Constance Fenimore Woolson

by Constance Fenimore Woolson

  She was gazing at the purple slopes of Monte Morello opposite. “It might,” she answered.

  He turned; her profile was towards him, he could not see her eyes.

  “I shall be quite frank,” he continued; “under the circumstances it is my only way. You have loved some one else. I have loved some one else. We have both been unhappy. We should therefore, I think, have a peculiar sympathy for and comprehension of each other. It has seemed to me that these, combined with my real liking for you, might be a sufficient foundation for—let us call it another experiment. I ask you to make this experiment, Margaret; I ask you to marry me. If it fails—if you are not happy—I promise not to hold you in the slightest degree. You shall have your liberty untrammelled, and, at the same time, all shall be arranged so as to escape comment. I will be with you enough to save appearances; that is all. In reality you shall be entirely free. I think you can trust my word.”

  “I shall have but little from my aunt,” was her answer, her eyes still fixed upon the mountain. “I am not her heiress, as you suppose.”

  “You mean that to be severe; but it falls harmless. It is true that I did suppose you were her heiress; but the fact that you are not makes no difference in my request. We shall not be rich, but we can live; it shall be my pleasure to make you comfortable.”

  “I do not quite see why you ask this,” she said, with the same slow utterance and her eyes turned away. “You do not love me; I am not beautiful; I have no fortune. What, then, do you gain?”

  “I gain,” he said—“I gain—” Then he paused. “You would not like me to tell you,” he added; and his voice was changed.

  “I beg you to tell me.” Her lips were slightly compressed, a tremor had seized her; she seemed to be exerting all her powers of self-control.

  He watched her a moment, and then, leaning towards her while a new and beautiful expression of tenderness stole into his eyes, “I gain, Margaret,” he said, “the greatest gift that can be given to a man on this earth, a gift I long for—a wife who really and deeply loves me.”

  The hot color flooded her face and throat; she rose, turning upon him her blazing eyes. “I was but waiting for this,” she said, her words rushing forth, one upon the other, with the unheeding rapidity of passion. “I felt sure that it would come. With the deeply-rooted egotism of a man you believe that I love you; you have believed it from the beginning. It was because I knew this that I allowed this experiment of yours to go on. I resisted the temptation at first, but it was too strong for me; you yourself made it so. It was a chance to make you conscious of your supreme error; a chance to have my revenge. And I yielded. You said, not long ago, that I was even. I answered that one was even when one was— You said ‘indifferent,’ and I did not contradict you. But the real sentence was that one was even when one was pursuing a purpose. I have pursued a purpose. This was mine: to make you put into words your egregious vanity, to make you stand convicted of your dense and vast mistake. But towards the end a better impulse rose, and the game did not seem worth the candle. I said to myself that I would go away without giving you, after all, the chance to stultify yourself, the chance to exhibit clearly your insufferable and amazing conceit. But you insisted, and the impulse vanished; I allowed you to go on to the end. I love you! You!”

  He had risen also; they stood side by side under the statue of Diana; some people had come into the amphitheatre below. He had turned slightly pale as she uttered these bitter words, but he remained quite silent. He still held his hat in his hand; his eyes were turned away.

  “Have you nothing to say?” she asked, after some moments had passed.

  “I think there is nothing,” he answered, without turning.

  Then again there was a silence.

  “You probably wish to go,” he said, breaking it; “do not let me detain you.” And he began to go down the steps, pausing, however, as the descent was somewhat awkward, to give her his hand.

  To the little Italian party below, looking at the Egyptian obelisk, he seemed the picture of chivalry, as, with bared head, he assisted her down; and as they passed the obelisk, these children of the country looked upon them as two of the rich Americans, the lady dressed like a picture, the gentleman distinguished, but both without a gesture or an interest, and coldly silent and pale.

  He did not accompany her home. “Shall I go with you?” he said, breaking the silence as they reached the exit.

  “No, thanks. Please call a carriage.”

  He signalled to a driver who was near, and assisted her into one of the little rattling Florence phaetons.

  “Good-bye,” she said, when she was seated.

  He lifted his hat. “Lung’ Arno Nuovo,” he said to the driver.

  And the carriage rolled away.

  Countries attract us in different ways. We are comfortable in England, musical in Germany, amused in Paris (Paris is a country), and idyllic in Switzerland; but when it comes to the affection, Italy holds the heart—we keep going back to her. Miss Harrison, sitting in her carriage on the heights of Bellosguardo, was thinking this as she gazed down upon Florence and the valley below. It was early in the next autumn—the last of September; and she was alone.

  A phaeton passed her and turned down the hill; but she had recognized its occupant as he passed, and called his name—“Mr. Morgan!”

  He turned, saw her, bowed, and, after a moment’s hesitation, ordered his driver to stop, sprang out, and came back to speak to her.

  “How in the world do you happen to be in Florence at this time of year?” she said, cordially, giving him her hand. “There isn’t a soul in the place.”

  “That is the reason I came.”

  “And the reason we did, too,” she said, laughing. “I am delighted to have met you; one soul is very acceptable. You must come and see me immediately. I hope you are going to stay.”

