. Leveret coughed so that the
parlour-maid, who was handing the cigarettes, should not hear; Miss Van
Vluyck’s face took on a nauseated expression, and Mrs. Plinth looked as
if she were passing some one she did not care to bow to. But the most
remarkable result of Mrs. Roby’s words was the effect they produced on
the Lunch Club’s distinguished guest. Osric Dane’s impassive features
suddenly softened to an expression of the warmest human sympathy, and
edging her chair toward Mrs. Roby’s she asked: “Did he really? And--did
you find he was right?”
Mrs. Ballinger, in whom annoyance at Mrs. Roby’s unwonted assumption
of prominence was beginning to displace gratitude for the aid she had
rendered, could not consent to her being allowed, by such dubious means,
to monopolise the attention of their guest. If Osric Dane had not enough
self-respect to resent Mrs. Roby’s flippancy, at least the Lunch Club
would do so in the person of its President.
Mrs. Ballinger laid her hand on Mrs. Roby’s arm. “We must not forget,”
she said with a frigid amiability, “that absorbing as Xingu is to _us_,
it may be less interesting to--”
“Oh, no, on the contrary, I assure you,” Osric Dane intervened.
“--to others,” Mrs. Ballinger finished firmly; “and we must not allow
our little meeting to end without persuading Mrs. Dane to say a few
words to us on a subject which, to-day, is much more present in all our
thoughts. I refer, of course, to ‘The Wings of Death.’”
The other members, animated by various degrees of the same sentiment,
and encouraged by the humanised mien of their redoubtable guest,
repeated after Mrs. Ballinger: “Oh, yes, you really _must_ talk to us a
little about your book.”
Osric Dane’s expression became as bored, though not as haughty, as when
her work had been previously mentioned. But before she could respond
to Mrs. Ballinger’s request, Mrs. Roby had risen from her seat, and was
pulling down her veil over her frivolous nose.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, advancing toward her hostess with outstretched
hand, “but before Mrs. Dane begins I think I’d better run away.
Unluckily, as you know, I haven’t read her books, so I should be at a
terrible disadvantage among you all, and besides, I’ve an engagement to
play bridge.”
If Mrs. Roby had simply pleaded her ignorance of Osric Dane’s works as
a reason for withdrawing, the Lunch Club, in view of her recent prowess,
might have approved such evidence of discretion; but to couple this
excuse with the brazen announcement that she was foregoing the privilege
for the purpose of joining a bridge-party was only one more instance of
her deplorable lack of discrimination.
The ladies were disposed, however, to feel that her departure--now
that she had performed the sole service she was ever likely to render
them--would probably make for greater order and dignity in the impending
discussion, besides relieving them of the sense of self-distrust which
her presence always mysteriously produced. Mrs. Ballinger therefore
restricted herself to a formal murmur of regret, and the other members
were just grouping themselves comfortably about Osric Dane when the
latter, to their dismay, started up from the sofa on which she had been
seated.
“Oh wait--do wait, and I’ll go with you!” she called out to Mrs. Roby;
and, seizing the hands of the disconcerted members, she administered
a series of farewell pressures with the mechanical haste of a
railway-conductor punching tickets.
“I’m so sorry--I’d quite forgotten--” she flung back at them from the
threshold; and as she joined Mrs. Roby, who had turned in surprise at
her appeal, the other ladies had the mortification of hearing her say,
in a voice which she did not take the pains to lower: “If you’ll let
me walk a little way with you, I should so like to ask you a few more
questions about Xingu....”
III
The incident had been so rapid that the door closed on the departing
pair before the other members had time to understand what was
happening. Then a sense of the indignity put upon them by Osric Dane’s
unceremonious desertion began to contend with the confused feeling that
they had been cheated out of their due without exactly knowing how or
why.
There was a silence, during which Mrs. Ballinger, with a perfunctory
hand, rearranged the skilfully grouped literature at which her
distinguished guest had not so much as glanced; then Miss Van Vluyck
tartly pronounced: “Well, I can’t say that I consider Osric Dane’s
departure a great loss.”
This confession crystallised the resentment of the other members, and
Mrs. Leveret exclaimed: “I do believe she came on purpose to be nasty!”
