At last, however, after one of these regular six-monthly notices the rector happened to come down to breakfast one morning, and found a letter in a strange foreign-looking hand lying beside his porridge on the dining-room table. He turned it over and looked anxiously at the back: yes, it was just as he hoped and feared; it bore a London post-mark, and had a Byzantine-look-ing coronet embossed upon it in profuse gilding and brilliantly blazoned heraldic colours. The old mans heart sank within him. Confound it, he said to himself, half-angrily, I do believe Ive gone and done my duty this time with a regular vengeance. This is an answer to the advertisement at last, and its an application from somebody or other to carry off dear little Miss Wroe to Rome as somebodys governess. Hang it all, how shall I ever manage, at my age too, to accommodate myself to another young woman! I wont open it now. I cant open it now. If I open it before prayers and breakfast, and it really turns out to be quite satisfactory, I shall break down over it, I know I shall; and then little Miss Wroe will see Ive been crying about it, and refuse to leave us shes a good girl, and if she knew how much I valued her, shed refuse to leave us; and so after all shed never get to join this sculptor son of young Sam Churchills that shes for ever thinking of. Ill put it away till after breakfast. Perhaps indeed it maynt be at all the thing for her which would be very lucky no, I mean unlucky; well, there, there, what a set of miserable selfish wretched creatures we are really, whenever it comes to making even a small sacrifice for one another. Con ODonovan, my boy, you know perfectly well in your heart of hearts you were half-wishing that that poor girl wasnt going at last to join her lover that shes so distracted about; and yet after that, you have the impudence to get up in the pulpit every Sunday morning, and preach a sermon about our duty to others to your poor parishioners perhaps, even out of the fifth chapter of Matthew, you confounded hypocrite! It seems to me theres a good deal of truth in that line of Tennysons, though it sounds so cynical:
However we brave it out, we men are a little breed!
Upon my soul, when I come to think of it, Im really and truly quite ashamed of myself.
Do you ever happen to have noticed that the very men who have the smallest possible leaven of littleness, or meanness, or selfishness, in their own natures are usually the exact ones who most often bitterly reproach themselves for their moral shortcomings in this matter?
When the rector came to open the envelope by-and-by in his own study, he found it contained a letter in French from a Russian countess, then in London, who proposed spending the winter in Italy. Madame had seen M. ODonovans Advertisement in a journal of his country, and would be glad to learn from Monsieur some particulars about the young lady whom he desired to recommend to families. Madame required a governess for one little girl, and proposed a salary of 2,500 francs. The old mans eyes brightened at the idea of so large an offer one hundred pounds sterling and then he laid down the letter again, and cried gently to himself, as old people sometimes do, for a few minutes. After that, he reflected that Georgey Wroes daughter was a very good girl, and deserved any advancement that he could get for her; and Georgey was a fine young fellow himself, and as clever a hand at managing a small smack in a squall off the Chesil as any fisherman, bar none, in all England. God bless his soul, what a run that was they had together, the night the Sunderbund East Indiaman went to pieces off Deadmans Bay, from Seaton Bar right round the Bill to Lulworth! He could mind even now the way the water broke over the gunwale into Georgeys face, and how Georgey laughed at the wind, and swore it was a mere breeze, and positively whistled to it. Well, well, he would do what he could for Georgeys daughter, and he must look out (with a stifled sigh) for some other good girl to take care of Lucys precious little ones.
So he sat down and wrote off such a glowing account of Minnas many virtues to the Russian countess in London an account mainly derived from his own calm inner belief as to what a perfect womans character ought to be made up of that the Russian countess wrote back to say she would engage Mdlle. Wroe immediately, without even waiting to see her. Till he got that answer, Mr. ODonovan never said a word about the matter to Minna, for fear she might be disappointed; but as soon as it arrived, and he had furtively dried his eyes behind his handkerchief, lest she should see how sorry he was to lose her, he laid the two letters triumphantly down before her, and said, in a voice which seemed as though he were quite as much interested in the event as she was: There you see, my dear, Ive found somebody at last for you to go to Rome with. Minnas head reeled and her eyes swam as she read the two letters to herself with some difficulty (for her French was of the strictly school-taught variety); but as soon as she had spelt out the meaning to her own intense satisfaction, she flung her arms round old Mr. ODonovans neck, and kissed him twice fervently. Mr. ODonovans eyes glistened, and he kissed her in return gently on her forehead. She had grown to be to him almost like a daughter, and he loved her so dearly that it was a hard wrench to part from her. And you know, my dear, he said to her with fatherly tenderness, you wont mind my mentioning it to you, Im sure, because I need hardly tell you how much interest I take in my old friend Georgeys daughter; but I think its just as well the ladys a foreigner, and especially a Russian, because theyre not so particular, I believe, about the conventionalities of society as our English mothers are apt to be; and youll probably get more opportunities of seeing young Churchill when occasion offers than you would have done if youd happened to have gone abroad with an English family.
