Lamia's Winter-Quarters

by Alfred Austin

‘But now, Signora mia,’ he said, ‘that is no longer the price: you can find no others in Florence to suit you, so these in the meantime have become more valuable.’ And he added some insignificant sum to the original figure, more for the sake of triumph than from any mercenary motive. Had Veronica been making a purchase for herself, I am sure she would have defrauded him of his victory by leaving him in possession pf his amber treasures. But she would not disappoint Lamia, and so paid the forfeit of her unsuccessful strategy.

But we had a less humorous and far more touching experience on another occasion. Visiting a hillside village some twenty-five miles away, we were all much taken by a small altar-piece, a Presentation in the Temple, which stood in a side-chapel in a little church of otherwise no particular pretension. We discussed, then and there, by whom it may have been painted, for I need scarcely say that, on that subject, we all, like so many other people, consider ourselves exceedingly expert, and quite competent to express an opinion. The Parroco, a venerable Priest of courtly manners but much humility, did not affect to adjudicate among us, but was evidently much interested in our deliberations, and still more in our admiration of the picture. At last he hesitatingly asked Veronica if we should like to become the owners of it. This had certainly not occurred to us, and we were rather taken aback by the question. But Veronica, enchanted at the chance of an unexpected bit of bargaining, said ‘Yes,’ without a moment’s hesitation. So modest a sum, however, was asked, if compared with the high artistic qualities we had been attributing to it, that it went against her conscience, which, as you know, is the strongest part of her, to offer anything less. Moreover, she probably remembered, on second thoughts, that the place was not a suitable one for financial transactions; and any remaining scruple we might have had in completing the bargain was set at rest by his telling us that he had long been anxious to buy a second-hand harmonium that was for sale, whereby the services of his little church could be conducted in a more seemly manner.

The picture was carried off; and, by the time it had been in our possession forty-eight hours, its artistic value had enormously increased, and there was hardly any Umbrian painter, Raphael perhaps excepted, to whom we were not ready to ascribe it. We discussed, over and over again, where it should be hung when we returned to England, and first one position of honour and then another was suggested for it. But, as I knew well enough from the first would turn out to be the case, it was finally assigned by Veronica to the Poet’s study.

For a week she had the satisfaction of seeing all of us as much interested in, and as proud of, a purchase as herself. But, on the morning of the eighth day after our mountain excursion, the old Priest suddenly made his appearance at the villa, whither he had walked all the way; and, in a state of much agitation, he said that he had come to ask us to give him back the picture, the price of which he would restore and which he had in his hand. At first there was a protesting chorus, and Veronica was particularly eloquent in pointing out that the request was most unreasonable, as we had given the full amount asked for, without any demur. Thereupon the poor old man explained, with tears in his eyes, that his parishioners had missed the picture, and, though he had told them of his intended purchase of the harmonium, they insisted on its being restored to its traditional home, and all his pleas and arguments had proved unavailing with them. To such an appeal but one answer was possible. The picture was returned, and the Poet’s study will never see that Umbrian masterpiece. Our disappointment was great; but why, said Veronica, should everybody be disappointed? Poor old man! He stood there a most touching figure. So we put our hearts and purses together; and the sound of the second-hand harmonium now follows on his quavering voice, when, in answer to his Dominus vobiscum, the entire mountain congregation shrills out, to its instrumental accompaniment, Et cum spiritu tuo.

As a rule, however, Veronica’s purchases, over and above being definitive, were as useful as they were ornamental; and it sometimes seemed as though Lamia’s predictions concerning the transformation that was gradually to come over the villa were about to be fulfilled. Veronica invariably declared that the furniture she brought back with her from the Via Maggio, or the Piazza Santa Maria Novella, was intended strictly for home consumption, and would in due course be packed and dispatched to England. Where she would find room in a house already remarkably well stocked, was a mystery to all of us; and meanwhile it remained on the spot, to whose aspect it certainly added finish and charm, and to whose commodiousness it materially contributed.

