 | CHAPTER VII. Paul Fane, or, Parts of a life else untold |  |
7. CHAPTER VII.
The sunset was pouring its yellow dust over the streets
of Florence, giving a softened and rounded edge to every
line of the bold and overladen architecture. Every most
careless effect of building or beast of burden—every movement
or posture of man, woman or child—seemed the original
of a picture of Claude. The air was happiness enough
to breathe, without life's being made any richer.
“I will make no engagement for to-morrow morning,”
said Paul, to his friend Bosh, as they parted at the door
of their lodgings; “to a night with such an atmosphere as
this, a man can only deliver himself over.”
“But, there's Giulietta engaged early,” interrupted
Bosh; “why not give the night's sleep the go-by, altogether—wind
up at the ball with a cup of coffee, and come
straight to the studio?”
“Too pure a presence to bring such polluted eyes to,”
said Paul, thoughtfully. “I would not profane the child
by looking upon her beauty without the baptism of sleep,
after one of these court balls!”
“Wh—e—w!” incredulously whistled Blivins, to whom
this scruple was a trifle too transcendental; “little she'll
care whether you've baptized your ten-cent piece, so you
pay it! I shall go dine with the Firkinses, without losing
any of my goodness, as I know of. Giulietta for one, if
you're not there, that's all.”
The passing vetturino, to whom Paul had beckoned,
drove up at this moment, and the two friends parted for
their different engagements—Blivins to proceed on foot to
the splendid “Palazzo Firkin,” and Fane directing the
driver of the hired vehicle to pass out at the city gate
toward San Miniato. He was to take tea with the Palefords,
at their vineyard cottage among the neighboring
hills, and come in with them to the court ball, at a later
hour.
With alternate crawl and scamper, after the fashion of
the country, the vetturino pursued his way toward Casa
F—, and the yellow of the fading sunlight was contending
with the silver of a full moon new risen, when they
stopped at the rude old gateway.
“Porter or portress, whichever you please, my dear
Fane,” said Colonel Paleford, stepping out from under the
roofed lintel, with his daughter upon his arm, and giving
Paul a hand as he alighted, “Sybil and I came down to
share the honor of opening the gate for you.”
And warmly returning the grasp of the soldierly Englishman,
as he bowed low to take the proffered hand of the daughter,
Paul joined them on their return to the house. The
rough vineyard road was lined and roofed over with the
luxuriant vines, and as they emerged from the darkened
avenue at the end, they came upon the English tea-table
spread on the grass in the open air.
“This is rather al fresco, for an invalid,” said Mrs. Paleford,
as she nodded familiarly to Paul, and went on pouring
out the tea that had been waiting for them, “but a
house, in this climate, is such a different thing! In England
it shuts in comfort—here, it shuts it out.”
“So defined in the bird-dictionary,” said Paul.
“It was thought to be running such a dreadful gauntlet
of exposure, when I started to get to Italy,” continued the
invalid, “but what would my doctor say, now—quite given
over as a consumptive, and yet taking tea out of doors in
the evening?”
Paul was seated at the round table, by this time, with
one of the younger children upon his knee, and Miss Paleford
leaned upon her father's shoulder, looking alternately
into his face as he talked, and at the broad disk of the
moon as it lifted among the olive-trees beyond. The
beautiful girl took little or no part in the conversation,
except by a worshipping attention to her father, which
fascination.
“I was speculating, only this morning, upon a very contented
old cripple at the gate,” said the Colonel, “and
thinking what a happy country it is, where exclusion and
exposure are not among the ills of poverty.”
“And where bread and wine may be had at any vineyard
gate for the asking,” added Paul.
“But it is not merely in the climate and its prodigality
of what will sustain life,” continued his friend, “but see
how much more is free of cost than elsewhere—say of
luxuries, and to those who are poor, like us!”
Paul glanced at the lofty impress of feature and manner
on the family around him, and admired once more the
English-ism of making no secret of reduced circumstances
or necessary economy.
“The Duke's galleries are of unheard of cost—so are his
gardens—the galleries and gardens of his nobility—yet neither
he nor any one of his court is more at liberty to enjoy
them than you or I, Fane—and without the cost of a farthing!
Then the ball at the Palace to-night, with its lighted wilderness
of splendors, its music and feasting—the very preeminence
of rank, in the sovereign entertainer, relieving your
pride of the embarrassment of receiving such hospitalities
without return!”
“But I have thought, even in my own country, where
there is less `luxury gratis' than any where else,” said
Paul, “that the rich man is often the care-worn manager
of the theatre where others enjoy the play.”
“Climate has much to do with the pleasure of being
rich,” the Colonel went musingly on to say, “the consciousness
of an empty pocket being very different in a
chilly atmosphere or a warm one. Any man in the world,
I venture to say, would feel richer on a shilling in Florence,
than on a guinea in London. But aside from the fancy of
the matter, there is positive reason for wealth being so
much more of a blessing in England—the costly shutting
out of the climate, that there is to be done before you can
begin to be happy. The beggar, here, has what we call
`comfort'—but there must be `competency' in England, to
procure you the house and hearth which would only just
enable you to begin where the Italian beggar stands
already.”
