Mrs. Hunstanton had a large fan in her hand. It was all she could do not to assail him with it in good sound earnest. “Tom,” she cried, exasperated, “hold your tongue, for heaven’s sake! Don’t be a greater fool than you can help!”
Which was a very improper way for a wife to speak to her husband it must be allowed.
CHAPTER VII.
THE ENGLISH LADY IN PISA.
The presence of the Snodgrasses did not make very much difference to the party in the Palazzo dei Sogni; Mr. Hunstanton introduced them to the English club, and, as was natural, they established themselves in the select coterie of the English Church, and were a great godsend to the chaplain, and attended the choir practices, and soon became very well known in Pisa. And in the evening receptions, which took place sometimes at Miss Trelawny’s, sometimes at Mrs. Hunstanton’s, these two black figures were perpetually apparent, the uncle circulating among the little society, the nephew standing up in his usual corner. Poor curate! he did not get very much attention from any one. The Hunstantons confined their civilities to the necessary number of Good nights and Good mornings: Sophy flouted him perpetually: and Mrs. Norton made him alarming little speeches about the parish, and asked him if he felt better, in a tone which inferred a contemptuous refusal to believe that he had been ill at all. All this he bore, poor fellow; he was not ill to speak of. If he could have been left in his corner staring at Diana for twelve hours at a time, or the whole twenty-four, had that been possible, he would have been happy—and would have minded none of the snubs that were freely dispensed on all sides. And Diana herself was always kind to the poor young man. She did not talk to him, for he could not talk; but she would give him a kindly smile when she passed him. She gave him her hand when he came in, and when he went away. Now and then in heavenly courtesy she would say three words to him. “I hope you are better, Mr. Snodgrass. I hope you like Pisa. What have you been seeing to-day?” One of these phrases kept him happy for a day. He did not expect any more, nor indeed half so much; and with what aim he continued to haunt and follow her, and put all his existence into the distant enjoyment of her sight and presence, it would be hard to say. As for gaining her love, marrying her!—it seemed about as hopeful as that he should marry the other Diana in the heavens, the moon, that shone with such warm Italian splendour over the high house-tops. In his brightest dreams he could not have imagined anything of the kind.
The only other person who took any notice of poor William Snodgrass was the one other who might have been supposed least likely to notice him. Pandolfini took the poor young fellow up. Notwithstanding the curate’s awkwardness and shyness, the kind Italian insisted upon making acquaintance with him. There is no one so kind as an Italian, endowed with that cortesia which the old writers speak of as a quality of God. “The Lord of all Courtesy,” is not that a title which Dante gives to the Supreme? Pandolfini had this divine quality as much as any man, even an Italian, ever had; and his heart was touched by the most tender sympathy for this fellow-in-feeling, whom it was too absurd to think of as his rival. The poor curate was no one’s rival. He had given up his being to the most beautiful and noble creature, so far as he knew, who had ever crossed his horizon; and had not Pandolfini done so too? The sympathetic Italian gave himself up to the task of cultivating this dull but tender soul. He took him to private gems of pictures which the public saw only on rare occasions: he took him through everything that was most worth seeing: and having his eyes opened by the fact that the heavy young Englishman had set his affections upon the highest object within his firmament, saw other glimmers of perception in him which no one else had found out.
“There, I can’t understand Pandolfini,” said Mr. Hunstanton; “the uncle, now, is a man of the world. He is a man that knows what he is about. He has read a little and observed a little—as much as you can expect from a clergyman. But Bill Snodgrass is a nonentity. He is as dull as ditch-water. You can’t get a sensible word out of him. The rector can talk and take his own part like any other man.”
“I do not agree with you, my friend,” said the Italian, “there are some fine things in the Stupid: there are feelings: I do not mean feelings of the heart alone. He has nothing to say about it; but he will know a fine picture when he sees one.”
“When you tell him it is fine—”
“I never tell him anything; but there are things which Mr. Bill, if so you call him (I admire your monosyllables), can see—and a great many people cannot see,” said Pandolfini simply, yet with meaning, with a half-smile at his companion, who laughed, unabashed, and rubbed his hands.
“He means me! Yes, I know him. The best fellow that ever breathed; but if he can give you a random cut round the corner! I refused to buy something once of a friend of his—and it turned out—what did it turn out, Pandolfini? an enormous prize, you know. How was a man to divine that? There was nobody to speak up for it, and I don’t pretend to be a connoisseur. By the way, if you have friends who want to sell anything, you had better send them to Diana. She is the person. She could buy us all up and never feel it. To see her so simple as she is, you would never suppose that she was such a great lady at home.”