Read Ebook: Stories By English Authors: Italy (Selected by Scribners) by Norris W E William Edward Contributor Oliphant Laurence Contributor Payn James Contributor Robinson A Mary F Agnes Mary Frances Contributor Trollope Anthony Contributor

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Ebook has 658 lines and 40169 words, and 14 pages

"I tell you it's all gone; more than five thousand pounds, and my watch and chain; I have not half a franc in my possession."

"But how is monsieur to telegraph if he has no money?"

It was probably the first time in his life that the young fellow had ever understood how inconvenient a thing is poverty. What also amazed him beyond measure was the man's manner; yesterday, and all other days, it had been polite to obsequiousness; now it was dry almost to insolence. It seemed, indeed, to imply some doubt of the bona fides of his guest--that he might not, in short, be much better than honest John himself, of whom he was possibly the confederate; that the whole story was a trumped-up one to account for the inability to meet his bill. As to his having won largely at the tables, that might be true enough; but he also might have lost it all, and more with it; money changes hands at Monte Carlo very rapidly.

In the end, however, and not without much objection, the landlord advanced a sufficient sum to enable Richard to telegraph home. He also permitted him to stay on at the hotel, stipulating, however, that he should call for no wine, nor indulge in anything expensive--a humiliating arrangement enough, but not so much so as the terms of another proviso, that he was never to enter the gambling saloon or go beyond the public gardens. Even there he was under surveillance, and it was, in short, quite clear that he was suspected of an intention to run away without paying his bill--perhaps even of joining his "confederate," Mr. John Maitland.

The only thing that comforted Richard was the conviction that he should have a remittance from his father in a few hours; but nothing of the sort, not even a telegram, arrived. Day after day went by, and the young fellow was in despair; he felt like a pariah, for he had been so occupied with the tables that he had made no friends; and his few acquaintances looked askance at him, as being under a cloud, with the precise nature of which they were unacquainted. Friendless and penniless in a foreign land, his spirit was utterly broken, and he began to understand what a fool he had made of himself; especially how ungratefully he had behaved to his father, without whom it was not so easy to "get on," it appeared, as he had imagined. He saw, too, the evil of his conduct in having thrust a temptation in the way of honest John too great to be resisted. The police could hear no news of him, and, indeed, seemed very incredulous with respect to Richard's account of the matter.

On the fourth day Richard received a letter from his father of the gravest kind, though expressed in the most affectionate terms. He hardly alluded to the immediate misfortune that had happened to him, but spoke of the anxiety and alarm which his conduct had caused his mother and himself. "I enclose you a check," he wrote, "just sufficient to comfortably bring you home and pay your hotel bill, and exceedingly regret that I cannot trust my son with more--lest he should risk it in a way that gives his mother and myself more distress of mind than I can express."

Lady Jane sent a telegram to meet Master Richard in Paris, to say what a dear good boy he was, and how happy he had made her. This did not surprise him, but what did astonish him very much on arriving at the Court was that John Maitland opened the door for him.

"Why, you old scoundrel!"

"Yes, sir, I know; I'm a thief and all that, but I did it for the best; I did, indeed."

Richard was not sent abroad again, but to Cambridge, where eventually he took a fourth-class degree; and Lady Jane was as proud of it as if he had been senior wrangler. He kept his word, in spite of all temptations to the contrary, and never touched a card--a circumstance which drove him to take a fair amount of exercise, and, in consequence, he steadily improved in health. He was sometimes chaffed by his companions for his abstinence from play; they should have thought he was the last man to be afraid of losing his money.

"You are right, so far," he would answer, drily; "but the fact is, I have had enough of winning."

To which they would reply:

"Oh yes, we dare say," an elliptical expression, which conveyed disbelief.

He never told them the story of his Monte Carlo experiences; but in the vacations he would often talk to honest John about them. We may be sure that that faithful retainer did not go unrewarded for his fraudulent act.

