Part 7

And now the storm departed almost as rapidly as it had arrived. In the north the sky was already clear, blue and hard-looking--a wall of lapis-lazuli. The dark cloud-canopy was drifting to the south. Suddenly the sun came out, flashing first from the snows of Monte Sfiorito, then, in an instant, flooding the entire prospect with a marvellous yellow light, ethereal amber; whilst long streamers of tinted vapour--columns of pearl-dust, one might have fancied--rose to meet it; and all wet surfaces, leaves, lawns, tree-trunks, housetops, the bare crags of the Gnisi, gleamed in a wash of gold.

Puffs of fresh air blew into the kitchen, filling it with the keen sweet odour of wet earth. The priest and the Duchessa and Emilia joined Peter at the open door.

“Oh, your poor, poor garden!” the Duchessa cried.

His garden had suffered a good deal, to be sure. The flowers lay supine, their faces beaten into the mud; the greensward was littered with fallen leaves and twigs--and even in one or two places whole branches had been broken from the trees; on the ground about each rose-bush a snow of pink rose-petals lay scattered; in the paths there were hundreds of little pools, shining in the sun like pools of fire.

“There's nothing a gardener can't set right,” said Peter, feeling no doubt that here was a trifling tax upon the delights the storm had procured him.

“And oh, our poor, poor hats!” said the Duchessa, eyeing ruefully those damaged pieces of finery. “I fear no gardener can ever set them right.”

“It sounds inhospitable,” said Peter, “but I suppose I had better go and build your bridge.”

So he threw a ladder athwart the river, and laid the planks in place, as he had seen Gigi do the day before.

“How ingenious--and, like all great things, how simple,” laughed the Duchessa.

Peter waved his hand, as who should modestly deprecate applause. But, I 'm ashamed to own, he didn't disclaim the credit of the invention.

“It will require some nerve,” she reflected, looking at the narrow planks, the foaming green water. “However--”

And gathering in her skirts, she set bravely forward, and made the transit without mishap. The priest and Emilia, gathering in their skirts, made it after her.

She paused on the other side, and looked back, smiling.

“Since you have discovered so efficacious a means of cutting short the distance between our places of abode,” she said, “I hope you will not fail to profit by it whenever you may have occasion--on Thursday, for example.”

“Thank you very much,” said Peter.

“Of course,” she went on, “we may all die of our wetting yet. It would perhaps show a neighbourly interest if you were to come up to-morrow, and take our news. Come at four o'clock; and if we're alive... you shall have another pinch of snuff,” she promised, laughing.

“I adore you,” said Peter, under his breath. “I'll come with great pleasure,” he said aloud.

“Marietta,” he observed, that evening, as he dined, “I would have you to know that the Aco is bridged. Hence, there is one symbol the fewer in Lombardy. But why does--you mustn't mind the Ollendorfian form of my enquiry--why does the chaplain of the Duchessa wear red stockings?”

“The chaplain of the Duchessa--?” repeated Marietta, wrinkling up her brow.

“Ang--of the Duchessa di Santangiolo. He wore red stockings, and shoes with silver buckles. Do you think that's precisely decorous--don't you think it 's the least bit light-minded--in an ecclesiastic?”

“He--? Who--?” questioned Marietta.

“But the chaplain of the Duchessa--when he was here this afternoon.”

“The chaplain of the Duchessa!” exclaimed Marietta. “Here this afternoon? The chaplain of the Duchessa was not here this afternoon. His Eminence the Lord Prince Cardinal Udeschini was here this afternoon.”

“What!” gasped Peter.

“Ang,” said Marietta.

“That was Cardinal Udeschini--that little harmless-looking, sweet-faced old man!” Peter wondered.

“Sicuro--the uncle of the Duca,” said she.

“Good heavens!” sighed he. “And I allowed myself to hobnob with him like a boon-companion.”

“Gia,” said she.

“You need n't rub it in,” said he. “For the matter of that, you yourself entertained him in your kitchen.”

“Scusi?” said she.

