“To her husband?” gasped Lydia. “And she—”
“Why, she isn't quite well seen, even in Venice,” Mrs. Erwin explained. “But she's rich, and her conversazioni are perfectly brilliant. She's very artistic, and she writes poetry,—Polish poetry. I wish she could hear you sing, Lydia! I know she'll be frantic to see you again. But I don't see how it's to be managed; her house isn't one you can take a young girl to. And I can't ask her: your uncle detests her.”
“Do you go to her house?” Lydia inquired stiffly.
“Why, as a foreigner, I can go. Of course, Lydia, you can't be as particular about everything on the Continent as you are at home.”
The former oratory of the Palazzo Grinzelli, which served as the English chapel, was filled with travelers of both the English-speaking nationalities, as distinguishable by their dress as by their faces. Lydia's aunt affected the English style, but some instinctive elegance betrayed her, and every Englishwoman there knew and hated her for an American, though she was a precisian in her liturgy, instant in all the responses and genuflexions. She found opportunity in the course of the lesson to make Lydia notice every one, and she gave a telegrammic biography of each person she knew, with a criticism of the costume of all the strangers, managing so skillfully that by the time the sermon began she was able to yield the text a statuesquely close attention, and might have been carved in marble where she sat as a realistic conception of Worship.
The sermon came to an end; the ritual proceeded; the hymn, with the hemming and hawing of respectable inability, began, and Lydia lifted her voice with the rest. Few of the people were in their own church; some turned and stared at her; the bonnets and the back hair of those who did not look were intent upon her; the long red neck of one elderly Englishman, restrained by decorum from turning his head toward her, perspired with curiosity. Mrs. Erwin fidgeted, and dropped her eyes from the glances which fell to her for explanation of Lydia, and hurried away with her as soon as the services ended. In the hall on the water-floor of the palace, where they were kept waiting for their gondola a while, she seemed to shrink even from the small, surly greetings with which people whose thoughts are on higher things permit themselves to recognize fellow-beings of their acquaintance in coming out of church. But an old lady, who supported herself with a cane, pushed through the crowd to where they stood aloof, and, without speaking to Mrs. Erwin, put out her hand to Lydia; she had a strong, undaunted, plain face, in which was expressed the habit of doing what she liked. “My dear,” she said, “how wonderfully you sing! Where did you get that heavenly voice? You are an American; I see that by your beauty. You are Mrs. Erwin's niece, I suppose, whom she expected. Will you come and sing to me? You must bring her, Mrs. Erwin.”
She hobbled away without waiting for an answer, and Lydia and her aunt got into their gondola. “Oh! How glad I am!” cried Mrs. Erwin, in a joyful flutter. “She's the very tip-top of the English here; she has a whole palace, and you meet the very best people at her house. I was afraid when you were singing, Lydia, that they would think your voice was too good to be good form,—that's an expression you must get; it means everything,—it sounded almost professional. I wanted to nudge you to sing a little lower, or different, or something; but I couldn't, everybody was looking so. No matter. It's all right now. If she liked it, nobody else will dare to breathe. You can see that she has taken a fancy to you; she'll make a great pet of you.”
“Who is she?” asked Lydia, bluntly.
“Lady Fenleigh. Such a character,—so eccentric! But really, I suppose, very hard to live with. It must have been quite a release for poor Sir Fenleigh.”
“She didn't seem in mourning,” said Lydia. “Has he been dead long?”