CHAPTER VIII.

Hans Riemann had advised Minna not to ‘bother herself’ about the drama which was going on in the house, but she thought about it a great deal. She had been greatly attracted by Fulvia Dietrich, and there was something, too, in the anomalous, unhappy position of Signor Giuseppe with regard to the girl which wrung her heart. She was destined soon to know more of the affair. She went to her studio on the morning after her conversation with Hans, without having seen anyone belonging to the house. She did not come in to lunch, but returned early in the afternoon with the intention of writing some letters before dinner.

As she went to her rooms her eye fell upon the two canary birds in their cage, and it struck her that it was not a particularly good position for the little creatures to be in. The cage stood on the broad ledge of a window high up in the wall of the corridor, which was cold and draughty. It was, moreover, a window which never got any sun, and was altogether a cheerless place. A chair which had always stood just under the window had now been removed to some little distance from it, doubtless to make the birds safe from any attempts on the part of Gatto, the cat, an important personage in an Italian house, to make nearer acquaintance with them. Yesterday and this morning Minna had noticed that they twittered cheerfully, but this afternoon they were quite silent and sad. She could just see them sitting each on a separate perch, dejected-looking, little yellow balls, without a chirp to offer between them. Something was wrong. It was the work of a moment to move the chair under the window again, spring upon it, and look into the cage.

‘Poor little things! you may well be silent,’ she said aloud.

Their little water-pots were empty, there was neither seed nor greenstuff of any kind in the cage, which from all appearances had been cleared of food and water for some time.

‘Water you shall certainly have,’ said Minna, ‘and I’ll try if I can’t get you some food too.’

She chirped to them and they moved uneasily. She looked round to calculate where to step when she should have the cage in her hands, and beheld Fulvia Dietrich standing there with green leaves and a little tin of sand.

‘Ah, good-day, signorina!’ said Minna, with all the cordiality she could put into her voice. ‘Pray excuse my taking this liberty. I thought they were so very silent that----’

‘That I was going to let them starve to death,’ said Fulvia, her beautiful pale face looking up into Minna’s. ‘And you were quite right. They have been neglected since yesterday morning. But now I am going to attend to them.’

‘May I lift the cage down, and will you not come into my sitting-room, and fill the glasses there, and put in the food? It will be more convenient, and I think they are a little cold up there.’

‘Thank you,’ said Fulvia, with a faint smile. ‘You are very kind. But I fear it will disturb you.’

‘Not in the least. This way,’ said Minna, carefully stepping off the chair, with the cage in her hands. Fulvia opened the door of the sitting-room, and they went in.

‘Oh, how pleasant it is here!’ exclaimed the girl as they entered the room, which certainly looked cosy and homelike, and which felt warm and genial.

‘I am glad you like it,’ replied Minna, placing the cage upon a table. ‘See! I will bring some water from the other room, and you can give them all they want. It would be a good thing to let them stay here for awhile,’ she added. ‘It is so much warmer than outside.’

‘I know it is not good for them on that window-ledge, but I have nowhere else for them. In the salon people tease them so--people are so silly,’ said Fulvia, with an impatient look and a shrug of the shoulders. ‘In the dining-room and our own room mamma will not allow them. So I put them up there. I am so sorry they have been neglected to-day.--Ah, carini, carissimi!’ she added, chirping to them, and putting seed into the glass, and thrusting the green salad leaf and a bit of sugar between the bars.

Minna had brought a bottle of water from the next room, and now she watched Fulvia while the girl took out the little water-tank and the bath, and filled them both with fresh water, talking the while to the birds in the most caressing tones, and yet with a peculiar accent in her voice of hardness, or strain, or suffering--of something that was far from peace of mind or lightness of heart.

She made a charming spectacle while thus ministering to the little things, who soon began to revive. They evidently knew her, and hopped about, and even perched on one of the fingers which she held out to them. Fulvia’s head, with its thick glistening hair, bent over them. She again wore her plain dark-blue flannel frock and leather belt, and her feet were once more encased in the shabby little once-red slippers. Her face Minna could not see, but she felt sure that, in spite of all her caressing words and gestures addressed to the birds, she was not smiling, not happy.

