"Oh, but if they put up Armenian paintings in Chinese convents?" said Mr. Ferris.
"You"re joking!" cried Mrs. Vervain, looking at him with a graciously amused air. "There _are_ no Chinese convents. To be sure those rebels are a kind of Christians," she added thoughtfully, "but there can"t be many of them left, poor things, hundreds of them executed at a time, that way. It"s perfectly sickening to read of it; and you can"t help it, you know. But they say they haven"t really so much feeling as we have--not so nervous."
She walked by the side of the young friar as he led the way to such parts of the convent as are open to visitors, and Mr. Ferris came after with her daughter, who, he fancied, met his attempts at talk with sudden and more than usual hauteur. "What a fool!" he said to himself. "Is she afraid I shall be wanting to make love to her?" and he followed in rather a sulky silence the course of Mrs. Vervain and her guide. The library, the chapel, and the museum called out her friendliest praises, and in the last she praised the mummy on show there at the expense of one she had seen in New York; but when Padre Girolamo pointed out the desk in the refectory from which one of the brothers read while the rest were eating, she took him to task. "Oh, but I can"t think that"s at all good for the digestion, you know,--using the brain that way whilst you"re at table. I really hope you don"t listen too attentively; it would be better for you in the long run, even in a religious point of view. But now--Byron! You _must_ show me his cell!" The monk deprecated the non-existence of such a cell, and glanced in perplexity at Mr.
Ferris, who came to his relief. "You couldn"t have seen his cell, if he"d had one, Mrs. Vervain. They don"t admit ladies to the cloister."
"What nonsense!" answered Mrs. Vervain, apparently regarding this as another of Mr. Ferris"s pleasantries; but Padre Girolamo silently confirmed his statement, and she briskly a.s.sailed the rule as a disrespect to the s.e.x, which reflected even upon the Virgin, the object, as he was forced to allow, of their high veneration. He smiled patiently, and confessed that Mrs. Vervain had all the reasons on her side. At the polyglot printing-office, where she handsomely bought every kind of Armenian book and pamphlet, and thus repaid in the only way possible the trouble their visit had given, he did not offer to take leave of them, but after speaking with Ferris, of whom he seemed an old friend, he led them through the garden environing the convent, to a little pavilion perched on the wall that defends the island from the tides of the lagoon. A lay-brother presently followed them, bearing a tray with coffee, toasted rusk, and a jar of that conserve of rose-leaves which is the convent"s delicate hospitality to favored guests. Mrs. Vervain cried out over the poetic confection when Padre Girolamo told her what it was, and her daughter suffered herself to express a guarded pleasure. The amiable matron brushed the crumbs of the _baicolo_ from her lap when the lunch was ended, and fitting on her gla.s.ses leaned forward for a better look at the monk"s black-bearded face. "I"m perfectly delighted," she said. "You must be very happy here.
I suppose you are."
"Yes," answered the monk rapturously; "so happy that I should be content never to leave San Lazzaro. I came here when I was very young, and the greater part of my life has been pa.s.sed on this little island. It is my home--my country."
"Do you never go away?"
"Oh yes; sometimes to Constantinople, sometimes to London and Paris."
"And you"ve never been to America yet? Well now, I"ll tell you; you ought to go. You would like it, I know, and our people would give you a very cordial reception."
"Reception?" The monk appealed once more to Ferris with a look.
Ferris broke into a laugh. "I don"t believe Padre Girolamo would come in quality of distinguished foreigner, Mrs. Vervain, and I don"t think he"d know what to do with one of our cordial receptions."
"Well, he ought to go to America, any way. He can"t really know anything about us till he"s been there. Just think how ignorant the English are of our country! You _will_ come, won"t you? I should be delighted to welcome you at my house in Providence. Rhode Island is a small State, but there"s a great deal of wealth there, and very good society in Providence. It"s quite New-Yorky, you know," said Mrs. Vervain expressively. She rose as she spoke, and led the way back to the gondola. She told Padre Girolamo that they were to be some weeks in Venice, and made him promise to breakfast with them at their hotel. She smiled and nodded to him after the boat had pushed off, and kept him bowing on the landing-stairs.
"What a lovely place, and what a perfectly heavenly morning you _have_ given us, Mr. Ferris I We never can thank you enough for it. And now, do you know what I"m thinking of? Perhaps you can help me. It was Byron"s studying there put me in mind of it. How soon do the mosquitoes come?"