It was Mrs. Plinth’s private opinion that Osric Dane’s attitude toward
the Lunch Club might have been very different had it welcomed her in the
majestic setting of the Plinth drawing-rooms; but not liking to reflect
on the inadequacy of Mrs. Ballinger’s establishment she sought a
roundabout satisfaction in depreciating her lack of foresight.
“I said from the first that we ought to have had a subject ready. It’s
what always happens when you’re unprepared. Now if we’d only got up
Xingu--”
The slowness of Mrs. Plinth’s mental processes was always allowed for
by the club; but this instance of it was too much for Mrs. Ballinger’s
equanimity.
“Xingu!” she scoffed. “Why, it was the fact of our knowing so much more
about it than she did--unprepared though we were--that made Osric Dane
so furious. I should have thought that was plain enough to everybody!”
This retort impressed even Mrs. Plinth, and Laura Glyde, moved by an
impulse of generosity, said: “Yes, we really ought to be grateful
to Mrs. Roby for introducing the topic. It may have made Osric Dane
furious, but at least it made her civil.”
“I am glad we were able to show her,” added Miss Van Vluyck, “that a
broad and up-to-date culture is not confined to the great intellectual
centres.”
This increased the satisfaction of the other members, and they began
to forget their wrath against Osric Dane in the pleasure of having
contributed to her discomfiture.
Miss Van Vluyck thoughtfully rubbed her spectacles. “What surprised me
most,” she continued, “was that Fanny Roby should be so up on Xingu.”
This remark threw a slight chill on the company, but Mrs. Ballinger
said with an air of indulgent irony: “Mrs. Roby always has the knack of
making a little go a long way; still, we certainly owe her a debt for
happening to remember that she’d heard of Xingu.” And this was felt by
the other members to be a graceful way of cancelling once for all the
club’s obligation to Mrs. Roby.
Even Mrs. Leveret took courage to speed a timid shaft of irony. “I fancy
Osric Dane hardly expected to take a lesson in Xingu at Hillbridge!”
Mrs. Ballinger smiled. “When she asked me what we represented--do you
remember?--I wish I’d simply said we represented Xingu!”
All the ladies laughed appreciatively at this sally, except Mrs. Plinth,
who said, after a moment’s deliberation: “I’m not sure it would have
been wise to do so.”
Mrs. Ballinger, who was already beginning to feel as if she had
launched at Osric Dane the retort which had just occurred to her, turned
ironically on Mrs. Plinth. “May I ask why?” she enquired.
Mrs. Plinth looked grave. “Surely,” she said, “I understood from Mrs.
Roby herself that the subject was one it was as well not to go into too
deeply?”
Miss Van Vluyck rejoined with precision: “I think that applied only to
an investigation of the origin of the--of the--“; and suddenly she found
that her usually accurate memory had failed her. “It’s a part of the
subject I never studied myself/,” she concluded.
“Nor I,” said Mrs. Ballinger.
Laura Glyde bent toward them with widened eyes. “And yet it
seems--doesn’t it?--the part that is fullest of an esoteric
fascination?”
“I don’t know on what you base that,” said Miss Van Vluyck
argumentatively.
“Well, didn’t you notice how intensely interested Osric Dane became as
soon as she heard what the brilliant foreigner--he _was_ a foreigner,
wasn’t he?--had told Mrs. Roby about the origin--the origin of the
rite--or whatever you call it?”
Mrs. Plinth looked disapproving, and Mrs. Ballinger visibly wavered.
Then she said: “It may not be desirable to touch on the--on that part
of the subject in general conversation; but, from the importance it
evidently has to a woman of Osric Dane’s distinction, I feel as if
we ought not to be afraid to discuss it among ourselves--without
gloves--though with closed doors, if necessary.”
“I’m quite of your opinion,” Miss Van Vluyck came briskly to her
support; “on condition, that is, that all grossness of language is
avoided.”
“Oh, I’m sure we shall understand without that,” Mrs. Leveret tittered;
and Laura Glyde added significantly: “I fancy we can read between the
lines,” while Mrs. Ballinger rose to assure herself that the doors
were really closed.
Mrs. Plinth had not yet given her adhesion. “I hardly see,” she
began, “what benefit is to be derived from investigating such peculiar
customs--”
But Mrs. Ballinger’s patience had reached the extreme limit of tension.
“This at least,” she returned; “that we shall not be placed again in the
humiliating position of finding ourselves less up on our own subjects
than Fanny Roby!”
