The only persons present who had no uncomfortable symptoms were two ladies who sometimes dominated the party, and sometimes were snubbed and cast into the shade, according to the influence which prevailed. These were the two Miss Boldings, ladies in the earlier half of middle-age, one of whom studied Art, while the other studied Italy; women of perfect independence, and perfect robustness, who when Mr. St. John was not there, carried matters with a high hand, and dismissed the question of health as unworthy to occupy the first place in the conversation. “You think a great deal too much about your lungs,” Miss Bolding would say. “Let them alone, and they will come all right. Don’t fuss about your health. Pisa is no better than any other place, and no worse. Don’t think about it. Occupy yourself with something. Neither I nor Maria ever take the smallest trouble about our healths, and what is the consequence? We have never ailed anything since we had the measles. Don’t mind Mr. St. John, that’s his hobby. If you’ll meet me to-morrow morning in the Campo Santo—unless you are afraid——”
“Oh, no, not at all afraid,” said the gentle curate, with a flush of youthful shyness and wounded pride. All these conversations were interrupted by Mrs. Drainham, who called at once to Miss Bolding for her advice, and to Mrs. O’Carroll for sympathy.
“I want you to tell me whether you think I have done right,” she said, with much humility. “I am so anxious about poor Miss Vane. I have just written a letter to her aunt, though with much hesitation, for I have not your gift in writing, dear Mrs. St. John. Would you mind just listening to what I have said? If I had your approval I should feel encouraged after having sent it. It is very badly expressed, I am afraid, but it comes from the heart,” said Mrs. Drainham, casting an appealing glance round her. She had pretty eyes, and was rather apt to give appealing glances. The audience gave a vague murmur of assent and applause, and Mr. St. John added, in a bold and round voice, his certainty of approval.
“It will be an excellent letter, that I don’t doubt for a moment,” said the clergyman; and on this encouragement Mrs. Drainham proceeded to read it, her husband standing behind her, feeling his own pulse, with a benevolent and complacent smile. And indeed the letter was more than excellent, it was eloquent. It appealed to the feelings of the distant aunt in the most touching way. It bade her remember the sister with whom no doubt her own childhood had been passed, and oh! to extend her motherly protection over that dear sister’s orphan child; and it brought forward many religious, as well as natural, arguments to soften the heart of poor Innocent’s nearest relation. In short it was just such a letter as was calculated to bring tears into Mrs. St. John’s eyes, and which drove Mrs. Eastwood half frantic with indignation when she read it. “Does this woman think I am an unnatural wretch, to want all this talking to?” poor Mrs. Eastwood asked, half crying with anger and wounded feeling. But the company in the Casa Piccolomini thought it a beautiful letter. They thought the relations must be hardened indeed if they could resist such an appeal as that.
“I am sure the aunt must be a dreadful woman,” said Clara Worsley, “or she would have come by this time. Will you take me to see her to-morrow, dear Mrs. Drainham? After that letter everybody ought to take an interest in her——”
“You have expressed all our feelings, my dear,” said Mrs. St. John, pressing the hand of the doctor’s wife with mingled admiration and envy. “I doubt very much if I could have done it half as well.”
“Oh, that from you!” said Mrs. Drainham, with enthusiasm, for Mrs. St. John was literary, and the highest authority on matters of style.
“But I hear the girl is a very odd girl,” said Miss Bolding. “Doctor, what did her father die of? Are they wrong in their heads? I knew a Vane once, of a West Country family, who were all very queer. I wonder if they were the same Vanes? Devonshire, I think, or Somersetshire, I am not sure which”——
“They are a Devonshire family,” said Dr. Drainham. “And there is nothing wrong about their brains. He died of general break-up, Miss Bolding, a high-tempered man who had lived hard. I have met him about Italy in all sorts of places. The poor girl has been oddly brought up, that is all.”
“I fear without any sort of religious training, which accounts for a great deal,” said Mr. St. John.