Clementina reflected. “I wasn’t doing much of anything at home, and I thought I might as well come with Mrs. Lander, if she wanted me so much.” She thought in a certain way, that he was meddling with what was not his affair, but she believed that he was sincere in his zeal for the ideal life he wished her to lead, and there were some things she had heard about him that made her pity and respect him; his self-exile and his renunciation of home and country for his principles, whatever they were; she did not understand exactly. She would not have liked never being able to go back to Middlemount, or to be cut off from all her friends as this poor young Nihilist was, and she said, now, “I didn’t expect that it was going to be anything but a visit, and I always supposed we should go back in the spring; but now Mrs. Lander is beginning to think she won’t be well enough till fall.”
“And why need you stay with her?”
“Because she’s not very well,” answered Clementina, and she smiled, a little triumphantly as well as tolerantly.
“She could hire nurses and doctors, all she wants with her money.”
“I don’t believe it would be the same thing, exactly, and what should I do if I went back?”
“Do? Teach! Uplift the lives about you.”
“But you say it is better for people to live simply, and not read and think so much.”
“Then labor in the fields with them.”
Clementina laughed outright. “I guess if anyone saw me wo’king in the fields they would think I was a disgrace to the neighbahood.”
Belsky gave her a stupified glare through his spectacles. “I cannot understand you Americans.”
“Well, you must come ova to America, then, Mr. Belsky” — he had asked her not to call him by his title— “and then you would.”
“No, I could not endure the disappointment. You have the great opportunity of the earth. You could be equal and just, and simple and kind. There is nothing to hinder you. But all you try to do is to get more and more money.”
“Now, that isn’t faia, Mr. Belsky, and you know it.”
“Well, then, you joke, joke — always joke. Like that Mr. Hinkle. He wants to make money with his patent of a gleaner, that will take the last grain of wheat from the poor, and he wants to joke — joke!”
Clementina said, “I won’t let you say that about Mr. Hinkle. You don’t know him, or you wouldn’t. If he jokes, why shouldn’t he?”
Belsky made a gesture of rejection. “Oh, you are an American, too.”
She had not grown less American, certainly, since she had left home; even the little conformities to Europe that she practiced were traits of Americanism. Clementina was not becoming sophisticated, but perhaps she was becoming more conventionalized. The knowledge of good and evil in things that had all seemed indifferently good to her once, had crept upon her, and she distinguished in her actions. She sinned as little as any young lady in Florence against the superstitions of society; but though she would not now have done a skirt-dance before a shipful of people, she did not afflict herself about her past errors. She put on the world, but she wore it simply and in most matters unconsciously. Some things were imparted to her without her asking or wishing, and merely in virtue of her youth and impressionability. She took them from her environment without knowing it, and in this way she was coming by an English manner and an English tone; she was only the less American for being rather English without trying, when other Americans tried so hard. In the region of harsh nasals, Clementina had never spoken through her nose, and she was now as unaffected in these alien inflections as in the tender cooings which used to rouse the misgivings of her brother Jim. When she was with English people she employed them involuntarily, and when she was with Americans she measurably lost them, so that after half an hour with Mr. Hinkle, she had scarcely a trace of them, and with Mrs. Lander she always spoke with her native accent.
XXIII
One Sunday night, toward the end of Lent, Mrs. Lander had another of her attacks; she now began to call them so as if she had established an ownership in them. It came on from her cumulative over-eating, again, but the doctor was not so smiling as he had been with regard to the first. Clementina had got ready to drive out to Miss Milray’s for one of her Sunday teas, but she put off her things, and prepared to spend the night at Mrs. Lander’s bedside. “Well, I should think you would want to,” said the sufferer. “I’m goin’ to do everything for you, and you’d ought to be willing to give up one of youa junketin’s for me. I’m sure I don’t know what you see in ‘em, anyway.”
“Oh, I am willing, Mrs. Lander; I’m glad I hadn’t stahted before it began.” Clementina busied herself with the pillows under Mrs. Lander’s dishevelled head, and the bedclothes disordered by her throes, while Mrs. Lander went on.
