Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Christina Rossetti

by Christina Rossetti

  Her husband? No, not her husband any longer, for she was a widow.

  CHAPTER XVII.

  A WEEK of darkened windows, of condolence-cards and hushed inquiries, of voices and faces saddened, of footsteps treading softly on one landing. A week of many tears and quiet sorrow; of many words, for in some persons grief speaks; and of half-silent sympathy, for in some even sympathy is silent. A week wherein to weigh this world and find it wanting, wherein also to realise the far more exceeding weight of the other. A week begun with the hope whose blossom goes up as dust, and ending with the sure and certain hope of the resurrection.

  In goods and chattels, Mrs. Tyke remained none the poorer for her husband’s death. He had left almost everything to her and absolutely at her disposal well knowing that their old faithful servants were no less dear to her than to himself, and having on his side no poor relations to provide for. ‘His nephew Alan Hartley, and Mr. Tresham, were appointed his executors. Alan the good-natured, addicted to shirking trouble in general, consistently shirked this official trouble in particular. Arthur Tresham did, what little work there was to do, and did it in such a way as veiled his friend’s shortcomings. Mrs. Tyke, with a life-long habit of leaning on some one, came, as a matter of course, to lean on him, and appealed to him as to all sorts of details, without once considering whether the time he devoted to her service was reclaimed out of his work, or leisure, or rest; he best knew, and the knowledge remained with him. Alan, though sincerely sorry for his uncle’s death, cut private jokes with Stella about his co-executor’s frequent visits to Appletrees House, and ignored the shortcomings which entailed their necessity.

  Mrs. Tyke, in her. bereavement, clung to Lucy, and was thoroughly amiable and helpless. She would sit for hours over the fire, talking and crying her eyes and her nose red, whilst Lucy wrote her letters, or grappled with her bills. Then they would both grow sleepy, and doze off in opposite chimney-corners. So the maid might find them when she brought up tea, or so Arthur when he dropped in on business, or possibly on pleasure. Mrs. Tyke would sometimes merely open sleepy eyes, shake hands, and doze off again; but Lucy would sit up wide awake in a moment, ready to listen to all his long stories about his poor people. Soon she took to making things for them, which he carried away in his pocket, or, when too bulky for his pocket, in a parcel under his arm. At last it happened, that they began talking of old days, before he went to the East, and then each found that the other remembered a great deal about those old days. So gradually it came to pass that, from looking back together, they took also to looking forward together.

  Lucy’s courtship was most prosaic. Old.women’s flannel and old men’s rheumatism alternated with some -more usual details of love-making, and the exchange of rings was avowedly an exchange of old rings. Arthur presented Lucy with his mother’s wedding-guard; but Lucy gave him a fine diamond solitaire which had been her father’s, and the romantic corner of her heart was gratified by the inequality of the gifts. She would have preferred a little more romance certainly on his side; if not less sense, at least more sentiment; something reasonable enough to be relied upon, yet unreasonable enough to be flattering. ‘But one cannot have everything,’ she reflected, meekly remembering her own thirty years; and she felt what a deep resting-place she had found in Arthur’s trusty heart, and how shallow a grace had been the flattering charm of Alan’s manner. Till, weighing her second love against her first, tears, at once proud and humble, filled her eyes, and ‘one cannot have everything’ was forgotten in ‘I can never give him back half enough.’

  After the exchange of rings, she announced her engagement to Catherine and Mrs. Tyke; to Jane also and Mr. Durham in few words; and as all business connected with Dr. Tyke’s will was already satisfactorily settled, and Apple-trees House about to pass into fresh hands, she prepared to return home. Mrs. Tyke, too purposeless to be abandoned to her own resources, begged an invitation to Brompton-on-Sea, and received a cordial welcome down from both sisters. Arthur was to remain at work in London till after Easter; and then to join his friends at the seaside, claim his bride, and take her away to spend their honeymoon beside that beautiful blue Bosphorus which had not made him forget her.

  If there was a romantic moment in their courtship, it was the moment of parting at the noisy, dirty, crowded railway-station, when Arthur terrified Lucy, to her great delight, by standing on the carriage-step, and holding her hand locked fast in his own, an instant after the train had started.

