Читать книгу Dorothy, and Other Italian Stories - Woolson Constance Fenimore - Страница 3

IT was St. Mark's eve again, April 24th, and again there were many visitors at Bellosguardo. Upon this occasion they were assembled at Belmonte, the villa with the old battlemented tower, where Mr. and Mrs. Alan Mackenzie were receiving their Florentine friends for the first time since their marriage; they had been travelling in Sicily and southern Italy through the winter months.

"We shall be going home in 1883, I suppose," Mackenzie had said to the ladies of Villa Dorio; "I shall be obliged to go then; or at least it would be better to go. In the meanwhile, as Dorothy appears to be rather fond of Bellosguardo – don't you think so? – I have had the idea of taking Belmonte for a time. That is, if you yourselves intend to continue here?"

"Oh, we shall continue, we shall continue," Mrs. Tracy had answered, laughing. "For detached American ladies, who haven't yet come to calling themselves old – for the cultivated superfluous and the intelligent remainders – there is nothing like Europe!"

The flat highways down in the Arno Valley, west of Bellosguardo, are deep in dust even as early as April; the villages, consisting for the most part of a shallow line of houses on each side of the road, almost join hands, so that it is not the dust alone that afflicts the pedestrian, but children, dogs, the rinds of fruit and vegetables – all the far-reaching untidiness of a Southern race that lives in the street. The black-eyed women sit in chairs at the edge of the dry gutter, plaiting straw; up to middle-age they are all handsome, with thick hair and soft, dark eyes. On this April afternoon they laughed (waiting with Italian politeness until she had passed) as an Englishwoman trudged by them on her way back to Florence. Her plain dress was short, revealing long shoes white with dust; her unbeautiful face was mottled by the heat; she looked tired enough to lie down and die. But to the straw-plaiting matrons she was simply ridiculous, or else mad; for how otherwise should a foreigner be toiling along their plebeian highway on foot, when she could so easily have a carriage? Felicia was finishing her daily walk of miles – a walk without an object save to tire herself. As she passed the olive-crowned heights of Bellosguardo rising on the right, she lifted her eyes.

"He is there, seeing everybody. All the same people who were there a year ago to-day. And what are they thinking – perhaps saying? 'See this dull, middle-aged man, with that flighty little creature for a wife! She cares nothing for him; she turns him round her finger, and always will.' O fool! fool too noble to see or to doubt; simple, generous nature, never asserting itself, always repressed, that I understood, while all these other people, that girl at the head of them, only laughed at it!"

She hastened on, passed through the city gate, and made her way down the dirty, evil-smelling Borgo San Frediano to San Spirito beyond, where, high up in an old palace, she had a small apartment crowded with artistic trumpery. After climbing the long stairs, and letting herself in with a latch-key, she entered her minute drawing-room, and sank into a chair, her feet, in their dusty shoes, like two blocks of wood on the matting before her. And the plates and the plaques and the pots, the bits of silk and tapestry and embroidery, the old sketches and old busts and old shrines that adorned the walls, looked down upon her with their usual heterogeneous glimmer. This time the glimmer seemed personally sarcastic, seemed inhuman.

While she sat there, the people at Belmonte were beginning to take leave. Rose was to remain (with Miss Jane Wood). As Waddy Brunetti was to remain also, the Misses Sebright looked at Rose with envy. Six of the sisters were now united in a single admiration. For Owen Charrington had gone to Australia before Christmas – it was about the time that Dorothy's engagement had been announced – and he had not returned; admiration could not stretch to the antipodes. Waddy, too, had been absent through January, February, and March; but he was now at home again, so there was some use in going once more to teas and receptions.

"How lovely Mrs. Mackenzie is looking!" said Miss Maria Wood on the way down to Florence.

She had accepted a seat in Mrs. Grimston's carriage, and it was that lady who answered her.

"Yes – fairly; it's her youth more than anything else. Strictly speaking, there are but two kinds of beauty – dimpled youth like that, and the noble outline and bearing that come from distinguished birth."

This was a double shot. For Rose certainly had no dimples, and the birth of distinction pointed of course to the widowed countess. But Julian, who sat facing his mother, had no longer any courage to resist; his poor little eyes, like those of a sick monkey, had shed their two slow tears on Christmas eve, when, at last allowed to retreat to his own (cold) room, he had accepted drearily the tidings of Dorothy's engagement, and had given up his struggle against fate.

Mr. Illingsworth walked down the hill with Mrs. Sebright, her girls following at a little distance, two and two. "Don't I miss one of your charming daughters?" he said, gallantly, as, happening to look back at the turn of a zigzag, he caught sight of the procession coming round the higher bend.

"Dear me! I wish he might miss three or four!" thought the mother. But this was nothing worse on her part than a natural desire to translate three or four of them to richer atmospheres – a Yorkshire country-house, for instance, or a good vicarage; even army life in India would do. Meanwhile she was replying, "Yes – Nora; Nora has been at St. Martin's Orphan House, out in the country, since Christmas. She is greatly interested in the work there; so much so that I have consented to let her remain."