“Ah, well--it was probably for the best,” he concluded. “I daresay I should n't have behaved much better if I had known.”

“It was his coming which saved this house from being struck by lightning,” announced Marietta.

“Oh--? Was it?” exclaimed Peter.

“Yes, Signorino. The lightning would never strike a house that the Lord Prince Cardinal was in.”

“I see--it would n't venture--it would n't presume. Did--did it strike all the houses that the Lord Prince Cardinal was n't in?”

“I do not think so, Signorino. Ma non fa niente. It was a terrible storm--terrible, terrible. The lightning was going to strike this house, when the Lord Prince Cardinal arrived.”

“Hum,” said Peter. “Then you, as well as I, have reason for regarding his arrival as providential.”

XVIII

“I think something must have happened to my watch,” Peter said, next day.

Indeed, its hands moved with extraordinary, with exasperating slowness.

“It seems absurd that it should do no good to push them on,” he thought.

He would force himself, between twice ascertaining their position, to wait for a period that felt like an eternity, walking about miserably, and smoking flavourless cigarettes;--then he would stand amazed, incredulous, when, with a smirk (as it almost struck him) of ironical complacence, they would attest that his eternity had lasted something near a quarter of an hour.

“And I had professed myself a Kantian, and made light of the objective reality of Time! thou laggard, Time!” he cried, and shook his fist at Space, Time's unoffending consort.

“I believe it will never be four o'clock again,” he said, in despair, finally; and once more had out his watch. It was half-past three. He scowled at the instrument's bland white face. “You have no bowels, no sensibilities--nothing but dry little methodical jog-trot wheels and pivots!” he exclaimed, flying to insult for relief. “You're as inhuman as a French functionary. Do you call yourself a sympathetic comrade for an impatient man?” He laid it open on his rustic table, and waited through a last eternity. At a quarter to four he crossed the river. “If I am early--tant pis!” he decided, choosing the lesser of two evils, and challenging Fate.

He crossed the river, and stood for the first time in the grounds of Ventirose--stood where she had been in the habit of standing, during their water-side colloquies. He glanced back at his house and garden, envisaging them for the first time, as it were, from her point of view. They had a queer air of belonging to an era that had passed, to a yesterday already remote. They looked, somehow, curiously small, moreover--the garden circumscribed, the two-storied house, with its striped sunblinds, poor and petty. He turned his back upon them--left them behind. He would have to come home to them later in the day, to be sure; but then everything would be different. A chapter would have added itself to the history of the world; a great event, a great step forward, would have definitely taken place. He would have been received at Ventirose as a friend. He would be no longer a mere nodding acquaintance, owing even that meagre relationship to the haphazard of propinquity. The ice-broken, if you will, but still present in abundance--would have been gently thawed away. One era had passed; but then a new era would have begun.

So he turned his back upon Villa F'loriano, and set off, high-hearted, up the wide lawns, under the bending trees--whither, on four red-marked occasions, he had watched her disappear--towards the castle, which faced him in its vast irregular picturesqueness. There were the oldest portions, grimly mediaeval, a lakeside fortress, with ponderous round towers, meurtrieres, machiolations, its grey stone walls discoloured in fantastic streaks and patches by weather-stains and lichens, or else shaggily overgrown by creepers. Then there were later portions, rectangular, pink-stuccoed, with rusticated work at the corners, and, on the blank spaces between the windows, quaint allegorical frescoes, faded, half washed-out. And then there were entirely modern-looking portions, of gleaming marble, with numberless fanciful carvings, spires, pinnacles, reliefs--wonderfully light, gay, habitable, and (Peter thought) beautiful, in the clear Italian atmosphere, against the blue Italian sky.

“It's a perfect house for her,” he said. “It suits her--like an appropriate garment; it almost seems to express her.”

And all the while, as he proceeded, her voice kept sounding in his ears; scraps of her conversation, phrases that she had spoken, kept coming back to him.

One end of the long, wide marble terrace had been arranged as a sort of out-of-door living-room. A white awning was stretched overhead; warm-hued rugs were laid on the pavement; there were wicker lounging-chairs, with bright cushions, and a little table, holding books and things.

