CHAPTER VII

AN AWAKENING FOR BOTH

Renee was downcast. Had she not coquetted? The dear young Englishman had

reduced her to defend herself, the which fair ladies, like besieged

garrisons, cannot always do successfully without an attack at times,

which, when the pursuer is ardent, is followed by a retreat, which is a

provocation; and these things are coquettry. Her still fresh

convent-conscience accused her of it pitilessly. She could not forgive

her brother, and yet she dared not reproach him, for that would have

inculpated Nevil. She stepped on to the Piazzetta thoughtfully. Her

father was at Florian's, perusing letters from France. 'We are to have

the marquis here in a week, my child,' he said. Renee nodded.

Involuntarily she looked at Nevil. He caught the look, with a lover's

quick sense of misfortune in it.

She heard her brother reply to him: 'Who? the Marquis de Rouaillout? It

is a jolly gaillard of fifty who spoils no fun.'

'You mistake his age, Roland,' she said.

'Forty-nine, then, my sister.'

'He is not that.'

'He looks it.'

'You have been absent.'

'Probably, my arithmetical sister, he has employed the interval to grow

younger. They say it is the way with green gentlemen of a certain age.

They advance and they retire. They perform the first steps of a quadrille

ceremoniously, and we admire them.'

'What's that?' exclaimed the Comte de Croisnel. 'You talk nonsense,

Roland. M. le marquis is hardly past forty. He is in his prime.'

'Without question, mon pere. For me, I was merely offering proof that he

can preserve his prime unlimitedly.'

'He is not a subject for mockery, Roland.'

'Quite the contrary; for reverence!'

'Another than you, my boy, and he would march you out.'

'I am to imagine, then, that his hand continues firm?'

'Imagine to the extent of your capacity; but remember that respect is

always owing to your own family, and deliberate before you draw on

yourself such a chastisement as mercy from an accepted member of it.'

Roland bowed and drummed on his knee.

The conversation had been originated by Renee for the enlightenment of

Nevil and as a future protection to herself. Now that it had disclosed

its burden she could look at him no more, and when her father addressed

her significantly: 'Marquise, you did me the honour to consent to

accompany me to the Church of the Frari this afternoon?' she felt her

self-accusation of coquettry biting under her bosom like a thing alive.

Roland explained the situation to Nevil.

'It is the mania with us, my dear Nevil, to marry our girls young to

established men. Your established man carries usually all the signs,

visible to the multitude or not, of the stages leading to that eminence.

We cannot, I believe, unless we have the good fortune to boast the

paternity of Hercules, disconnect ourselves from the steps we have

mounted; not even, the priests inform us, if we are ascending to heaven;

we carry them beyond the grave. However, it seems that our excellent

marquis contrives to keep them concealed, and he is ready to face

marriage--the Grandest Inquisitor, next to Death. Two furious

matchmakers--our country, beautiful France, abounds in them--met one day;

they were a comtesse and a baronne, and they settled the alliance. The

bell was rung, and Renee came out of school. There is this to be said:

she has no mother; the sooner a girl without a mother has a husband the

better. That we are all agreed upon. I have no personal objection to the

marquis; he has never been in any great scandals. He is Norman, and has

estates in Normandy, Dauphiny, Touraine; he is hospitable, luxurious.

Renee will have a fine hotel in Paris. But I am eccentric: I have read in

our old Fabliaux of December and May. Say the marquis is November, say

October; he is still some distance removed from the plump Spring month.

And we in our family have wits and passions. In fine, a bud of a rose in

an old gentleman's button-hole! it is a challenge to the whole world of

youth; and if the bud should leap? Enough of this matter, friend Nevil;

but sometimes a friend must allow himself to be bothered. I have perfect

confidence in my sister, you see; I simply protest against her being

exposed to . . . You know men. I protest, that is, in the privacy of my

cigar-case, for I have no chance elsewhere. The affair is on wheels. The

very respectable matchmakers have kindled the marquis on the one hand,

and my father on the other, and Renee passes obediently from the latter

to the former. In India they sacrifice the widows, in France the

virgins.'

