21 Not As A Child Shall We Again Behold

AN old-fashioned Roman house, the portone entrance and stairs palatial in size, a great stone court, where a fountain tosses its spray high in the sunshine; groined arches, ablaze with color, trees, vines, birds, butterflies; great pots, and vases of flowering plants everywhere, and statues gleaming whitely through a glow of warmth and color, green and gold. Between the draperies of one great window there is a last glint of amber light. You see a loggia, overrun with roses, a sky full of leaves, a glimpse of orange trees, with their deep green leaves, and sprinkle of scented snow, and jessamines, in profusion, rearing their solid cones of flowery gold. An old-fashioned Roman sala, with rather faded screens, of amber silk, set in finely carved frames, walls nearly covered with dark oil paintings, a great glossy cabinet, a miracle of wood carving, and that last pink and yellow glint of sunset lighting up all.

A peaceful picture, a rustle of myriad leaves in the beautiful twilight, whose air Italians so jealously shut out and fear of multitudinous sleepy birds, workmen and women going home, a crescent moon rising, like a rim of golden crystal, and Ave Marias ringing, until the evening is full of the music of bells, from storied campanile and basilica, to little arches set up against the sky. It is all a dreamy old-world picture, and the girl who stands heedless of the dangerous evening air, leaning against the tall arched window, gazes over it, with eyes that drink in with delight the quaint still sweetness of it all. She is the last and faintest touch of that fair picture, as she stands, tall, supple, straight as a dart, slender as a young willow and as graceful. The last light lingering there, in the fading west, falls full on her face, and fails to find in it a flaw, so fair, so fine is the luster of the skin, so delicate the small features, so perfect in its faint coloring, the tinge of rosy light in the oval cheeks. Her abundant hair, of palest gold, is drawn back from the broad forehead; a few cloudy pearls, and a knot of jasmine, in the amber glitter. She is in evening dress, a trailing Iustrous silk of so pale a blue as to be almost silvery—pink roses loop the rich lace of the square cut corsage, form shoulder knots, and drop in clusters here and there among the lace flounces. She wears no jewels, except the large starry pearls in her hair and in her ears, and clasping the girlish throat and large beautiful arms. Dress and woman are lovely alike, as she stands with loosely clasped hands hanging, leaning against the gray stone, the clustering vines framing her, dreamily listening to the music of the Ave Maria bells.

A servant entering with candles, arouses her presently. She looks up with a start.

“Already, Annunciata? Is it so late? And the signora—has she not yet returned?”

“Not yet, signorina.”

The young lady moves away from the window, and the Italian servant closes the shutter and shuts out at once the exquisite evening picture and the malarious evening air.

“How very imprudent grandmamma is,” the signorina says, glancing at the pendule on the chimney piece, “and in her weak state of health. Sir Vane at least should know better.”

She begins slowly walking up and down the long sala, lit now by the wax-lights and one large, antique, bronze lamp. Her lustrous yard-long train sweeps behind her, her pearls shimmer with their milky whiteness in the amber strands of her hair, in the silvery blue of her dress. So pacing, in pretty impatience, she is a charming vision. Now and then she glances at the clock, and pauses anxiously to listen for carriage wheels in the court-yard.

“Grandmamma ought not,” she says, half-aloud, half-impatiently. “Does she want a second Roman fever, before she is fully recovered from the first? Sir Vane is prudent enough where his own comfort and health are concerned—he might interest himself, a little at least, in hers.”

There is a tap at the door.

“May I come in, deary?” says a voice, and the door is pushed a little way open, and a pleasant old face—not Italian by any means—peeps in.

“Oh, come in, Mrs. Tinker—come in, of course. It is too early to go yet, and even if it were not, I could not go until grandmamma comes back from her drive. She promised to return early, and here it is quite nine o’clock, and——”

“Eh? My maid, what is it you are saying? Not back? Bless thy pretty heart, my deary, she has been back these two hours, and is in the drawing-room with company. Leastways, maybe not company, so to say—it’s her lawyer, Mr. Carson.”

The young lady pauses in her walk to regard the old lady with blue, surprised eyes.

“Why, that is odd! Back these two hours, and I——Did she not go for her usual drive on the Corso with Sir Vane, then, after all?”

“Not wi’ Sir Vane, my deary. She gave him the slip, so to speak. Madame doesn’t like to be watched and spied on, you know. Yes, she went for her drive, but not wi’ Sir Vane, and not on the Corso. She went to her lawyer’s, and brought him back wi’ her here. And there they are in the drawing-room ever since.”

“Well, Mrs. Tinker?”

The young lady says this interrogatively, for Mrs. Tinker looks wistful and important, and as if charged with a heavy load of information, and anxious to go off.

