Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  “O, better not speak of that,” interrupted Kitty with bitterness, “it’s all over now.” And the final tinge of superiority in his manner made her give him a little stab of dismissal. “Good by. I see my cousins coming.”

  She stood and watched him walk away, the sunlight playing on his figure through the mantling leaves, till he passed out of the grove.

  The cataract roared with a seven-fold tumult in her ears, and danced before her eyes. All things swam together, as in her blurred sight her cousins came wavering towards her.

  “Where is Mr. Arbuton?” asked Mrs. Ellison.

  Kitty threw her arms about the neck of that foolish woman, whoso loving heart she could not doubt, and clung sobbing to her. “Gone,” she said; and Mrs. Ellison, wise for once, asked no more.

  She had the whole story that evening, without asking; and whilst she raged, she approved of Kitty, and covered her with praises and condolences.

  “Why, of course, Fanny, I didn’t care for knowing those people. What should I want to know them for? But what hurt me was that he should so postpone me to them, and ignore me before them, and leave me without a word, then, when I ought to have been everything in the world to him and first of all. I believe things came to me while I sat there, as they do to drowning people, all at once, and I saw the whole affair more distinctly than ever I did. We were too far apart in what we had been and what we believed in and respected, ever to grow really together. And if he gave me the highest position in the world, I should have only that. He never could like the people who had been good to me, and whom I loved so dearly, and he only could like me as far as he could estrange me from them. If he could coolly put me aside now, how would it be afterwards with the rest, and with me too? That’s what flashed through me, and I don’t believe that getting splendidly married is as good as being true to the love that came long before, and honestly living your own life out, without fear or trembling, whatever it is. So perhaps,” said Kitty, with a fresh burst of tears, “you needn’t condole with me so much, Fanny. Perhaps if you had seen him, you would have thought he was the one to be pitied. I pitied him, though he was so cruel. When he first turned to meet them, you’d have thought he was a man sentenced to death, or under some dreadful spell or other; and while he was walking up and down listening to that horrible comical old woman, — the young lady didn’t talk much, — and trying to make straight answers to her, and to look as if I didn’t exist, it was the most ridiculous thing in the world.”

  “How queer you are, Kitty!”

  “Yes; but you needn’t think I didn’t feel it. I seemed to be like two persons sitting there, one in agony, and one just coolly watching it. But O,” she broke out again while Fanny held her closer in her arms, “how could he have done it, how could he have acted so towards me; and just after I had begun to think him so generous and noble! It seems too dreadful to be true.” And with this Kitty kissed her cousin and they had a little cry together over the trust so done to death; and Kitty dried her eyes, and bade Fanny a brave good-night, and went off to weep again, upon her pillow.

  But before that, she called Fanny to her door, and with a smile breaking through the trouble of her face, she asked, “How do you suppose he got back? I never thought of it before.”

  “Oh!” cried Mrs. Ellison with profound disgust, “I hope he had to walk back. But I’m afraid there were only too many chances for him to ride. I dare say he could get a calash at the hotel there.”

  Kitty had not spoken a word of reproach to Fanny for her part in promoting this hapless affair; and when the latter, returning to her own room, found the colonel there, she told him the story and then began to discern that she was not without credit for Kitty’s fortunate escape, as she called it.

  “Yes,” said the colonel, “under exactly similar circumstances she’ll know just what to expect another time, if that’s any comfort.”

  “It’s a great comfort,” retorted Mrs. Ellison; “you can’t find out what the world is, too soon, I can tell you; and if I hadn’t maneuvered a little to bring them together, Kitty might have gone off with some lingering fancy for him; and think what a misfortune that would have been!”

  “Horrible.”

  “And now, she’ll not have a single regret for him.”

  “I should think not,” said the colonel; and he spoke in a tone of such dejection, that it went to his wife’s heart more than any reproach of Kitty’s could have done. “You’re all right, and nobody blames you, Fanny; but if you think it’s well for such a girl as Kitty to find out that a man who has had the best that the world can give, and has really some fine qualities of his own, can be such a poor devil, after all, then I don’t. She may be the wiser for it, but you know she won’t be the happier.”