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  A SHORT chapter makes fitting close to a short story.

  In mid May, on a morning which set forth the perfection either of sunny spring warmth or of breezy summer freshness, Arthur Tresham and Lucy Charlmont took each other for better for worse, till death should them part. Mr. Gawkins Drum gave away the bride; Miss Drum appeared auspicious as a rainbow; Catherine glowed and expanded with unselfish happiness; Mrs. Gawkins Drum pronounced the bride graceful, elegant, but old-looking; Mr. Durham contributed a costly wedding present, accompanied by a speech both ostentatious and affectionate; Jane displayed herself a little disdainful, a little cross, and supremely handsome; Alan and Stella — there was a young Alan now, a comical little fright, more like mother than father — Alan and Stella seemed to enjoy their friend’s wedding as light-heartedly as they had enjoyed their own. No tears were shed, no stereotyped hypocrisies uttered, no shoes flung; this time a true man and a true woman who loved and honoured each other, and whom no man should put asunder, were joined together; and thus the case did not lend itself to any tribute of lies, miscalled white.

  Four months after their marriage Mr. Tresham was hard at work again in London among his East-end poor; while Lucy, taking a day’s holiday at Brompton-on Sea, sat in the old familiar drawing-room, Catherine’s exclusively now. She had returned from the East blooming vigorous, full of gentle fun and kindly happiness: so happy, that she would not have exchanged her present lot for aught except her own future; so happy, that it saddened her to believe Catherine less happy than herself.

  The two sisters sat at the open window, alike yet unlike: the elder handsome, resolute, composed; the younger with the old wistful expression in her tender beautiful eyes. They had talked of Jane, who, though not dissatisfied with her lot, too obviously despised her husband; once lately, she had written of him as the ‘habitation-tax’ paid for Orpingham Place: of Jane, who was too worldly either to keep right in the spirit, or go wrong in the letter. They had talked, and they had fallen silent; for Catherine, who loved no one on earth as she loved her frivolous sister, could best bear in silence the sting of shame and grief for her sake.

  Full in view of the drawing-room windows spread the sea, beautiful, strong, resistless, murmuring; the sea which had cast a burden on Catherine’s life, and from which she now never meant to absent herself; the sea from which Lucy had fled in the paroxysm of her nervous misery.

  At last Lucy spoke again very earnestly, — ‘Oh, Catherine, I cannot bear to be so happy when I think of you! If only you, too, had a future.’

  Catherine leaned over her happy sister and gave her one kiss, a rare sign with her of affectionate emotion. Then she turned to face the open sky and sea. — ’My dear,’ she answered, whilst her eyes gazed beyond clouds and waves, and rested on one narrow streak of sunlight which glowed at the horizon, — ’My dear, my future seems further off than yours; but I certainly have a future, and I can wait.’

  THE LOST TITIAN.

  ‘A lie with a circumstance.’

  WALTER SCOTT.

  THE last touch was laid on. The great painter stood opposite the masterpiece of the period; the masterpiece of his life.

  Nothing remained to be added. The orange drapery was perfect in its fruit-like intensity of hue; each vine-leaf was curved, each tendril twisted, as if fanned by the soft south wind; the sunshine brooded drowsily upon every dell and swelling upland: but a tenfold drowsiness slept in the cedar shadows. Look a moment, and those cymbals must clash, that panther bound forward; dr
aw nearer, and the songs of those ripe, winy lips must become audible.

  The achievement of his life glowed upon the easel, and Titian was satisfied.

  Beside him, witnesses of his triumph, stood his two friends — Gianni the successful, and Giannuccione the universal disappointment.

  Gianni ranked second in Venice; second in most things, but in nothing first. His colorito paled only before that of his illustrious rival, whose supremacy, however, he ostentatiously asserted. So in other matters. Only the renowned Messer Cecchino was a more sonorous singer; only fire-eating Prince Barbuto a better swordsman; only Arrigo il Biondo a finer dancer or more sculpturesque beauty; even Caterina Suprema, in that contest of gallantry which has been celebrated by so many pens and pencils, though she awarded the rose of honour to Matteo Grande, the wit, yet plucked off a leaf for the all but victor Gianni.