Nora's secret only one person had discovered, and this one was the benevolent stranger, Charlotte Tracy, who had happened to see the expression in the girl's eyes for one instant, when the news of Alan Mackenzie's engagement had come upon her suddenly, and taken her (as it took all Florence) by surprise. The American lady, instantly comprehending, had (while her own face showed nothing) screened Nora skilfully from observation for several minutes. And ever since she had kept her knowledge hidden away very closely in a shaded corner of her heart.

"A true Sister of Charity," Mr. Illingsworth had responded to the mother's reply about the orphan house. But as he said this he was thinking, "And if I had married, as I came so near doing, I, too, might have had at my heels this moment – great heavens! – just such another red-cheeked, affectionate train!"

That evening the ladies who had dined at Belmonte were taking their coffee in the garden; there was no moon, but the splendid stars gave a light of their own as they spangled the dark-blue sky. From the open door of the boudoir at this end of the house, the light, streaming forth, fell upon Dorothy as she sat talking to Rose. After a while the gentlemen joined the ladies; and then Waddy talked to Rose. But while he talked, his eyes followed the hostess, who was now strolling up and down the honeysuckle path with one of her guests. Some one asked Waddy to sing. Nothing loath, he went within, brought out Dorothy's guitar, and sang one of Tosti's serenades. The song and his voice, a melodious tenor, accorded so perfectly with the old Italian garden that there was much applause. And then Waddy, having moved his chair into the shadow of the trees, sent forth after a while from the darkness, unasked, a second song, and this time the words were English:

The lady who had been strolling with Dorothy had stopped to speak to some one, and for the moment the young wife, who had reached the end of the honeysuckle path, was alone. Mackenzie came up quietly and stood beside her as the song went on. When it had ended, she looked up at him.

"Do you like it so much?" she asked, in surprise, as she saw, in the starlight, the expression of his face.

"It's because I have so much more than I ever dreamed of having, Dorothy," he answered, in a low tone, just touching her hair in the shadow. "A year ago – do you remember? That same song, on the terrace? It expressed what I felt; for then I had no hope. But now – "

Here a voice from the group of ladies said, "Mr. Mackenzie will know; ask him." And Mackenzie, returning to the light, was the attentive host again. Waddy, meanwhile, crossed the grass quickly to the honeysuckle path.

He was the last to take leave; when Mackenzie returned, after escorting Mrs. North and Mrs. Tracy to the Villa Dorio, he was still in the garden with Dorothy.

Fifteen minutes later, through the open windows of Mrs. North's chamber there came the sound of steps.

"Waddy," said Charlotte Tracy, peeping through the closed blinds, and recognizing his figure. "He has outstayed everybody."

"You are no longer afraid of him, I trust?" inquired Mrs. North.

"Certainly not," said the older lady with decision. After a moment she added, "She must always amuse herself, I suppose."

"She has the very best of safeguards."

"Now there you go, with your cold-blooded judgments, Laura! Dorothy has as deep feelings as anybody. I don't know where you get your knowledge of her; you are her step-mother, it is true; but I have been with her as constantly as you have for years."

"Quite so. May I ask how well you knew her father?"

"I don't care!" was Charlotte's reply. She left the room with majesty. The majesty lasted through the hall, and into her own chamber, as she reflected, "I have feelings. And Dorothy has feelings. But Laura is a stone!" At this moment she caught a glimpse of herself in the full-length mirror, and majesty collapsed. "Do I look like that? Do I? Stout, short-nosed?" And she sank down on a sofa overwhelmed. But presently a laugh broke through her discomfiture. "The very next crumpled little old man I see, I'll be nice to him! I'll ask who is his favorite poet, and I'll get him to quote – yes, even if it's Byron!" Mrs. Tracy's favorite author was Ibsen.

"You will do it if I wish, won't you, Alan?" said Dorothy the next day.

"Why, if you really wish it – if you think it best – " began Mackenzie.

"She doesn't in the least," interposed Mrs. North. "Don't indulge her so; you will spoil her."

Mackenzie's eyes turned towards his wife.

"Don't look at me to see whether mamma is right," said Dorothy, laughing; "invent an opinion of your own about me – do! But let us have something striking; consider me capable of murder, for instance, not of mere commonplace selfishness. Every woman is capable of murder once; I am perfectly sure of it."

"My dear," said Mackenzie, expostulatingly.

"I don't know whether I could quite do it with my own hands," Dorothy went on, stretching out her palms and looking at them. "But Felicia Philipps could; yes, with her long fingers. Brrrr!" And she rushed to her husband and hid her face on his arm.

She had her way, which was not a murder, but a ball. Soon afterwards there was a summer-night party at Belmonte, with music and dancing; the tower and the garden, illuminated, were visible for miles roundabout, like a fairy-land on the dark hill. Then followed excursions, long drives, and, more frequently, long rides; for Dorothy had taken to riding. Mackenzie accompanied the riding-parties cheerfully. But Dorothy was often far in advance with one of the younger cavaliers.