Presently she looked up, saying:

‘Thank you for letting me come here. I will not intrude upon you any more. And you must not think I am in the habit of forgetting my birds. It is very unusual with me.’

‘I am sure it is. But won’t you leave them here for a time? Why should they not stay here altogether? It would be much more healthy for them than in the cold window-ledge, and you can come in and attend to them whenever you please.’

‘It would be very troublesome for you?’ said Fulvia, who, however, flushed with pleasure.

‘Not in the least. I am such a selfish person that I should not offer it if I did not think I should like it. See; we will put them here, on this empty table near the window. There they will be quite happy. Listen; he is beginning a little song even now.’

Indeed, the bird was trilling a low song of thanks and pleasure on feeling the good effect of the warmth and food.

‘And now,’ added Minna, rapidly and eagerly pursuing her real object, ‘you will stay with me a little while, while I have some tea. I am English, you know. I must always have my cup of tea at this hour. Do you ever drink it?’

‘I have drunk it,’ said Fulvia; ‘and in any case I am at your disposal, signora.’

‘Then here. Sit in this armchair. You look tired. You should not be tired--a girl like you,’ said Minna playfully, as she laid her hand for a moment on Fulvia’s shoulder, and tried to smile into the beautiful forlorn face.

‘I am not tired,’ replied Fulvia at once, rather proudly. ‘I am never tired. I am very young and very strong. But my head feels tired sometimes,’ she added inconsistently.

Minna went about the room, having cast off her wraps and hat, and she prepared the tea with the spirit-lamp and things she always had in readiness. Fulvia watched her, and gradually her curious, rigid attitude somewhat relaxed. A look of repose came over her face, which had been so hard and set. She leaned back in the easy-chair in an attitude of languor which seemed to say that it was long since she had thus unbent.

Presently the tea was ready. Fulvia had accepted a cup of it, but very much diluted, crying out with unfeigned horror at the strength of the beverage offered to her by Minna.

‘Signora, why do you ask me to sit with you?’ she presently demanded.

‘Because I love to have young people and young things, happy things, about me.’

‘But you are very happy yourself. You look so,’ said Fulvia, in curious, abrupt little sentences.

‘Yes, my child. I am very happy. I do not know why I should be so happy, and have a life so free from grief and care as mine is, but I am very grateful for it.’

‘But have you ever been sad?’

‘Very--once in my life. Sadder than you can imagine.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Fulvia quickly. Then she added: ‘But, of course, I am happy too. At least, I ought to be; for I am to have, it seems, everything that I like best.’

‘I wonder what you do like best?’ asked Minna with a smile.

‘A great deal of money to do what I like with. I hate to be poor. A beautiful house of my own, not like this, filled with strangers who come and go, and are often rude and greedy and impertinent. I don’t mean you,’ she added quickly. ‘You are quite different from most of them, and I should not be telling you these things if you were like all the rest of them. As I say, a beautiful private house of my own, full of lovely furniture; the couches will be covered with satin, and the chairs with the same, I dare say. There will be brocaded curtains, as beautiful as those in the gallery of the Palazzo Doria, to which I once went with Beppo to see the pictures. There will be mirrors in every room, and any of the things which I have so often seen in the windows of the best shops in the Corso and Via Condotti I can have by merely going in and ordering them. Think of it!’ she continued in a voice of animation, and with a smile which Minna tried not to see was ghastly. ‘Me? I am just over sixteen. I shall soon be able to do all that. Ah, what will Gemma Barbensi and Bianca Sant’otto say? As for dresses--you see this?’ She touched it scornfully, and flicked a frayed portion near the cuff with contemptuous fingers. ‘You would never guess how long I have had this dress. More than two years. And I have grown so much that it has had to be altered again and again. I am so tired of this horrible old blue woollen gown. No more of such things. I can go to madame, or can send to Paris, if it pleases me, and order just what I like--silk and velvet things, or satin. Do you not like soft silken things? Yes, I’m sure you do. All your things are soft and flowing. This woollen dress you have on now’--she stretched out her hand and touched it--‘has a petticoat of silk under it. I like that--don’t you?’

