Eleanor by Mrs. Humphry Ward (short novels to read txt) 📖

secret life, lived without a sign beside the old father whose coarser and commoner pride took such small account of hers!

And now--she seemed to herself to be already drinking humiliation, and foreseeing ever deeper draughts of it to come. She, who had never begged for anything, was in the mood to see her whole existence as a refused petition, a rejected gift. She had offered Edward Manisty her all of sympathy and intelligence, and he was throwing it back lightly, inexorably upon her hands. Her thin cheek burnt; but it was the truth. She annoyed and wearied him; and he had shaken her off; her, Eleanor Burgoyne! She did not know herself. Her inmost sense of identity was shaken.

She leant her head an instant against the frame of the open window, closing her tired eyes upon the great Campagna below her. A surge of rebellious will passed through her. Always submission, patience, silence,--till now! But there are moments when a woman must rouse herself, and fight--must not accept, but make, her fate.

Jealous! Was that last heat and ignominy of the soul to be hers too? She was to find it a threat and offence that he should spend some of the evenings that now went so heavily, talking with this girl,--this nice simple girl, whom she had herself bade him cultivate, whom she had herself brought into notice, rubbing off her angles,--drilling her into beauty? The very notion was madness and absurdity. It degraded her in her own eyes. It was the measure of her own self-ignorance. She--resign him at the first threat of another claim! The passionate life of her own heart amazed and stunned her.

The clock in the salon struck. She started, and went to straighten her veil at the glass. What would the afternoon bring her? Something it should bring her. The Nemi days of the winter were shrined in memory--each with its halo. Let her put out her full strength again, and now, before it was too late--before he had slipped too far away from her.

The poor heart beat hotly against the lace of her dress. What did she intend or hope for? She only knew that this might be one of her last chances with him--that the days were running out--and the moment of separation approached. Her whole nature was athirst, desperately athirst for she knew not what. Yet something told her that among these ups and downs of daily temper and fortune there lay strewn for her the last chances of her life.

* * * * *

'Please, ma'am, will you go in for a moment to Miss Manisty?'

The voice was Benson's, who had waylaid Mrs. Burgoyne in the salon.

Eleanor obeyed.

From the shadows of her dark room Aunt Pattie raised a wan face.

'Eleanor!--what do you think?'--

Eleanor ran to her. Miss Manisty handed her a telegram which read as follows--

'Your letter arrived too late to alter arrangements. Coming to-morrow--two or three nights--discuss plans.--ALICE.'

Eleanor let her hand drop, and the two ladies looked at each other in dismay.

'But you told her you couldn't receive her here?'

'Several times over. Edward will be in despair. How are we to have her here with Miss Foster? Her behaviour the last two months has been too extraordinary.'

Aunt Pattie fell back a languid little heap upon her pillows. Eleanor looked almost equally disconcerted.

'Have you told Edward?'

'No,' said Aunt Pattie miserably, raising a hand to her aching head, as though to excuse her lack of courage.

'Shall I tell him?'

'It's too bad to put such things on you.'

'No, not at all. But I won't tell him now. It would spoil the day. Some time before the evening.'

Aunt Pattie showed an aspect of relief.

'Do whatever you think best. It's very good of you--'

'Not at all. Dear Aunt Pattie!--lie still. By the way--has she anyone with her?'

'Only her maid--the one person who can manage her at all. That poor lady, you know, who tried to be companion, gave it up some time ago. Where shall we put her?'

'There are the two east rooms. Shall I tell Andreina to get them ready?'

Aunt Pattie acquiesced, with a sound rather like a groan.

'There is no chance still of stopping her?' said Eleanor, moving away.

'The telegram gives no address but Orte station,' said Aunt Pattie wearily; 'she must have sent it on her journey.'

'Then we must be prepared. Don't fret--dear Aunt Pattie!--we'll help you through.'

Eleanor stood a moment in the salon, thinking.

Unlucky! Manisty's eccentric and unmanageable sister had been for many years the secret burden of his life and Aunt Pattie's. Eleanor had been a witness of the annoyance and depression with which he had learnt during the winter that she was in Italy. She knew something of the efforts that had been made to keep her away from the villa.--

He would be furiously helpless and miserable under the infliction.--Somehow, her spirits rose.--

She went to the door of the salon, and heard the carriage drive up that was to take them to Nemi. Across Manisty's room, she saw himself on the balcony lounging and smoking till the ladies should appear. The blue lake with its green shores sparkled beyond him. The day was brightening. Certainly--let the bad news wait!

* * * * *

As they drove along the Galleria di Sotto, Manisty seemed to be preoccupied. The carriage had interrupted him in the midst of reading a long letter which he still held crumpled in his hand.

At last he said abruptly to Eleanor--'Benecke's last chance is up. He is summoned to submit next week at latest.'

'He tells you so?'

'Yes. He writes me a heart-broken letter.'