Not long since, I was one among a crowd of nobodies at a big official reception in Paris when the Marchese and Marchesa di San Silvestro were announced. There was a momentary hush; those about the doorway fell back to let this distinguished couple pass, and some of us stood on tiptoe to get a glimpse of them; for San Silvestro is a man of no small importance in the political and diplomatic world, and his wife enjoys quite a European fame for beauty and amiability, having had opportunities of displaying both these attractive gifts at the several courts where she has acted as Italian ambassadress. They made their way quickly up the long room,--she short, rather sallow, inclined toward embonpoint, but with eyes whose magnificence was rivalled only by that of her diamonds; he bald-headed, fat, gray-haired, covered with orders,--and were soon out of sight. I followed them with a sigh which caused my neighbour to ask me jocosely whether the marchesa was an old flame of mine.

"Far from it," I answered. "Only the sight of her reminded me of bygone days. Dear, dear me! how time does slip on! It is fifteen years since I saw her last."

I moved away, looking down rather ruefully at the waistcoat to whose circumference fifteen years have made no trifling addition, and wondering whether I was really as much altered and aged in appearance as the marchesa was.

Fifteen years--it is no such very long time; and yet I dare say that the persons principally concerned in the incident which I am about to relate have given up thinking about it as completely as I had done, until the sound of that lady's name, and the sight of her big black eyes, recalled it to me, and set me thinking of the sunny spring afternoon on which my sister Anne and I journeyed from Verona to Venice, and of her naive exclamations of delight on finding herself in a real gondola, gliding smoothly down the Grand Canal. My sister Anne is by some years my senior. She is what might be called an old lady now, and she certainly was an old maid then, and had long accepted her position as such. Then, as now, she habitually wore a gray alpaca gown, a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles, gloves a couple of sizes too large for her, and a shapeless, broad-leaved straw hat, from which a blue veil was flung back and streamed out in the breeze behind her, like a ship's ensign. Then, as now, she was the simplest, the most kind-hearted, the most prejudiced of mortals; an enthusiastic admirer of the arts, and given, as her own small contribution thereto, to the production of endless water-colour landscapes, a trifle woolly, indeed, as to outline, and somewhat faulty as to perspective, but warm in colouring, and highly thought of in the family. I believe, in fact, that it was chiefly with a view to the filling of her portfolio that she had persuaded me to take her to Venice; and, as I am constitutionally indolent, I was willing enough to spend a few weeks in the city which, of all cities in the world, is the best adapted for lazy people. We engaged rooms at Danielli's, and unpacked all our clothes, knowing that we were not likely to make another move until the heat should drive us away.

I was sitting there one morning, watching, with half-closed eyes, the pigeons circling overhead under a cloudless sky, and enjoying the fresh salt breeze that came across the ruffled water from the Adriatic, when I was accosted by one of the white-coated Austrian officers by whom Venice was thronged in those days, and whom I presently recognised as a young fellow named Von Rosenau, whom I had known slightly in Vienna the previous winter. I returned his greeting cordially, for I always like to associate as much as possible with foreigners when I am abroad, and little did I foresee into what trouble this fair-haired, innocent-looking youth was destined to lead me.

I asked him how he liked Venice, and he answered laughingly that he was not there from choice. "I am in disgrace," he explained. "I am always in disgrace, only this time it is rather worse than usual. Do you remember my father, the general? No? Perhaps he was not in Vienna when you were there. He is a soldier of the old school, and manages his family as they tell me he used to manage his regiment in former years, boasting that he never allowed a breach of discipline to pass unpunished, and never will. Last year I exceeded my allowance, and the colonel got orders to stop my leave; this year I borrowed from the Jews, the whole thing was found out, and I was removed from the cavalry, and put into a Croat regiment under orders for Venice. Next year will probably see me enrolled in the police; and so it will go on, I suppose, till some fine morning I shall find myself driving a two-horse yellow diligence in the wilds of Carinthia, and blowing a horn to let the villagers know that the imperial and royal mail is approaching."