Without giving Minna time to reply, she went on:

‘Then, there will be my evening dresses too. They will be lovely. I delight in evening dresses--gauze and silk, and all kinds of devices for making people look beautiful. And, then, evening is the time for jewellery. I am so fond of jewels. Diamonds are the most beautiful, after all. Do you think I should look well in, say, velvet--white velvet, with a long train, and quantities of fine white lace upon it--and a diamond necklace, diamonds in my hair, diamond earrings, diamond rings--what a lot of diamonds one could use to be sure, if one tried! I think diamond shoe-buckles also would be charming, and a diamond tassel to the string of my fan, which would be of ivory and white lace. How do you think I should look in such a costume?’

She sat up, facing Minna, and smiling the same fixed smile, the muscles of her face moving in obedience to her will, but no inner merriment or pleasure or anticipation present to give any light to her eyes or any expression to her smile.

‘My dear,’ said Minna, ‘you would look very beautiful in such a costume, I have no doubt. My opinion is, that beautiful clothes and jewels always look more beautiful still when worn by beautiful persons, and perhaps you have heard before now that you are beautiful.’

‘I have heard it a great many times, especially lately,’ replied Fulvia, in a hard, rasping voice. ‘But you look very grave. You do not speak as if you would like to see me in such a dress--wearing such ornaments.’

‘To tell the truth, I would rather see you still simply dressed, even in this old blue frock which you so much dislike.’ (She noticed that Fulvia started, and looked down with a half-frightened expression at the folds of her old gown.) ‘You are very, very young. Velvet and diamonds worn by women mean a great many things--generally, amongst others, that they have a position to maintain and responsibilities to fulfil--for which you are very young. I should think you might be very happy for some time yet in your youth, enjoying yourself, and studying a little, perhaps, because, of course, you can’t know everything yet.’ She smiled kindly.

‘Oh, pooh!’ cried Fulvia, with a toss of her head. ‘I have been shut up so long. There is all the world to see, and it is quite time I began. I am a Roman girl,’ she went on, lifting her head with a superb gesture. ‘We Roman people do not wait so long to begin our lives as you cold people in your cold country. Beppo told me that. He knows everything. I often go and sit with him in his little room while he is reading. What learned, profound books he reads!’ she went on. ‘He is a scholar indeed, and he has taught me some things from his books. The other day--before we went away, that is--I was reading in a book which he had from the library, translated from the German, about ancient customs here and about what became of Roman girls long ago, when there were emperors here and slaves, and when this city was the mistress of the world--and of your country too.’

She looked defiantly at Minna, who only smiled, saying:

‘Yes, I know it was a great thing for our country that your city and your emperors were its masters once. Well?’

‘I read how by the time a girl was thirteen or fourteen, at the latest, she was married. She went straight home to her husband’s house, and was immediately the most important person in it. Her husband called her Domina; she had power unlimited to amuse herself, to interest herself, to do what she liked. She had even the power of life and death over her slaves, and many members of her household----’

‘And it did her no good,’ interposed Minna hastily. ‘If you had read further you would most likely have found that these young ladies, so early promoted, did not turn out the best of characters afterwards.’

Ignoring this, Fulvia went on:

‘And I am rather more than sixteen, so I think it is high time that I began to follow this good example. Mamma, moreover, says that I am to do so. She has arranged it all.’

‘How?’ asked Minna, almost breathlessly.

‘She says I am to be married,’ replied Fulvia, whose lips were dry, despite the glowing picture she had just been painting.

‘Married!--may I ask to whom?’