“I don’t see what’s the use of so much gaddin’, anyway. I don’t see as anything comes of it, but just to get a passal of wo’thless fellas afta you that think you’a going to have money. There’s such a thing as two sides to everything, and if the favas is goin’ to be all on one side I guess there’d betta be a clear undastandin’ about it. I think I got a right to a little attention, as well as them that ha’n’t done anything; and if I’m goin’ to be left alone he’e to die among strangers every time one of my attacks comes on—”
The doctor interposed, “I don’t think you’re going to have a very bad attack, this time, Mrs. Lander.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you, docta! But you can undastand, can’t you, how I shall want to have somebody around that can undastand a little English?”
The doctor said, “Oh yes. And Miss Claxon and I can understand a good deal, between us, and we’re going to stay, and see how a little morphine behaves with you.”
Mrs. Lander protested, “Oh, I can’t bea’ mo’phine, docta.”
“Did you ever try it?” he asked, preparing his little instrument to imbibe the solution.
“No; but Mr. Landa did, and it ‘most killed him; it made him sick.”
“Well, you’re about as sick as you can be, now, Mrs. Lander, and if you don’t die of this pin-prick” — he pushed the needle-point under the skin of her massive fore-arm— “I guess you’ll live through it.”
She shrieked, but as the pain began to abate, she gathered courage, and broke forth joyfully. “Why, it’s beautiful, a’n’t it? I declare it wo’ks like a cha’m. Well, I shall always keep mo’phine around after this, and when I feel one of these attacks comin’ on—”
“Send for a physician, Mrs. Lander,” said Dr. Welwright, “and he’ll know what to do.”
“I an’t so sure of that,” returned Mrs. Lander fondly. “He would if you was the one. I declare I believe I could get up and walk right off, I feel so well.”
“That’s good. If you’ll take a walk day after tomorrow it will help you a great deal more.”
“Well, I shall always say that you’ve saved my life, this time, doctor; and Clementina she’s stood by, nobly; I’ll say that for her.” She twisted her big head round on the pillow to get sight of the girl. “I’m all right, now; and don’t you mind what I said. It’s just my misery talkin’; I don’t know what I did say; I felt so bad. But I’m fustrate, now, and I believe I could drop off to sleep, this minute. Why don’t you go to your tea? You can, just as well as not!”
“Oh, I don’t want to go, now, Mrs. Lander; I’d ratha stay.”
“But there a’n’t any more danger now, is the’e, docta?” Mrs. Lander appealed.
“No. There wasn’t any danger before. But when you’re quite yourself, I want to have a little talk with you, Mrs. Lander, about your diet. We must look after that.”
“Why, docta, that’s what I do do, now. I eat all the healthy things I lay my hands on, don’t I, Clementina? And ha’n’t you always at me about it?”
Clementina did not answer, and the doctor laughed. “Well, I should like to know what more I could do!”
“Perhaps you could do less. We’ll see about that. Better go to sleep, now, if you feel l
ike it.”
“Well, I will, if you’ll make this silly child go to her tea. I s’pose she won’t because I scolded her. She’s an awful hand to lay anything up against you. You know you ah’, Clementina! But I can say this, doctor: a betta child don’t breathe, and I just couldn’t live without her. Come he’e, Clementina, I want to kiss you once, before I go to sleep, so’s to make su’a you don’t bea’ malice.” She pulled Clementina down to kiss her, and babbled on affectionately and optimistically, till her talk became the voice of her dreams, and then ceased altogether.
“You could go, perfectly well, Miss Claxon,” said the doctor.
“No, I don’t ca’e to go,” answered Clementina. “I’d ratha stay. If she should wake—”
“She won’t wake, until long after you’ve got back; I’ll answer for that. I’m going to stay here awhile. Go! I’ll take the responsibility.”
