CHAPTER IV
WHO AND WHAT
Old Elsie was not born a peasant. Originally she was the wife ofa steward in one of those great families of Rome whose estate andtraditions were princely. Elsie, as her figure and profile and all herwords and movements indicated, was of a strong, shrewd, ambitious, andcourageous character, and well disposed to turn to advantage every giftwith which Nature had endowed her.
Providence made her a present of a daughter whose beauty was wonderful,even in a country where beauty is no uncommon accident. In addition toher beauty, the little Isella had quick intelligence, wit, grace, andspirit. As a child she became the pet and plaything of the Princesswhom Elsie served. This noble lady, pressed by the _ennui_ which isalways the moth and rust on the purple and gold of rank and wealth,had, as other noble ladies had in those days, and have now, sundrypets: greyhounds, white and delicate, that looked as if they were madeof Sevres china; spaniels with long silky ears and fringy paws; apesand monkeys, that made at times sad devastations in her wardrobe; anda most charming little dwarf, that was ugly enough to frighten thevery owls, and spiteful as he was ugly. She had, moreover, peacocks,and macaws, and parrots, and all sorts of singing-birds, and falconsof every breed, and horses, and hounds,--in short, there is no sayingwhat she did _not_ have. One day she took it into her head to add thelittle Isella to the number of her acquisitions. With the easy graceof aristocracy, she reached out her jeweled hand and took Elsie's oneflower to add to her conservatory,--and Elsie was only too proud tohave it so.
Her daughter was kept constantly about the person of the Princess, andinstructed in all the wisdom which would have been allowed her, hadshe been the Princess's own daughter, which, to speak the truth, wasin those days nothing very profound,--consisting of a little singingand instrumentation, a little embroidery and dancing, with the power ofwriting her own name and of reading a love letter.
All the world knows that the very idea of a pet is something to bespoiled for the amusement of the pet-owner; and Isella was spoiled inthe most particular and circumstantial manner. She had suits of apparelfor every day in the year, and jewels without end,--for the Princesswas never weary of trying the effect of her beauty in this and thatcostume; so that she sported through the great grand halls and down thelong aisles of the garden much like a bright-winged humming-bird, or adamsel-fly all green and gold. She was a genuine child of Italy,--fullof feeling, spirit, and genius,--alive in every nerve to thefinger-tips; and under the tropical sunshine of her mistress's favorshe grew as an Italian rosebush does, throwing its branches freakishlyover everything in a wild labyrinth of perfume, brightness, and thorns.
For a while her life was a triumph, and her mother triumphed with herat an humble distance. The Princess was devoted to her with the blindfatuity with which ladies of rank at times will invest themselves ina caprice. She arrogated to herself all the praises of her beauty andwit, allowed her to flirt and make conquests to her heart's content,and engaged to marry her to some handsome young officer of her train,when she had done being amused with her.
Now we must not wonder that a young head of fifteen should havebeen turned by this giddy elevation, nor that an old head of fiftyshould have thought all things were possible in the fortune of sucha favorite. Nor must we wonder that the young coquette, rich in thelaurels of a hundred conquests, should have turned her bright eyes onthe son and heir, when he came home from the University of Bologna.Nor is it to be wondered at, that this same son and heir, being aman as well as a Prince, should have done as other men did,--fallendesperately in love with this dazzling, sparkling, piquant mixtureof matter and spirit, which no university can prepare a young man tocomprehend,--which always seemed to run from him, and yet always threwa Parthian shot behind her as she fled. Nor is it to be wondered at,if this same Prince, after a week or two, did not know whether he wason his head or his heels, or whether the sun rose in the east or thesouth, or where he stood, or whither he was going.
In fact, the youthful pair very soon came into that dreamland whereare no more any points of the compass, no more division of time, nomore latitude and longitude, no more up and down, but only a generalwandering among enchanted groves and singing nightingales.
It was entirely owing to old Elsie's watchful shrewdness and addressthat the lovers came into this paradise by the gate of marriage; forthe young man was ready to offer anything at the feet of his divinity,as the old mother was not slow to perceive.
So they stood at the altar for the time being a pair of as true loversas Romeo and Juliet: but then, what has true love to do with the son ofa hundred generations and heir to a Roman principality?
Of course, the rose of love, having gone through all its stages of budand blossom into full flower, must next begin to drop its leaves. Ofcourse. Who ever heard of an immortal rose?
The time of discovery came. Isella was found to be a mother; and thenthe storm burst upon her and drabbled her in the dust as fearlessly asthe summer wind sweeps down and besmirches the lily it has all summerbeen wooing and flattering.
The Princess was a very pious and moral lady, and of course threw herfavorite out into the street as a vile weed, and virtuously ground herdown under her jeweled high-heeled shoes.