  “O don’t, Dick, don’t speak seriously! It’s so dreadful from you. If you feel so about it, why don’t you do something.”

  “O yes, there’s a fine opening. We know, because we know ever so much more, how the case really is; but the way it seems to stand is, that Kitty couldn’t bear to have him show civility to his friends, and ran away, and then wouldn’t give him a chance to explain. Besides, what could I do under any circumstances?”

  “Well, Dick, of course you’re right, and I wish I could see things as clearly as you do. But I really believe Kitty’s glad to be out of it.”

  “What?” thundered the colonel.

  “I think Kitty’s secretly relieved to have it all over. But you needn’t stun me.”

  “You do?” The colonel paused as if to gain force enough for a reply. But after waiting, nothing whatever came to him, and he wound up his watch.

  “To be sure,” added Mrs. Ellison thoughtfully, after a pause, “she’s giving up a great deal; and she’ll probably never have such another chance as long as she lives.”

  “I hope she won’t,” said the colonel.

  “O, you needn’t pretend that a high position and the social advantages he could have given her are to be despised.”

  “No, you heartless worldling; and neither are peace of mind, and self-respect, and whole feelings, and your little joke.”

  “O, you — you sickly sentimentalist!”

  “That’s what they used to call us in the good old abolition days,” laughed the colonel; and the two being quite alone, they made their peace with a kiss, and were as happy for the moment as if they had thereby assuaged Kitty’s grief and mortification.

  “Besides, Fanny,” continued the colonel, “though I’m not much on religion, I believe these things are ordered.”

  “Don’t be blasphemous, Colonel Ellison!” cried his wife, who represented the church if not religion in her family. “As if Providence had anything to do with love-affairs!”

  “Well, I won’t; but I will say that if Kitty turned her back on Mr. Arbuton and the social advantages he could offer her, it’s a sign she wasn’t fit for them. And, poor thing, if she doesn’t know how much she’s lost, why she has the less to grieve over. If she thinks she couldn’t be happy with a husband who would keep her snubbed and frightened after he lifted her from her lowly sphere, and would tremble whenever she met any of his own sort, of course it may be a sad mistake, but it can’t be helped. She must go back to Eriecreek, and try to worry along without him. Perhaps she’ll work out her destiny some other way.”

  XIV.

  AFTERWARDS.

  Mrs. Ellison had Kitty’s whole story, and so has the reader, but for a little thing that happened next day, and which is perhaps scarcely worthy of being set down.

  Mr. Arbuton’s valise was sent for at night from the Hôtel St. Louis, and they did not see him again. When Kitty woke next morning, a fine cold rain was falling upon the drooping hollyhocks in the Ursulines’ Garden, which seemed stricken through every leaf and flower with sudden autumn. All the forenoon the garden-paths remained empty, but under the porch by the poplars sat the slender nun and the stout nun side by side, and held each other’s hands. They did not move, they did not appear to speak.
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  The fine cold rain was still falling as Kitty and Fanny drove down Mountain Street toward the Railway Station, whither Dick and the baggage had preceded them, for they were going away from Quebec. Midway, their carriage was stopped by a mass of ascending vehicles, and their driver drew rein till the press was over. At the same time Kitty saw advancing up the sidewalk a figure grotesquely resembling Mr. Arbuton. It was he, but shorter, and smaller, and meaner. Then it was not he, but only a light overcoat like his covering a very common little man about whom it hung loosely, — a burlesque of Mr. Arbuton’s self-respectful overcoat, or the garment itself in a state of miserable yet comical collapse.

  “What is that ridiculous little wretch staring at you for, Kitty?” asked Fanny.

  “I don’t know,” answered Kitty, absently.