  A step behind him lounged Giannuccione, who had promised everything and fulfilled nothing. At the appearance of his first picture — ‘Venus whipping Cupid with feathers plucked from his own wing’ — Venice rang with his praises, and Titian foreboded a rival: but when, year after year, his works appeared still lazily imperfect, though always all but perfect, Venice subsided into apathetic silence, and Titian felt that no successor to his throne had as yet achieved the purple.

  So these two stood with the great master in the hour of his triumph: Gianni loud, and Giannuccione hearty, in his applauses.

  Only these two stood with him: as yet Venice at large knew not what her favourite had produced. It was, indeed, rumoured, that Titian had long been at work on a painting which he himself accounted his masterpiece, but its subject was a secret; and while some spoke of it as an undoubted Vintage of red grapes, others maintained it to be a Dance of wood-nymphs; while one old gossip whispered that, whatever else the painting might contain, she knew whose sunset-coloured tresses and white brow would figure in the foreground. But the general ignorance mattered little; for, though words might have named the theme, no words could have described a picture which combined the softness of a dove’s breast with the intensity of an October sunset: a picture of which the light almost warmed, and the fruit actually bloomed and tempted.

  Titian gazed upon his work, and was satisfied: Giannuccione gazed upon his friend’s work, and was satisfied: only Gianni gazed upon his friend and upon his work, and was enviously dissatisfied.

  ‘To-morrow,’ said Titian, — ’to-morrow Venice shall behold what she has long honoured by her curiosity. To-morrow, with music and festivity, the unknown shall be unveiled; and you, my friends, shall withdraw the curtain.’

  The two friends assented.

  ‘To-morrow,’ he continued, half amused, half thoughtful, ‘I know whose white brows will be knit, and whose red lips will pout. Well, they shall have their turn: but blue eyes are not always in season; hazel eyes, like hazel nuts, have their season also.’

  ‘True,’ chimed the chorus.

  ‘But to-night,’ he pursued, ‘let us devote the hours to sacred friendship. Let us with songs and bumpers rehearse to-morrow’s festivities, and let your congratulations forestall its triumphs.’

  ‘Yes, evviva!’ returned the chorus, briskly; and again ‘evviva!’

  So, with smiles and embraces, they parted. So they met again at the welcome coming of Argus-eyed night.

  The studio was elegant with clusters of flowers, sumptuousfwith crimson, gold-bordered hangings, and luxurious with cushions and perfumes. From the walls peeped pictured fruit and fruit-like faces, between the curtains and in the corners gleamed moonlight-tinted statues; whilst on the easel reposed the beauty of the evening, overhung by budding boughs, and illuminated by an alabaster lamp burning scented oil. Strewn about the apartment lay musical, instruments and packs of cards. On the table were silver dishes, filled with leaves and choice fruits; wonderful vessels of Venetian glass, containing rare wines and iced waters; and footless goblets, which allowed the guest no choice but to drain his bumper.

  That night the bumpers brimmed. Toast after toast was quaffed to the success of tomorrow, the exaltation of the unveiled beauty, the triumph of its author.

  At last Giannuccione, flushed and sparkling, rose: ‘Let us drink,’ he cried, ‘to our host’s success to-morrow: may it be greater than the past, and less than the future!’

  ‘Not so,’ answered Titian, suddenly; ‘not so: I feel my star culminate.’

  He said it gravely, pushing back his seat, and rising from table. His spirits seemed in a moment to flag, and he looked pale in the moonlight. It was as though the blight of the evil eye had fallen upon him.

  Gianni saw his disquiet, and laboured to remove it. He took a lute from the floor, and tuning it, exerted his skill in music. He wrung from the strings cries of passion, desolate sobs, a wail as of one abandoned, plaintive, most tender tones as of the solitario passero. The charm worked: vague uneasiness was melting into delicious melancholy. He redoubled his efforts; he drew out tinkling notes joyful as the feet of dancers; he struck notes like fire, and, uniting his voice to the instrument, sang the glories of Venice and of Titian. His voice, full, mellow, exultant, vibrated through the room; and, when it ceased, the bravos of his friends rang out an enthusiastic chorus.