‘Oh yes. To Signor Marchmont. He has been in love with me, he says, ever since he first saw me. He is fabulously rich. We went to the opera with him last night. He talked to me all the time. This morning, very early, he came to see mamma. Just before lunch he went away, and she called me, and told me he had asked her for my hand, and that she had promised it to him.’

‘She did not ask you whether you wished him to have it?’

‘Ask me? Che! She can do as she likes,’ said Fulvia, across whose face a dreadful expression was creeping, which turned Minna’s heart cold.

‘But--but----’

‘She told me all that I have told you. I am to have all these things I have been describing to you, and many more--carriages and horses, and men-servants. And I am to travel, and go to Australia, that he may show his friends there what a beautiful wife he has got. But I am not to live there. I shall live in London or Paris.’

‘Not in Rome?’

‘No, not in Rome,’ replied Fulvia, a cold despair in her voice. ‘It seems he objects to Rome; and he told mamma he did not want my relations--he wanted me.’

‘But, my child, there is something all wrong in this. Why do you look at me in that way if----’

‘Oh, it is all right, of course,’ said Fulvia, with a little grating laugh. ‘It is so surprising, that is all. Why do I trouble you with it? Because you are kind--because I heard Beppo say that you were noble-minded. Because you were kind to my poor little birds, so I was sure you would be kind to me, and----’

Almost simultaneously they rose from their chairs. Minna advanced towards Fulvia, who was looking at her now with undisguised despair, with distended eyes full of horror.

‘Fulvia, I only saw you yesterday morning for the first time, but I knew in a moment that you were not happy. I saw it again last night at dinner. You are not happy, in spite of all that you tell me about dresses, and jewels, and so forth. Speak out! You do not wish to marry this man. You are not satisfied about it.’

‘Oh, signora!’ cried Fulvia, in a hollow voice, clasping her hands and looking at Minna. ‘Wish to marry him? I hate him! I hate him! Is he not too dreadful? Oh, what must I do? Oh-h!’ Her sigh ended in a shudder, which shook her from head to foot. ‘I have to hold myself tight, like this,’ and she gathered herself in till she looked about half her natural size, ‘whenever I think about it, or I should begin to scream and cry and talk nonsense. Ah, Dio mio! what have I done that this should have happened to me? Have I really been so bad? And I am afraid--afraid----’ she went on in a freezing whisper, looking around the room with a wild uncontrollable terror in her eyes. ‘It cannot be, it must not be; but it will--that’s the worst! There’s no way out of it. Even Beppo will not help me. I rushed to him and besought him. “Take me away!” I said. “Do not let this happen! I won’t speak to him--I won’t marry him.”’ She suppressed a cry of horror. ‘And he said he could do nothing. I think I am going mad; I feel as if I must run about all over the house, and say to everyone, “Do you know Signor Marchmont? I’m going to be married to him. Don’t you envy me?”’

She burst into a paroxysm of laughing and sobbing combined, hysterical, frantic.

‘Something must be done,’ said Minna beneath her breath, as she looked at her. Then, as a sudden thought crossed her mind, she went up to Fulvia again, put one arm about her shoulder, and with the other drew her head upon her bosom, stroking the bright hair and touching it with her lips.

‘Fulvia mia, one word. Do you love somebody else?’

‘Somebody else? No!’ said Fulvia, suddenly lifting her head, and looking at Minna with her clear, truthful eyes. ‘Why should I? If I loved someone else, and someone else loved me, I should not be afraid. He would no doubt be kind to me, and would kill me rather than let it happen. Now I must do for myself anything that has to be done. Oh, it is so horrible to be afraid! It is the most horrible thing there can be, I am sure. And do you know what it is that I am afraid of--most afraid of, that is?’

‘No, cara mia; tell me.’

‘That if this very worst should happen--if nothing comes to save me, and I am actually married to him, he may be stronger than I am, and--and--I was reading in some of Beppo’s books--they are the only books I ever see--that strong natures put their own stamp on weaker ones--if in time he were to put the stamp of his nature upon me; if some time I, who only wish to be good and do no harm to anybody, should become bad--oh, my God! there is such a long time in life--everything can happen! If this can happen, why should not that happen also?’

