Read Ebook: Comedies and Errors by Harland Henry

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Ebook has 1907 lines and 87573 words, and 39 pages

The poor lady! She shook her head; she lay back in her place and laughed. "Forgive me, forgive me for laughing," she said. "But--your compliment--it was a trifle point-blank--I was slightly unprepared for it. However, you're quite right. It's not bad hair," she conceded amiably. "And it was very--very natural and--and nice--of you to mention it. Now sit down here, and we will have a good long talk," she added. "You must tell me all about yourself. We must get acquainted."

There was always, perhaps, the tiniest point of raillery in that crisp voice, in those gleaming eyes, of hers; but it did not prevent them from being friendly and interested. She went on to ask me all manner of friendly, interested questions, adopting, apparently as a matter of course, the tone of maturity addressing ingenuous youth; and I found myself somehow accepting that relation without resentment. Where had I made my studies? What was I going to do in the world? She asked me everything; and I, guilelessly, fatuously no doubt, responded. I imagine I expatiated at some length, and with some fervour, upon my literary aspirations, whilst she encouraged me with her kind-glowing eyes; and I am afraid--I am afraid I even went so far as to allow her to persuade me to repeat divers of my poems. In those days one wrote things one fondly nicknamed poems. Anyhow, I know that I was enjoying myself very much indeed--when we were interrupted by the entrance of another caller.

And then a whole stream of callers passed through her dainty room: men and women, old and young; all of them people with a great deal of manner, and not much else--certainly with precious little wit. The men were faultlessly dressed, they had their hair very sleekly brushed, they caressed their hats, grinned vacuously, and clacked out set phrases; the women gossiped turbulently in Italian; and my hostess gave them tea, and smiled , and listened with marvellous endurance. But I thought to myself, "Oh, if this is the kind of human society you are condemned to, how ineffably you must be bored!"

I met her a few days later in the Villa Borghese. I was one of many hundred people walking there, in the afternoon; her victoria was one of the long procession of carriages. She made her coachman draw up, and signed to me to come and speak with her.

"If I should get down and walk with you a bit, do you think you would be heart-broken?" she asked.

I offered her my hand, and helped her to alight. She had on the toque and jacket of Astrakhan in which I had first seen her, and she carried an Astrakhan muff. The fresh air had brought a beautiful soft colour to her cheeks; her hair glowed beautifully in the sunlight. As she walked beside me, I perceived that she was nearly as tall as I was, and I noticed the strong, fine, elastic contours of her figure. We turned away from the road, and walked on the grass, among the solemn old trees; and we talked... I can't in the least remember of what--of nothings, very likely--only, I do remember that we talked and talked, and that I found our talk exceedingly agreeable. I remember, too, that at a given moment we passed a company of students from the German College, their scarlet cassocks flashing in the sun; and I remember how each of those poor priestlings stole an admiring glance at her from the corner of his eyes. But upon my calling her attention to the circumstance, though she couldn't help smiling, she tried to frown, and reproved me. "Hush. You shouldn't observe such things. You must never allow yourself to think lightly of the clergy."

When I had conducted her back to her carriage, she said, "Can't I set you down somewhere?" So I got in and drove with her, through the animated Roman streets, to the door of my lodgings. On the way, "You must come and dine with me some evening," she said. "When will you come? Will you come on Wednesday? Quite quietly, you know." And I assured her that I should be delighted to come on Wednesday.

But afterwards, when I was alone, I repeatedly caught myself thinking of her--thinking of her with enthusiasm. "She is a nice woman," I thought. "She's an awfully nice woman. Except my own mother, I believe she's the nicest woman I have ever known."

It may interest you to learn that I took occasion to tell her as much on Wednesday.

The other guests at her dinner had been Miss Belmont and the Contessa's cousin, Monsignor Wilthorpe, a tall, iron-grey, frigid man, of forty-something; and they left together very early, Miss Belmont remarking, "People who are not in their first youth can't afford to lose their beauty-sleep. Come, Monsignore, you must drive me home." I feared it was my duty to leave directly after them, but upon my rising to do so the Contessa cried out, "What! Do you begrudge losing your beauty-sleep too? It's not yet ten o'clock." I was only too glad to stay.