After a little more conversation we separated, but only to meet again, that same evening, on the Piazza San Marco, whither I had wandered to listen to the band after dinner, and where I found Von Rosenau seated with a number of his brother officers in front of the principal cafe. These gentlemen, to whom I was presently introduced, were unanimous in complaining of their present quarters. Venice, they said, might be all very well for artists and travellers; but viewed as a garrison it was the dullest of places. There were no amusements, there was no sport, and just now no society; for the Italians were in one of their periodical fits of sulks, and would not speak to, or look at, a German if they could possibly avoid it. "They will not even show themselves when our band is playing," said one of the officers, pointing toward the well-nigh empty piazza. "As for the ladies, it is reported that if one of them is seen speaking to an Austrian, she is either assassinated or sent off to spend the rest of her days in a convent. At all events, it is certain that we have none of us any successes to boast of, except Von Rosenau, who has had an affair, they say, only he is pleased to be very mysterious about it."

"Where does she live, Von Rosenau?" asked another. "Is she rich? Is she noble? Has she a husband, who will stab you both? or only a mother, who will send her to a nunnery, and let you go free? You might gratify our curiosity a little. It would do you no harm, and it would give us something to talk about."

"Bah! he will tell you nothing," cried a third. "He is afraid. He knows that there are half a dozen of us who could cut him out in an hour."

"Von Rosenau," said a young ensign, solemnly, "you would do better to make a clean breast of it. Concealment is useless. Janovicz saw you with her in Santa Maria della Salute the other day, and could have followed her home quite easily if he had been so inclined."

"They were seen together on the Lido, too. People who want to keep their secrets ought not to be so imprudent."

"A good comrade ought to have no secrets from the regiment."

"Come, Von Rosenau, we will promise not to speak to her without your permission if you will tell us how you managed to make her acquaintance."

The object of all these attacks received them with the most perfect composure, continuing to smoke his cigar and gaze out seaward, without so much as turning his head toward his questioners, to whom he vouchsafed no reply whatever. Probably, as an ex-hussar and a sprig of nobility, he may have held his head a little above those of his present brother officers, and preferred disregarding their familiarity to resenting it, as he might have done if it had come from men whom he considered on a footing of equality with himself. Such, at least, was my impression; and it was confirmed by the friendly advances which he made toward me, from that day forth, and by the persistence with which he sought my society. I thought he seemed to wish for some companion whose ideas had not been developed exclusively in barrack atmosphere; and I, on my side, was not unwilling to listen to the chatter of a lively, good-natured young fellow, at intervals, during my long idle days.

It was at the end of a week, I think, or thereabouts, that he honoured me with his full confidence. We had been sea-fishing in a small open boat which he had purchased, and which he managed without assistance; that is to say, that we had provided ourselves with what was requisite for the pursuit of that engrossing sport, and that the young count had gone through the form of dropping his line over the side and pulling it up, baitless and fishless, from time to time, while I had dispensed with even this shallow pretence of employment, and had stretched myself out full length upon the cushions which I had thoughtfully brought with me, inhaling the salt-laden breeze, and luxuriating in perfect inaction, till such time as it had become necessary for us to think of returning homeward. My companion had been sighing portentously every now and again all through the afternoon, and had repeatedly given vent to a sound as though he had been about to say something, and had as often checked himself, and fallen back into silence. So that I was in a great measure prepared for the disclosure that fell from him at length as we slipped before the wind across the broad lagoon, toward the haze and blaze of sunset which was glorifying the old city of the doges.

"Do you know," said he, suddenly, "that I am desperately in love?" I said I had conjectured as much; and he seemed a good deal surprised at my powers of divination. "Yes," he resumed, "I am in love; and with an Italian lady too, unfortunately. Her name is Bianca,--the Signorina Bianca Marinelli,--and she is the most divinely beautiful creature the sun ever shone upon."

"That," said I, "is of course."

"It is the truth; and when you have seen her, you will acknowledge that I do not exaggerate. I have known her nearly two months now. I became acquainted with her accidentally--she dropped her handkerchief in a shop, and I took it to her, and so we got to be upon speaking terms, and--and--But I need not give you the whole history. We have discovered that we are all the world to each other; we have sworn to remain faithful to each other all our lives long; and we renew the oath whenever we meet. But that, unhappily, is very seldom! for her father, the Marchese Marinelli, scarcely ever lets her out of his sight; and he is a sour, narrow-minded old fellow, as proud as he is poor, an intense hater of all Austrians; and if he were to discover our attachment, I shudder to think of what the consequences might be."

"And your own father--the stern old general of whom you told me--what would he say to it all?"

