‘Am I sublime? I say what I feel,’ said Lady Caryisfort, languidly leaning back upon her cushions. ‘When I give my benediction to a marriage, I say, at the same time, bon jour. I don’t want to be surrounded by my equals. I like inferiors—beings who look up to me; so please let nobody call me a match-maker. It is the only opprobrious epithet which I will not put up with. Call me anything else—I can bear it—but not that.’
‘Ah! dear Lady Caryisfort, are not you doing wrong to a woman’s best instincts?’ said her inquisitor, shaking her head with a sigh.
Lady Caryisfort shrugged her shoulders.
‘Will some one please to give me my shawl?’ she said; and half-a-dozen pair of hands immediately snatched at it. ‘Thanks; don’t marry—I like you best as you are,’ she said, with a careless little nod at her subjects before she turned round to plunge into a conversation with Countess Strozzi, who did not understand English. The British matron was deeply scandalised; she poured out her indignant feelings to two or three people in the room before she withdrew, and next day she wrote a letter to a friend in England, asking if it was known that the great heiress, Miss Courtenay, was on the eve of being married to an Italian nobleman—‘or, at least, he calls himself Count Somebody; though of course, one never believes what these foreigners tell one,’ she wrote. ‘If you should happen to meet Mr. Courtenay, you might just mention this, in case he should not know how far things had gone.’
Thus, all unawares, the cloud arose in the sky, and the storm prepared itself. Christmas had passed, and Count Antonio felt that it was almost time to speak. He was very grateful to Providence and the saints for the success which had attended him. Perhaps, after all, his mother’s prayers in the little church at the villa, and those perpetual novenas with which she had somewhat vexed his young soul when she was with him in Florence, had been instrumental in bringing about this result. The Madonna, who, good to everyone, is always specially good to an only son, had no doubt led into his very arms this wealth, which would save the house. So Antonio thought quite devoutly, without an idea in his good-natured soul that there was anything ignoble in his pursuit or in his gratitude. Without money he dared not have dreamed of marrying, and Kate was not one whom he could have ventured to fall in love with apart from the necessity of marriage. But he admired her immensely, and was grateful to her for all the advantages she was going to bring him. He even felt himself in love with her, when she looked up at him with her English radiance of bloom, singling him out in the midst of so many who would have been proud of her favour. There was not a thought in the young Italian’s heart which was not good, and tender, and pleasant towards his heiress. He would have been most kind and affectionate to her had she married him, and would have loved her honestly had she chosen to love him; but he was not impassioned—and at the present moment it was to Antonio a most satisfactory, delightful, successful enterprise, which could bring nothing but good, rather than a love-suit, in which his heart and happiness were engaged.
However, things were settling steadily this way when Christmas came. Already Count Antonio had made up his mind to begin operations by speaking to Lady Caryisfort on the subject, and Kate had felt vaguely that she would have to choose between the position of a great lady in England on her own land and that of a great lady in beautiful Florence. The last was not without its attractions, and Antonio was so kind, while other people were so indifferent. Poor Kate was not as happy as she looked. More and more it became apparent to her that something was going on at home which was carefully concealed from her. They even made new friends, whom she did not know—one of whom, in particular, a young clergyman, a friend of the Berties, stared at her now and then from a corner of the drawing-room in the Lung-Arno, with a curiosity which she fully shared. ‘Oh! he is a friend of Mr. Hardwick’s; he is here only for a week or two; he is going on to Rome for the Carnival,’ Mrs. Anderson said, without apparently perceiving what an evidence Kate’s ignorance was of the way in which their lives had fallen apart. And the Berties now were continually in the house. They seemed to have no other engagements, except when, now and then, they went to the opera with the ladies. Sometimes Kate thought one or the other of them showed signs of uneasiness, but Ombra was bright as the day, and Mrs. Anderson made no explanation. And how could she, the youngest of the household, the one who was not wanted—how could she interfere or say anything? The wound worked deeper and deeper, and a certain weariness and distrust crept over Kate. Oh, for some change!—even Antonio’s proposal, which was coming. For as it was only her imagination and her vanity, not her heart, which were interested, Kate saw with perfect clear-sightedness that the proposal was on its way.
But before it arrived—before any change had come to the state of affairs in the Lung-Arno—one evening, when Kate was at home, and, as usual, abstracted over a book in a corner; when the Berties were in full possession, one bending over Ombra at the piano, one talking earnestly to her mother, Francesca suddenly threw the door open, with a vehemence quite unusual to her, and without a word of warning—without even the announcement of his name to put them on their guard—Mr. Courtenay walked into the room.
CHAPTER XLVI.
The scene which Mr. Courtenay saw when he walked in suddenly to Mrs. Anderson’s drawing-room, was one so different in every way from what he had expected, that he was for the first moment as much taken aback as any of the company. Francesca, who remembered him well, and whose mind was moved by immediate anxiety at the sight of him, had not been able to restrain a start and exclamation, and had ushered him in suspiciously, with so evident a feeling of alarm and confusion that the suspicious old man of the world felt doubly convinced that there was something to conceal. But she had neither time nor opportunity to warn the party; and yet this was how Mr. Courtenay found them. The drawing-room, which looked out on the Lung-Arno, was not small, but it was rather low—not much more than an entresol. There was a bright wood fire on the hearth, and near it, with a couple of candles on a small table by her side, sat Kate, distinctly isolated from the rest, and working diligently, scarcely raising her eyes from her needlework. The centre table was drawn a little aside, for Ombra had found it too warm in front of the fire; and about this the other four were grouped—Mrs. Anderson, working, too, was talking to one of the young men; the other was holding silk, which Ombra was winding; a thorough English domestic party—such a family group as should have gladdened virtuous eyes to see. Mr. Courtenay looked at it with indescribable surprise. There was nothing visible here which in the least resembled a foreign Count; and Kate was, wonderful to tell, left out—clearly left out. She was sitting apart at her little table near the fire, looking just a little weary and forlorn—a very little—not enough to catch Mrs. Anderson’s eye, who had got used to this aspect of Kate. But it struck Mr. Courtenay, who was not used to it, and who had suspected something very different. He was so completely amazed, that he could not think it real. That little old woman must have given some signal; they must have been warned of his coming; otherwise it was altogether impossible to account for this extraordinary scene. They all jumped to their feet at his appearance. There was first a glance of confusion and embarrassment exchanged, as he saw; and then everyone rose in their wonder.