"I believe I should come back from the dead, Alan, to see you pounding along, always at the very end of the procession, with Miss Jane Wood," said the young wife one day. "I know you don't care much about riding. But why do you always escort Miss Jane? She must weigh one hundred and eighty."

"She is a little timid, I think," answered Mackenzie; "at least, I have fancied so. She only goes to see to Miss Hatherbury."

"As you see to me?"

Mackenzie liked long walks.

"But walking is so dull. And the people who take long walks have such an insufferable air of superiority," commented Dorothy. "Not that you have come to that, Alan; with you it's just simple vanity."

And making the motion of turning up trousers at the bottom, she crossed the garden, holding her riding-whip like a cane, with her shoulders put back, her head run out a little, and a long step with a dip in the middle of it – the whole an amusing caricature of her husband's gait when starting on a long excursion. Mackenzie had taught himself that gait; he had even been a little proud of it. But now he joined irrepressibly in his wife's merriment, as she loped down the broad walk, and then came running back to him with her own light swiftness.

Occasionally, however, she went with him for a stroll. One day late in the afternoon they passed Villa Dorio together. The sun, low in the west, was shining on all the square Tuscan towers that dot the hill-tops in every direction. May was now more than half spent, and the air was like that of July in Northern countries. The ladies of Villa Dorio saw them go by; Dorothy's straw hat was hanging by its ribbons from her arm.

"He hates to have her out without her hat," remarked Mrs. Tracy, leaning forward to watch them for a moment.

"Well, in that dress, she doesn't look more than fourteen," answered Mrs. North.

Mr. and Mrs. Mackenzie went on down the hill. When they came to the first zigzag, they left the main road, and, turning, crossed a grassy little piazza; beyond, clinging to the side of the hill, with a cluster of cypresses before it like tall green candles, is the small church of San Vito, commanding a magnificent sweep of the valley below. As they passed, San Vito's chimes rang the Angelus, swinging far out from the open belfry against the sky with all the abandon of Italian bells, which seem forever joyous – almost intoxicated – even for the dead. San Vito's has a path of its own which follows a narrow shelf overhanging the valley; the two pedestrians turned down this path. As the bells ceased, Dorothy began to sing:

"Go on; go on," said Mackenzie, delightedly. "Oh, I can't sing."

"Dear, I think you could; your voice is so sweet. If you would take lessons – "

"Well, by-and-by. We have lots of time for everything, Alan." When they came to the turn where there is a rustic shrine she paused. "I won't go any farther, I think. But don't stop because I do; you like your walk. Go on, and come back through the olive groves just beyond Belmonte; I will be waiting for you at our wall."

"I don't like to leave you here alone."

"Not under the shrine? What's more, here is the priest."

The priest of San Vito's was coming down the path. He was an old man, with a large, sensible face, and a somewhat portly person dressed in well-brushed black. He aided his steps with a cane. His bearing was serene and dignified. As he passed, Mackenzie saluted him, raising his hat.

"For a Unitarian," said Dorothy, after the worthy man had gone by, "aren't you showing a good deal of courtesy? But you would be courteous to any religion; you would respect the fetish of a South Sea Islander. Do you know, Alan, that you have too many respects? Please go now, so that you can be back the sooner." Mackenzie, who had been leaning against the parapet, turned and began to go down the descent. His wife followed him for a step or two, in order to brush some mortar from his sleeve. "You see it is I that must keep you respectable – in spite of your respects."

How pretty she was! They were alone under the high wall. "My darling," he murmured. And Dorothy, laughing, raised herself on tiptoe to kiss him.

Half an hour later, when he reached the wall near Belmonte, there was no Dorothy. He went within. The signora had gone to Villa Dorio, the servant said. He came out and followed her thither. Yes, Dorothy had been there; but Waddy Brunetti had happened in, and they had strolled down as far as San Vito's.

Mackenzie did not say, "But she has just been to San Vito's." He sat talking with the ladies for twenty minutes or more; then he remarked, offering it as a suggestion for their approval, "I think I will walk on to San Vito's and meet them."

"Yes, do," said Mrs. North. "And make that foolish Dorothy put on her hat."

"It is as warm as midsummer. And the air is perfectly dry, I think; no dew," Mackenzie answered.

"He defends her even when she vexes him," commented Charlotte Tracy, after he had gone.

"He might as well be amiable, seeing that he cannot be interesting," Mrs. North responded.

Dorothy was not at San Vito's. And she had not gone down the zigzags of the carriage-road; he went down to see. He returned to Belmonte. It was now late twilight. But there was still a band of orange light in the west, and, outlined against it, on the top of the tower, were two figures. He recognized them instantly – Dorothy and young Brunetti.

Dorothy waved her hand to him through one of the embrasures. "Send up some one with candles," she called.

"With what?"

"Can-dles; it's too dark now to come down without lights. But don't send immediately; wait fifteen minutes more, so that we can see the moon rise. And, Alan!"

"Yes?"

"Please tell them that Mr. Brunetti will stay and dine with us."