Roland proceeded to relate his adventure. Nevil's inattention piqued him

to salt and salt it wonderfully, until the old story of He and She had an

exciting savour in its introductory chapter; but his friend was flying

through the circles of the Inferno, and the babble of an ephemeral upper

world simply affected him by its contrast with the overpowering horrors,

repugnances, despairs, pities, rushing at him, surcharging his senses.

Those that live much by the heart in their youth have sharp foretastes of

the issues imaged for the soul. St. Mark's was in a minute struck black

for him. He neither felt the sunlight nor understood why column and

campanile rose, nor why the islands basked, and boats and people moved.

All were as remote little bits of mechanism.

Nevil escaped, and walked in the direction of the Frari down calle and

campiello. Only to see her--to compare her with the Renee of the past

hour! But that Renee had been all the while a feast of delusion; she

could never be resuscitated in the shape he had known, not even clearly

visioned. Not a day of her, not an hour, not a single look had been his

own. She had been sold when he first beheld her, and should, he muttered

austerely, have been ticketed the property of a middle-aged man, a

worn-out French marquis, whom she had agreed to marry, unwooed, without

love--the creature of a transaction. But she was innocent, she was

unaware of the sin residing in a loveless marriage; and this restored her

to him somewhat as a drowned body is given back to mourners.

After aimless walking he found himself on the Zattere, where the lonely

Giudecca lies in front, covering mud and marsh and lagune-flames of later

afternoon, and you have sight of the high mainland hills which seem to

fling forth one over other to a golden sea-cape.

Midway on this unadorned Zattere, with its young trees and spots of

shade, he was met by Renee and her father. Their gondola was below, close

to the riva, and the count said, 'She is tired of standing gazing at

pictures. There is a Veronese in one of the churches of the Giudecca

opposite. Will you, M. Nevil, act as parade-escort to her here for half

an hour, while I go over? Renee complains that she loses the vulgar art

of walking in her complaisant attention to the fine Arts. I weary my poor

child.'

Renee protested in a rapid chatter.

'Must I avow it?' said the count; 'she damps my enthusiasm a little.'

Nevil mutely accepted the office.

Twice that day was she surrendered to him: once in his ignorance, when

time appeared an expanse of many sunny fields. On this occasion it puffed

steam; yet, after seeing the count embark, he commenced the parade in

silence.

'This is a nice walk,' said Renee; 'we have not the steps of the Riva dei

Schiavoni. It is rather melancholy though. How did you discover it? I

persuaded my papa to send the gondola round, and walk till we came to the

water. Tell me about the Giudecca.'

'The Giudecca was a place kept apart for the Jews, I believe. You have

seen their burial-ground on the Lido. Those are, I think, the Euganean

hills. You are fond of Petrarch.'

'M. Nevil, omitting the allusion to the poet, you have, permit me to

remark, the brevity without the precision of an accredited guide to

notabilities.'

'I tell you what I know,' said Nevil, brooding on the finished tone and

womanly aplomb of her language. It made him forget that she was a girl

entrusted to his guardianship. His heart came out.

'Renee, if you loved him, I, on my honour, would not utter a word for

myself. Your heart's inclinations are sacred for me. I would stand by,

and be your friend and his. If he were young, that I might see a chance

of it!'

She murmured, 'You should not have listened to Roland.'

'Roland should have warned me. How could I be near you and not . . . But

I am nothing. Forget me; do not think I speak interestedly, except to

save the dearest I have ever known from certain wretchedness. To yield

yourself hand and foot for life! I warn you that it must end miserably.

Your countrywomen . . . You have the habit in France; but like what are

you treated? You! none like you in the whole world! You consent to be

extinguished. And I have to look on! Listen to me now.'

Renee glanced at the gondola conveying her father. And he has not yet

landed! she thought, and said, 'Do you pretend to judge of my welfare

better than my papa?'

'Yes; in this. He follows a fashion. You submit to it. His anxiety is to

provide for you. But I know the system is cursed by nature, and that

means by heaven.'

'Because it is not English?'

'O Renee, my beloved for ever! Well, then, tell me, tell me you can say

with pride and happiness that the Marquis de Rouaillout is to be

your--there's the word--husband!'

Renee looked across the water.

'Friend, if my father knew you were asking me!'

'I will speak to him.'

