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Miss Meredith

[Pg 27] <h2>CHAPTER III. NEW AND STRANGE EXPERIENCES.</h2> When I awoke the sun was streaming in through the chinks of the shutters, and a servant was standing at my bedside with a cup of coffee and some rolls. But I felt no disposition to attack my breakfast, and lay still, with a dreamy sensation as my eyes wandered round the unfamiliar room. I saw a great, dim chamber, with a painted ceiling rising sky-high above me; plaster walls, coarsely stencilled in arabesques; a red-tiled floor, strewn here and there with squares of carpet; a few old and massive pieces of furniture, and not the vestige of a stove. The bed on which I lay was a vast four-post structure, mountains high, with a baldaquin in faded crimson damask, and was reflected, rather libellously, in a glass-front of a wardrobe opposite. "I shall never, never feel that it is a normal, human bedroom," I thought, appalled by the gloomy state of[Pg 28] my surroundings. Then I drank my coffee, and, climbing out of bed, went across to the window, and unshuttered it. An exclamation of pleasure rose to my lips at the sight which greeted me. Below flowed the full waters of the Arno, spanned by a massive bridge of shining white marble, and reflecting on its waves the bluest of blue heavens. A brilliant and delicate sunshine was shed over all, bringing out the lights and shades, the differences of tint and surface, of the tall old house on the opposite bank, and falling on the minute spires of a white marble church perched at the very edge of the stream. The sight of this toy-like structure—surely the smallest and daintiest place of worship in the world—served to deepen the sense of unreality which was hourly gaining hold upon me. "I wonder where the Leaning Tower is," I thought, as I hastily drew on my stockings, for standing about on the red-tiled floor had made me very cold, in spite of the sunshine flooding in through the windows; "what would they say at home if they heard I had been twenty-four hours in Pisa without so much as seeing it in the distance." But I did not allow myself to think of home, and[Pg 29] devoted my energies to bringing myself up to the high standard of neatness which would certainly be expected of me. I found the ladies sitting together in a large and cold apartment, which was more homelike than the yellow room of yesterday, inasmuch as its bareness was relieved by a variety of modern ornaments, photograph-frames, and other trifles, all as hideous as your latter-day Italian loves to make them. They greeted me with ceremony, making many polite inquiries as to my health and comfort, and invited me to sit down. The room was very cold, in spite of the morning sun, whose light, moreover, was intercepted by venetian blinds. The chilly little Marchesa had her hands in her muff, while her daughter warmed hers over a scaldino, a small earthern pot filled with hot wood ashes, which she held in her lap. The amiable lady in the dressing-jacket was evidently a more warm-blooded creature, for she stitched on, undaunted by the cold, at a large and elaborate piece of embroidery, taking her part meanwhile in the ceaseless and rapid flow of chatter. It was rather a shock to me to gather that she was the wife of the charming son of the house; to whom, moreover, a fresh charm was added, when it came out[Pg 30] that his name was Romeo. I had put her down for a woman of middle age, but I learned subsequently that she was only twenty-eight years old, and had brought her husband a very handsome dowry. The pair were childless after several years of marriage, and they lived permanently at the Palazzo Brogi, according to the old patriarchal Italian custom, which, like most old customs, is dying out. I sat there, stupidly wondering if I should ever be able to understand Italian, replying lamely enough to the remarks in French which were thrown out to me at decent intervals, and encountering every now and then with some alarm the suspicious glances of the Signorina Bianca. Once the kind Marchesina Annunziata—Romeo's wife—drew my attention with simple pride to a leather chair embroidered with gold, her own handiwork, as I managed to make out. I smiled and nodded the proper amount of admiration, and wished secretly that my feet were not so cold, for the tiled floor struck chill through the carpet. Bianca offered me a scaldino presently, and the Marchesa explained that she wished the English lessons to begin on the following day. After that I sat there in almost unbroken silence till twelve o'clock,[Pg 31] when the casual man-servant strolled in and announced that lunch was ready. The dining-room, a large and stony apartment with a vaulted roof, was situated on the ground-floor, and here we found the Marchesino Romeo and the old Marchese, to whom I was introduced. The meal was slight but excellently cooked; and the sweet Tuscan wine I found delicious. Romeo, who sat next to me, and attended to my wants with his air of gentle and serious courtesy, addressed a few remarks to me in English and then subsided into a graceful silence, leaving the conversation entirely in the hands of his womenkind. After lunch, a drive and round of calls was proposed by the ladies, who invited me to join them. The thought of being shut up in a carriage with these three strange women, all speaking their unknown tongue, was too much for me, and gathering courage, the courage of desperation, I announced that unless my services were required I should prefer to go for a walk. The ladies looked at me, and then at one another, and the good-natured Annunziata burst into a laugh. "It is an English custom," she explained. "You must not go beyond the city walls, Miss Meredith,[Pg 32] not even into the Casine; it would not be safe," said the Marchesa; while Bianca looked scrutinizingly at my square, low-heeled shoes which contrasted sharply with her own. It was with a feeling of relief, some twenty minutes later, that, peeping from the window of my room, I saw them all drive off, elaborately apparelled, in a closed carriage; Romeo, bareheaded, speeding them from the steps. Then I sat down and wrote off an unnaturally cheerful letter to the people at home, only pausing now and then when the tears rose to my eyes and blurred my sight. "I hope I haven't overdone it," I thought, as I addressed the envelope and proceeded to dress. "I'm not sure that there isn't a slightly inebriated tone about the whole thing, and mother is so quick at reading between the lines." I passed across the corridor and down the stair to the first landing, where I lingered a moment. A covered gallery ran along the back of the house, and through the tall and dingy windows I could see a surging, unequal mass of old red roofs. "How