We went from the great melancholy drawing-room, where we had taken our coffee, into her boudoir. I can't tell you how cosy and charming and intimate it seemed, in the lamplight, with its bright colours, and with all her little personal possessions scattered about, her books, bibelots, writing-materials.

"Are you allowed to smoke?" she asked.

"I don't know. Am I?" was my retort.

She laughed. "Yes. I think you deserve to, after that."

I lighted a cigarette, with gratitude; while she sat down at her piano and began to play.

"Do you care for Bach? No, you are too young to care for Bach. But you will come to him. At your age one loves Chopin. Chopin interprets the strenuous moments of life, the moments that seem all important when they are present, but matter so little in the long run. Bach interprets life as a whole, seen from a distance, seen in perspective, in its masses and proportions, in its serene symmetry, when nothing is strenuous, when everything seems right and in its place, when even sorrow seems right. At my age one prefers Bach."

She said all this as she was playing, speaking slowly, dreamily, between the chords. "If that is Bach which you are playing now, I like it very much," I made bold to affirm.

"It's the third fugue," said she. "But it's precocious of you to like it."

She looked at me with her indulgent, quizzical smile. "No, to be sure. You're a cynical old man of the world--of twenty-two," she teased.

Presently she abandoned the piano, and took her place of the other day, in the corner of her sofa.

"Tell me," she said, "what do you do here in Rome? What are your occupations? How do you spend your time?"

"Oh, my occupations are entirely commonplace," I answered her. "In the morning' I try to write. Then in the afternoon I pay calls, or go to some one's studio, or to the museums, or what not. And in the evening I generally dine with some men I know at the Caff? di Roma."

"And so, with one thing and another, you're quite happy?" she suggested.

But this recalled me, of a sudden, to the r?le I was at that season playing to myself in the human comedy. Ingenuous young men , if they happen to have an active imagination, are the most inveterate, the most incorrigible of poseurs. To make the matter worse, they're the first--if not the only--ones to be taken in by their pose. They believe in it heartily; they're supremely unconscious that they're posing. And so they go on, slipping from one pose to another, till in the end, by accident as like as not, they find the pose that suits them. And when a man has found the pose that suits him we say that he has "found himself."

The Contessa's suggestion recalled me to my pose of the season. I repudiated the idea of happiness with scorn.

"Happy!" I echoed bitterly. "I should think not. I shall never be happy again."

"Mercy upon me!" she exclaimed. "Si jeune, et d?j? Moldave-Valaque!"

"Oh," I informed her, with Byronic gloom, "it isn't a laughing matter. I'm the most miserable of men."

"Poor boy," she said compassionately; and her eyes shone with compassion too, though perhaps there still lingered in them just the faintest afterglow of amusement. "Why are you miserable? What is it all about?"

"Oh," I said, "it's the usual story. When a man's hopelessly unhappy, when his last illusion has been destroyed, it's always--I'm sorry to say it to you, but you know whether it's true--it's always a member of your sex that's to blame."

Had she a struggle to keep from laughing? If so, she came out of it victorious. Indeed, the compassion in her eyes seemed to deepen. "Poor boy," she repeated. "What have they done to you? Tell me all about it. It will do you good to tell me. Let me be your confidante," she urged gently.

And thereupon I strode up and down her floor, and narrated the whole history of my desperate, my fatal passion for Elsie Milray: how beautiful Elsie was, how mysteriously, incommunicably fascinating; how I had adored her; how she had encouraged me, led me on, trifled with me, and finally thrown me over--for Captain Bullen, a fellow in the Engineers, old enough to be--well, almost old enough to be her father. I fancy I swung my arms about a good deal, and quoted Heine and Rossetti, and generally made myself very tiresome and ridiculous; but my kind confidante listened with patience, with every appearance of taking my narration seriously.

"So you see," I concluded, "I've been hard hit, hit in a vital spot. My wound is one of those that never heal."

Even that did not provoke her to laughter. She gazed at me meditatively for a moment, and then she shook her head. "Your wound will heal. When our wounds are fresh, it always seems as if they would never heal. But they do heal. Yours will heal. You must try to think of other things. You must try to interest yourself in other girls--oh, platonically, I mean, of course. There are lots of nice girls in the world, you know. You must try not to think of Elsie. It's no good thinking of her, now that she's engaged to Captain Bullen. But--but when you can't help thinking of her, then you must come to me and talk it out. That is always better, healthier, than brooding upon a grief in silence. You must come to me whenever you feel you wish to. I shall always be glad when you come."