'Useless.'

'He is generous, he loves you.'

'He cannot break an engagement binding his honour.'

'Would you, Renee, would you--it must be said--consent to have it known

to him--I beg for more than life--that your are not averse . . . that you

support me?'

His failing breath softened the bluntness.

She replied, 'I would not have him ever break an engagement binding his

honour.'

'You stretch the point of honour.'

'It is our way. Dear friend, we are French. And I presume to think that

our French system is not always wrong, for if my father had not broken it

by treating you as one of us and leaving me with you, should I have heard

. . . ?'

'I have displeased you.'

'Do not suppose that. But, I mean, a mother would not have left me.'

'You wished to avoid it.'

'Do not blame me. I had some instinct; you were very pale.'

'You knew I loved you.'

'No.'

'Yes; for this morning . . .'

This morning it seemed to me, and I regretted my fancy, that you were

inclined to trifle, as, they say, young men do.'

'With Renee?'

'With your friend Renee. And those are the hills of Petrarch's tomb? They

are mountains.'

They were purple beneath a large brooding cloud that hung against the

sun, waiting for him to enfold him, and Nevil thought that a tomb there

would be a welcome end, if he might lift Renee in one wild flight over

the chasm gaping for her. He had no language for thoughts of such a kind,

only tumultuous feeling.

She was immoveable, in perfect armour.

He said despairingly, 'Can you have realized what you are consenting to?'

She answered, 'It is my duty.'

'Your duty! it's like taking up a dice-box, and flinging once, to certain

ruin!'

'I must oppose my father to you, friend. Do you not understand duty to

parents? They say the English are full of the idea of duty.'

'Duty to country, duty to oaths and obligations; but with us the heart is

free to choose.'

'Free to choose, and when it is most ignorant?'

'The heart? ask it. Nothing is surer.'

'That is not what we are taught. We are taught that the heart deceives

itself. The heart throws your dicebox; not prudent parents.'

She talked like a woman, to plead the cause of her obedience as a girl,

and now silenced in the same manner that she had previously excited him.

'Then you are lost to me,' he said.

They saw the gondola returning.

'How swiftly it comes home; it loitered when it went,' said Renee. 'There

sits my father, brimming with his picture; he has seen one more! We will

congratulate him. This little boulevard is not much to speak of. The

hills are lovely. Friend,' she dropped her voice on the gondola's

approach, 'we have conversed on common subjects.'

Nevil had her hand in his, to place her in the gondola.

She seemed thankful that he should prefer to go round on foot. At least,

she did not join in her father's invitation to him. She leaned back,

nestling her chin and half closing her eyes, suffering herself to be

divided from him, borne away by forces she acquiesced in.

Roland was not visible till near midnight on the Piazza. The promenaders,

chiefly military of the garrison, were few at that period of social

protestation, and he could declare his disappointment aloud, ringingly,

as he strolled up to Nevil, looking as if the cigar in his mouth and the

fists entrenched in his wide trowsers-pockets were mortally at feud. His

adventure had not pursued its course luminously. He had expected romance,

and had met merchandize, and his vanity was offended. To pacify him,

Nevil related how he had heard that since the Venetian rising of '49,

Venetian ladies had issued from the ordeal of fire and famine of another

pattern than the famous old Benzon one, in which they touched earthiest

earth. He praised Republicanism for that. The spirit of the new and

short-lived Republic wrought that change in Venice.

'Oh, if they're republican as well as utterly decayed,' said Roland, 'I

give them up; let them die virtuous.'

Nevil told Roland that he had spoken to Renee. He won sympathy, but

Roland could not give him encouragement. They crossed and recrossed the

shadow of the great campanile, on the warm-white stones of the square,

Nevil admitting the weight of whatsoever Roland pointed to him in favour

of the arrangement according to French notions, and indeed, of

aristocratic notions everywhere, saving that it was imperative for Renee

to be disposed of in marriage early. Why rob her of her young springtime!

'French girls,' replied Roland, confused by the nature of the explication

in his head--'well, they're not English; they want a hand to shape them,

otherwise they grow all awry. My father will not have one of her aunts to

live with him, so there she is. But, my dear Nevil, I owe my life to you,

and I was no party to this affair. I would do anything to help you. What

says Renee?'