'Poor, poor fellow! It's all the Jesuits' doing. Mr. Neal told me the whole story.'

'Oh! it's tyranny of course. And the book's only a fraction of the truth,--a little Darwinian yeast leavening a lump of theology. But they're quite right. They can't help it.'

Eleanor looked at Lucy Foster and laughed.

'Dangerous to say those things before Miss Foster.'

'Does Miss Foster know anything about it?'--he said coolly.

Lucy hastily disclaimed any knowledge of Father Benecke and his affairs.

'They're very simple'--said Manisty. 'Father Benecke is a priest, but also a Professor. He published last year a rather Liberal book--very mildly liberal--some evolution--some Biblical criticism--just a touch! And a good deal of protest against the way in which the Jesuits are ruining Catholic University education in Germany. Lord! more than enough. They put his book on the Index within a month; he has had a year's grace to submit in; and now, if the submission is not made within a week or so, he will be first suspended, and then--excommunicated.'

'Who's "they"? 'said Lucy.

'Oh! the Congregation of the Index--or the people who set them on.'

'Is the book a bad book?'

'Quite the contrary.'

'And you're pleased?'

'I think the Papacy is keeping up discipline--and is not likely to go under just yet.'

He turned to her with his teasing laugh and was suddenly conscious of her new elegance. Where was the 'Sunday school teacher'? Transformed!--in five weeks--into this vision that was sitting opposite to him? Really, women were too wonderful! His male sense felt a kind of scorn for the plasticity of the sex.

'He has asked your opinion?' said Lucy, pursuing the subject.

'Yes. I told him the book was excellent--and his condemnation certain.'

Lucy bit her lip.

'Who did it?'

'The Jesuits--probably.'

'And you defend them?'

'Of course!--They're the only gentlemen in Europe who thoroughly understand their own business.'

'What a business!' said Lucy, breathing quick.--'To rush on every little bit of truth they see and stamp it out!'

'Like any other dangerous firework,--your simile is excellent.'

'Dangerous!' She threw back her head.--'To the blind and the cripples.'

'Who are the larger half of mankind. Precisely.'

She hesitated, then could not restrain herself.

'But _you're_ not concerned?'

'I? Oh dear no. I can be trusted with fireworks. Besides I'm not a Catholic.'

'Is that fair?--to stand outside slavery--and praise it?'

'Why not?--if it suits my purpose?'

The girl was silent. Manisty glanced at Eleanor; she caught the mischievous laugh in his eyes, and lightly returned it. It was his old comrade's look, come back. A warmer, more vital life stirred suddenly through all her veins; the slight and languid figure drew itself erect; her senses told her, hurriedly, for the first time that the May sun, the rapidly freshening air, and the quick movement of the carriage were all physically delightful.

How fast, indeed, the spring was conquering the hills! As they passed over the great viaduct at Aricia, the thick Chigi woods to the left masked the deep ravine in torrents of lightest foamiest green; and over the vast plain to the right, stretching to Ardea, Lanuvium and the sea, the power of the reawakening earth, like a shuttle in the loom, was weaving day by day its web of colour and growth, the ever brightening pattern of crop, and grass and vine. The beggars tormented them on the approach to Genzano, as they tormented of old Horace and Maecenas; and presently the long falling street of the town, with its multitudes of short, wiry, brown-faced folk, its clatter of children and mules, its barbers and wine shops, brought them in sight again of the emerald-green Campagna, and the shiny hazes over the sea. In front rose the tower-topped hill of Monte Giove, marking the site of Corioli; and just as they turned towards Nemi the Appian Way ran across their path. Overhead, a marvellous sky with scudding veils of white cloud. The blur and blight of the scirocco had vanished without rain, under a change of wind. An all-blessing, all-penetrating sun poured upon the stirring earth. Everywhere fragments and ruins--ghosts of the great past--yet engulfed, as it were, and engarlanded by the active and fertile present.

And now they were to follow the high ridge above the deep-sunk lake, toward Nemi on its farther side--Nemi with its Orsini tower, grim and tall, rising on its fortress rock, high over the lake and what was once the thick grove or 'Nemus' of the Goddess, mantling the proud white of her inviolate temple.

'Look!'--slid Eleanor, touching Lucy's hand. 'There's the niched wall--and the platform of the temple.'

And Lucy, bending eager brows, saw across the lake a line of great recesses, overgrown and shadowy against the steep slopes or cliffs of the crater, and in front of them a flat space, with one farm-shed upon it.

In the crater-wall, just behind and above the temple-site, was a black vertical cleft. Eleanor pointed it out to Manisty.

'Do you remember we never explored it? But the spring must be there?--Egeria's spring?'

Manisty lazily said he didn't know.

'Don't imagine you will be let off,' said Eleanor, laughing. 'We have settled every other point at Nemi. This is left for to-day. It will make a scramble after tea.'

'You will find it further than you think,' said Manisty, measuring the distance.