  The man was now smiling and gesturing violently. Kitty remembered having seen him before, and then recognized the cooper who had released Mr. Arbuton from the dog in the Sault au Matelot, and to whom he had given his lacerated overcoat.

  The little creature awkwardly unbuttoned the garment, and took from the breast-pocket a few letters, which he handed to Kitty, talking eagerly in French all the time.

  “What is he doing, Kitty?”

  “What is he saying, Fanny?”

  “Something about a ferocious dog that was going to spring upon you, and the young gentleman being brave as a lion and rushing forward, and saving your life.” Mrs. Ellison was not a woman to let her translation lack color, even though the original wanted it.

  “Make him tell it again.”

  When the man had done so, “Yes,” sighed Kitty, “it all happened that day of the Montgomery expedition; but I never knew, before, of what he had done for me. Fanny,” she cried, with a great sob, “may be I’m the one who has been cruel? But what happened yesterday makes his having saved my life seem such a very little matter.”

  “Nothing at all!” answered Fanny, “less than nothing!” But her heart failed her.

  The little cooper had bowed himself away, and was climbing the hill, Mr. Arbuton’s coat-skirts striking his heels as he walked.

  “What letters are those?” asked Fanny.

  “O, old letters to Mr. Arbuton, which he found in the pocket. I suppose he thought I would give them to him.”

  “But how are you going to do it?”

  “I ought to send them to him,” answered Kitty. Then, after a silence that lasted till they reached the boat, she handed the letters to Fanny. “Dick may send them,” she said.

  THE END

  A FOREGONE CONCLUSION

  This tale of Americans abroad was first published in 1875. Set in and around Venice in the 1860’s, the title refers to the apparently obvious outcome of a love triangle that develops between American consul Henry Ferris and the Catholic priest, Don Ippolita, who both fall in love with a beautiful young American woman. Howells had been an American consul in Venice during the period in which the novel is set and drew on his experiences of the city in that period to create a realistic portrait.

  A contemporary illustration of nineteenth century Venetian social life

  CONTENTS

  I.

  II

  III.

  IV.

  V.

  VI.

  VII.

  VIII.

  IX.

  X.

  XI.

  XII.

  XIII.

  XIV.

  XV.

  XVI.

  XVII.

  XVIII.

  I.

  As Don Ippolito passed down the long narrow calle or footway leading from the Campo San Stefano to the Grand Canal in Venice, he peered anxiously about him: now turning for a backward look up the calle, where there was no living thing in sight but a cat on a garden gate; now running a quick eye along the palace walls that rose vast on either hand and notched the slender strip of blue sky visible overhead with the lines of their jutting balconies, chimneys, and cornices; and now glancing toward the canal, where he could see the noiseless black boats meeting and passing. There was no sound in the calle save his own footfalls and the harsh scream of a parrot that hung in the sunshine in one of the loftiest windows; but the note of a peasant crying pots of pinks and roses in the campo came softened to Don Ippolito’s sense, and he heard the gondoliers as they hoarsely jested together and gossiped, with the canal between them, at the next gondola station.

  The first tenderness of spring was in the air though down in that calle there was yet enough of the wintry rawness to chill the tip of Don Ippolito’s sensitive nose, which he rubbed for comfort with a handkerchief of dark blue calico, and polished for ornament with a handkerchief of white linen. He restored each to a different pocket in the sides of the ecclesiastical talare, or gown, reaching almost to his ankles, and then clutched the pocket in which he had replaced the linen handkerchief, as if to make sure that something he prized was safe within. He paused abruptly, and, looking at the doors he had passed, went back a few paces and stood before one over which hung, slightly tilted forward, an oval sign painted with the effigy of an eagle, a bundle of arrows, and certain thunderbolts, and bearing the legend, CONSULATE OF THE UNITED STATES, in neat characters. Don Ippolito gave a quick sigh, hesitated a moment, and then seized the bell-pull and jerked it so sharply that it seemed to thrust out, like a part of the mechanism, the head of an old serving-woman at the window above him.