The Duchessa rose from one of the lounging-chairs, and came forward, smiling, to meet him.

She gave him her hand--for the first time.

It was warm--electrically warm; and it was soft--womanly soft; and it was firm, alive--it spoke of a vitality, a temperament. Peter was sure, besides, that it would be sweet to smell; and he longed to bend over it, and press it with his lips. He might almost have done so, according to Italian etiquette. But, of course, he simply bowed over it, and let it go.

“Mi trova abbandonata,” she said, leading the way back to the terrace-end. There were notes of a peculiar richness in her voice, when she spoke Italian; and she dwelt languorously on the vowels, and rather slurred the consonants, lazily, in the manner Italian women have, whereby they give the quality of velvet to their tongue. She was not an Italian woman; Heaven be praised, she was English: so this was just pure gain to the sum-total of her graces. “My uncle and my niece have gone to the village. But I 'm expecting them to come home at any moment now--and you'll not have long, I hope, to wait for your snuff.”

She flashed a whimsical little smile into his eyes. Then she returned to her wicker chair, glancing an invitation at Peter to place himself in the one facing her. She leaned back, resting her head on a pink silk cushion.

Peter, no doubt, sent up a silent prayer that her uncle and her niece might be detained at the village for the rest of the afternoon. By her niece he took her to mean Emilia: he liked her for the kindly euphemism. “What hair she has!” he thought, admiring the loose brown masses, warm upon their background of pink silk.

“Oh, I'm inured to waiting,” he replied, with a retrospective mind for the interminable waits of that interminable day.

The Duchessa had taken a fan from the table, and was playing with it, opening and shutting it slowly, in her lap. Now she caught Peter's eyes examining it, and she gave it to him. (My own suspicion is that Peter's eyes had been occupied rather with the hands that held the fan, than with the fan itself--but that's a detail.)

“I picked it up the other day, in Rome,” she said. “Of course, it's an imitation of the French fans of the last century, but I thought it pretty.”

It was of white silk, that had been thinly stained a soft yellow, like the yellow of faded yellow rose-leaves. It was painted with innumerable plump little cupids, flying among pale clouds. The sticks were of mother-of=pearl. The end-sticks were elaborately incised, and in the incisions opals were set, big ones and small ones, smouldering with green and scarlet fires.

“Very pretty indeed,” said Peter, “and very curious. It's like a great butterfly's wing is n't it? But are n't you afraid of opals?”

“Afraid of opals?” she wondered. “Why should one be?”

“Unless your birthday happens to fall in October, they're reputed to bring bad luck,” he reminded her.

“My birthday happens to fall in June but I 'll never believe that such pretty things as opals can bring bad luck,” she laughed, taking the fan, which he returned to her, and stroking one of the bigger opals with her finger tip.

“Have you no superstitions?” he asked.

“I hope not--I don't think I have,” she answered. “We're not allowed to have superstitions, you know--nous autres Catholiques.”

“Oh?” he said, with surprise. “No, I did n't know.”

“Yes, they're a forbidden luxury. But you--? Are you superstitious? Would you be afraid of opals?”

“I doubt if I should have the courage to wear one. At all events, I don't regard superstitions in the light of a luxury. I should be glad to be rid of those I have. They're a horrible inconvenience. But I can't get it out of my head that the air is filled with a swarm of malignant little devils, who are always watching their chance to do us an ill turn. We don't in the least know the conditions under which they can bring it off; but it's legendary that if we wear opals, or sit thirteen at table, or start an enterprise on Friday, or what not, we somehow give them their opportunity. And one naturally wishes to be on the safe side.”

She looked at him with doubt, considering.

“You don't seriously believe all that?” she said.

“No, I don't seriously believe it. But one breathes it in with the air of one's nursery, and it sticks. I don't believe it, but I fear it just enough to be made uneasy. The evil eye, for instance. How can one spend any time in Italy, where everybody goes loaded with charms against it, and help having a sort of sneaking half-belief in the evil eye?”

