A Foregone Conclusion. William Dean Howells
why didn’t you give him the passport and the letter?” asked Mrs. Vervain.
“Oh, that’s a state secret,” returned Ferris.
“And you think he won’t do for our purpose?”
“I don’t indeed.”
“Well, I’m not so sure of it. Tell me something more about him.”
“I don’t know anything more about him. Besides, there isn’t time.”
The gondola had already entered the canal, and was swiftly approaching the hotel.
“Oh yes, there is,” pleaded Mrs. Vervain, laying her hand on his arm. “I want you to come in and dine with us. We dine early.”
“Thank you, I can’t. Affairs of the nation, you know. Rebel privateer on the canal of the Brenta.”
“Really?” Mrs. Vervain leaned towards Ferris for sharper scrutiny of his face. Her glasses sprang from her nose, and precipitated themselves into his bosom.
“Allow me,” he said, with burlesque politeness, withdrawing them from the recesses of his waistcoat and gravely presenting them. Miss Vervain burst into a helpless laugh; then she turned toward her mother with a kind of indignant tenderness, and gently arranged her shawl so that it should not drop off when she rose to leave the gondola. She did not look again at Ferris, who resisted Mrs. Vervain’s entreaties to remain, and took leave as soon as the gondola landed.
The ladies went to their room, where Florida lifted from the table a vase of divers-colored hyacinths, and stepping out upon the balcony flung the flowers into the canal. As she put down the empty vase, the lingering perfume of the banished flowers haunted the air of the room.
“Why, Florida,” said her mother, “those were the flowers that Mr. Ferris gave you. Did you fancy they had begun to decay? The smell of hyacinths when they’re a little old is dreadful. But I can’t imagine a gentleman’s giving you flowers that were at all old.”
“Oh, mother, don’t speak to me!” cried Miss Vervain, passionately, clasping her hands to her face.
“Now I see that I’ve been saying something to vex you, my darling,” and seating herself beside the young girl on the sofa, she fondly took down her hands. “Do tell me what it was. Was it about your teachers falling in love with you? You know they did, Florida: Pestachiavi and Schulze, both; and that horrid old Fleuron.”
“Did you think I liked any better on that account to have you talk it over with a stranger?” asked Florida, still angrily.
“That’s true, my dear,” said Mrs. Vervain, penitently. “But if it worried you, why didn’t you do something to stop me? Give me a hint, or just a little knock, somewhere?”
“No, mother; I’d rather not. Then you’d have come out with the whole thing, to prove that you were right. It’s better to let it go,” said Florida with a fierce laugh, half sob. “But it’s strange that you can’t remember how such things torment me.”
“I suppose it’s my weak health, dear,” answered the mother. “I didn’t use to be so. But now I don’t really seem to have the strength to be sensible. I know it’s silly as well as you. The talk just seems to keep going on of itself,—slipping out, slipping out. But you needn’t mind. Mr. Ferris won’t think you could ever have done anything out of the way. I’m sure you don’t act with him as if you’d ever encouraged anybody. I think you’re too haughty with him, Florida. And now, his flowers.”
“He’s detestable. He’s conceited and presuming beyond all endurance. I don’t care what he thinks of me. But it’s his manner towards you that I can’t tolerate.”
“I suppose it’s rather free,” said Mrs. Vervain. “But then you know, my dear, I shall be soon getting to be an old lady; and besides, I always feel as if consuls were a kind of one of the family. He’s been very obliging since we came; I don’t know what we should have done without him. And I don’t object to a little ease of manner in the gentlemen; I never did.”
“He makes fun of you,” cried Florida: “and there at the convent,”, she said, bursting into angry tears, “he kept exchanging glances with that monk as if he.... He’s insulting, and I hate him!”
“Do you mean that he thought your mother ridiculous, Florida?” asked Mrs. Vervain gravely. “You must have misunderstood his looks; indeed you must. I can’t imagine why he should. I remember that I talked particularly well during our whole visit; my mind was active, for I felt unusually strong, and I was interested in everything. It’s nothing but a fancy of yours; or your prejudice, Florida. But it’s odd, now I’ve sat down for a moment, how worn out I feel. And thirsty.”
Mrs. Vervain fitted on her glasses, but even then felt uncertainly about for the empty vase on the table before her.
“It isn’t a goblet, mother,” said Florida; “I’ll get you some water.”
“Do; and then throw a shawl over me. I’m sleepy, and a nap before dinner will do me good. I don’t see why I’m so drowsy of late. I suppose it’s getting into the sea air here at Venice; though it’s mountain air that makes you drowsy. But you’re quite mistaken about Mr. Ferris. He isn’t capable of anything really rude. Besides, there wouldn’t have been any sense in it.”
The young girl brought the water and then knelt beside the sofa, on which she arranged the pillows under her mother, and covered her with soft wraps. She laid her cheek against the thinner face. “Don’t mind anything I’ve said, mother; let’s talk of something else.”
The mother drew some loose threads of the daughter’s hair through her slender fingers, but said little more, and presently fell into a deep slumber. Florida gently lifted her head away, and remained kneeling before the sofa, looking into the sleeping face with an expression of strenuous, compassionate devotion, mixed with a vague alarm and self-pity, and a certain wondering anxiety.
III.
Don Ippolito had slept upon his interview with Ferris, and now sat in his laboratory, amidst the many witnesses of his inventive industry, with the model of the breech-loading cannon on the workbench before him. He had neatly mounted it on wheels, that its completeness might do him the greater credit with the consul when he should show it him, but the carriage had been broken in his pocket, on the way home, by an unlucky thrust from the burden of a porter, and the poor toy lay there disabled, as if to dramatize that premature explosion in the secret chamber.
His heart was in these inventions of his, which had as yet so grudgingly repaid his affection. For their sake he had stinted himself of many needful things. The meagre stipend which he received from the patrimony of his church, eked out with the money paid him for baptisms, funerals, and marriages, and for masses by people who had friends to be prayed out of purgatory, would at best have barely sufficed to support him; but he denied himself everything save the necessary decorums of dress and lodging; he fasted like a saint, and slept hard as a hermit, that he might spend upon these ungrateful creatures of his brain. They were the work of his own hands, and so he saved the expense of their construction; but there were many little outlays for materials and for tools, which he could not avoid, and with him a little was all. They not only famished him; they isolated him. His superiors in the church, and his brother priests, looked with doubt or ridicule upon the labors for which he shunned their company, while he gave up the other social joys, few and small, which a priest might know in the Venice of that day, when all generous spirits regarded him with suspicion for his cloth’s sake, and church and state were alert to detect disaffection or indifference in him. But bearing these things willingly, and living as frugally as he might, he had still not enough, and he had been fain to assume the instruction of a young girl of old and noble family in certain branches of polite learning which a young lady of that sort might fitly know. The family was not so rich as it was old and noble, and Don Ippolito was paid from its purse rather than