Even to Mrs. Plinth this argument was conclusive. She peered furtively
about the room and lowered her commanding tones to ask: “Have you got a
copy?”
“A--a copy?” stammered Mrs. Ballinger. She was aware that the other
members were looking at her expectantly, and that this answer was
inadequate, so she supported it by asking another question. “A copy of
what?”
Her companions bent their expectant gaze on Mrs. Plinth, who, in turn,
appeared less sure of herself than usual. “Why, of--of--the book,” she
explained.
“What book?” snapped Miss Van Vluyck, almost as sharply as Osric Dane.
Mrs. Ballinger looked at Laura Glyde, whose eyes were interrogatively
fixed on Mrs. Leveret. The fact of being deferred to was so new to
the latter that it filled her with an insane temerity. “Why, Xingu, of
course!” she exclaimed.
A profound silence followed this challenge to the resources of Mrs.
Ballinger’s library, and the latter, after glancing nervously toward the
Books of the Day, returned with dignity: “It’s not a thing one cares to
leave about.”
“I should think not!” exclaimed Mrs. Plinth.
“It _is_ a book, then?” said Miss Van Vluyck.
This again threw the company into disarray, and Mrs. Ballinger, with an
impatient sigh, rejoined: “Why--there _is_ a book--naturally....”
“Then why did Miss Glyde call it a religion?”
Laura Glyde started up. “A religion? I never--”
“Yes, you did,” Miss Van Vluyck insisted; “you spoke of rites; and Mrs.
Plinth said it was a custom.”
Miss Glyde was evidently making a desperate effort to recall her
statement; but accuracy of detail was not her strongest point. At length
she began in a deep murmur: “Surely they used to do something of the
kind at the Eleusinian mysteries--”
“Oh--” said Miss Van Vluyck, on the verge of disapproval; and Mrs.
Plinth protested: “I understood there was to be no indelicacy!”
Mrs. Ballinger could not control her irritation. “Really, it is too
bad that we should not be able to talk the matter over quietly among
ourselves. Personally, I think that if one goes into Xingu at all--”
“Oh, so do I!” cried Miss Glyde.
“And I don’t see how one can avoid doing so, if one wishes to keep up
with the Thought of the Day--”
Mrs. Leveret uttered an exclamation of relief. “There--that’s it!” she
interposed.
“What’s it?” the President took her up.
“Why--it’s a--a Thought: I mean a philosophy.”
This seemed to bring a certain relief to Mrs. Ballinger and Laura Glyde,
but Miss Van Vluyck said: “Excuse me if I tell you that you’re all
mistaken. Xingu happens to be a language.”
“A language!” the Lunch Club cried.
“Certainly. Don’t you remember Fanny Roby’s saying that there were
several branches, and that some were hard to trace? What could that
apply to but dialects?”
Mrs. Ballinger could no longer restrain a contemptuous laugh. “Really,
if the Lunch Club has reached such a pass that it has to go to Fanny
Roby for instruction on a subject like Xingu, it had almost better cease
to exist!”
“It’s really her fault for not being clearer,” Laura Glyde put in.
“Oh, clearness and Fanny Roby!” Mrs. Ballinger shrugged. “I daresay we
shall find she was mistaken on almost every point.”
“Why not look it up?” said Mrs. Plinth.
As a rule this recurrent suggestion of Mrs. Plinth’s was ignored in the
heat of discussion, and only resorted to afterward in the privacy of
each member’s home. But on the present occasion the desire to ascribe
their own confusion of thought to the vague and contradictory nature of
Mrs. Roby’s statements caused the members of the Lunch Club to utter a
collective demand for a book of reference.
At this point the production of her treasured volume gave Mrs. Leveret,
for a moment, the unusual experience of occupying the centre front; but
she was not able to hold it long, for Appropriate Allusions contained no
mention of Xingu.
“Oh, that’s not the kind of thing we want!” exclaimed Miss Van Vluyck.
She cast a disparaging glance over Mrs. Ballinger’s assortment of
literature, and added impatiently: “Haven’t you any useful books?”
“Of course I have,” replied Mrs. Ballinger indignantly; “I keep them in
my husband’s dressing-room.”
From this region, after some difficulty and delay, the parlour-maid
produced the W-Z volume of an Encyclopaedia and, in deference to the
fact that the demand for it had come from Miss Van Vluyck, laid the
ponderous tome before her.