Minna’s heart seemed to freeze within her. Decidedly this was no common, tame-natured girl. There was passion, and the capacity for infinite suffering, in her. Perhaps too, by the same rule, the strength to struggle with that suffering. Who should say? But it was no light or frivolous soul which had felt itself on the verge of madness from the contemplation of that possibility.

‘No, no, impossible!’ said Minna brokenly, not knowing what else to say.

‘I never used to have such thoughts,’ pursued Fulvia; ‘it is all since twelve o’clock to-day. I can feel myself turning from a child into a woman. Yesterday I was a _bambina_, as Beppo always called me. To-day I feel quite old.’

She looked indeed ten years older than she had done the night before. Suddenly she added:

‘But I had a thought this afternoon. It came into my mind quite suddenly, and gave me comfort.’

‘What was it?’

‘You know we went to the opera last night. It was _Lucia di Lammermoor_. I have also read the romance of the “Bride of Lammermoor” translated into our language. Lucia found a way to escape when her mother was cruel to her, and so can I.’

‘Hush! it won’t be necessary. It shall not be necessary!’ exclaimed Minna hastily.

‘I asked mamma why, when she had been kind to me all my life, she should now all at once become hard and cruel. She said she was doing me the truest kindness--that I could be no judge in the matter, and that if I had any affection for her I should gladly make this little sacrifice, if it were a sacrifice. Then she told me she was deeply in debt. Our visitors, it seems, do not make her fortune. By my marriage she will be released from every care, and will also have a large sum of money to do as she pleases with. For the first time since I was born, she says, she will know what freedom and self-respect mean.’

‘At the price of her daughter’s slavery, dishonour, and hopeless degradation,’ said Minna to herself.

‘That, of course, is something,’ pursued Fulvia. ‘I must do all I can for my mother, naturally. But is it not awful? Oh! why is Beppo not rich? If he had plenty of money he would have given it all to mamma to pay her debts, and he would have saved me. He told me there was nothing strong in the world now except money, and that it always had been so from the earliest times, since first money was invented. It can do everything, and those who have it can make other people good or bad, just as they please, all because they have a few yellow lumps more than the others have. He was rough--quite rough and hard to me. He almost pushed me away when I knelt down and begged him to make things different. He said, “Go, child! you are in your mother’s hands, not mine.” “But you can talk to mamma--you can persuade her,” I said. He laughed. Beppo laughed. Everything is so strange that I no longer know what anything means.’

Minna knew by instinct the agony which that laugh had concealed.

‘Do not mistrust him,’ she said soothingly. ‘He may perhaps even now find a way out of it.’

Fulvia pushed her hair back, and looked around her with a bewildered expression. ‘It seems so strange. I feel so curious. At one moment it seems as if I had been miserable for thousands of years and never should be anything else. Then, all in a moment, I feel as if it were a dream--all nonsense--and that I had imagined it all. Perhaps it will turn out to be so.’

She looked desolately at Minna.

‘Has--has anything been said about the time of this? Did he want to be married soon?’

‘As soon as possible, but he is obliged to go away for a little while first, to London, where his business is. And there was something about lawyers and settlements. I don’t know what; I don’t understand it.’

‘Is he coming again to-night?’

‘Yes, I believe so. But not to dinner. Yes, he is coming to-night,’ she said in an apathetic voice, as if the last point of emotion had been reached, and she was past feeling anything more. ‘I suppose he will come every night until he goes away.’

Minna was silent. All sorts of wild plans and projects went careering through her mind. So far as she could gather, the bargain, though clinched between the two parties in authority--Marchmont and Signora Dietrich--had not yet been formally ratified in presence of the object of barter--Fulvia, to wit. That part of the affair was probably to come off to-night, when the victim would be adorned for the sacrificial altar, and crowned, so to speak, with garlands. What was to be done? She kept stupidly repeating to herself, ‘Something must be done!’ but she knew perfectly well that the something did not exist, could not be done, could not be brought about by anything short of a miracle.