“No beggars in republics, I suppose? asked the listening
Sybil, turning her calm blue eyes from the moon upon Paul,
with an effect, in their lustre and in the slow motion which
he admiringly likened in his own mind to the priestess-like
pouring out of vases-full of moonlight upon a worshipper of
Dian. Busy with storing away the chance-gleam of so
much beauty in his artistic memory—observing, too, that the
earnest study of his voicelessly responsive look had started
immediately answer.
“And with no rank in America,” said Mrs. Paleford, “I
suppose wealth goes further there than elsewhere, towards
making a grandee.”
“It would seem as if it must be so,” replied Paul, and
probably would be, but that wealth is brought into less esteem
by two or three chance influences, that are also
American. In the first place, fortunes are made easily, in
our country—often so accidentally or suddenly—that the
mere fact of being rich gives no unconditional position.
Then wealth is so easily lost, with the venturesome character
of our people, and it is so divided up where there is no
law of primogeniture, that it is not looked upon as a sufficient
permanency to confer any undisputed superiority of
one family over another. And there is a third and worse
opprobrium under which wealth labors in America—its
possession, in the majority of cases, by those to whose children
it is a curse. New to it themselves, as most rich
people are, and bringing up their families in mere idleness
and ostentation, they do not hand down the superiorities
of culture in mind and manners which are the accompaniments
of inherited wealth elsewhere. The phrase “rich
men's sons” contains a sneer in common parlance, and describes
those, who, as a class, are positively offensive.”
“But you have distinctions of society, surely,” said the
“first families” and “fashionables.” You have people
who are allowed to be more of gentlefolks than others—
have you not?”
“Undoubtedly — nowhere more certainly,” answered
Paul—“though there would be different ground to be
shown for the higher social standing, in each particular
case. No one theory of aristocracy would account for the
“first families” in any American city. And, as there are no
definite or arbitrary crusts of gentility, above or below, the
rise or fall of social consequence has a certain naturalness
of play—a moral specific gravity, as it were—more just
than in other countries.”
“Wealth is an accessory, of course?” inquired the invalid.
“Yes, and so is good birth or descent from forefathers
who have stood socially well rather than from those who
have held popular office. But these are accessories only.
Claims (over and above integrity and morals, that is to
say), must be otherwise undeniable.”
“Claims such as talents, you mean, or superior education?”
said the Colonel.
“No,” said Paul, hesitating and coloring slightly as he
ventured upon a remark which only its entire truthfulness
redeemed from being too directly complimentary, “there
is nothing which gives such unquestioned social standing
me—Nature's mark and mould of superiority.
The father playfully smoothed off the golden-edged
tress from the forehead of his child so superbly beautiful,
and she, in turn, looked into his clear-cut and noble features—each
finding in the other a confirmation of Paul's
bold venture of appreciation.
“And it is a privileged country, in that respect,” continued
Paul, “for those who represent our first classes
commonly have the look of it; and when the stranger is
called upon to recognise the leaders of society, it may be
tolerably certain that he finds them to be Nature's nobility
also.”
“Curiously different from Italy, in that respect,” said
Mrs. Paleford, “the peasantry having all the beauty in this
least republican of countries.”
“And the contrast must continue to strengthen,” added
the Colonel, “for, with the greater value of beauty and the
higher position given by a natural air of superiority, the
possessors of such gifts, in America, will make what are
called `the best matches,' and so the pick of Nature's outside
chances and caprices will be constantly tributary to
the stock of the upper classes. Here, it is very easy to
see, the physique of the aristocracy is suffering pitiably
from the opposite system—the nobility being very rigidly
subject to intermarriage of old blood, and for reasons of
treatment, we see by the present dwarfed possessors of the
great names of Spain and Portugal.”
“Then you romantically marry for love, in America?”
asked Mrs. Paleford.
“Oftenest,” said Paul smiling, “though it is hardly
looked upon as a sacrifice. It is taken for granted in our
new country, that any young man worth having can at
least support a wife; and, as married men are more trusted
in business, from having more to be responsible for, a young
bride is an improvement of her husband's credit, and therefore,
in herself a dowry.”
Miss Paleford lifted her head from her father's shoulder,
and gave an attention to the conversation which Paul
interpreted as only an amused interest in the novelty of
the view.
“Oh,” he continued, laughing, “you should go to America
to see the difference that little trifle makes in the
manners of the young ladies! Fancy a country where
they all behave like heiresses!”
