THE VENETIAN TRILOGY: A Foregone Conclusion, Ragged Lady & The Lady of the Aroostook. William Dean Howells
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at last put on the latter with a sigh. He had made his servant polish the buckles of his shoes, and instead of a band of linen round his throat, he wore a strip of cloth covered with small white beads, edged above and below with a single row of pale blue ones.
As he mounted the steps with Ferris, Mrs. Vervain came forward a little to meet them, while Florida rose and stood beside her chair in a sort of proud suspense and timidity. The elder lady was in that black from which she had so seldom been able to escape; but the daughter wore a dress of delicate green, in which she seemed a part of the young season that everywhere clothed itself in the same tint. The sunlight fell upon her blonde hair, melting into its light gold; her level brows frowned somewhat with the glance of scrutiny which she gave the dark young priest, who was making his stately bow to her mother, and trying to answer her English greetings in the same tongue.
"My daughter," said Mrs. Vervain, and Don Ippolito made another low bow, and then looked at the girl with a sort of frank and melancholy wonder, as she turned and exchanged a few words with Ferris, who was assailing her seriousness and hauteur with unabashed levity of compliment. A quick light flashed and fled in her cheek as she talked, and the fringes of her serious, asking eyes swept slowly up and down as she bent them upon him a moment before she broke abruptly, not coquettishly, away from him, and moved towards her mother, while Ferris walked off to the other end of the terrace, with a laugh. Mrs. Vervain and the priest were trying each other in French, and not making great advance; he explained to Florida in Italian, and she answered him hesitatingly; whereupon he praised her Italian in set phrase.
"Thank you," said the girl sincerely, "I have tried to learn. I hope," she added as before, "you can make me see how little I know." The deprecating wave of the hand with which Don Ippolito appealed to her from herself, seemed arrested midway by his perception of some novel quality in her. He said gravely that he should try to be of use, and then the two stood silent.
"Come, Mr. Ferris," called out Mrs. Vervain, "breakfast is ready, and I want you to take me in."
"Too much honor," said the painter, coming forward and offering his arm, and Mrs. Vervain led the way indoors.
"I suppose I ought to have taken Don Ippolito's arm," she confided in under-tone, "but the fact is, our French is so unlike that we don't understand each other very well."
"Oh," returned Ferris, "I've known Italians and Americans whom Frenchmen themselves couldn't understand."
"You see it's an American breakfast," said Mrs. Vervain with a critical glance at the table before she sat down. "All but hot bread; that you can't have," and Don Ippolito was for the first time in his life confronted by a breakfast of hot beef-steak, eggs and toast, fried potatoes, and coffee with milk, with a choice of tea. He subdued all signs of the wonder he must have felt, and beyond cutting his meat into little bits before eating it, did nothing to betray his strangeness to the feast.
The breakfast had passed off very pleasantly, with occasional lapses. "We break down under the burden of so many languages," said Ferris. "It is an embarras de richesses. Let us fix upon a common maccheronic. May I trouble you for a poco piú di sugar dans mon café, Mrs. Vervain? What do you think of the bellazza de ce weather magnifique, Don Ippolito?"
"How ridiculous!" said Mrs. Vervain in a tone of fond admiration aside to Don Ippolito, who smiled, but shrank from contributing to the new tongue.
"Very well, then," said the painter. "I shall stick to my native Bergamask for the future; and Don Ippolito may translate for the foreign ladies."
He ended by speaking English with everybody; Don Ippolito eked out his speeches to Mrs. Vervain in that tongue with a little French; Florida, conscious of Ferris's ironical observance, used an embarrassed but defiant Italian with the priest.
"I'm so pleased!" said Mrs. Vervain, rising when Ferris said that he must go, and Florida shook hands with both guests.
"Thank you, Mrs. Vervain; I could have gone before, if I'd thought you would have liked it," answered the painter.
"Oh nonsense, now," returned the lady. "You know what I mean. I'm perfectly delighted with him," she continued, getting Ferris to one side, "and I know he must have a good accent. So very kind of you. Will you arrange with him about the pay?—such a shame! Thanks. Then I needn't say anything to him about that. I'm so glad I had him to breakfast the first day; though Florida thought not. Of course, one needn't keep it up. But seriously, it isn't an ordinary case, you know."
Ferris laughed at her with a sort of affectionate disrespect, and said good-by. Don Ippolito lingered for a while to talk over the proposed lessons, and then went, after more elaborate adieux. Mrs. Vervain remained thoughtful a moment before she said:—
"That was rather droll, Florida."
"What, mother?"
"His cutting his meat into small bites, before he began to eat. But perhaps it's the Venetian custom. At any rate, my dear, he's a gentleman in virtue of his profession, and I couldn't do less than ask him to breakfast. He has beautiful manners; and if he must take snuff, I suppose it's neater to carry two handkerchiefs, though it does look odd. I wish he wouldn't take snuff."
"I don't see why we need care, mother. At any rate, we cannot help it."
"That's true, my dear. And his nails. Now when they're spread out on a book, you know, to keep it open,—won't it be unpleasant?"
"They seem to have just such fingernails all over Europe—except in England."
"Oh, yes; I know it. I dare say we shouldn't care for it in him, if he didn't seem so very nice otherwise. How handsome he is!"
V
It was understood that Don Ippolito should come every morning at ten o'clock, and read and talk with Miss Vervain for an hour or two; but Mrs. Vervain's hospitality was too aggressive for the letter of the agreement. She oftener had him to breakfast at nine, for, as she explained to Ferris, she could not endure to have him feel that it was a mere mercenary transaction, and there was no limit fixed for the lessons on these days. When she could, she had Ferris come, too, and she missed him when he did not come. "I like that bluntness of his," she professed to her daughter, "and I don't mind his making light of me. You are so apt to be heavy if you're not made light of occasionally. I certainly shouldn't want a son to be so respectful and obedient as you are, my dear."
The painter honestly returned her fondness, and with not much greater reason. He saw that she took pleasure in his talk, and enjoyed it even when she did not understand it; and this is a kind of flattery not easy to resist. Besides, there was very little ladies' society in Venice in those times, and Ferris, after trying the little he could get at, had gladly denied himself its pleasures, and consorted with the young men he met at the caffè's, or in the Piazza. But when the Vervains came, they recalled to him the younger days in which he had delighted in the companionship of women. After so long disuse, it was charming to be with a beautiful girl who neither regarded him with distrust nor expected him to ask her in marriage because he sat alone with her, rode out with her in a gondola, walked with her, read with her. All young men like a house in which no ado is made about their coming and going, and Mrs. Vervain perfectly understood the art of letting him make himself at home. He perceived with amusement that this amiable lady, who never did an ungraceful thing nor wittingly said an ungracious one, was very much of a Bohemian at heart,—the gentlest and most blameless of the tribe, but still lawless,—whether from her campaigning married life, or the rovings of her widowhood, or by natural disposition; and that Miss Vervain was inclined to be conventionally strict, but with her irregular training was at a loss for rules by which to check her mother's little waywardnesses. Her anxious perplexity, at times, together with her heroic obedience and unswerving loyalty to her mother had something pathetic as well as amusing in it. He saw her tried almost to tears by her mother's helpless frankness,—for Mrs. Vervain was apparently one of those ladies whom the intolerable surprise of having anything come into their heads