"So that, upon the whole, you appear to stand a very fair chance of starvation, if everything turns out according to your wishes. And pray, in what way do you imagine that I can assist you toward this desirable end? For I take it for granted that you have some reason for letting me into your secret."

Von Rosenau laughed good-humouredly.

"You form conclusions quickly," he said. "Well, I will confess to you that I have thought lately that you might be of great service to me without inconveniencing yourself much. The other day, when you did me the honour to introduce me to your sister, I was very nearly telling her all. She has such a kind countenance; and I felt sure that she would not refuse to let my poor Bianca visit her sometimes. The old marchese, you see, would have no objection to leaving his daughter for hours under the care of an English lady; and I thought that perhaps when Miss Jenkinson went out to work at her painting--I might come in."

"Fortunate indeed is it for you," I said, "that your confidence in the kind countenance of my sister Anne did not carry you quite to the point of divulging this precious scheme to her. I, who know her pretty well, can tell you exactly the course she would have pursued if you had. Without one moment's hesitation, she would have found out the address of the young lady's father, hurried off thither, and told him all about it. Anne is a thoroughly good creature; but she has little sympathy with love-making, still less with surreptitious love-making, and she would as soon think of accepting the part you are so good as to assign to her as of forging a check."

He sighed, and said he supposed, then, that they must continue to meet as they had been in the habit of doing, but that it was rather unsatisfactory.

"It says something for your ingenuity that you contrive to meet at all," I remarked.

"Well, yes, there are considerable difficulties, because the old man's movements are so uncertain; and there is some risk too, for, as you heard the other day, we have been seen together. Moreover, I have been obliged to tell everything to my servant Johann, who waylays the marchese's housekeeper at market in the mornings, and finds out from her when and where I can have an opportunity of meeting Bianca. I would rather not have trusted him; but I could think of no other plan."

"At any rate, I should have thought you might have selected some more retired rendezvous than the most frequented church in Venice."

He shrugged his shoulders. "I wish you would suggest one within reach," he said. "There are no retired places in this accursed town. But, in fact, we see each other very seldom. Often for days together the only way in which I can get a glimpse of her is by loitering about in my boat in front of her father's house, and watching till she shows herself at the window. We are in her neighborhood now, and it is close upon the hour at which I can generally calculate upon her appearing. Would you mind my making a short detour that way before I set you down at your hotel?"

We had entered the Grand Canal while Von Rosenau had been relating his love-tale, and some minutes before he had lowered his sail and taken to the oars. He now slewed the boat's head round abruptly, and we shot into a dark and narrow waterway, and so, after sundry twistings and turnings, arrived before a grim, time-worn structure, so hemmed in by the surrounding buildings that it seemed as if no ray of sunshine could ever penetrate within its walls.

"That is the Palazzo Marinelli," said my companion. "The greater part of it is let to different tenants. The family has long been much too poor to inhabit the whole of it, and now the old man only reserves himself four rooms on the third floor. Those are the windows, in the far corner; and there--no!--yes!--there is Bianca."

I brought my eyeglass to bear upon the point indicated just in time to catch sight of a female head, which was thrust out through the open window for an instant, and then withdrawn with great celerity.

"Ah," sighed the count, "it is you who have driven her away. I ought to have remembered that she would be frightened at seeing a stranger. And now she will not show herself again, I fear. Come; I will take you home. Confess now--is she not more beautiful than you expected?"

"My dear sir, I had hardly time to see whether she was a man or a woman; but I am quite willing to take your word for it that there never was anybody like her."

"As you please," answered the count, looking the least bit in the world affronted; and so he pulled back in silence to the steps of the hotel, where we parted.

It was Captain Janovicz who informed me casually one evening that Von Rosenau was going away in a few days on leave, and that he would probably be absent for a considerable time.

"For my own part," remarked my informant, "I shall be surprised if we see him back in the regiment at all. He was only sent to us as a sort of punishment for having been a naughty boy, and I suppose now he will be forgiven, and restored to the hussars."

"So much for undying love," thinks I, with a cynical chuckle. "If there is any gratitude in man, that young fellow ought to be showering blessings on me for having refused to hold the noose for him to thrust his head into."

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