Part 22 (2/2)
I told you so before we came here. Rome is impossible--the apartment is let, and without that I could not live at all. Everything is gone. Here one may manage to exist a little while, for the house is good, and Sir Tom is rather amusing. But how to get to London unless they will take us I know not, and London is the place to produce you, Bice. It is for that I have been working. But Milady does not like me; she is jealous of me, and if she can she will send us away. Is it wonderful, then, that I am glad you are her friend? I am very glad of it, and I should wish you to let her know that to no one could she give her money more fitly. You see,” said the Contessa, with a smile, resuming her seat and her easy tone, ”I have come back to the point we started from. It is seldom one does that so naturally. If it is true (which seems so impossible) that there is money to give away, no one has a better right to it than you.”
Bice went away from this interview with a mind more disturbed than it had ever been in her life before. Naturally, the novel circ.u.mstances which surrounded her awakened deeper questions as her mind developed, and she began to find herself a distinct personage. They set her wondering. Madame di Forno-Populo had been of a tenderness unparalleled to this girl, and had sheltered her existence ever since she could remember. It had not occurred to her mind as yet to ask what the relations were between them, or why she had been the object of so much affection and thought. She had accepted this with all the composure of a child ever since she was a child. And the prospect of achieving a marriage should she turn out beautiful, and thus being in a position to return some of the kindness shown her, seemed to Bice the most natural thing in the world. But the change of atmosphere had done something, and Lucy's company, and the growth, perhaps, of her own young spirit. She went away troubled. There seemed to be more in the world and its philosophy than Bice's simple rules could explain.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE SERPENT AND THE DOVE.
On the very next day after this conversation took place a marked change occurred in the manner of the Contessa. She had been always caressing to Lucy, calling her by pretty names, and using a hundred tender expressions as if to a child; but had never pretended to talk to her otherwise than in a condescending way. On this occasion, however, she exerted herself to a most unusual extent during their drive to captivate and charm Lady Randolph; and as Lucy was very simple and accessible to everything that seemed kindness, and the Contessa very clever and with full command of her powers, it is not wonderful that her success was easy. She led her to talk of Mr. Churchill, who had been kept to dinner on the previous night, and to whom Sir Tom had been very polite, and Lucy anxiously kind, doing all that was possible to put the good man at his ease, though with but indifferent success. For the thought of such an obligation was too great to be easily borne, and the agitation of his mind was scarcely settled, even by the commonplaces of the dinner, and the devotion which young Lady Randolph showed him. Perhaps the grave politeness of Sir Tom, which was not very encouraging, and the curiosity of the great lady, whom he had mistaken for his benefactress, counterbalanced Mr. Churchill's satisfaction, for he did not regain his confidence, and it was evidently with great relief of mind that he got up from his seat when the carriage was announced to take him away. The Contessa had given her attention to all he said and did, with a most lively and even anxious interest, and it was from this that she had mastered so many details which Bice had reluctantly confirmed by her report of the information she had derived from Jock. It was not long before Madame di Forno-Populo managed to extract everything from Lucy.
Lady Randolph was not used to defend herself against such inquiries, nor was there any reason why she should do so. She was glad indeed when she saw how sweetly her companion looked, and how kind were her tones, to talk over her own difficult position with another woman, one who was interested, and who did not express her disapproval and horror as most people did. The Contessa, on the contrary, took a great deal of interest. She was astonished, indeed, but she did not represent to Lucy that what she had to do was impossible or even vicious, as most people seemed to suppose. She listened with the gravest attention; and she gave a soothing sense of sympathy to Lucy's troubled soul. She was so little prepared for sympathy from such a quarter that the unexpectedness of it made it more soothing still.
”This is a great charge to be laid upon you,” the Contessa said, with the most kind look. ”Upon you so young and with so little experience.
Your father must have been a man of very original mind, my Lucy. I have heard of a great many schemes of benevolence, but never one like this.”
”No?” said Lucy, anxiously watching the Contessa's eye, for it was so strange to her to have sympathy on this point, that she felt a sort of longing for it, and that this new critic, who treated the whole matter with more moderation and reasonableness than usual, should approve.