Clementina’s face brightened. She wanted very much to go. She should meet some pleasant people; she always did, at Miss Milray’s. Then the light died out of her gay eyes, and she set her lips. “No, I told her I shouldn’t go.”
“I didn’t hear you,” said Dr. Welwright. “A doctor has no eyes and ears except for the symptoms of his patients.”
“Oh, I know,” said Clementina. She had liked Dr. Welwright from the first, and she thought it was very nice of him to stay on, after he left Mrs. Lander’s bedside, and help to make her lonesome evening pass pleasantly in the parlor. He jumped up finally, and looked at his watch. “Bless my soul!” he said, and he went in for another look at Mrs. Lander. When he came back, he said, “She’s all right. But you’ve made me break an engagement, Miss Claxon. I was going to tea at Miss Milray’s. She promised me I should meet you there.”
It seemed a great joke; and Clementina offered to carry his excuses to Miss Milray, when she went to make her own.
She went the next morning. Mrs. Lander insisted that she should go; she said that she was not going to have Miss Milray thinking that she wanted to keep her all to herself.
Miss Milray kissed the girl in full forgiveness, but she asked, “Did Dr. Welwright think it a very bad attack?”
“Has he been he’a?” returned Clementina.
Miss Milray laughed. “Doctors don’t betray their patients — good doctors. No, he hasn’t been here, if that will help you. I wish it would help me, but it won’t, quite. I don’t like to think of that old woman using you up, Clementina.”
“Oh, she doesn’t, Miss Milray. You mustn’t think so. You don’t know how good she is to me.”
“Does she ever remind you of it?”
Clementina’s eyes fell. “She isn’t like herself when she doesn’t feel well.”
“I knew it!” Miss Milray triumphed. “I always knew that she was a dreadful old tabby. I wish you were safely out of her clutches. Come and live with me, my dear, when Mrs. Lander gets tired of you. But she’ll never get tired of you. You’re just the kind of helpless mouse that such an old tabby would make her natural prey. But she sha’n’t, even if another sort of cat has to get you! I’m sorry you couldn’t come last night. Your little Russian was here, and went away early and very bitterly because you didn’t come. He seemed to think there was nobody, and said so, in everything but words.”
“Oh!” said Clementina. “Don’t you think he’s very nice, Miss Milray?”
“He’s very mystical, or else so very simple that he seems so. I hope you can make him out.”
Don’t you think he’s very much in ea’nest?
“Oh, as the grave, or the asylum. I shouldn’t like him to be in earnest about me, if I were you.”
“But that’s just what he is!” Clementina told how the Russian had lectured her, and wished her to go back to the country and work in the fields.
“Oh, if that’s all!” cried Miss Milray. “I was afraid it was another kind of earnestness: the kind I shouldn’t like if I were you.”
“There’s no danger of that, I guess.” Clementina laughed, and Miss Milray went on:
“Another of your admirers was here; but he was not so inconsolable, or else he found consolation in staying on and talking about you, or joking.”
“Oh, yes; Mr. Hinkle,” cried Clementina with the smile that the thought of him always brought. “He’s lovely.”
“Lovely? Well, I don’t know why it isn’t the word. It suits him a great deal better than some insipid girls that people give it to. Yes, I could really fall in love with Mr. Hinkle. He’s the only man I ever saw who would know how to break the fall!”
It was lunch-time before their talk had begun to run low, and it swelled again over the meal. Miss Milray returned to Mrs. Lander, and she made Clementina confess that she was a little trying sometimes. But she insisted that she was always good, and in remorse she went away as soon as Miss Milray rose from table.
She found Mrs. Lander very much better, and willing to have had her stay the whole afternoon with Miss Milray. “I don’t want she should have anything to say against me, to you, Clementina; she’d be glad enough to. But I guess it’s just as well you’a back. That scratched-out baron has been he’e twice, and he’s waitin’ for you in the pahla’, now. I presume he’ll keep comin’ till you do see him. I guess you betta have it ova; whatever it is.”
“I guess you’re right, Mrs. Lander.”