“Time to be thinking of the Duke's ball, my child,”
said Colonel Paleford. “There is not much complaint
made,” he continued, turning to Paul as the stately girl
disappeared under the rough trellis-work which made the
vestibule to their vineyard cottage—“not much that we
hear of, at least, as to the subjection of the sex to this destiny
society, is scarce avoidable—but there is occasionally a
proud spirit that makes bitter rebellion against it!”
Paul understood, from the degree more than usual of
subdued distinctness with which the Colonel uttered this
remark (at the same time so undertoning it as not to be
overheard by his retiring daughter) that a point had been
inadvertently approached where the pride of the queenly
girl had made its resistance to what might be looked forward
to as her lot, under the reduced circumstances of her
family. Mrs. Paleford had, in the meantime, left them to
assist at the toilette within; and, putting his arm through
the Colonel's, Paul led off for a stroll through the vineyard,
changing the subject as they turned away. We may
leave the two gentlemen to their conversation, while we
give the reader a hint or two, by which these—Paul's most
intimate friends in Florence—will have a fairer introduction
to our story.
Colonel Paleford was an English officer, who had retired
from the service upon half pay, after losing an arm at Waterloo;
and, with little beside that slender income for the
support of his family, he had made Italy his permanent
home. The extreme economy with which the mere necessaries
of life may be had in that country, by those who
will consent to entirely forego show and luxury, had been
thoroughly studied and unhesitatingly and openly adopted
thus enabled to live within his means and with little or no
embarrassment or care. The cottage he rented, on one of
the beautiful hillsides in the suburbs of Florence, was the
rustic homestead of a vintager, whose simple Italian family
were glad to bestow themselves in the out-buildings and
serve as domestics; and, with himself and his wife as the
only instructors of his children, they had a little world of
their own to which their natural nobility and refinement
gave the atmosphere of a palace.
Paul had first met the Palefords at court, where they
had a position quite peculiar to themselves. The English
Ambassador was a man of strong good sense, and he had
lost no opportunity of designating, by his own marked and
constant attentions, the place which he wished his high-minded
and soldierly countryman to take in the courtly
estimation. But even this was not necessary. The sovereign
of the Tuscan Court was a man to appreciate Colonel
Paleford at a glance. Simple in his own manners,
and a thorough man of the world, Leopold valued Nature's
mark of superiority on those around him, and evidently
felt his court to be peculiarly dignified and graced by the
stately form with the empty sleeve pinned to its breast like
a cross of honor, and the fine face distinguished above all
the courtiers and men of rank for its intellectual nobility.
Oftener seen in conversation with him than with any other
one, of course.
But it was the daughter of the soldierly Englishman who
was the mystery to the gay court of Tuscany. The father's
constant presence at the various festivities had evidently no
object but to bring her into society—her mother too much
of an invalid to perform her duties as chaperon—yet she
seemed to take little interest in the gayeties around her.
Dressed always in white, and with the most studied simplicity
and absence of ornament, she had his tall military
figure for certainly a most becoming foil, and, as she was
almost inseparable from his arm, they formed the one
tableau, always seen, yet startlingly unique and beautiful.
There were few whose eyes did not follow and dwell upon
them as they were met promenading the long suites of
rooms, or as they sat together with some distinguished
group around them; and, among her own sex, there were
few who did not envy Miss Paleford the constant procession
of admiring “desirables” led up for presentation, while
they could not but wonder at her quiet refusals to dance,
and the calm dignity of coldness which was her only
response to the attentions of lords and princes.
To Paul, when first presented to her by his friend the
Chamberlain, the stately Sybil had seemed simply a bewildering
marvel of beauty. The artist within him had received
the entire impression; and, engrossed with the study of the
endeavored only to watch the play of her features as she
conversed, and so to store up and bring away some line of
which his pencil might try to copy the witchery on the
morrow. As the different foreigners left them, however,
and the conversation fell into English, their common language,
the Colonel had taken sufficient interest in his new
acquaintance to propose that they should find a corner for
a chat at their ease; and so, with the inseparable father
and daughter, Paul had commenced a “wall-flower” intercourse,
which soon (between the gentlemen, at least) ripened
into a friendship. In the quiet and deferential tone of the
young stranger's mind, the Colonel found something for
which he insensibly formed a liking, and it increased as
they met and exchanged thoughts, night after night, in
the luxurious halls of the Pitti; though upon Paul's silent
and artistic but still very evident study and appreciation of
the fair girl who was the listener as they talked, he put
only the interpretation of an unconscious homage to purity
and loveliness, such as might easily be the ground-work of
a passion—though of another secret of Paul's manner
toward them both, the deeply-buried curiosity in his heart
which they had powerfully re-awakened, and which they,
of all persons, seemed most likely to gratify, neither Colonel
Paleford nor his daughter had the means to form
even a conjecture.
And, of this latter moving-spring to the intercourse
between our hero and his friends, the Palefords, we shall
have more to say, farther on.
| CHAPTER VII. Paul Fane, or, Parts of a life else untold | |