'She obeys.'

'Exactly. You see! Our girls are chess-pieces until they 're married.

Then they have life and character sometimes too much.'

'She is not like them, Roland; she is like none. When I spoke to her

first, she affected no astonishment; never was there a creature so nobly

sincere. She's a girl in heart, not in mind. Think of her sacrificed to

this man thrice her age!'

'She differs from other girls only on the surface, Nevil. As for the man,

I wish she were going to marry a younger. I wish, yes, my friend,' Roland

squeezed Nevil's hand, 'I wish! I'm afraid it's hopeless. She did not

tell you to hope?'

'Not by one single sign,' said Nevil.

'You see, my friend!'

'For that reason,' Nevil rejoined, with the calm fanaticism of the

passion of love, 'I hope all the more . . . because I will not believe

that she, so pure and good, can be sacrificed. Put me aside--I am

nothing. I hope to save her from that.'

'We have now,' said Roland, 'struck the current of duplicity. You are

really in love, my poor fellow.'

Lover and friend came to no conclusion, except that so lovely a night was

not given for slumber. A small round brilliant moon hung almost globed in

the depths of heaven, and the image of it fell deep between San Giorgio

and the Dogana.

Renee had the scene from her window, like a dream given out of sleep. She

lay with both arms thrown up beneath her head on the pillow, her eyelids

wide open, and her visage set and stern. Her bosom rose and sank

regularly but heavily. The fluctuations of a night stormy for her,

hitherto unknown, had sunk her to this trance, in which she lay like a

creature flung on shore by the waves. She heard her brother's voice and

Nevil's, and the pacing of their feet. She saw the long shaft of

moonlight broken to zigzags of mellow lightning, and wavering back to

steadiness; dark San Giorgio, and the sheen of the Dogana's front. But

the visible beauty belonged to a night that had shivered repose,

humiliated and wounded her, destroyed her confident happy half-infancy of

heart, and she had flown for a refuge to hard feelings. Her predominant

sentiment was anger; an anger that touched all and enveloped none, for it

was quite fictitious, though she felt it, and suffered from it. She

turned it on Nevil, as against an enemy, and became the victim in his

place. Tears for him filled in her eyes, and ran over; she disdained to

notice them, and blinked offendedly to have her sight clear of the

weakness; but these interceding tears would flow; it was dangerous to

blame him, harshly. She let them roll down, figuring to herself with

quiet simplicity of mind that her spirit was independent of them as long

as she restrained her hands from being accomplices by brushing them away,

as weeping girls do that cry for comfort. Nevil had saved her brother's

life, and had succoured her countrymen; he loved her, and was a hero. He

should not have said he loved her; that was wrong; and it was shameful

that he should have urged her to disobey her father. But this hero's love

of her might plead excuses she did not know of; and if he was to be

excused, he, unhappy that he was, had a claim on her for more than tears.

She wept resentfully. Forces above her own swayed and hurried her like a

lifeless body dragged by flying wheels: they could not unnerve her will,

or rather, what it really was, her sense of submission to a destiny.

Looked at from the height of the palm-waving cherubs over the fallen

martyr in the picture, she seemed as nerveless as a dreamy girl. The

raised arms and bent elbows were an illusion of indifference. Her shape

was rigid from hands to feet, as if to keep in a knot the resolution of

her mind; for the second and in that young season the stronger nature

grafted by her education fixed her to the religious duty of obeying and

pleasing her father, in contempt, almost in abhorrence, of personal

inclinations tending to thwart him and imperil his pledged word. She knew

she had inclinations to be tender. Her hands released, how promptly might

she not have been confiding her innumerable perplexities of sentiment and

emotion to paper, undermining self-governance; self-respect, perhaps!

Further than that, she did not understand the feelings she struggled

with; nor had she any impulse to gaze on him, the cause of her trouble,

who walked beside her brother below, talking betweenwhiles in the night's

grave undertones. Her trouble was too overmastering; it had seized her

too mysteriously, coming on her solitariness without warning in the first

watch of the night, like a spark crackling serpentine along dry leaves to

sudden flame. A thought of Nevil and a regret had done it.