‘I told you,’ said Lamia, ‘I should end by having a comfortable armchair, and you see I have. Nor can I well doubt that a host of work-people have been secretly introduced by Veronica, for I can now count on my bell ringing with absolute certainty; and, as for Placida and Perfetta,’—Placida and Perfetta were two handmaidens,—‘though they still regard fair words and sweet smiles as the principal ingredients of domestic service, they have developed a talent for tidying my drawers and arranging my toilet-table which cannot but have proceeded from severe drilling by Veronica, while you and I were discussing the Infinite under the shade of cheerful boughs. Shortly after we first came, Veronica gave one of our dear devoted but somewhat primitive attendants a sponge, for what purpose I cannot say. But this domestic novelty was found so useful, that each of them in turn, she discovered, had the loan of it, till it came to enjoy an absolute monopoly in the cleaning of the establishment. Now, I believe, sponges, and all other requisites of a well-ordered place of residence, are as plentiful as blackberries. Do you remember,’ she said, turning to me, ‘your giving me some most lovely flowers last week, which, of course, I treasured beyond words, even after they had faded? But I discovered, the next morning, that Perfetta, moved by a spirit of economy which seems to be a perfect passion with these dear people, was applying them, on the carpet, to the same purpose, I am told, for which we sometimes use tea-leaves in England. That was a sad ending, was it not, to your lovely gift?’

Lamia’s observation on ‘the principal ingredients of domestic service,’ as understood in Italy by those who render it, was strictly accurate. They wait on you with a smile, and minister to your need with copious conversation. They will end by giving you all you ask for; but you must ask, and you must not expect that, having asked for it ninety-nine times, you will get it the hundredth, without asking for it again. That would be to defraud them, and you as well, of an opportunity of talk, the thing they love most in the world. Moreover, they have an invincible objection to being made methodical; nor can you give them greater pleasure than to ask them to do the work naturally pertaining to somebody else. The cook would be delighted to nurse the baby, the housemaid would find it quite natural to be bidden to cook the dinner, the butler would eagerly go in search of the vegetables, and the gardener at once mount the box and drive you into Florence. Only do not ask them to be perfect, according to English ideas, in their own line. They will do anything on earth for you, if you go the right way about it; but they will not be turned into machines. Nothing I have ever seen in Veronica is more admirable, or shows so conclusively the discrimination she can blend with her love of order, than the amount of method, limited no doubt but quite unusual, with which, for the time at least, she imbued those about us; and Lamia, as we have seen, indulged in a little characteristic raillery on the subject.

‘It is all very well,’ said the Poet, ‘for us to have our little joke about a certain person’s passion for discipline. But, upon my word, what Italy stands in need of is a Ruler with plenary powers, of the temperament and talents of Veronica. So the Roman Empire was founded, so the British. Dear Lamia, you are very charming; our friend here is, I do not forget, a gardener of much repute, and I write verses which, I am told, sometimes give pleasure to people who are easily pleased. But Veronica is worth all of us put together a hundred times over.‘

‘Quite so,’ said Lamia. ‘Veronica is our Minerva Medica, whose salutary if sometimes unpalatable wisdom keeps us in such tolerable health as moral valetudinarians like myself are capable of; whereas I am but a would-be Egeria, who have not yet succeeded in inducing any one, and you, dear Poet, least of all, to be my Numa. Still, do not judge me altogether by the way in which I conduct myself here, among a people very much after my own heart. I have a conscience, which I showed by declaring it at the frontier, as I heard it was contraband. I proved to be right; it was confiscated, and I have got on very comfortably without it ever since. Indeed, I should have missed a new gown much more. Poets, we all know, never have a conscience, in any country. But, as Veronica has enough for two, indeed—obligingly remembering my existence—for three, I daresay we shall continue to manage fairly well in this easy-going land, with Veronica’s occasional assistance.‘

At this moment, Veronica joined us under the lower loggia, where we had for some time been sitting, and desisting more frequently than perhaps you have imagined, from audible converse, in order to commune silently with the plashing of the fountain in front of us, with city, plain, and river far below, and with hill-slope and summit everywhere around us. The sun had just disappeared; and, each instant, mountain and sky grew more and more unreal, more and more transfigured in the afterglow. The last Ave Maria bell had rung; the last wain drawn by the sleek, swaying oxen had creaked up the hill; and, somewhere among the more distant olives, a peasant lingering at his work, but pondering aloud on his love, sang out with clear voice to the clear air: