IT was about this time, about two months after their arrival in Florence, and when the bright and pleasant ‘family life’ we have been describing had gone on for about six weeks in unbroken harmony, that there began to breathe about Kate, like a vague, fitful wind, such as sometimes rises in Autumn or Spring, one can’t tell how or from whence, a curious sense of isolation, of being somehow left out and put aside in the family party. For some time the sensation was quite indefinite. She felt chilled by it; she could not tell how. Then she would find herself sitting alone in a corner, while the others were grouped together, without being able to explain to herself how it happened. It had happened several times, indeed, before she thought of attempting to explain so strange an occurrence; and then she said to herself that of course it was mere chance, or that she herself must have been sulky, and nobody else was aware.
A day or two, however, after her visit to Lady Caryisfort, there came a little incident which could not be quite chance. In the evening Mrs. Anderson sat down by her, and began to talk about indifferent subjects, with a little air of constraint upon her, the air of one who has something not quite pleasant to say. Kate’s faculties had been quickened by the change which she had already perceived, and she saw that something was coming, and was chafed by this preface, as only a very frank and open nature can be. She longed to say, ‘Tell me what it is, and be done with it.’ But she had no excuse for such an outcry. Mrs. Anderson only introduced her real subject after at least an hour’s talk.
‘By-the-bye,’ she said—and Kate knew in a moment that now it was coming—‘we have an invitation for to-morrow, dear, which I wish to accept, for Ombra and myself, but I don’t feel warranted in taking you—and, at the same time, I don’t like the idea of leaving you.’
‘Oh! pray don’t think of me, aunt,’ said Kate, quickly. A flush of evanescent anger at this mode of making it known suddenly came over her. But, in reality, she was half stunned, and could not believe her ears. It made her vague sense of desertion into something tangible at once. It realised all her vague feelings of being one too many. But, at the same time, it stupefied her. She could not understand it. She did not look up, but listened with eyes cast down, and a pain which she did not understand in her heart.
‘But I must think of you, my darling,’ said Mrs. Anderson, in a voice which, at this moment, rung false and insincere in the girl’s ears, and seemed to do her a positive harm. ‘How is it possible that I should not think of you? It is an old friend of mine, a merchant from Leghorn, who has bought a place in the country about ten miles from Florence. He is a man who has risen from nothing, and so has his wife, but they are kind people all the same, and used to be good to me when I was poor. Lady Barker is going—for she, too, you know, is of my old set at Leghorn, and, though she has risen in the world, she does not throw off people who are rich. But I don’t think your uncle would like it, if I took you there. You know how very careful I have been never to introduce you to anybody he could find fault with. I have declined a great many pleasant invitations here, for that very reason.’
‘Oh! please, aunt, don’t think of doing so any more,’ cried Kate, stung to the heart. ‘Don’t deprive yourself of anything that is pleasant, for me. I am very well. I am quite happy. I don’t require anything more than I have here. Go, and take Ombra, and never mind me.’
And the poor child had great difficulty in refraining from tears. Indeed, but for the fact that it would have looked like crying for a lost pleasure, which Kate, who was stung by a very different feeling, despised, she would not have been able to restrain herself. As it was, her voice trembled, and her cheeks burned.
‘Kate, I don’t think you are quite just to me,’ said Mrs. Anderson. ‘You know very well that neither in love, nor in anything else, have I made a difference between Ombra and you. But in this one thing I must throw myself upon your generosity, dear. When I say your generosity, Kate, I mean that you should put the best interpretation on what I say, not the worst.’
‘I did not mean to put any interpretation,’ said Kate, drawn two ways, and ashamed now of her anger. ‘Why should you explain to me, auntie, or make a business of it? Say you are going somewhere to-morrow, and you think it best I should not go. That is enough. Why should you say a word more?’
‘Because I wanted to treat you like a woman, not like a child, and to tell you the reason,’ said Mrs. Anderson. ‘But we will say no more about it, as those boys are coming. I do hope, however, that you understand me, Kate.’
Kate could make no answer, as ‘the boys’ appeared at this moment; but she said to herself sadly, ‘No, I don’t understand—I can’t tell what it means,’ with a confused pain which was very hard to bear. It was the first time she had been shaken in her perfect faith in the two people who had brought her to life, as she said. She did not rush into the middle of the talk, as had once been her practice, but sat, chilled, in her corner, wondering what had come over her. For it was not only that the others were changed—a change had come upon herself also. She was chilled; she could not tell how. Instead of taking the initiative, as she used to do, in the gay and frank freshness which everybody had believed to be the very essence of her character, she sat still, and waited to be called, to be appealed to. Even when she became herself conscious of this, and tried to shake it off, she could not succeed. She was bound as in chains; she could not get free.
And when the next morning came, and Kate, with a dull amaze which she could not overcome, saw the party go off with the usual escort, the only difference being that Lady Barker occupied her own usual place, her feelings were not to be described. She watched them from the balcony while they got into the carriage, and arranged themselves gaily. She looked down upon them and laughed too, and bade them enjoy themselves. She met the wistful look in Mrs. Anderson’s eyes with a smile, and, recovering her courage for the moment, made it understood that she meant to pass an extremely pleasant day by herself. But when they drove away, Kate went in, and covered her eyes with her hands. It was not the pleasure, whatever that might be; but why was she left behind? What had she done that they wanted her no longer?—that they found her in the way? It was the first slight she had ever had to bear, and it went to her very heart.