Jenny would love it all," I thought, as I turned away with a sigh. [Pg 33] As I reached the street door, Romeo emerged from that mysterious retreat of his on the ground-floor, where he appeared to pass his time in some solitary pursuit, looked at me, bowed, and withdrew. "At last!" I cried, inwardly, as I sped down the steps. At last I could breathe again, at last I was out in the sunlight and in the wind, away from the musty chilliness, the lurking shadows of that stifling palace. Oh, the joy of freedom and of solitude! Was it only hours? Surely it must be years that I had been imprisoned behind those thick old walls and iron guarded windows. On, on I went with rapid foot in the teeth of the biting wind and the glare of the scorching sunlight, scarcely noticing my surroundings in the first rapture of recovered freedom. But by degrees the strangeness, the beauty of what I saw, began to assert themselves. I had turned off from the Lung' Arno, and was threading my way among the old and half-deserted streets which led to the cathedral. What a dead, world-forgotten place, and yet how beautiful in its desolation! Everywhere were signs of a present poverty, everywhere of a past magnificence. The men with their sombreros and cloaks worn toga fashion; their handsome, melancholy faces and[Pg 34] stately gait; the women bareheaded, graceful, drawing water from the fountain into copper vessels, moved before me like figures from an old-world drama. Here and there was a little, empty piazza, the tall houses abutting on it at different angles, without sidewalks, the grass growing up between the stones. It seemed only waiting for first gentleman and second gentleman to come forward and carry on their dialogue while the great "set" was being prepared at the back of the stage. The old walls, roughly patched with modern brick and mortar, had bits of exquisite carving imbedded in them like fossils; and at every street corner the house leek sprang from the interstices of a richly wrought moulding. A great palace, with a wonderful façade, had been turned into a wineshop; and the chestnut-sellers dispensed their wares in little gloomy caverns hollowed out beneath the abodes of princes. Already the nameless charm of Italy was beginning to work on me; that magic spell from which—let us once come under its influence—we can never hope to be released. A long and straggling street led me at last to the Piazzi del Duomo, and here for a moment I paused breathless, regardless of the icy blast which swept across from the sea. [Pg 35] I thought then, and I think still, that nowhere in the world is there anything which, in its own way, can equal the picture that greeted my astonished vision. The wide and straggling grass-grown piazza, bounded on one side by the city wall, on the other by the low wall of the Campo Santo, with the wind whistling drearily across it, struck me as the very type and symbol of desolation. At one end rose the Leaning Tower, pallid, melancholy, defying the laws of nature in a disappointingly spiritless fashion. Close against it the magnificent bulk of the cathedral reared itself, a marvel of mellow tints, of splendid outline, and richly modelled surfaces. And, divided from this by a strip of rank grass, up sprang the little quaint baptistery, with its extraordinary air of freshness and of fantastic gaiety, looking as though it had been turned out of a mould the day before yesterday. Such richness, such forlornness, struck curiously on the sense. It was as though, wandering along some solitary shore, one had found a heaped treasure glittering undisturbed on the open sand. I strolled for some time spell-bound about the cathedral, not caring to multiply impressions by [Pg 36]entering, shivering a little in the wind which held a recollection of the sea, and was at the same time cold and feverish. By and by, however, I made my way into the Campo Santo, lingering fascinated in those strange sculptured arcades, with the visions of life and death, and hell and heaven, painted on the walls. One or two cypresses rose from the little grass-plot in the middle, and in the rank grass the jonquils were already in flower. I plucked a few of these and fastened them in my dress. They had a sweet, peculiar odour, melancholy, enervating. The bright light was beginning to fail as I sped back hurriedly through the streets. It was Epiphany, and the children were blowing on long glass trumpets. Every now and then the harsh sound echoed through the stony thoroughfare. It fell upon my overwrought senses like a sound of doom. The flowers in my bodice smelt of death; there was death, I thought, crying out in every old stone of the city. The palazzo looked almost like home, and I fled up the dim stairs with a greater feeling of relief than that with which an hour or two ago I had hastened down them. [Pg 37] After dinner the Marchesa received her friends in the yellow drawing-room. A wood fire was lighted on the flat, open hearth of the stove, and a side table was spread with a few light refreshments—a bottle of Marsala wine, and a round cake covered with bright green sugar, being the most important items. About eight o'clock the visitors began to arrive, and in half an hour nine or ten ladies and three or four gentlemen were clustered on the damask sofas, talking at a great rate, and gesticulating in their graceful, eager fashion. Bianca had withdrawn into a corner with a pair of contemporaries, whose long, stiff waists, high-heeled shoes, and elaborately dressed hair, resembled her own. The old Marchese sat apart, silent and contemplative, as was his wont, and Romeo, drawing a chair close to mine, questioned me in his precise, restricted English as to my afternoon walk. This parliament of gossip, which, as I afterwards discovered, occurred regularly three times a week, was prolonged till midnight, but, kind Annunziata noticing my tired looks, I was able to make my escape by ten o'clock. As I climbed into my bed, worn out by the crowded experiences of the day, there rose before me[Pg 38] suddenly a vision of the parlour at home; of mother sewing by the fireside; of Jenny and Rosalind at work in the lamplight; of Hubert coming in with the evening papers and bits of literary gossip. "If they could only see me," I thought, "alone in this unnatural place, with no one to be fond of me, with no one even being aware that I have a Christian name." This last touch struck me as so pathetic that the tears began to pour down my face. But the tall bed, with the faded baldaquin, if oppressive to the imagination, was, it must be confessed, exceedingly comfortable, and it was not long before I forgot my troubles in sleep. <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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