  “Thanks; you are very kind. But I leave to-morrow morning.”

  “Then you must come to-night; come to dinner at seven. It is impossible you should have another engagement when there is no one to be engaged to—unless it be the pictures; I believe they do not go away for the summer.”

  “I really have an engagement, Miss Harrison; you are very kind, but I am forced to decline.”

  “Dismiss your carriage, then, and drive back with me; I will set you down at your hotel. It will be a visit of some sort.”

  He obeyed. Miss Harrison’s fine horses started, and moved with slow stateliness down the winding road, where the beggars had not yet begun to congregate; it was not “the season” for beggars; they were still at the sea-shore.

  Miss Harrison talked on various subjects. They had been in Switzerland, and it had rained continuously; they had seen nothing but fog. They had come over the St. Gothard, and their carriage had broken down. They had been in Venice, and had found malaria there. They had been in Padua, Verona, and Bologna, and all three had become frightfully modern and iconoclastic. Nothing was in the least satisfactory, and Margaret had not been well; she was quite anxious about her.

  Mr. Morgan “hoped” that it was nothing serious.

  “I don’t know whether it is or not,” replied Miss Harrison. “Margaret is rather a serious sort of a person, I think.”

  She looked at him as if for confirmation, but he did not pursue the subject. Instead, he asked after her own health.

  “Oh, I am as usual. It is only your real invalids who are always well; they enjoy their poor health, you know. And what have you been doing since I last saw you? I hope nothing out of the way. Let me see—Trieste and Tarascon; you have probably been in—Transylvania?”

  “That would be somewhat out of the way, wouldn’t it? But I have not been there; I have been in various nearer places, engaged rather systematically in amusing myself.”

  “Did you succeed? If you did you are a man of genius. One must have a rare genius, I think, to amus
e one’s self in that way at forty. Of course I mean thirty-five, you know; but forty is a better conversational word—it classifies. And you were amused?”

  “Immensely.”

  “So much so that you have to come to Florence in September to rest after it!”

  “Yes.”

  Miss Harrison talked on. He listened, and made the necessary replies. The carriage entered the city, crossed the Carraja bridge, and turned towards his hotel.

  “Can you not come for half an hour this evening, after your engagement is over?” she said. “I shall be all alone, for Margaret cannot be there before midnight; she went into the country this morning with Madame Ferri—some sort of a fête at a villa, a native Florentine affair. You have not asked much about her, I think, considering how constantly you were with her last spring,” she added, looking at him calmly.

  “I have been remiss; pardon it.”

  “It is only forgetfulness, of course. That is not a fault nowadays; it is a virtue, and, what is more, highly fashionable. But there is one little piece of news I must tell you about my niece: she is going to be married.”

  “That is not little; it is great. Please present to her my sincere good wishes and congratulations.”

  “I am sorry you cannot present them yourself. But at least you can come and see me for a little while this evening—say about ten. The grandson of your grandfather should be very civil to old Ruth Harrison for old times’ sake.” Here the carriage stopped at his door. “Remember, I shall expect you,” she said, as he took leave.

  At about the hour she had named he went to see her; he found her alone, knitting. It was one of her idiosyncrasies to knit stockings “for the poor.” No doubt there were “poor” enough to wear them; but as she made a great many, and as they were always of children’s size and black, her friends sometimes thought, with a kind of amused dismay, of the regiment of little funereal legs running about for which she was responsible.

  He had nothing especial to say; his intention was to remain the shortest time possible; he could see the hands of the clock, and he noted their progress every now and then through the twenty minutes he had set for himself.

  Miss Harrison talked on various subjects, but said nothing more concerning her niece; nor did he, on his side, ask a question. After a while she came to fashions in art. “It is the most curious thing,” she said, “how people obediently follow each other along a particular road, like a flock of sheep, no matter what roads, equally good and possibly better, open to the right and the left. Now there are the wonderfully spirited frescos of Masaccio at the Carmine, frescos which were studied and copied by Raphael himself and Michael Angelo. Yet that church has no vogue; it is not fashionable to go there; Ruskin has not written a maroon-colored pamphlet about it, and Baedeker gives it but a scant quarter-page, while the other churches have three and four. Now it seems to me that—”

  But what it seemed Morgan never knew, because here she paused as the door opened. “Ah, there is Margaret, after all,” she said. “I did not expect her for three hours.”

  Miss Stowe came across the large room, throwing back her white shawl and taking off her little plumed hat as she came. She did not perceive that any one was present save her aunt; the light was not bright, and the visitor sat in the shadow.

  “It was very stupid,” she said. “Do not urge me to go again.” And then she saw him.

  He rose, and bowed. After an instant’s delay she spoke his name, and put out her hand, which he took as formally as she gave it. Miss Harrison was voluble. She was “so pleased” that Margaret had returned earlier than was expected; she was “so pleased” that the visitor happened to be still there. She seemed indeed to be pleased with everything, and talked for them both; in truth, save for replies to her questions, they were quite silent. The visitor remained but a short quarter of an hour, and then took leave, saying good-bye at the same time, since he was to go early in the morning.

