Name and Fame: A Novel

by Adeline Sergeant

So they went out together—the woman of twenty-six and the woman of sixty, and roamed about the streets of Florence like a couple of school-girls. And Lettice bought her friend a brooch, and herself a ring in memory of the day; and as the ten pounds would not cover it she borrowed fifteen; and then they had a delightful drive through the noble squares, past many a venerable palace and lofty church, through richly storied streets, and across a bridge of marble to the other side of the Arno; so onward till they came to the wood-enshrouded valley, where the trees were breaking into tender leafage, every shade of green commingling with the blue screen of the Apennines beyond. Back again they came into the city of palaces, which they had learned to love, and alighting near the Duomo sought out a pasticceria in a street hard by, and ate a genuine school-girl's meal.

"It has been the pleasantest day of my life here!" said Lettice as they reached home in the evening. "I have not had a cloud upon my conscience."

"And it has made the old woman young," said Mrs. Hartley, kissing her friend upon the cheek. "Oh, why are you not my daughter!"

"You would soon have too much of me if I were your daughter. But tell me what a daughter would have done for you, and let me do it while I can."

"It is not to do, but to be. Be just what you are and never desert me, and then I will forget that I was once a childless woman."

So the spring advanced, and drew towards summer. And on the first of May Mrs. Hartley, writing to her cousin, Edith Dalton, the most intimate of all her confidants, gave a glowing account of Lettice.

"My sweetheart here (she wrote) is cured at last. Three months have gone since she spoke about returning to England, and I believe she is thoroughly contented. She has taken to writing again, and seems to be fairly absorbed in her work, but you may be sure that I shall not let her overdo it. The death of her mother, and the break-up of their home, probably severed all the ties that bound her to London; and, so far as I can see, not one of them remains. I laughed to read that you were jealous of her. When you and Brooke come here I am certain you will like her every bit as much as I do. What you tell me of Brooke is rather a surprise, but I know you must be very happy about it. To have had him with you for six months at a time, during which he has never once been up to his club, is a great triumph, and speaks volumes for your clever management, as well as for your care and tenderness. We shall see him married and domesticated before a year has passed! I am impatient for you both to come. Do not let anything prevent you."

It was quite true that Lettice had set to work again, and that she appeared to have overcome the home-sickness which at one time made her long to get back to London. Restored health made her feel more satisfied with her surroundings, and a commission for a new story had found her just in the humor to sit down and begin. She was penetrated by the beauty of the Tuscan city which had been her kindly nurse, which was now her fount of inspiration and inexhaustible source of new ideas. A plot, characters, scenery, stage, impressed themselves on her imagination as she wandered amongst the stones and canvasses of Florence; and they grew upon her more and more distinctly every day, as she steeped herself in the spirit of the place and time. She would not go back to the picturesque records of other centuries but took her portraits from men and women of the time, and tried to recognize in them the descendants of the artists, scholars, philosophers, and patriots, who have shed undying fame on the queen-city of northern Italy.

Entirely buried in her work, and putting away from her all that might interfere with its performance, she forgot for a time both herself and others. If she was selfish in her isolation it was with the selfishness of one who for art's sake is prepared to abandon her ease and pleasure in the laborious pursuit of an ideal. Mrs. Hartley was content to leave her for a quarter of the day in the solitude of her own room on condition of sharing her idleness or recreation during the rest of their waking hours.

Had Lettice forgotten Alan Walcott at this crisis in the lives of both? When Mrs. Hartley was assuring her cousin that all the ties which had bound the girl to London were severed, Alan was expiating in prison the crime of which he had been convicted, which, in his morbid abasement and despair he was almost ready to confess that he had committed. Was he, indeed, as he had not very sincerely prayed to be, forgotten by the woman he loved?