CHAPTER XXVI. THE LESSON NOT YET LEARNED.
Now many of the girls who read this story will doubtless imagine that Henrietta Mostyn has learned her lesson and will in future be at least an ordinarily good girl, not breaking out into any violent crises of bad temper and naughtiness. But the girls who do think so do not quite realise Henrietta's nature.
For the first couple of days she was delighted with the life at the charming hotel where Mr. O'Brien had taken rooms for his party. The foreign food was also agreeable to her palate. She could talk as much as she pleased, and she certainly did chatter to her heart's content, but the beauty and the glory and the greatness of Rome were not for one like Henrietta.
The great Church of St. Peter's puzzled her, but aroused no respect. The pictures at the Vatican which so enraptured Maureen and Dominic wearied her to distraction. The different churches they visited were all beautiful to Maureen, Dominic, and Mr. O'Brien, but go where they would, see what they might, the only thing that really pleased Henrietta was her food, her admirable food, and the different dresses that the ladies wore who came in and out of the hotel.
As to everything else, it became a weariness of the flesh to the poor child. She did not like the innumerable shops with their lovely photographs and pieces of rare vertu exposed to view, but she gloated over the shops which displayed chocolates, cakes, and other dainty sweetmeats. She liked, too, to see the shops full of colour. She wanted brightness. She had a perfect passion for sweets and very gay beads and for brightness. In short, Henrietta was nothing less than a vigorous little cuckoo hatched in the wrong nest.
She was still, it is true, anxious to please Maureen, but otherwise she was sick of Rome.
One morning the whole party went early to the celebrated Fountain of Trevi, and, as was the custom, Dominic, the Rector, Maureen, and Daisy all drank of the sparkling, delicious water. Maureen filled a glass to the brim and brought it to Henrietta.
"Take it away," said Henny; "I hate cold water."
"Oh," replied Maureen, "but you must try and drink this. There is an old legend about this. You drink, if it is only a little, and it will insure your return again to this darling, splendid Rome."
"That settles the question," replied Henrietta. "If there is a place on this earth I loathe, it is Rome. It is a degree worse, I do declare, than the Punishment Chair, and Dinah praying without uttering a word aloud, and that is saying a good bit."
"Well, Henny, you'll learn to love the wonders of Rome some day. Look, do look, there are some cardinals. Don't they look too wonderful in their crimson robes?"
"I won't look. I don't see anything pretty or beautiful about those affected beings. I say, Maureen, I've got a splitting pain in my nut. Please, Maureen's uncle, for you don't allow me to call you step-daddy, may I go back at once to the Hotel? I promise indeed to be good and, as you are all going to that horrid Vatican, may I not lie down? Please, I cannot stand any more pictures."
"I'm sorry you have a headache," said Maureen. "Perhaps, Uncle Pat, she might go back and lie down. We must try and find something quite light and entertaining for her to-night."
"Oh yes, do, do," said Henny, clapping her hands.
"Henrietta, can I take you at your word; will you be good?" said the Rector. "Dominic and Maureen and Daisy and I are going to meet one of the great professors, who will show us and explain to us the recent excavations in the Forum."
"I honestly promise to be good—I do, indeed," said Henny.
"And you won't leave the Hotel; you promise?"
"Of course, I do. I'll be only too thankful to lie down and keep quiet until it is time to eat. Although I have a headache, I am hungry. I suppose I may eat even though you are out enjoying what would kill me."
"Yes, poor little girl, you may certainly eat. We'll take her back to the Hotel, Maureen, and put her under the care of Victorine, who will let her know when déjeuner is served."
So Henrietta had her way.
Victorine was a dark-eyed Italian girl, who could speak broken English, and promised volubly to see after the signorina, but Mr. O'Brien did not feel thoroughly comfortable as he went off with Maureen and Daisy and Dominic, at leaving this wild creature practically alone.
But Maureen, for once in her life, was selfish. She absolutely forgot Henrietta in the marvels which the great professor poured into her cultured little mind. She listened with awe and wonder.
She was no longer in the country of modern civilisation; she had ceased to be a child of the present day. She was back in the old, old times. She was even with Nero in his unspeakable cruelty—but also in the refinement of this extraordinary being's perfect taste.
She was with the Vestal Virgins. She was under the Arch of Titus. She stood on the banks of the Tiber, that mighty river of ancient times. Her heart thrilled and stood still. Was this narrow turgid stream the mighty fast-flowing river that was known in history, where the great Horatius kept the bridge?
It was some small comfort to the eager little listener when the old professor explained to her how centuries had worked changes and that the river was really a mighty mass of swift-flowing water in the brave days of old.
The learned professor was really charmed with his little companion, and insisted on the entire party coming to lunch with him in his appartement in one of the old palaces.
Finally he took them to see under his own special guidance the greatest picture in the world—Raphael's Transfiguration, that mighty masterpiece, so well known, and never to be forgotten. He explained the full meaning of the picture, Christ in Glory, the awed and terrified disciples, the epileptic boy. He described how, when Raphael died, the picture was scarcely finished, but it was hung over his death-bed as he lay in state, and was carried in his funeral procession.
Finally he recited those great lines of Rogers:
"And when all beheld
Him where he lay, how changed from yesterday—
Him in that hour cut off, and at his head
His last great work;—when entering in, they look'd,
Now on the dead, then on that masterpiece—
Now on his face, lifeless and colourless,
Then on those forms divine that lived and breathed,
And would live on for ages—all were moved,
And sighs burst forth and loudest lamentations."