Fulvia Dietrich, legally and by the iron traditions of her nationality, was as absolutely her mother’s chattel, and at her mother’s disposal, as if she had been a basket of oranges which the signora had bought in the market. It was the mother’s duty to see the girl provided for, either by marriage, or by sending her into a convent, or by disposing of her in some way, decently and in order. And in the proposed arrangement everything necessary had been attended to--everything outwardly necessary, that is. There was money, something which for want of a better name might be called position, honourable marriage, a future free from pecuniary cares, if from nothing else.

It was most fortunate that the dispenser of all these things should make the impression upon nine persons out of ten of being a horror--a sort of moral reptile--to be whose wife must be, for any decent girl, hell upon earth.

Minna felt it to her inmost soul. That, however, did not help, did not give her the power to arrest the action of Signora Dietrich, and could effect nothing towards the saving of Fulvia from her fate.

‘I suppose he is received in respectable society,’ she thought darkly. ‘I’ve never met him anywhere; but--surely--have I heard people talking about some rich, vulgar colonial millionaire? I’ve been so little out lately. I must begin to stir myself up and go about a little more amongst my fellow-creatures. Can he be an impostor?’ She gave a joyful start. ‘Who knows what he is? I’m sure in looks the most stagey _roué_ that ever played the villain’s part in a transpontine melodrama could not exceed him. He looks just the man to have a wife concealed somewhere. No doubt he has. Oh yes, that must be the case. We must find it out, and expose him. Even the signora could not get over such an awkward little fact as that, in addition to which her daughter could not be legally married to him, and could have no claims upon his money. Really, I am becoming acute and ingenious, driven by necessity.’

She had been sitting still all this time, her hand resting upon that of Fulvia; and looking up now, she perceived the girl’s eyes fixed upon her with wistful solicitude. In an instant Minna knew that all her thoughts and suspicions amounted to practically nothing--counted for nothing, would effect nothing.

‘Fulvia,’ she said in a deep voice, ‘it is a difficult matter. I am not clever enough to grapple with it at once. All I can say to you is, that I shall think about it continually, and if I can find a means of helping you I shall do it. I know this is cold comfort for you, but I am only human--I can do no more.’

‘Ah!’ said Fulvia, ‘I am sure you would if you could. So would Beppo. Poor Beppo! He has no money, you know, or he would give every penny of it to mamma to set me free. And I should let him do it, because then I could pay him for it by working for him with my own hands. We should be so happy, even in an attic--I with my work, he with his books--we should never think of anything dreadful.’

‘You love Signor Giuseppe?’ hazarded Minna.

‘Love him! Ah, how good he is! and how kind, and how wise ... and how sad!’ she added in a lower voice.

Yes; Minna knew it, and felt that she must not pursue the subject any further. It was like prying into a man’s secrets behind his back.

‘Now I must go,’ said Fulvia. ‘You have been very kind to me. I like being here.’

‘You must come often. I shall always be glad when you do. You will have to come, you know, to look after the birds.’

Fulvia nodded gravely.

‘Yes, I must go now to mamma’s room. She will wonder already where I have been so long.’

She put her hand within that which Minna extended to her, carried the latter to her lips, and then, lifting her head, and with a forlorn smile, went quietly out of the room.

END OF VOL. I.

BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Changes made to text:

On page 4, changed “eight-and twenty” to “eight-and-twenty”

On page 23, near “Medusa Morente”, the original spelling of “Apoxiomene” has been retained

On page 24, inserted missing period after “Come and try it”

On page 126, added missing period after “of what I used to be”

On page 140, near “she said discontentedly”, changed “Giá” to “Già”

On page 213, added missing period after “almost breathlessly”

On page 222, added missing period after “She looked desolately at Minna”