"About the end of June," responded Ferris mechanically, staring with helpless mystification at Mrs. Vervain.
"Very well; then there"s no reason why we shouldn"t stay in Venice till that time. We are both very fond of the place, and we"d quite concluded, this morning, to stop here till the mosquitoes came. You know, Mr.
Ferris, my daughter had to leave school much earlier than she ought, for my health has obliged me to travel a great deal since I lost my husband; and I must have her with me, for we"re all that there is of us; we haven"t a chick or a child that"s related to us anywhere. But wherever we stop, even for a few weeks, I contrive to get her some kind of instruction. I feel the need of it so much in my own case; for to tell you the truth, Mr. Ferris, I married too young. I suppose I should do the same thing over again if it was to be done over; but don"t you see, my mind wasn"t properly formed; and then following my husband about from pillar to post, and my first baby born when I was nineteen--well, it wasn"t education, at any rate, whatever else it was; and I"ve determined that Florida, though we are such a pair of wanderers, shall not have my regrets. I got teachers for her in England,--the English are not anything like so disagreeable at home as they are in traveling, and we stayed there two years,--and I did in France, and I did in Germany. And now, Italian. Here we are in Italy, and I think we ought to improve the time. Florida knows a good deal of Italian already, for her music teacher in France was an Italian, and he taught her the language as well as music. What she wants now, I should say, is to perfect her accent and get facility. I think she ought to have some one come every day and read and converse an hour or two with her."
Mrs. Vervain leaned back in her seat, and looked at Ferris, who said, feeling that the matter was referred to him, "I think--without presuming to say what Miss Vervain"s need of instruction is--that your idea is a very good one." He mused in silence his wonder that so much addlepatedness as was at once observable in Mrs. Vervain should exist along with so much common-sense. "It"s certainly very good in the abstract," he added, with a glance at the daughter, as if the sense must be hers. She did not meet his glance at once, but with an impatient recognition of the heat that was now great for the warmth with which she was dressed, she pushed her sleeve from her wrist, showing its delicious whiteness, and letting her fingers trail through the cool water; she dried them on her handkerchief, and then bent her eyes full upon him as if challenging him to think this unlady-like.
"No, clearly the sense does not come from her," said Ferris to himself; it is impossible to think well of the mind of a girl who treats one with tacit contempt.
"Yes," resumed Mrs. Vervain, "it"s certainly very good in the abstract.
But oh dear me! you"ve no idea of the difficulties in the way. I may speak frankly with you, Mr. Ferris, for you are here as the representative of the country, and you naturally sympathize with the difficulties of Americans abroad; the teachers will fall in love with their pupils."
"Mother!" began Miss Vervain; and then she checked herself.
Ferris gave a vengeful laugh. "Really, Mrs. Vervain, though I sympathize with you in my official capacity, I must own that as a man and a brother, I can"t help feeling a little sorry for those poor fellows, too."
"To be sure, they are to be pitied, of course, and _I_ feel for them; I did when I was a girl; for the same thing used to happen then. I don"t know why Florida should be subjected to such embarra.s.sments, too. It does seem sometimes as if it were something in the blood. They all get the idea that you have money, you know."
"Then I should say that it might be something in the pocket," suggested Ferris with a look at Miss Vervain, in whose silent suffering, as he imagined it, he found a malicious consolation for her scorn.
"Well, whatever it is," replied Mrs. Vervain, "it"s too vexatious. Of course, going to new places, that way, as we"re always doing, and only going to stay for a limited time, perhaps, you can"t pick and choose.
And even when you _do_ get an elderly teacher, they"re as bad as any.
It really is too trying. Now, when I was talking with that nice monk of yours at the convent, there, I couldn"t help thinking how perfectly delightful it would be if Florida could have _him_ for a teacher. Why couldn"t she? He told me that he would come to take breakfast or lunch with us, but not dinner, for he always had to be at the convent before nightfall. Well, he might come to give the lessons sometime in the middle of the day."
"You couldn"t manage it, Mrs. Vervain, I know you couldn"t," answered Ferris earnestly. "I"m sure the Armenians never do anything of the kind.
They"re all very busy men, engaged in ecclesiastical or literary work, and they couldn"t give the time."
"Why not? There was Byron."