“Eh, Dolores, my maid?—can’t ‘ee guess what’s the business? Maybe I oughtn’t to tell-but it’s good news, and I’m right glad to have it to tell. The madame”—coming closer, and dropping her voice to a whisper—”is making her will!”

“Her will!” The girl repeats the words, turning pale. “Is—is grandmamma worse, then? Oh, Mrs. Tinker, surely she is not going to——”

“Bless thy tender heart, my deary! No—it isn’t that. But she is old, you know, and, eh! my dear, we none o’ us can go on living forever, and it’s well to be prepared. The last will left everything to him. It wouldn’t do to die sudden-like, and leave a will like that. So there’s a new one to-day, my deary, and me and the butler, we’ve put our names to it. And seeing that I’m that long in her service, and have tried to do my duty fairly by my good mistress she’s had it read to me. And, oh! Miss Dolores, my maid, thanks and praise be! all’s left to you, or nearly all. And who has a right to your own grandpapa’s money, that he made himself in lawful trade, if not his own son’s child?”

She lifts one of the slender white hands, and fondles and kisses it.

“Eh, my sweet, but there’ll be a great heiress, when old Tinker’s dead and gone. I’ve been sore afeard, my birdie, that death might come before I would see this day. I couldn’t ‘bide the thought of all that riches going to him. I never could ‘bide him, from first to last. All for himself, my deary, and longing for the day to come that would make him master over us all. But that day will never come now, for which praise and thanks forever be!”

The girl listens, silent, startled, pale.

“And Sir Vane?” she asks.

“Gets a share—not so much, but enough for him. But you are a great, great heiress, my bairnie. You are your grandmother’s rightful heiress, and have what was left to him before. And right it is that it should be so. I don’t hold with giving the children’s portion to the——”

“Tinker!”

“To a far out cousin’s son, then! What rights has he, alongside o’ yours, Master George’s own bonnie daughter? Don’t ‘ee look at me like that, honey; it’s the old madame’s own, to do what she likes wi’.”

“No, no, Mrs. Tinker, it is not. I mean this new will is unfair, unjust. What! all these years Sir Vane has been led to expect that he will have the lion’s share—has been told it should be so, and now, at the eleventh hour— Tinker, I must go to grandmamma. It must not be.”

“Eh! my maid, that you can’t. The lawyer is still there, and no one is to go in until she rings. And you would not get poor old Tinker into trouble, would you, my bairn, because she is too fond of you to hold her foolish tongue? The madame did not mean me to tell you; she wants to do that herself. Wait, my deary, until she does; there is no such haste. But I say again, and will always say, that it is a right, and just, and proper will.”

“There is the bell now!” the young lady exclaims. “Go, Mrs. Tinker, and tell her I want to see her. Tell her I must see her before I go out.”

Some of the old imperiousness of Snowball is in the tone, and her “must” rules the household. Snowball it is, and yet no such person as “Snowball Trillon” any more exists, not even “Dolores Macdonald.” This fair and stately young heiress, in pearls and roses, and silvery silk, is Miss Valentine, granddaughter and idol of Madam Valentine, a beauty and belle by right divine of her own lovely face, and a power here among the English-speaking circle of the Eternal City.

Three years have gone since that July evening, when Snowball’s blue eyes looked through her tears on Isle Perdrix and St. Gildas. Three years, and those blue eyes have looked on half the world, it seems to their owner since, but never more on that childhood home. Three years, in which many masters, much money, great travel, polished society, have done all it lies within them to do for the island hoiden, the trapezist’s daughter. This is the result: A beauty that is a marvel; a grace that leaves nothing to be desired; a well-bred repose of manner, that even an exacting madame can find no fault with. Sometimes the old fire and sparkle strike through, but rarely in grandmamma’s presence. It savors of the past, and the past is to be forgotten—is to be as though it had never been—persons, places, all. She is to forget she ever was Snowball—ever was anything but a graceful blonde princess-royal, with servants and courtiers to bow down and do her homage; an heiress, with the world at her feet; the peerless daughter of all the Valentines, with the sang azure of greatness in her veins. And the girl does her best, not to forget, but to please grandmamma, by appearing as though she did. They love each other with a great and strong love—grandmamma’s, indeed, waxes on the idolatrous. Since the loss of her son, hers has been a loveless life, a dreary and barren life, a sandy desert, without one green spot. She has tolerated Vane Valentine, never, at the best, any more—of late years she has distrusted and disliked him. But this girl has come, and all has changed. She loves her with an intensity begotten of those many loveless years, and her pride in her is equal to her love. Even Vane Valentine profits by this softening change; she can look upon him with quite kindly and complacent eyes now. Perhaps a little of this is owing to a marked change in him. He has made up his mind to accept the inevitable, in the shape of this fair rival; he absolutely takes pains to conciliate and please. But that is within the last year only; he was literally furious at first. No word of the change had reached him, busied with a thousand things following the death of the late baronet-paying off mortgages, establishing his sister at Valentine Manor, making arrangements for having that ancient ancestral mansion repaired and renovated—four months had flown pleasantly away. Not once in that time had madame written. She scarcely ever wrote letters, certainly not to Vane Valentine. Then, the English business settled, in fine health and spirits, Sir Vane set out on his return journey. If madame would but make haste and die! He hardly knew where to find her, so unsettled and wandering were her erratic habits; but Mrs. Tinker was mostly a fixed star; he could always find her. He went to the house in the suburbs of Philadelphia, a sort of headquarters always. He found Mrs. Tinker there, vice-regent, awaiting him, and a letter.