She could have forgiven her any common frailty; of course it wasnatural that the girl should have been seduced by the all-conqueringcharms of her son,--but aspire to marriage with their house!--pretendto be her son's wife! Since the time of Judas had such treachery everbeen heard of?
Something was said of the propriety of walling up the culprit alive,--amode of disposing of small family matters somewhat _a la mode_ in thosetimes. But the Princess acknowledged herself foolishly tender, andunable quite to allow this very obvious propriety in the case.
She contented herself with turning mother and daughter into the streetswith every mark of ignominy, which was reduplicated by every one of herservants, lackeys, and court-companions, who, of course, had alwaysknown just how the thing must end.
As to the young Prince, he acted as a well-instructed young noblemanshould, who understands the great difference there is between the tearsof a duchess and those of low-born women. No sooner did he behold hisconduct in the light of his mother's countenance than he turned hisback on his low marriage with edifying penitence. He did not think itnecessary to convince his mother of the real existence of a union whosevery supposition made her so unhappy, and occasioned such an uncommonlydisagreeable and tempestuous state of things in the well-bred circlewhere his birth called him to move. Being, however, a religious youth,he opened his mind to his family-confessor, by whose advice he sent amessenger with a large sum of money to Elsie, piously commending herand her daughter to the Divine protection. He also gave orders for anentire new suit of raiment for the Virgin Mary in the family chapel,including a splendid set of diamonds, and promised unlimited candles tothe altar of a neighboring convent. If all this could not atone for ayouthful error, it was a pity. So he thought, as he drew on his ridinggloves and went off on a hunting party, like a gallant and religiousyoung nobleman.
Elsie, meanwhile, with her forlorn and disgraced daughter, found atemporary asylum in a neighboring mountain village, where the poor,bedrabbled, broken-winged song-bird soon panted and fluttered herlittle life away.
When the once beautiful and gay Isella had been hidden in the grave,cold and lonely, there remained a little wailing infant, which Elsiegathered to her bosom.
Grim, dauntless, and resolute, she resolved, for the sake of thishapless one, to look life in the face once more, and try the battleunder other skies.
Taking the infant in her arms, she traveled with her far from the sceneof her birth, and set all her energies at work to make for her a betterdestiny than that which had fallen to the lot of her unfortunate mother.
She set about to create her nature and order her fortunes with thatsort of downright energy with which resolute people always attack theproblem of a new human existence. This child should be happy: the rockson which her mo
ther was wrecked she should never strike upon,--theywere all marked on Elsie's chart. Love had been the root of all poorIsella's troubles,--and Agnes never should know love, till taught itsafely by a husband of Elsie's own choosing.
The first step of security was in naming her for the chaste SaintAgnes, and placing her girlhood under her special protection. Secondly,which was quite as much to the point, she brought her up laboriouslyin habits of incessant industry,--never suffering her to be out of hersight, or to have any connection or friendship, except such as couldbe carried on under the immediate supervision of her piercing blackeyes. Every night she put her to bed as if she had been an infant, and,wakening her again in the morning, took her with her in all her dailytoils,--of which, to do her justice, she performed all the hardestportion, leaving to the girl just enough to keep her hands employed andher head steady.
The peculiar circumstance which had led her to choose the old townof Sorrento for her residence, in preference to any of the beautifulvillages which impearl that fertile plain, was the existence there ofa flourishing convent dedicated to Saint Agnes, under whose protectingshadow her young charge might more securely spend the earlier years ofher life.
With this view, having hired the domicile we have already described,she lost no time in making the favorable acquaintance of thesisterhood,--never coming to them empty-handed. The finest oranges ofher garden, the whitest flax of her spinning, were always reserved asofferings at the shrine of the patroness whom she sought to propitiatefor her grandchild.
In her earliest childhood the little Agnes was led toddling to theshrine by her zealous relative, and at the sight of her fair, sweet,awestruck face, with its viny mantle of encircling curls, the torpidbosoms of the sisterhood throbbed with a strange, new pleasure, whichthey humbly hoped was not sinful,--as agreeable things, they found,generally were. They loved the echoes of her little feet down the damp,silent aisles of their chapel, and her small, sweet, slender voice, asshe asked strange baby-questions, which, as usual with baby-questions,hit all the insoluble points of philosophy and theology exactly on thehead.
The child became a special favorite with the Abbess, Sister Theresa,a tall, thin, bloodless, sad-eyed woman, who looked as if she mighthave been cut out of one of the glaciers of Monte Rosa, but in whoseheart the little fair one had made herself a niche, pushing her way upthrough, as you may have seen a lovely blue-fringed gentian standing ina snowdrift of the Alps with its little ring of melted snow around it.