"But Byron went to them, and he studied Armenian, not Italian, with them. Padre Girolamo speaks perfect Italian, for all that I can see; but I doubt if he"d undertake to impart the native accent, which is what you want. In fact, the scheme is altogether impracticable."
"Well," said Mrs. Vervain; "I"m exceedingly sorry. I had quite set my heart on it. I never took such a fancy to any one in such a short time before."
"It seemed to be a case of love at first sight on both sides," said Ferris. "Padre Girolamo doesn"t shower those syruped rose-leaves indiscriminately upon visitors."
"Thanks," returned Mrs. Vervain; "it"s very good of you to say so, Mr. Ferris, and it"s very gratifying, all round; but don"t you see, it doesn"t serve the present purpose. What teachers do you know of?"
She had been by marriage so long in the service of the United States that she still regarded its agents as part of her own domestic economy.
Consuls she everywhere employed as functionaries specially appointed to look after the interests of American ladies traveling without protection. In the week which had pa.s.sed since her arrival in Venice, there had been no day on which she did not appeal to Ferris for help or sympathy or advice. She took amiable possession of him at once, and she had established an amusing sort of intimacy with him, to which the haughty trepidations of her daughter set certain bounds, but in which the demand that he should find her a suitable Italian teacher seemed trivially matter of course.
"Yes. I know several teachers," he said, after thinking awhile; "but they"re all open to the objection of being human; and besides, they all do things in a set kind of way, and I"m afraid they wouldn"t enter into the spirit of any scheme of instruction that departed very widely from Ollendorff." He paused, and Mrs. Vervain gave a sketch of the different professional masters whom she had employed in the various countries of her sojourn, and a disquisition upon their several lives and characters, fortifying her statements by reference of doubtful points to her daughter. This occupied some time, and Ferris listened to it all with an abstracted air. At last he said, with a smile, "There was an Italian priest came to see me this morning, who astonished me by knowing English--with a brogue that he"d learned from an English priest straight from Dublin; perhaps _he_ might do, Mrs. Vervain? He"s professionally pledged, you know, not to give the kind of annoyance you"ve suffered from in teachers. He would do as well as Padre Girolamo, I suppose."
"Do you really? Are you in earnest?"
"Well, no, I believe I"m not. I haven"t the least idea he would do.
He belongs to the church militant. He came to me with the model of a breech-loading cannon he"s invented, and he wanted a pa.s.sport to go to America, so that he might offer his cannon to our government."
"How curious!" said Mrs. Vervain, and her daughter looked frankly into Ferris"s face. "But I know; it"s one of your jokes."
"You overpraise me, Mrs. Vervain. If I could make such jokes as that priest was, I should set up for a humorist at once. He had the touch of pathos that they say all true pieces of humor ought to have," he went on instinctively addressing himself to Miss Vervain, who did not repulse him. "He made me melancholy; and his face haunts me. I should like to paint him. Priests are generally such a snuffy, common lot. And I dare say," he concluded, "he"s sufficiently commonplace, too, though he didn"t look it. Spare your romance, Miss Vervain."
The young lady blushed resentfully. "I see as little romance as joke in it," she said.
"It was a cannon," returned Ferris, without taking any notice of her, and with a sort of absent laugh, "that would make it very lively for the Southerners--if they had it. Poor fellow! I suppose he came with high hopes of me, and expected me to receive his invention with eloquent praises. I"ve no doubt he figured himself furnished not only with a pa.s.sport, but with a letter from me to President Lincoln, and foresaw his own triumphal entry into Washington, and his honorable interviews with the admiring generals of the Union forces, to whom he should display his wonderful cannon. Too bad; isn"t it?"
"And why didn"t you give him the pa.s.sport and the letter?" asked Mrs.
Vervain.
"Oh, that"s a state secret," returned Ferris.
"And you think he won"t do for our purpose?"
"I don"t indeed."
"Well, I"m not so sure of it. Tell me something more about him."
"I don"t know anything more about him. Besides, there isn"t time."
The gondola had already entered the ca.n.a.l, and was swiftly approaching the hotel.
"Oh yes, there is," pleaded Mrs. Vervain, laying her hand on his arm. "I want you to come in and dine with us. We dine early."
"Thank you, I can"t. Affairs of the nation, you know. Rebel privateer on the ca.n.a.l of the Brenta."