When Minna went away from the country rectory, at very short notice, some three weeks later, Mary the housemaid observed, with a little ill-natured smile to the other village gossips, that it wasnt before it was time, neither; for the way that that there Miss Wroe, as she called herself, had been carrying on last month or two along of poor old master, and him a clergyman, too, and old enough to know better, but there, what can you expect, for everybody knows what an old gentleman is when a governess or anybody can twist him round her little finger, was that dreadful that really she often wondered whether a respectable girl as was always brought up quite decent and her only a fishermans daughter, too, as master hisself admitted, but them governesses, when they got theirselves a little eddication and took a sitooation, was that stuck-up and ridiculous, not but what she made her always keep her place, for that matter, for she wasnt going to be put down by none of your governesses, setting themselves up to be ladies when they wasnt no better nor she was, but at any rate it was a precious good thing she was gone now before things hadnt gone no further, for if shed stayed, why, of course, there wouldnt have been nothing left for her to do, as had always lived in proper families, but to go and give notice herself afore shed stop in such a sitooation.
And Mrs. Upjohn, the doctors wife, smiled blandly when Mary spoke to her about it, and said in a grave tone of severe moral censure: Well, there, Mary, you oughtnt to want to meddle with your masters business, whatever you may happen to fancy. Not but what Miss Wroe herself certainly did behave in a most imprudent and unladylike manner; and I cant deny, of course, that shes laid herself open to every word of what you say about her. But then, you know, Mary, she isnt a lady; and, after all, what can you expect from such a person? To which Mary, having that profound instinctive contempt for her own class which is sometimes begotten among the essentially vulgar by close unconscious introspection, immediately answered: Ah, what indeed! and went on unrebuked with her ill-natured gossip. So high and watchful is social morality amid the charming Arcadian simplicity of our outlying English country villages.
And Mrs. Upjohn, the doctors wife, smiled blandly when Mary spoke to her about it, and said in a grave tone of severe moral censure: Well, there, Mary, you oughtnt to want to meddle with your masters business, whatever you may happen to fancy. Not but what Miss Wroe herself certainly did behave in a most imprudent and unladylike manner; and I cant deny, of course, that shes laid herself open to every word of what you say about her. But then, you know, Mary, she isnt a lady; and, after all, what can you expect from such a person? To which Mary, having that profound instinctive contempt for her own class which is sometimes begotten among the essentially vulgar by close unconscious introspection, immediately answered: Ah, what indeed! and went on unrebuked with her ill-natured gossip. So high and watchful is social morality amid the charming Arcadian simplicity of our outlying English country villages.
But poor little Minna, waking up that very morning in the Via Clementina, never heeded their venomous backbiting one bit, and thought only of going to see her dear Colin. What a surprise it would be to him to see her, to be sure; for Minna, fearful that the scheme might fall through before it was really settled, had written not a word to him about it beforehand, and meant to surprise him by dropping in upon him quite unexpectedly at his studio without a single note of warning.
Ah, my dear, the countess said to her, when Minna, trembling, asked leave to go out and visit her cousin that dim relationship, so inevitable among country folk from the same district, had certainly more than once done her good service you have then a parent at Rome, a sculptor? Yes, yes, I recall it; that good Mr. ODonovan made mention to me of this parent. He prayed me to let you have the opportunity from time to time of visiting him. These are our first days at Rome. For the moment, Olga will demand her vacations: she will wish to distract herself a little with the town, before she applies herself seriously to her studies of English. Let us say to-day, then: let us say this very morning. You can go, my child: you can visit your parent: and if his studio encloses anything of artistic, you pass me the word, I go to see it. But if they have the instinct of the family strong, these English! I find that charming; it is delicious: it is all that there is of most pure and poetical. She wishes to visit her cousin, who is a sculptor and whom she has not seen, it is now a long time; and she blushes and trembles like a French demoiselle who comes from departing the day itself from the gates of the convent. One would say, a lover. I find it most admirable, this affection of the family, this lasting reminiscence of the distant relations. We others in Russia, we have it too: we love the parent: but not with so much empressement. I find that trait there altogether essentially English.