  “Who is there?” demanded this head.

  “Friends,” answered Don Ippolito in a rich, sad voice.

  “And what do you command?” further asked the old woman.

  Don Ippolito paused, apparently searching for his voice, before he inquired, “Is it here that the Consul of America lives?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Is he perhaps at home?”

  “I don’t know. I will go ask him.”

  “Do me that pleasure, dear,” said Don Ippolito, and remained knotting his fingers before the closed door. Presently the old woman returned, and looking out long enough to say, “The consul is at home,” drew some inner bolt by a wire running to the lock, that let the door start open; then, waiting to hear Don Ippolito close it again, she called out from her height, “Favor me above.” He climbed the dim stairway to the point where she stood, and followed her to a door, which she flung open into an apartment so brightly lit by a window looking on the sunny canal, that he blinked as he entered. “Signor Console,” said the old woman, “behold the gentleman who desired to see you;” and at the same time Don Ippolito, having removed his broad, stiff, three-cornered hat, came forward and made a beautiful bow. He had lost for the moment the trepidation which had marked his approach to the consulate, and bore himself with graceful dignity.

  It was in the first year of the war, and from a motive of patriotism common at that time, Mr. Ferris (one of my many predecessors in office at Venice) had just been crossing his two silken gondola flags above the consular bookcase, where with their gilt lance-headed staves, and their vivid stars and stripes, they made a very pretty effect. He filliped a little dust from his coat, and begged Don Ippolito to be seated, with the air of putting even a Venetian priest on a footing of equality with other men under the folds of the national banner. Mr. Ferris had the prejudice of all Italian sympathizers against the priests; but for this he could hardly have found anything in Don Ippolito to alarm dislike. His face was a little thin, and the chin was delicate; the nose had a fine, Dantesque curve, but its final droop gave a melancholy cast to a countenance expressive of a gentle and kindly spirit; the eyes were large and dark and full of a dreamy warmth. Don Ippolito’s prevailing tint was that transparent blueishness which comes from much shaving of a heavy black beard; his forehead and temples were marble white; he had a tonsure the size of a dollar. He sat silent for a little space, and softly questioned the consul’s face with his dreamy eyes. Apparently he could not gather courage to speak of his business at once, for he turned his gaze upon the window and said, “A beautiful p
osition, Signor Console.”

  “Yes, it’s a pretty place,” answered Mr. Ferris, warily.

  “So much pleasanter here on the Canalazzo than on the campos or the little canals.”

  “Oh, without doubt.”

  “Here there must be constant amusement in watching the boats: great stir, great variety, great life. And now the fine season commences, and the Signor Console’s countrymen will be coming to Venice. Perhaps,” added Don Ippolito with a polite dismay, and an air of sudden anxiety to escape from his own purpose, “I may be disturbing or detaining the Signor Console?”

  “No,” said Mr. Ferris; “I am quite at leisure for the present. In what can I have the honor of serving you?”

  Don Ippolito heaved a long, ineffectual sigh, and taking his linen handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his forehead with it, and rolled it upon his knee. He looked at the door, and all round the room, and then rose and drew near the consul, who had officially seated himself at his desk.

  “I suppose that the Signor Console gives passports?” he asked.

  “Sometimes,” replied Mr. Ferris, with a clouding face.

  Don Ippolito seemed to note the gathering distrust and to be helpless against it. He continued hastily: “Could the Signor Console give a passport for America ... to me?”

  “Are you an American citizen?” demanded the consul in the voice of a man whose suspicions are fully roused.

  “American citizen?”

  “Yes; subject of the American republic.”

  “No, surely; I have not that happiness. I am an Austrian subject,” returned Don Ippolito a little bitterly, as if the last words were an unpleasant morsel in the mouth.

  “Then I can’t give you a passport,” said Mr. Ferris, somewhat more gently. “You know,” he explained, “that no government can give passports to foreign subjects. That would be an unheard-of thing.”