Clementina found the Russian walking up and down the room, and as soon as their greeting was over, he asked leave to continue his promenade, but he stopped abruptly before her when she had sunk upon a sofa.
“I have come to tell you a strange story,” he said.
“It is the story of that American friend of mine. I tell it to you because I think you can understand, and will know what to advise, what to do.”
He turned upon his heel, and walked the length of the room and back before he spoke again.
“Since several years,” he said, growing a little less idiomatic in his English as his excitement mounted, “he met a young girl, a child, when he was still not a man’s full age. It was in the country, in the mountains of America, and — he loved her. Both were very poor; he, a student, earning the means to complete his education in the university. He had dedicated himself to his church, and with the temperament of the Puritans, he forbade himself all thoughts of love. But he was of a passionate and impulsive nature, and in a moment of abandon he confessed his love. The child was bewildered, frightened; she shrank from his avowal, and he, filled with remorse for his self-betrayal, bade her let it be as if it had not been; he bade her think of him no more.”
Clementina sat as if powerless to move, staring at Belsky. He paused in his walk, and allowed an impressive silence to ensue upon his words.
“Time passed: days, months, years; and he did not see her again. He pursued his studies in the university; at their completion, he entered upon the course of divinity, and he is soon to be a minister of his church. In all that time the image of the young girl has remained in his heart, and has held him true to the only love he has ever known. He will know no other while he lives.”
Again he stopped in front of Clementina; she looked helplessly up at him, and he resumed his walk.
“He, with his dreams of renunciation, of abnegation, had thought some day to return to her and ask her to be his. He believed her capable of equal sacrifice with himself, and he hoped to win her not for himself alone, but for the religion which he put before himself. He would have invited her to join her fate with his that they might go together on some mission to the pagan — in the South Seas, in the heart of Africa, in the jungle of India. He had always thought of her as gay but good, unworldly in soul, and exalted in spirit. She has remained with him a vision of angelic loveliness, as he had seen her last in the moonlight, on the banks of a mountain torrent. But he believes that he has disgraced himself before her; that the very scruple for her youth, her ignorance, which made him entreat her to forget him, must have made her doubt and despise him. He has never had the courage to write to her one word sinc
e all those years, but he maintains himself bound to her forever.” He stopped short before Clementina and seized her hands. “If you knew such a girl, what would you have her do? Should she bid him hope again? Would you have her say to him that she, too, had been faithful to their dream, and that she too—”
“Let me go, Mr. Belsky, let me go, I say!” Clementina wrenched her hands from him, and ran out of the room. Belsky hesitated, then he found his hat, and after a glance at his face in the mirror, left the house.
XXIV.
The tide of travel began to set northward in April. Many English, many Americans appeared in Florence from Naples and Rome; many who had wintered in Florence went on to Venice and the towns of northern Italy, on their way to Switzerland and France and Germany.
The spring was cold and rainy, and the irresolute Italian railroads were interrupted by the floods. A tawny deluge rolled down from the mountains through the bed of the Arno, and kept the Florentine fire-department on the alert night and day. “It is a curious thing about this country,” said Mr. Hinkle, encountering Baron Belsky on the Ponte Trinita, “that the only thing they ever have here for a fire company to put out is a freshet. If they had a real conflagration once, I reckon they would want to bring their life-preservers.”
The Russian was looking down over the parapet at the boiling river. He lifted his head as if he had not heard the American, and stared at him a moment before he spoke. “It is said that the railway to Rome is broken at Grossetto.”
“Well, I’m not going to Rome,” said Hinkle, easily. “Are you?”
“I was to meet a friend there; but he wrote to me that he was starting to Florence, and now—”
“He’s resting on the way? Well, he’ll get here about as quick as he would in the ordinary course of travel. One good thing about Italy is, you don’t want to hurry; if you did, you’d get left.”
Belsky stared at him in the stupefaction to which the American humor commonly reduced him. “If he gets left on the Grossetto line, he can go back and come up by Orvieto, no?”
Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells Page 652