There was a moment of painful suspense while Miss Van Vluyck rubbed her
spectacles, adjusted them, and turned to Z; and a murmur of surprise
when she said: “It isn’t here.”
“I suppose,” said Mrs. Plinth, “it’s not fit to be put in a book of
reference.”
“Oh, nonsense!” exclaimed Mrs. Ballinger. “Try X.”
Miss Van Vluyck turned back through the volume, peering short-sightedly
up and down the pages, till she came to a stop and remained motionless,
like a dog on a point.
“Well, have you found it?” Mrs. Ballinger enquired after a considerable
delay.
“Yes. I’ve found it,” said Miss Van Vluyck in a queer voice.
Mrs. Plinth hastily interposed: “I beg you won’t read it aloud if
there’s anything offensive.”
Miss Van Vluyck, without answering, continued her silent scrutiny.
“Well, what _is_ it?” exclaimed Laura Glyde excitedly.
“_Do_ tell us!” urged Mrs. Leveret, feeling that she would have
something awful to tell her sister.
Miss Van Vluyck pushed the volume aside and turned slowly toward the
expectant group.
“It’s a river.”
“A _river?_”
“Yes: in Brazil. Isn’t that where she’s been living?”
“Who? Fanny Roby? Oh, but you must be mistaken. You’ve been reading the
wrong thing,” Mrs. Ballinger exclaimed, leaning over her to seize the
volume.
“It’s the only Xingu in the Encyclopaedia; and she _has_ been living in
Brazil,” Miss Van Vluyck persisted.
“Yes: her brother has a consulship there,” Mrs. Leveret interposed.
“But it’s too ridiculous! I--we--why we _all_ remember studying Xingu
last year--or the year before last,” Mrs. Ballinger stammered.
“I thought I did when _you_ said so,” Laura Glyde avowed.
“I said so?” cried Mrs. Ballinger.
“Yes. You said it had crowded everything else out of your mind.”
“Well _you_ said it had changed your whole life!”
“For that matter. Miss Van Vluyck said she had never grudged the time
she’d given it.”
Mrs. Plinth interposed: “I made it clear that I knew nothing whatever of
the original.”
Mrs. Ballinger broke off the dispute with a groan. “Oh, what does it
all matter if she’s been making fools of us? I believe Miss Van Vluyck’s
right--she was talking of the river all the while!”
“How could she? It’s too preposterous,” Miss Glyde exclaimed.
“Listen.” Miss Van Vluyck had repossessed herself of the Encyclopaedia,
and restored her spectacles to a nose reddened by excitement. “‘The
Xingu, one of the principal rivers of Brazil, rises on the plateau of
Mato Grosso, and flows in a northerly direction for a length of no less
than one thousand one hundred and eighteen miles, entering the Amazon
near the mouth of the latter river. The upper course of the Xingu is
auriferous and fed by numerous branches. Its source was first discovered
in 1884 by the German explorer von den Steinen, after a difficult and
dangerous expedition through a region inhabited by tribes still in the
Stone Age of culture.’”
The ladies received this communication in a state of stupefied silence
from which Mrs. Leveret was the first to rally. “She certainly _did_
speak of its having branches.”
The word seemed to snap the last thread of their incredulity. “And of
its great length,” gasped Mrs. Ballinger.
“She said it was awfully deep, and you couldn’t skip--you just had to
wade through,” Miss Glyde added.
The idea worked its way more slowly through Mrs. Plinth’s compact
resistances. “How could there be anything improper about a river?” she
enquired.
“Improper?”
“Why, what she said about the source--that it was corrupt?”
“Not corrupt, but hard to get at,” Laura Glyde corrected. “Some
one who’d been there had told her so. I daresay it was the explorer
himself--doesn’t it say the expedition was dangerous?”
“‘Difficult and dangerous,’” read Miss Van Vluyck.
Mrs. Ballinger pressed her hands to her throbbing temples. “There’s
nothing she said that wouldn’t apply to a river--to this river!” She
swung about excitedly to the other members. “Why, do you remember her
telling us that she hadn’t read ‘The Supreme Instant’ because she’d
taken it on a boating party while she was staying with her brother,
and some one had ‘shied’ it overboard--‘shied’ of course was her own
expression.”
The ladies breathlessly signified that the expression had not escaped
them.