She shook her head, laughing.

“I 've spent a good deal of time in Italy, but I have n't so much as a sneaking quarter-belief in it.”

“I envy you your strength of mind,” said he. “But surely, though superstition is a luxury forbidden to Catholics, there are plenty of good Catholics who indulge in it, all the same?”

“There are never plenty of good Catholics,” said sire. “You employ a much-abused expression. To profess the Catholic faith, to go to Mass on Sunday and abstain from meat on Friday, that is by no means sufficient to constitute a good Catholic. To be a good Catholic one would have to be a saint, nothing less--and not a mere formal saint, either, but a very real saint, a saint in thought and feeling, as well as in speech and action. Just in so far as one is superstitious, one is a bad Catholic. Oh, if the world were populated by good Catholics, it would be the Millennium come to pass.”

“It would be that, if it were populated by good Christians--wouldn't it?” asked Peter.

“The terms are interchangeable,” she answered sweetly, with a half-comical look of defiance.

“Mercy!” cried he. “Can't a Protestant be a good Christian too?”

“Yes,” she said, “because a Protestant can be a Catholic without knowing it.”

“Oh--?” he puzzled, frowning.

“It's quite simple,” she explained. “You can't be a Christian unless you're a Catholic. But if you believe as much of Christian truth as you've ever had a fair opportunity of learning, and if you try to live in accordance with Christian morals, you are a Catholic, you're a member of the Catholic Church, whether you know it or not. You can't be deprived of your birthright, you see.”

“That seems rather broad,” said Peter; “and one had always heard that Catholicism was nothing if not narrow.”

“How could it be Catholic if it were narrow?” asked she. “However, if a Protestant uses his intelligence, and is logical, he'll not remain an unconscious Catholic long. If he studies the matter, and is logical, he'll wish to unite himself to the Church in her visible body. Look at England. See how logic is multiplying converts year by year.”

“But it's the glory of Englishmen to be illogical,” said Peter, with a laugh. “Our capacity for not following premisses to their logical consequences is the principal source of our national greatness. So the bulk of the English are likely to resist conversion for centuries to come--are they not? And then, nowadays, one is so apt to be an indifferentist in matters of religion--and Catholicism is so exacting. One remains a Protestant from the love of ease.”

“And from the desire, on the part of a good many Englishmen at least, to sail in a boat of their own--not to get mixed up with a lot of foreign publicans and sinners--no?” she suggested.

“Oh, of course, we're insular and we're Pharisaical,” admitted Peter.

“And as for one's indifference,” she smiled, “that is most probably due to one's youth and inexperience. One can't come to close quarters with the realities of life--with sorrow, with great joy, with temptation, with sin or with heroic virtue, with death, with the birth of a new soul, with any of the awful, wonderful realities of life--and continue to be an indifferentist in matters of religion, do you think?”

“When one comes to close quarters with the awful, wonderful realities of life, one has religious moments,” he acknowledged. “But they're generally rather fugitive, are n't they?”

“One can cultivate them--one can encourage them,” she said. “If you would care to know a good Catholic,” she added, “my niece, my little ward, Emilia is one. She wants to become a Sister of Mercy, to spend her life nursing the poor.”

“Oh? Would n't that be rather a pity?” Peter said. “She's so extremely pretty. I don't know when I have seen prettier brown eyes than hers.”

“Well, in a few years, I expect we shall see those pretty brown eyes looking out from under a sister's coif. No, I don't think it will be a pity. Nuns and sisters, I think, are the happiest people in the world--and priests. Have you ever met any one who seemed happier than my uncle, for example?”

“I have certainly never met any one who seemed sweeter, kinder,” Peter confessed. “He has a wonderful old face.”

“He's a wonderful old man,” said she. “I 'm going to try to keep him a prisoner here for the rest of the summer--though he will have it that he's just run down for a week. He works a great deal too hard when he's in Rome. He's the only Cardinal I've ever heard of, who takes practical charge of his titular church. But here in the country he's out-of-doors all the blessed day, hand in hand with Emilia. He's as young as she is, I believe. They play together like children--and make--me feel as staid and solemn and grown-up as one of Mr. Kenneth Grahame's Olympians.”