  Then, more stirring than the snap of castanets on dexterous fingers; more fascinating, more ominous, than a snake’s rattle, sounded the music of the dice-box.

  The stakes were high, waxing higher, and higher; the tide of fortune set steadily towards Titian. Giannuccione laughed and played, played and laughed with reckless good-nature, doubling and redoubling his bets apparently quite at random. At length, however, he paused, yawned, laid down the dice, observing that it would cost him a good six months’ toil to pay off his losses — a remark which elicited a peculiar smile of intelligence from his companions — and, lounging back upon the cushions, fell fast asleep.

  Gianni also had been a loser: Gianni the imperturbable, who won and.lost alike with steady hand and unvarying colour. Rumour stated that one evening he lost, won back, lost once more, and finally regained his whole property unmoved: at last only relinquishing the game, which fascinated, but could not excite him, for lack of an adversary.

  In like manner he now threw his possessions, as coolly as if they been another’s, piecemeal into the gulph. First his money went, then his collection of choice sketches; his gondola followed, his plate, his jewelry. These gone, for the first time he laughed.

  ‘Come,’ he said, ‘amico mio, let us throw the crowning cast. I stake thereon myself; if you win, you may sell me to the Moor tomorrow, with the remnant of my patrimony; to wit, one house, containing various articles of furniture and apparel; yea, if aught else remains to me, that also do I. stake: against these set you your newborn beauty, and let us throw for the last time; lest it be said cogged dice are used in Venice, and I be taunted with the true proverb, — ” Save me from my friends, and I will take care of my enemies”‘

  ‘So be it,’ mused Titian, ‘even so. If I gain, my friend shall not suffer; if I lose, I can but buy back my treasure with this night’s winnings. His whole fortune will stand Gianni in more stead than my picture; moreover, luck favours me. Besides, it can only be that my friend jests, and would try my confidence.’

  So argued Titian, heated by success, by wine and play. But for these, he would freely have restored his adversary’s fortune, though it had been multiplied tenfold, and again tenfold, rather than have risked his life’s labour on the hazard of the dice.

  They threw.

  Luck had turned, and Gianni was successful.

  Titian, nothing doubting, laughed as he looked up from the table into his companion’s face; but no shadow of jesting lingered there. Their eyes met, and read each other’s heart at a glance.

  One, discerned the gnawing envy of a life satiated: a thousand mortifications, a thousand inferiorities, compensated in a moment.

  The other, read an indignation that even yet scarcely realised the treachery which kindled it; a noble indig
nation, that more upbraided the false friend than the destroyer of a life’s hope.

  It was a nine-days’ wonder in Venice what had become of Titian’s masterpiece; who had spirited it away, — why, when, and where. Some explained the mystery by hinting that Clementina Beneplacida, having gained secret access to the great. master’s studio, had there, by dint of scissors, avenged her slighted beauty, and in effigy defaced her nut-brown rival. Others said that Giannuccione, paying tipsy homage to his friend’s performance, had marred its yet moist surface. Others again averred, that in a moment of impatience, Titian’s own sponge flung against the canvas, had irremediably blurred the principal figure. None knew, none guessed the truth. Wonder fulfilled its little day, and then, subsiding, was forgotten: having, it may be, after all, as truly amused Venice the volatile as any work of art could have done, though it had robbed sunset of its glow, its glory, and its fire.

  But why was the infamy of that night kept secret?

  By Titian, because in blazoning abroad his companion’s treachery, he would subject himself to the pity of those from whom he scarcely accepted homage; and, in branding Gianni as a traitor, he would expose himself as a dupe.

  By Gianni, because had the truth got wind, his iniquitous prize might have been wrested from him, and his malice frustrated in the moment of triumph; not to mention that vengeance had a subtler relish when it kept back a successful rival from the pinnacle of fame, than when it merely exposed a friend to humiliation. As artists, they might possibly have been accounted rivals; as astute men of the world, never.