"You're a--you're an angel of kindness," I declared, with emotion. "I--I was thinking only the other day, when you had driven me home from the Borghese, I was thinking that, except my own mother, you're the--the best and dearest woman in the world."

But at this, she could be grave no longer. She laughed gaily. "If I come next to your mother in your affections," she said, "it's almost as if I were your grandmother, isn't it? Yes, that is it. I'll be a grandmother to you." And she made me a comical little moue.

After that, it was my excellent fortune to see the Contessa Bracca rather frequently. I called on her a good deal; she asked me to dine and lunch with her a good deal; I spent a surprising number of afternoons and evenings in her blue-and-white retiring-room. Then she used to take me to drive with her in the Villa Borghese or on the Pincian; and sometimes we would go for walks together in the Campagna. Of course, I was a regular visitor in her box at the opera: otherwise, the land had not been Italy, nor the town Rome. I liked her and enjoyed her inexpressibly; she was so witty and lively, so sympathetic, such a frank good comrade; she was so pretty and delicate and distinguished. "I can never make you understand," I confessed to her, "how much fuller and richer and more delightful life is since I have known you." I was, in fact, quite improbably happy, though I scarcely suspected it at the time. I had not forgotten that my r?le was the disconsolate lover; I must still now and again perorate about Elsie, and grieve over my painted wounds. The Contessa always listened patiently, with an air of commiseration. And I read her every line I wrote whilst she criticised, suggested, encouraged. The calf is a queer animal.

You may wonder how she managed to put up with me, why I did not bore her to extermination. I can't answer--unless, indeed, it was simply that she had a sense of humour, as well as a kind heart. I am glad to be able to remember, besides, that our talks were by no means confined to subjects that had their source in my callow egotism. We talked of many things, we talked of everything: of books, pictures, music; of life, nature, religion; of Rome, its churches and palaces, its galleries and gardens; of people, of the people we knew in common, of their traits, their qualities, defects, absurdities. We talked of everything; sometimes--but all too infrequently--we talked of her. All too infrequently. I can't think how she contrived it; she was as far as possible from giving the impression of being reserved with me; yet, somehow, it was very seldom indeed that we talked of her. Somehow, for the most part--with no sign of effort, easily, imperceptibly even--she avoided or evaded the subject, or turned it if it was introduced. Only, once in a long while, once in a long, long while, she would, just for an instant, as it were, lift a corner of the curtain; tell me some little anecdote, some little incident, out of her life; allow me never so fleeting a glimpse into the more intimate regions of her experience.

One day, for example, one afternoon in February, when a faint breath of spring was on the air, we had driven out to Acqua Acetosa, and there we had left her carriage and strolled in the open country, plucking armfuls of flowers, anemones, jonquils, competing with each other to see who could gather the greatest number in the fewest minutes, and laughing and romping mirthfully. Her hair had got into some disarray, her cheeks glowed, her eyes sparkled; and her face looked so young, so young, that I exclaimed, "Do you know, you are exactly like a girl to-day. I told you once that you were the nicest woman I had ever known; but to-day I shall have to take that back, and tell you you're the nicest girl."

She laughed, sweetly, joyously. "I am a girl to-day," she said. But then, all at once, her eyes became sober, thoughtful; there was even a shadow of trouble in them. "You see, I never was really a girl," she went on. "I am living my girlhood now--as a kind of accidental after-thought--because I have happened to make friends with a boy. I am sowing my wild oats--gathering my wild flowers--at the eleventh hour."

"How do you mean--you were never really a girl?" I questioned stupidly.

You will guess what I felt--her eyes suddenly filled with tears.