”Generally one endows hospitals or builds churches; in my country there is a way which is a little like yours; it is to give marriage portions--that is very good I am told. It is done by finding out who is the most worthy. And it is said also that not the most worthy is always taken. Don't you remember there is a Rosiere in Barbe Bleue? Oh, I believe you have never heard of Barbe Bleue.”
”I know the story,” said Lucy, with a smile, ”of the many wives, and the key, and sister Anne--sister Anne.”
”Ah! that is not precisely what I mean; but it does not matter. So it is this which makes you so grave, my pretty Lucy. I do not wonder. What a charge for you! To encounter all the prejudices of the world which will think you mad. I know it. And now your husband--the excellent Tom--he,”
said the Contessa, laying a caressing and significant touch upon Lucy's arm, ”does not approve?”
”Oh, Madame di Forno-Populo, that is the worst of it,” cried Lucy, whose heart was opened, and who had taken no precaution against a.s.sault on this side; ”but how do you know? for I thought that n.o.body knew.”
The Contessa this time took Lucy's hand between hers, and pressed it tenderly, looking at her all the time with a look full of meaning. ”Dear child,” she said, ”I have been a great deal in the world. I see much that other people do not see. And I know his face, and yours, my little angel. It is much for you to carry upon those young shoulders. And all for the sake of goodness and charity.”
”I do not know,” said Lucy, ”that it is right to say that; for, had it been left to me, perhaps I should never have thought of it. I should have been content with doing just what I could for the poor. No one,”
said Lucy, with a sigh, ”objects to that. When people are quite poor it is natural to give them what they want; but the others----”
”Ah, the others,” said the Contessa. ”Dear child, the others are the most to be pitied. It is a greater thing, and far more difficult to give to this good clergyman enough to make his children happy, than it is to supply what is wanted in a cottage. Ah yes, your father was wise, he was a person of character. The poor are always cared for. There are none of us, even when we are ourselves poor, who do not hold out a hand to them.
There is a society in my Florence which is like you. It is for the _Poveri Vergognosi_. You don't understand Italian? That means those who are ashamed to beg. These are they,” said the Contessa impressively, ”who are to be the most pitied. They must starve and never cry out; they must conceal their misery and smile; they must put always a fair front to the world, and seem to want nothing, while they want everything. Oh!”
The Contessa ended with a sigh, which said more than words. She pressed Lucy's hand, and turned her face away. Her feelings were too much for her, and on the delicate cheek, which Lucy could see, there was the trace of a tear. After a moment she looked round again, and said, with a little quiver in her voice: ”I respect your father, my Lucy. It was a n.o.ble thought, and it is original. No one I have ever heard of had such an intention before.”
Lucy, at this unlooked-for applause, brightened with pleasure; but at the same time was so moved that she could only look up into her companion's face and return the pressure of her hand. When she recovered a little she said: ”You have known people like that?”
”Known them? In my country,” said the Contessa (who was not an Italian at all), ”they are as plentiful as in England--blackberries. People with n.o.ble names, with n.o.ble old houses, with children who must never learn anything, never be anything, because there is no money. Know them! dear child, who can know better? If I were to tell you my history! I have for my own part known--what I could not trouble your gentle spirit to hear.”
”But, Madame di Forno-Populo, oh! if you think me worthy of your confidence, tell me!” cried Lucy. ”Indeed, I am not so insensible as you may think. I have known more than you suppose. You look as if no harm could ever have touched you,” Lucy cried, with a look of genuine admiration. The Contessa had found the right way into her heart.
The Contessa smiled with mournful meaning and shook her head. ”A great deal of harm has touched me,” she said; ”I am the very person to meet with harm in the world. A solitary woman without any one to take care of me, and also a very silly one, with many foolish tastes and inclinations. Not prudent, not careful, my Lucy, and with very little money; what could be more forlorn? You see,” she said, with a smile ”I do not put all this blame upon Providence, but a great deal on myself.
But to put me out of the question----”
Lucy put a hand upon the Contessa's arm. She was much moved by this revelation.
”Oh! don't do that,” she said; ”it is you I want to hear of.”
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