“Well--and then didn’t she tell Osric Dane that one of her books was
simply saturated with Xingu? Of course it was, if one of Mrs. Roby’s
rowdy friends had thrown it into the river!”
This surprising reconstruction of the scene in which they had just
participated left the members of the Lunch Club inarticulate. At length,
Mrs. Plinth, after visibly labouring with the problem, said in a heavy
tone: “Osric Dane was taken in too.”
Mrs. Leveret took courage at this. “Perhaps that’s what Mrs. Roby did
it for. She said Osric Dane was a brute, and she may have wanted to give
her a lesson.”
Miss Van Vluyck frowned. “It was hardly worth while to do it at our
expense.”
“At least,” said Miss Glyde with a touch of bitterness, “she succeeded
in interesting her, which was more than we did.”
“What chance had we?” rejoined Mrs. Ballinger.
“Mrs. Roby monopolised her from the first. And _that_, I’ve no doubt,
was her purpose--to give Osric Dane a false impression of her own
standing in the club. She would hesitate at nothing to attract
attention: we all know how she took in poor Professor Foreland.”
“She actually makes him give bridge-teas every Thursday,” Mrs. Leveret
piped up.
Laura Glyde struck her hands together. “Why, this is Thursday, and it’s
_there_ she’s gone, of course; and taken Osric with her!”
“And they’re shrieking over us at this moment,” said Mrs. Ballinger
between her teeth.
This possibility seemed too preposterous to be admitted. “She would
hardly dare,” said Miss Van Vluyck, “confess the imposture to Osric
Dane.”
“I’m not so sure: I thought I saw her make a sign as she left. If she
hadn’t made a sign, why should Osric Dane have rushed out after her?”
“Well, you know, we’d all been telling her how wonderful Xingu was, and
she said she wanted to find out more about it,” Mrs. Leveret said, with
a tardy impulse of justice to the absent.
This reminder, far from mitigating the wrath of the other members, gave
it a stronger impetus.
“Yes--and that’s exactly what they’re both laughing over now,” said
Laura Glyde ironically.
Mrs. Plinth stood up and gathered her expensive furs about her
monumental form. “I have no wish to criticise,” she said; “but unless
the Lunch Club can protect its members against the recurrence of
such--such unbecoming scenes, I for one--”
“Oh, so do I!” agreed Miss Glyde, rising also.
Miss Van Vluyck closed the Encyclopaedia and proceeded to button herself
into her jacket “My time is really too valuable--” she began.
“I fancy we are all of one mind,” said Mrs. Ballinger, looking
searchingly at Mrs. Leveret, who looked at the others.
“I always deprecate anything like a scandal--” Mrs. Plinth continued.
“She has been the cause of one to-day!” exclaimed Miss Glyde.
Mrs. Leveret moaned: “I don’t see how she _could!_” and Miss Van Vluyck
said, picking up her note-book: “Some women stop at nothing.”
“--but if,” Mrs. Plinth took up her argument impressively, “anything
of the kind had happened in _my_ house” (it never would have, her tone
implied), “I should have felt that I owed it to myself either to ask for
Mrs. Roby’s resignation--or to offer mine.”
“Oh, Mrs. Plinth--” gasped the Lunch Club.
“Fortunately for me,” Mrs. Plinth continued with an awful magnanimity,
“the matter was taken out of my hands by our President’s decision that
the right to entertain distinguished guests was a privilege vested in
her office; and I think the other members will agree that, as she was
alone in this opinion, she ought to be alone in deciding on the best way
of effacing its--its really deplorable consequences.”
A deep silence followed this outbreak of Mrs. Plinth’s long-stored
resentment.
“I don’t see why I should be expected to ask her to resign--” Mrs.
Ballinger at length began; but Laura Glyde turned back to remind her:
“You know she made you say that you’d got on swimmingly in Xingu.”
An ill-timed giggle escaped from Mrs. Leveret, and Mrs. Ballinger
energetically continued “--but you needn’t think for a moment that I’m
afraid to!”
The door of the drawing-room closed on the retreating backs of the
Lunch Club, and the President of that distinguished association, seating
herself at her writing-table, and pushing away a copy of “The Wings of
Death” to make room for her elbow, drew forth a sheet of the club’s
note-paper, on which she began to write: “My dear Mrs. Roby--”