Peter laughed. Then, in the moment of silence that followed, he happened to let his eyes stray up the valley.

“Hello!” he suddenly exclaimed. “Someone has been painting our mountain green.”

The Duchessa turned, to look; and she too uttered an exclamation.

By some accident of reflection or refraction, the snows of Monte Sfiorito had become bright green, as if the light that fell on them had passed through emeralds. They both paused, to gaze and marvel for a little. Indeed, the prospect was a pleasing one, as well as a surprising--the sunny lawns, the high trees, the blue lake, and then that bright green mountain.

“I have never known anything like those snow-peaks for sailing under false colours,” Peter said. “I have seen them every colour of the calendar, except their native white.”

“You must n't blame the poor things,” pleaded the Duchessa. “They can't help it. It's all along o' the distance and the atmosphere and the sun.”

She closed her fan, with which she had been more or less idly playing throughout their dialogue, and replaced it on the table. Among the books there--French books, for the most part, in yellow paper--Peter saw, with something of a flutter (he could never see it without something of a flutter), the grey-and-gold binding of “A Man of Words.”

The Duchessa caught his glance.

“Yes,” she said; “your friend's novel. I told you I had been re-reading it.”

“Yes,” said he.

“And--do you know--I 'm inclined to agree with your own enthusiastic estimate of it?” she went on. “I think it's extremely--but extremely--clever; and more--very charming, very beautiful. The fatal gift of beauty!”

And her smile reminded him that the application of the tag was his own.

“Yes,” said he.

“Its beauty, though,” she reflected, “is n't exactly of the obvious sort--is it? It does n't jump at you, for instance. It is rather in the texture of the work, than on the surface. One has to look, to see it.”

“One always has to look, to see beauty that is worth seeing,” he safely generalised. But then--he had put his foot in the stirrup--his hobby bolted with him. “It takes two to make a beautiful object. The eye of the beholder is every bit as indispensable as the hand of the artist. The artist does his work--the beholder must do his. They are collaborators. Each must be the other's equal; and they must also be like each other--with the likeness of opposites, of complements. Art, in short, is entirely a matter of reciprocity. The kind of beauty that jumps at you is the kind you end by getting heartily tired of--is the skin-deep kind; and therefore it is n't really beauty at all--it is only an approximation to beauty--it may be only a simulacrum of it.”

Her eyes were smiling, her face was glowing, softly, with interest, with friendliness and perhaps with the least suspicion of something else--perhaps with the faintest glimmer of suppressed amusement; but interest was easily predominant.

“Yes,” she assented.... But then she pursued her own train of ideas. “And--with you--I particularly like the woman--Pauline. I can't tell you how much I like her. I--it sounds extravagant, but it's true--I can think of no other woman in the whole of fiction whom I like so well--who makes so curiously personal an appeal to me. Her wit--her waywardness--her tenderness--her generosity--everything. How did your friend come by his conception of her? She's as real to me as any woman I have ever known she's more real to me than most of the women I know--she's absolutely real, she lives, she breathes. Yet I have never known a woman resembling her. Life would be a merrier business if one did know women resembling her. She seems to me all that a woman ought ideally to be. Does your friend know women like that--the lucky man? Or is Pauline, for all her convincingness, a pure creature of imagination?”

“Ah,” said Peter, laughing, “you touch the secret springs of my friend's inspiration. That is a story in itself. Felix Wildmay is a perfectly commonplace Englishman. How could a woman like Pauline be the creature of his imagination? No--she was a 'thing seen.' God made her. Wildmay was a mere copyist. He drew her, tant bien que mal, from the life from a woman who's actually alive on this dull globe to-day. But that's the story.”

The Duchessa's eyes were intent.

“The story-? Tell me the story,” she pronounced in a breath, with imperious eagerness.

And her eyes waited, intently.