It was a lovely bright morning in December. Lovely mornings in December are rare in England; but even in England there comes now and then a winter day which is a delight and luxury, when the sky is blue, crisper, profounder than summer, when the sun is resplendent, pouring over everything the most lavish and overwhelming light; when the atmosphere is still as old age is when it is beautiful—stilled, chastened, subdued, with no possibility of uneasy winds or movement of life; but all quietness, and now and then one last leaf fluttering down from the uppermost boughs. Such a morning in Florence is divine. The great old houses stand up, expanding, as it were, erecting their old heads gratefully into the sun and blueness of the sphere; the old towers rise, poising themselves, light as birds, yet strong as giants, in that magical atmosphere. The sun-lovers throng to the bright side of the way, and bask and laugh and grow warm and glad. And in the distance the circling hills stand round about the plain, and smile from all their heights in fellow-feeling with the warm and comforted world below. One little girl, left alone in a sunny room on the Lung-Arno in such a morning, with nothing but her half-abandoned tasks to amuse her, nobody to speak to, nothing to think of but a vague wrong done to herself, which she does not understand, is not in a cheerful position, though everything about her is so cheerful; and Kate’s heart sank down—down to her very slippers.
‘I don’t understand why you shouldn’t come,’ said some one, bursting in suddenly. ‘Oh! I beg your pardon; I did not mean to be so abrupt.’
For Kate had been crying. She dashed away her tears with an indignant hand, and looked at Bertie with defiance. Then the natural reaction came to her assistance. He looked so scared and embarrassed standing there, with his hat in his hand, breathless with haste, and full of compunction. She laughed in spite of herself.
‘I am not so ashamed as if it had been anyone else,’ she said. ‘You have seen me cry before. Oh! it is not for the expedition; it is only because I thought they did not want me, that was all.’
‘I wanted you,’ said Bertie, still breathless, and under his breath.
Kate looked up wondering, and suddenly met his eye, and they both blushed crimson. Why? She laughed to shake it off, feeling, somehow, a pleasanter feeling about her heart.
‘It was very kind of you,’ she said; ‘but, you know, you don’t count; you are only one of the boys. You have come back for something?’
‘Yes, Lady Barker’s bag, with her fan and her gloves, and her eau-de-Cologne.’
‘Oh! Lady Barker’s. There it is, I suppose. I hate Lady Barker!’ cried Kate.
‘And so do I; and to see her in your place——’
‘Never mind about that. Go away, please, or you will be late; and I hope you will have a pleasant day all the same.’
‘Not without you,’ said Bertie; and he took her hand, and for one moment seemed doubtful what to do with it. What was he going to do with it? The thought flashed through Kate’s mind with a certain amusement; but he thought better of the matter, and did nothing. He dropped her hand, blushing violently again, and then turned and fled, leaving her consoled and amused, and in a totally changed condition. What did he mean to do with the hand he had taken? Kate held it up and looked at it carefully, and laughed till the tears came to her eyes. He had meant to kiss it, she felt sure, and Kate had never yet had her hand kissed by mortal man; but he had thought better of it. It was ‘like Bertie.’ She was so much amused that her vexation went altogether out of her mind.
And in the afternoon Lady Caryisfort called and took her out. When she heard the narrative of Kate’s loneliness, Lady Caryisfort nodded her head approvingly, and said it was very nice of Mrs. Anderson, and quite what ought to have been. Upon which Kate became ashamed of herself, and was convinced that she was the most ungrateful and guilty of girls.
‘A distinction must be made,’ said Lady Caryisfort, ‘especially as it is now known who you are. For Miss Anderson it is quite different, and her mother, of course, must not neglect her interests.’
‘How funny that anyone’s interests should be affected by an invitation!’ said Kate, with one of those unintentional revelations of her sense of her own greatness which were so amusing to her friends. And Count Buoncompagni came to her side of the carriage when they got to the Cascine. It was entirely under Lady Caryisfort’s wing that their acquaintance had been formed, and nobody, accordingly, could have a word to say against it. Though she could not quite get Bertie (as she said) out of her head after the incident of the morning, the young Italian was still a very pleasant companion. He talked well, and told her about the people as none of the English could do. ‘There is Roscopanni, who was the first out in ’48, he said. ‘He was nearly killed at Novara. But perhaps you do not care to hear about our patriots?’
‘Oh! but I do,’ cried Kate, glowing into enthusiasm; and Count Antonio was nothing loth to be her instructor. He confessed that he himself had been ‘out,’ as Fergus MacIvor, had he survived it, might have confessed, to the ’45. Kate had her little prejudices, like all English girls—her feeling of the inferiority of ‘foreigners,’ and their insincerity and theatrical emotionalness. But Count Antonio took her imagination by storm. He was handsome; he had the sonorous masculine voice which suits Italian best, and does most justice to its melodious splendour; yet he did not speak much Italian, but only a little now and then, to give her courage to speak it. Even French, however, which was their general medium of communication, was an exercise to Kate, who had little practice in any language but her own. Then he told her about his own family, and that they were poor, with a frankness which went to Kate’s heart; and she told him, as best she could, about Francesca, and how she had heard the history of the Buoncompagni—‘before ever I saw you,’ Kate said, stretching the fact a little.
Thus the young man was emboldened to propose to Lady Caryisfort a visit to his old palace and its faded glories. There were some pictures he thought that ces dames would like to look at. ‘Still some pictures, though not much else,’ he said, ending off with a bit of English, and a shrug of his shoulders, and a laugh at his own poverty; and an appointment was made before the carriage drove off.
‘The Italians are not ashamed of being poor,’ said Kate, with animation, as they went home.
‘If they were, they might as well give in at once, for they are all poor,’ said Lady Caryisfort, with British contempt. But Kate, who was rich, thought all the more of the noble young Florentine, with his old palace and his pictures. And then he had been ‘out.’