Part 50 (1/2)
”And your French doesn't help you to translate it?”
”Yes, it does help--some. I can pick out lots of words, and here and there a whole sentence; but what I can't get at is the spirit of the whole, whether it's meant to be friendly or not.”
”Have you tried with a dictionary? Where's the dictionary? Get it, and we'll pick it out if it takes all night.”
”Indeed, I wish I had a dictionary. Mine's French-English. I asked Clotilde if she had an Italian-English or an Italian-French, and she said yes, but at home. Isn't it provoking? I certainly wasn't going to show this to her, and get her to translate it for me before I'd consulted with you.”
”Bother!” said Aurora, thoughtfully, with her eyes on the cryptic print.
Estelle sat close, examining the sheet over her shoulder. ”_Elena_ means Helen, doesn't it? I guess it must, as it comes here before Barton. They've got my old name. And there's Bewick--Bewick, and here's Colorado. They've got the whole thing, fast enough. It's the doing of an enemy; there can be no doubt of that.”
”I know who you're thinking about.”
”Charlie Hunt, of course. Scamp! Worm! c.o.c.kroach! Low down, ungrateful, pop-eyed pig!” Nor did the reviling stop there. For the s.p.a.ce of about forty seconds Aurora was unpublishable.
”But how on earth did he get at it?” wondered Estelle.
”After he'd opened that letter of mine, he wrote to the amiable writer thereof and asked for information.”
”Honestly, Nell, I don't think he's had time.”
”I guess he has--just time. The languis.h.i.+ng Iona hurried for once. Well, I don't care!” Aurora folded the paper tight and flung it from her.
”Enemies may do what they please; I've got friends. If everything comes out as it really happened, I haven't anything to fear, except that it's mighty unpleasant. It's only lies, and people believing them, that could do me harm. I've got friends in Florence. Oh, not many true ones, I don't suppose. It's paying my way that has made me popular, I'm not such a gump as not to know that. But some true friends I've got, and their backing will be my stay. One friend I've got--” Pride and a sudden battle-light flashed in Aurora's eye. ”One friend I've got, who if I gave the word would kill Charlie Hunt for this, or put him in a fair way to dying. I do believe, Hat, that Gerald Fane would call Charlie Hunt out to fight a duel to punish him for a slur on me. Oh, he can fence just as well as the Italians he was brought up with. I've seen the fencing-swords in his studio. But”--she calmed down--”I wouldn't permit that sort of thing. It's ridiculous. I don't believe in it.”
Cooling to normal, she laughed, with a return to the light of reality.
”He doesn't believe in it, either, I shouldn't suppose.”
CHAPTER XXII
Leslie, arriving early next day, read off the newspaper article, making a free translation of it, as follows:
When a thing is too successful, it is seldom natural; and so when there appeared in our city a _signora_, blond of hair, azure of eye, with the complexion of delicate, luminous roses, red and white, whose name was at once Aurora and _Albaspina_,--Hawthorne,--floral counterpart of dawn, we should have had suspicions. That we had none does not prevent our feeling no very great surprise when we learn that the bearer of the poetic and more than appropriate name is called in sober truth Elena Barton. The more beautiful name was adopted by a child acting out its fairy-stories; it was remembered and re-adopted by a woman when she wished to detach her life from a past which neither charity, fidelity, nor devotion to a sacred duty had succeeded in keeping from sorrow and the deadly aspersions of malignity.
The _gentilissima_ person of the irradiating smile, which, however briefly seen, must be long remembered, whom we have grown accustomed this winter to meeting in the salons where a.s.sembles all that is most distinguished among foreigners, whose name we have grown accustomed to finding foremost in every work of charity, has a t.i.tle to our esteem far beyond the ordinary member of an indolent and favored cla.s.s. To alleviate suffering has been the chosen work of those hands that Florence also has found ever open and ready with their help. It was in effect the extent of their beneficence which brought about the black imbroglio from which Elena Barton chose to flee and take refuge in the City of Flowers under the _soave_ and harmonious name by which we know her.
Her life had been for several years devoted to the care of an old man afflicted with a most malignant and terrible cancer in the face. She had filled toward him so perfectly the part of a daughter that his grat.i.tude made her upon his death an equal sharer in his fortune with the children of his blood. Thence the law-case Bewick _versus_ Barton, which for a period filled the city of Denver in Colorado of the United States as if with poisonous fumes. The literal daughters, two in number, who had shown no filial love for the unfortunate old man, in trying to annul their father's will, left nothing undone or unspoken that could help their _turpe_, or evil, purpose, even attempting to prove that not only had the devoted nurse been their father's _amante_--[You can guess what that is, Aurora. They are much simpler here than we at home about calling things by their names, and much more outspoken on all subjects], but had likewise been the _amante_ of the son, sole member of the family who supported her claim to the share of the fortune appointed by the father. Justice in the event prevailed, but a tired and broken woman emerged from the conflict. What to do to regain a little of that pleasure in living which blackening calumnies and rodent ill-will, even when not victorious, can destroy in the upright and feeling nature? The imagination which had prompted in childhood the acting out of fairy-stories here came into play: Leave behind the scene of sorrows, take s.h.i.+p, and point the prow toward the land of orange and myrtle, of golden marbles and wine-colored sunsets; change name, begin again, do good under a beautiful appellation which the poor should learn to love and speak in their prayers to the last of their days....
”The rest, Aurora dear, is pure flattery, which it becomes me not to speak nor you to hear. I won't read it.”
”Well, I never!” breathed Aurora. ”Who did it?”
”We did it! My father and your Doctor Bewick and Carlo Guerra and I. We did it to be before anybody else, set the worst that could be brought up against you in a light that explains and justifies. We did our best to fix the public mind and show it what it should think. You know what the mind of the public is. We've hypnotized the beast, I hope; it has taken its bent from us.”
”But--”
”This was the way of it, my dear. The day after Brenda's wedding I was at the Fontanas,--she was a Miss Andrews, you know, of Indianapolis,--and there was Charlie, too, and there was likewise Madame Sartorio, who is Colonel Fontana's niece by his first marriage. We were talking in a little group when something, I forget what, was said about you, Aurora. Charlie--for what reason would be hard to think, unless one had a sharp scent for what goes on under one's nose--Charlie interrupted, to introduce as a sort of parenthesis, 'Mrs. Hawthorne, whose real name, by the way, is Helen Barton.' The others were naturally taken aback, except Madame Sartorio, who could not quite disguise a cat-smile. For a moment none of us knew what to say, and Charlie went on, with his air of knowing such a lot more than anybody else--