Such a letter! Short as to the number of lines, brief and trenchant as to words, strong and idiomatic as to expression. She had gone to St. Gildas, and seen and been charmed by her granddaughter. They were together at present. Miss Valentine must see a little of the world. She loved her very dearly—more dearly than anything else on earth—already, and meant to part with her no more! As to their return, quite impossible to tell when that time might come. Her good Vane was to amuse himself well, and not be anxious. He sits holding that letter—that cold, crushing, pitiless letter, that blasted his every earthly hope. He was ousted! The trapeze woman’s girl won in his place. After his years of waiting, hoping, scheming, this was the end!

He sat silent, still, the fatal letter in his hand. And if any passing artist, wanting a sitter for Satan, had chanced to look in, he would have found a model with the right expression. A rage, a bitterness beyond all words, filled him. To be beaten and baffled like this! Of what use now the title of baronet, with nothing left to keep it up; of what use all these barren ancestral acres, the ivy-grown, tunneled, half-ruined manor, with the great Valentine fortune gone! For all will go to this new idol—the wording of the accursed letter he holds leaving little doubt of that. Farewell to all his hopes—his hopes of that fair English home, freed from the thrall of debt, restored and improved; farewell to those ambitious dreams of a seat in Parliament, a house in London, fifteen thousand pounds a year, and Camilla Routh for his wife. Adieu to it all—this girl, this usurper, has mounted his pedestal; he has been shamefully, cruelly deceived—swindled as no man ever was before. Perhaps he has some right to feel all this rage—it certainly is a frightful fall. What is worse, it is impossible to pour out his wrath and wrongs upon the head of the woman who has used and flung him aside with such merciless ease. She has gone, her upstart with her, whither no one knows. He strives in vain to discover; they might have vanished out of the world, for all trace of them he can find.

Months pass in the quest, and these months do him this good—they cool his first blaze of wrath, and bring those second thoughts that we are told are best. He thinks it over—he has ample time—and with a soul filled with silent bitterness and gall, resolves on his course. Nothing can possibly be gained by anger, much may by resignation. He will accept disaster with the best outward grace he may, he will accept defeat with dignity, he will resent nothing, he will conciliate the old woman and the young one, he will warily bide his time. And if that time ever comes!

Sir Vane Valentine sets his teeth behind his long black mustache, and his eyes gleam with a passionate, baffled light not good to see. They must return some time—all is not lost that is in danger; perhaps she may be induced to yield him the larger share yet. It is his right—this right in view of all these years of waiting and expectation. If all sense of justice is not dead in Katherine Valentine, she must see it herself; she must be made to see it. And so in grim silence and resolution Sir Vane establishes himself in the Philadelphia house, and waits for them to come.

They come—fifteen months from the time they left St. Gildas. And fifteen months of travel, of masters, of madame’s society, have done much for the wild girl of Isle Perdrix. She has shot up, tall and graceful as a stem of wheat, with hair like its pale silken tassels, all that is best and brightest in her made the most of, the blonde beauty enhanced—a lovely, womanly girl of eighteen.

A vision this to dazzle any man—gilt as it is with refined gold. Sir Vane Valentine looks on with undazzled eyes. He is too defective in circulation; too cold-blooded, too wrapped up in self, to be a susceptible man, and his heart—such narrow and contracted heart as he ever has had—was given away, many years ago. The immature of eighteen has no charms for him. The lady who waits for him in England can certainly not be slighted on the score of immaturity, but she has lost her youth waiting for him. And to do him justice, his allegiance never for one hour has waned. Still if in this way fortune lies—if there is no other, he is prepared to make the sacrifice even of Miss Camilla Routh! The best of his life has been wasted in the pursuit of this ignis fatuus—the Valentine fortune—without it the Valentine name, lands, title, are worse than worthless. No matter what the pride, it must be paid. Come what may now, it is a road on which there can be no turning back.