I was stammering out some apology, but she stopped me. "No, no. It isn't your fault. I'm not crying. It's all right. I meant I was never a girl, because I was married at eighteen. That is all. And I've had to be dull and middle-aged ever since," she added, smiling again. "You dull and middle-aged!" I scoffed at the notion. But her tears, and then her word about her marriage, had touched me poignantly. She had never mentioned, she had never remotely alluded to her marriage, before, in all our intercourse. Certainly, I knew, from things Miss Belmont had said, that it had not been a happy marriage. The Con-tessa's word about it now, brief as it was, slight as it was, moved me like a cry of pain. I felt a great anguish, a great anger, to think that circumstances had been cruel to her in the past; a great yearning in some way to be of comfort to her.

"Oh," I cried out--tactlessly, if you will; but my emotion was dominant; I could not stop to reflect--"oh, why--why didn't I know you in those days? Why wasn't I here--to--to help you--to defend you--to--to make it easier for you?"

We were in the carriage by this time, rolling swiftly back towards Rome. She did not speak. I did not look at her. But I felt her hand laid gently upon mine, her little light gloved hand; and then her hand pressed mine, a long soft pressure that said vastly more than speech; and then her hand rested there, lightly, lightly, and we were both silent, till we reached the Porta del Popolo.

When I had left her, I was conscious of a curious elation, a curious exaltation. It was almost as if my confidante had made me her confidant. A new honour had been conferred upon me, a new trust and responsibility. "Oh, I will devote my life to her," I vowed fervently, in my soul. "I will devote my life to making her happy, to compensating her in some measure for what she has suffered in the past. When shall I see her again?" I was consumed with eagerness, with impatience, to see her again.

I saw her, as a matter of fact, no later than the next day. I called on her in the afternoon. I went to her, meditating heroics. I would lay my life at her feet, I would ask her to let me be her knight, her servant. I looked forward to rather a fine moment. But it takes two to make a melodrama. She met me in a mood that sealed the heroics in my bosom; a teasing, elusive mood, her eyes, her voice, all mockery, all mischief. "Tiens, c'est mon petit-fils," she cried, on my arrival. "Bonjour, Toto. How nice of you to come and see your granny." There were days when she was like this, when she would never drop her joke about being my grandmother, and perpetually called me "Toto," and talked to me as if I were approaching seven. "Now, sit down on the floor before the fire," she said, "and gwandmamma will tell you a stor-wy." A sprite danced in her eyes. Her drawling enunciation of the last word was irresistible. I laughed, despite myself; and thoughts of high rhetoric had summarily to be dismissed.

When I look back upon my life as it was in those days, I protest I am filled with a sort of envy. A boy of twenty-something, his pockets comfortably supplied with money; free from morning to night, from night to morning, to do as his fancy prompted; with numberless pleasant acquaintances; and in the most beautiful country, the most interesting city, of two hemispheres--in Italy, in Rome: yes, indeed, as I look back at him, I am filled with envy.

But then, when I think of her.... I think of her, and she becomes visible before me, visible in all her exquisite grace and fineness, her exquisite femininity. I see her intimate little room, its gay blue and white, its pretty furniture, its hundred pretty personal trifles, tokens of her habitation; I breathe the air of it, the faint, soft perfume that was always on its air; I see her fan, her open book, her handkerchief forgotten on a table. I see her, in the room. I see her delicate white face, witty, alert, sensitive; I see her laughing eyes, her hair, the sumptuous masses of her hair. I see her hands, I touch them, slender, fragile, but warm, but firm and responsive. I see the delicious toilet she is wearing, I hear the brisk frou-frou of it. I hear her voice. I see her at her piano, I see her as she plays, the bend of her head, the motion of her body. I see her as she glances up at me, whimsically smiling, asking me something, telling me something. I gaze long at her, hungrily. And then, remembering that there was a time when I could see her like this in very reality as often as I would--oh, I can only cry out to myself of those days, "You lucky heathen, you lucky, lucky heathen! How little you realised, how little you merited, your extraordinary fortune!"

Of course, I was in love with her. But as yet, upon my conscience, I did not know it. I knew that I was tremendously fond of her, that I was never so happy as when in her presence, that I was always more or less unsatisfied and restless when out of it. I knew that I was always more or less unsatisfied and restless, too, when other men were hovering about her, when she was laughing and talking with other men. I knew that I wished to be her knight, her servant, to dedicate my existence to her welfare. But beyond that, I had not analysed my sentiment, nor given it a name.

And so, if you please, I was still able to go on prating to her of Elsie Milray!

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