  “To Trent?” said Miss Harrison.

  “To Tadmor, I think, this time,” he answered, smiling.

  The next morning opened with a dull gray rain. Morgan was late in rising, missed his train, and was obliged to wait until the afternoon. About eleven he went out, under an umbrella, and, after a while, tired of the constant signals and clattering followings of the hackmen, who could not comprehend why a rich foreigner should walk, he went into the Duomo. The vast church, never light even on a bright day, was now sombre, almost dark, the few little twinkling tapers, like stars, on an altar at the upper end, only serving to make the darkness more visible. He walked down to the closed western entrance, across whose wall outside rises slowly, day by day, the new façade under its straw-work screen. Here he stood still, looking up the dim expanse, with the dusky shadows, like great winged, formless ghosts, hovering over him.

  One of the south doors, the one near the choir, was open, and through it a slender ray of gray daylight came in, and tried to cross the floor. But its courage soon failed in that breadth and gloom, and it died away before it had gone ten feet. A blind beggar sat in a chair at this entrance, his patient face faintly outlined against the ray; there seemed to be no one else in the church save the sacristan, whose form could be dimly seen moving about, renewing the lights burning before the far-off chapels.

  The solitary visitor strolled back and forth in the shadow. After a while he noted a figure entering through the ray. It was that of a woman; it had not the outlines of the usual church beggar; it did not stoop or cringe; it was erect and slender, and stepped lightly; it was coming down towards the western end, where he was pacing to and fro. He stopped and stood still, watching it. It continued to approach—and at last brushed against him. Coming in from the daylight, it could see nothing in the heavy shadow.

  “Excuse me, Miss Stowe,” he said; “I should have spoken. My eyes are accustomed to this light, and I recognized you; but of course you could not see me.”

  She had started back as she touched him; now she moved away still farther.

  “It is grandly solitary here on a rainy day, isn’t it?” he continued. “I used often to come here during a storm. It makes one feel as if already disembodied—as if he were a shade, wandering on the gray, unknown outskirts of another world.”

  She had now recovered herself, and, turning, began to walk back towards the ray at the upper door. He accompanied her. But the Duomo is vast, and cannot be crossed in a minute. He went on talking about the shadows; then stopped.

  “I am glad of this opportunity to give you my good wishes, Miss Stowe,” he said, as they went onward. “I hope you will be quite happy.”

  “I hope the same, certainly,” she answered. “Yet I fail to see any especially new reason for good wishes from you just at present.”

  “Ah, you do not know that I know. But Miss Harrison told me yesterday—told me that you were soon to be married. If you have never forgiven me, in the light of your present happiness I think you should do so now.”

  She had stopped. “My aunt told you?” she said, while he was still speaking. But now, as he paused, she walked on. He could not see her face; although approaching the ray, they were still in the shadow, and her head was turned from him.

  “As to forgiveness, it is I who should ask forgiveness from you,” she said, after some delay, during which there was no sound but their footsteps on the mosaic pavement.

  “Yes, you were very harsh. But I forgave you long ago. I was a dolt, and deserved your sharp words. But I want very much to hear you say that you forgive me.”

  “There is nothing to forgive.”

  “That is gently spoken. It is your marriage present to me, and I feel the better for it.”

  A minute later they had reached the ray and the door. He could see her face now. “How ill you look!” he said, involuntarily. “I noticed it last evening. It is not conventional to say so, but it is at least a real regret. He should take better
care of you.”

  The blind beggar, hearing their footsteps, had put out his hand. “Do not go yet,” said Morgan, giving him a franc. “See how it is raining outside. Walk with me once around the whole interior for the sake of the pleasant part of our Florentine days—for there was a pleasant part; it will be our last walk together.”

  She assented silently, and they turned into the shadow again.

  “I am going to make a confession,” he said, as they passed the choir; “it can make no difference now, and I prefer that you should know it. I did not realize it myself at the time, but I see now—that is, I have discovered since yesterday—that I was in love with you, more or less, from the beginning.”

  She made no answer, and they passed under Michael Angelo’s grand, unfinished statue, and came around on the other side.

  “Of course I was fascinated with Beatrice; in one way I was her slave. Still, when I said to you, ‘Forgive me; I am in love with some one else,’ I really think it was more to see what you would say or do than any feeling of loyalty to her.”

  Again she said nothing. They went down the north aisle.

  “I wish you would tell me,” he said, leaving the subject of himself and turning to her, “that you are fully and really happy in this marriage of yours. I hope you are, with all my heart; but I should like to hear it from your own lips.”

  She made a gesture as if of refusal; but he went on. “Of course I know I have no right; I ask it as a favor.”

  They were now in deep obscurity, almost darkness; but something seemed to tell him that she was suffering.

  “You are not going to do that wretched thing—marry without love?” he said, stopping abruptly. “Do not, Margaret, do not! I know you better than you know yourself, and you will not be able to bear it. Some women can; but you could not. You have too deep feelings—too—”