Mrs. Upjohn would have considered the countess scarcely respectable, and would have avoided her acquaintance carefully, unless indeed she happened to be introduced to her by the squires lady, in which case, of course, her perfect propriety would have been sufficiently guaranteed: but, after all, which of them had the heart the most untainted? To the pure all things are pure: and contrariwise.
So Minna hastened out into those unknown streets of Rome, and by the aid of her self-taught Italian (which was a good deal better than her French, so potent a tutor is love) she soon found her way down the Corso, and off the side alley into the narrow sunless Via Colonna. She followed the numbers down to the familiar eighty-four of Colins letters, and there she saw upon the door a little painted tin-plate, bearing in English the simple inscription: Mr. C. Churchills Studio. Minnas heart beat fast for a moment as she mounted the stairs unannounced, and stood within the open door of Colins modelling room.
A few casts and other sculptors properties filled up the space between the door and the middle of the studio. Minna paused a second, and looked timidly from behind them at the room beyond. She hardly liked to come forward at once and claim acquaintance: it seemed so strange and unwomanly so to announce herself, now that she had actually got to face it. A certain unwonted bashfulness appeared somehow or other to hold her back; and Minna, who had her little superstitions still, noted it in passing as something ominous. There were two people visible in the studio both men; and they were talking together quite earnestly, Minna could see, about somebody else who was obviously hidden from her by the Apollo in the foreground. One of them was a very handsome young man in a brown velvet coat, with a loose Rembrandtesque hat of the same stuff stuck with artistic carelessness on one side of his profuse curls: her heart leaped up at once as she recognised with a sudden thrill that that was Colin transfigured and glorified a little by success, but still the same dear old Colin as ever, looking the very image of a sculptor, as he stood there, one arm poised lightly on his hip, and turning towards his companion with some wonderful grace that no other race of men save only artists can ever compass. Stop, he was speaking again now; and Minna, all unconscious of listening or prying, bent forward to catch the sound of those precious words as Colin uttered them.
Shes splendid, you know, Winthrop, Colin was saying enthusiastically, in a voice that had caught a slight Italian trill from Maragliano, unusual on our sterner English lips: shes grand, shes beautiful, shes terrible, shes magnificent. Upon my word, in all my life I never yet saw any woman one-half so glorious or so Greek as Cecca. Im proud of having discovered her; immensely proud. I claim her as my own property, by right of discovery. A lot of other fellows would like to inveigle her away from me; but they wont get her: Ceccas true metal, and she sticks to her original inventor. What a woman she is, really! Now did you ever see such a perfectly glorious arm as that one?
Minna reeled, almost, as she stood there among the casts and properties, and felt half inclined on the spur of the moment to flee away unseen, and never again speak or write a single word to that perfidious Colin. Cecca, indeed! Cecca! Cecca! Who on earth was this woman Cecca, she would like to know; and what on earth did the faithless Colin ever want with her? Splendid, grand, beautiful, glorious, terrible, magnificent! Oh, Colin, Colin, how could you break her poor little heart so? Should she go back at once to the countess, and not even let Colin know she had ever come to Rome at all to see him? It was too horrible, too sudden, too crushing, too unexpected!
The other man looked towards the unseen Cecca Minna somehow felt in her heart that Cecca was there, though she couldnt see her and answered with an almost imperceptible American accent, Shes certainly very beautiful, Churchill, very beautiful. My dear fellow, I sincerely congratulate you.
Congratulate you! What! had it come to that? Oh horror! oh shame! had Colin been grossly deceiving her? Had he not only made love in her absence to that black-eyed Italian woman of whom she had always been so much afraid, but had he even made her an offer of marriage, without ever mentioning a word about it to her, Minna? The baseness, the deceit, the wickedness of it! And yet this Minna thought with a sickening start was it really base, was it really deceitful, was it really wicked? Colin had never said he would marry her; he had never been engaged to her oh no, during all those long weary years of doubt and hesitation she had always known he wasnt engaged to her she had known it, and trembled. Yes, he was free; he was his own master; he could do as he liked: she was only his little cousin Minna: what claim, after all, had she upon him?