Sister Theresa offered to take care of the child at any time when thegrandmother wished to be about her labors; and so, during her earlyyears, the little one was often domesticated for days together at theConvent. A perfect mythology of wonderful stories encircled her, whichthe good sisters were never tired of repeating to each other. They werethe simplest sayings and doings of childhood,--handfuls of such wildflowers as bespread the green turf of nursery-life everywhere, butmiraculous blossoms in the eyes of these good women, whom Saint Agneshad unwittingly deprived of any power of making comparisons or everhaving Christ's sweetest parable of the heavenly kingdom enacted inhomes of their own.
Old Jocunda, the portress, never failed to make a sensation with herone stock-story of how she found the child standing on her head andcrying,--having been put into this reversed position in consequence ofclimbing up on a high stool to get her little fat hand into the vase ofholy water, failing in which Christian attempt, her heels went up andher head down, greatly to her dismay.
"Nevertheless," said old Jocunda, gravely, "it showed an edifying turnin the child; and when I lifted the little thing up, it stopped cryingthe minute its little fingers touched the water, and it made a cross onits forehead as sensible as the oldest among us. Ah, sisters, there'sgrace there, or I'm mistaken."
All the signs of an incipient saint were, indeed, manifested in thelittle one. She never played the wild and noisy plays of commonchildren, but busied herself in making altars and shrines, which sheadorned with the prettiest flowers of the gardens, and at which sheworked hour after hour in the quietest and happiest earnestness.Her dreams were a constant source of wonder and edification in theConvent, for they were all of angels and saints; and many a time, afterhearing one, the sisterhood crossed themselves, and the Abbess said,"_Ex oribus parvulorum_." Always sweet, dutiful, submissive, cradlingherself every night with a lulling of sweet hymns and infant murmur ofprayers, and found sleeping in her little white bed with her crucifixclasped to her bosom, it was no wonder that the Abbess thought her thespecial favorite of her divine patroness, and like her the subject ofan early vocation to be the celestial bride of One fairer than thechildren of men, who should snatch her away from all earthly things, tobe united to Him in a celestial paradise.
As the child grew older, she often sat at evening with wide, wonderingeyes, listening over and over again to the story of the fair SaintAgnes,--how she was a princess, living in her father's palace, of suchexceeding beauty and grace that none saw her but to love her, yet ofsuch sweetness and humility as passed all comparison; and how, whena heathen prince would have espoused her to his son, she said, "Awayfrom me, tempter! for I am betrothed to a lover who is greater andfairer than any earthly suitor,--he is so fair that the sun and moonare ravished by his beauty, so mighty that the angels of heaven are hisservants;" how she bore meekly with persecutions and threatenings anddeath for the sake of this unearthly love; and when she had poured outher blood, how she came to her mourning friends in ecstatic vision,all white and glistening, with a fair lamb by her side, and bade themweep not for her, because she was reigning with Him whom on earth shehad preferred to all other lovers. There was also the legend of thefair Cecilia, the lovely musician whom angels had rapt away to theirchoirs; the story of that queenly saint, Catharine, who passed throughthe courts of heaven, and saw the angels crowned with roses and lilies,and the Virgin on her throne, who gave her the wedding ring thatespoused her to be the bride of the King Eternal.
Fed with such legends, it could not be but that a child with asensitive, nervous organization and vivid imagination, should havegrown up with an unworldly and spiritual character, and that a poeticmist should have enveloped all her outward perceptions similar to thatpalpitating veil of blue and lilac vapor that enshrouds the Italianlandscape.
Nor is it to be marveled at, if the results of this system of educationwent far beyond what the good old grandmother intended. For, though astanch good Christian, after the manner of those times, yet she had notthe slightest mind to see her grand-daughter a nun; on the contrary,she was working day and night to add to her dowry, and had in her eyea reputable middle-aged blacksmith, who was a man of substance andprudence, to be the husband and keeper of her precious treasure. In ahome thus established she hoped to enthrone herself, and provide forthe rearing of a generation of stout-limbed girls and boys who shouldgrow up to make a flourishing household in the land. This subject shehad not yet broached to her grand-daughter, though daily preparing todo so,--deferring it, it must be told, from a sort of jealous, yearningcraving to have wholly to herself the child for whom she had lived somany years.
Antonio, the blacksmith to whom this honor was destined, was one ofthose broad-backed, full-chested, long-limbed fellows one shall oftensee around Sorrento, with great, kind, black eyes like those of an ox,and all the attributes of a healthy, kindly, animal nature. Contentedlyhe hammered away at his business; and certainly, had not Dame Elsieof her own providence elected him to be the husband of her fairgrand-daughter, he would never have thought of the matter himself; but,opening the black eyes aforenamed upon the girl, he perceived that shewas fair, and also received an inner light through Dame Elsie as to theamount of her dowry; and, putting these matters together, conceived akindness for the maiden, and awaited with tranquillity the time when heshould be allowed to commence his wooing.