"Oh--_good_ night, Mr. Ferris," said Mrs. Vervain, giving her hand.
"Thank you so much."
Florida did not look towards him. She gathered her mother"s shawl about her shoulders for the twentieth time that day, and softly urged her in doors, while Ferris let himself out into the campo.
IX.
Florida began to prepare the bed for her mother"s lying down.
"What are you doing that for, my dear?" asked Mrs. Vervain. "I can"t go to bed at once."
"But mother"--
"No, Florida. And I mean it. You are too headstrong. I should think you would see yourself how you suffer in the end by giving way to your violent temper. What a day you have made for us!"
"I was very wrong," murmured the proud girl, meekly.
"And then the mortification of an apology; you might have spared yourself that."
"It didn"t mortify me; I didn"t care for it."
"No, I really believe you are too haughty to mind humbling yourself. And Don Ippolito had been so uniformly kind to us. I begin to believe that Mr. Ferris caught your true character in that sketch. But your pride will be broken some day, Florida."
"Won"t you let me help you undress, mother? You can talk to me while you"re undressing. You must try to get some rest."
"Yes, I am all unstrung. Why couldn"t you have let him come in and talk awhile? It would have been the best way to get me quieted down. But no; you must always have your own way Don"t twitch me, my dear; I"d rather undress myself. You pretend to be very careful of me. I wonder if you really care for me."
"Oh, mother, you are all I have in the world!"
Mrs. Vervain began to whimper. "You talk as if I were any better off.
Have I anybody besides you? And I have lost so many."
"Don"t think of those things now, mother."
Mrs. Vervain tenderly kissed the young girl. "You are good to your mother. Don Ippolito was right; no one ever saw you offer me disrespect or unkindness. There, there! Don"t cry, my darling. I think I _had_ better lie down, and I"ll let you undress me."
She suffered herself to be helped into bed, and Florida went softly about the room, putting it in order, and drawing the curtains closer to keep out the near dawn. Her mother talked a little while, and presently fell from incoherence to silence, and so to sleep.
Florida looked hesitatingly at her for a moment, and then set her candle on the floor and sank wearily into an arm-chair beside the bed. Her hands fell into her lap; her head drooped sadly forward; the light flung the shadow of her face grotesquely exaggerated and foreshortened upon the ceiling.
By and by a bird piped in the garden; the shriek of a swallow made itself heard from a distance; the vernal day was beginning to stir from the light, brief drowse of the vernal night. A crown of angry red formed upon the candle wick, which toppled over in the socket and guttered out with a sharp hiss.
Florida started from her chair. A streak of sunshine pierced shutter and curtain. Her mother was supporting herself on one elbow in the bed, and looking at her as if she had just called to her.
"Mother, did you speak?" asked the girl.
Mrs. Vervain turned her face away; she sighed deeply, stretched her thin hands on the pillow, and seemed to be sinking, sinking down through the bed. She ceased to breathe and lay in a dead faint.
Florida felt rather than saw it all. She did not cry out nor call for help. She brought water and cologne, and bathed her mother"s face, and then chafed her hands. Mrs. Vervain slowly revived; she opened her eyes, then closed them; she did not speak, but after a while she began to fetch her breath with the long and even respirations of sleep.
Florida noiselessly opened the door, and met the servant with a tray of coffee. She put her finger to her lip, and motioned her not to enter, asking in a whisper: "What time is it, Nina? I forgot to wind my watch."
"It"s nine o"clock, signorina; and I thought you would be tired this morning, and would like your coffee in bed. Oh, misericordia!" cried the girl, still in whisper, with a glance through the doorway, "you haven"t been in bed at all!"
"My mother doesn"t seem well. I sat down beside her, and fell asleep in my chair without knowing it."
"Ah, poor little thing! Then you must drink your coffee at once. It refreshes."
"Yes, yes," said Florida, closing the door, and pointing to a table in the next room, "put it down here. I will serve myself, Nina. Go call the gondola, please. I am going out, at once, and I want you to go with me.
Tell Checa to come here and stay with my mother till I come back."
She poured out a cup of coffee with a trembling hand, and hastily drank it; then bathing her eyes, she went to the gla.s.s and bestowed a touch or two upon yesterday"s toilet, studied the effect a moment, and turned away. She ran back for another look, and the next moment she was walking down to the water-gate, where she found Nina waiting her in the gondola.
A rapid course brought them to Ferris"s landing. "Ring," she said to the gondolier, "and say that one of the American ladies wishes to see the consul."
Ferris was standing on the balcony over her, where he had been watching her approach in mute wonder. "Why, Miss Vervain," he called down, "what in the world is the matter?"
"I don"t know. I want to see you," said Florida, looking up with a wistful face.
"I"ll come down."
"Yes, please. Or no, I had better come up. Yes, Nina and I will come up."
Ferris met them at the lower door and led them to his apartment. Nina sat down in the outer room, and Florida followed the painter into his studio. Though her face was so wan, it seemed to him that he had never seen it lovelier, and he had a strange pride in her being there, though the disorder of the place ought to have humbled him. She looked over it with a certain childlike, timid curiosity, and something of that lofty compa.s.sion with which young ladies regard the haunts of men when they come into them by chance; in doing this she had a haughty, slow turn of the head that fascinated him.
"I hope," he said, "you don"t mind the smell," which was a mingled one of oil-colors and tobacco-smoke. "The woman"s putting my office to rights, and it"s all in a cloud of dust. So I have to bring you in here."
Florida sat down on a chair fronting the easel, and found herself looking into the sad eyes of Don Ippolito. Ferris brusquely turned the back of the canvas toward her. "I didn"t mean you to see that. It isn"t ready to show, yet," he said, and then he stood expectantly before her.
He waited for her to speak, for he never knew how to take Miss Vervain; he was willing enough to make light of her grand moods, but now she was too evidently unhappy for mocking; at the same time he did not care to invoke a snub by a prematurely sympathetic demeanor. His mind ran on the events of the day before, and he thought this visit probably related somehow to Don Ippolito. But his visitor did not speak, and at last he said: "I hope there"s nothing wrong at home, Miss Vervain. It"s rather odd to have yesterday, last night, and next morning all run together as they have been for me in the last twenty-four hours. I trust Mrs.
Vervain is turning the whole thing into a good solid oblivion."
"It"s about--it"s about--I came to see you"--said Florida, hoa.r.s.ely. "I mean," she hurried on to say, "that I want to ask you who is the best doctor here?"
Then it was not about Don Ippolito. "Is your mother sick?" asked Ferris, eagerly. "She must have been fearfully tired by that unlucky expedition of ours. I hope there"s nothing serious?"
"No, no! But she is not well. She is very frail, you know. You must have noticed how frail she is," said Florida, tremulously.
Ferris had noticed that all his countrywomen, past their girlhood, seemed to be sick, he did not know how or why; he supposed it was all right, it was so common. In Mrs. Vervain"s case, though she talked a great deal about her ill-health, he had noticed it rather less than usual, she had so great spirit. He recalled now that he _had_ thought her at times rather a shadowy presence, and that occasionally it had amused him that so slight a structure should hang together as it did--not only successfully, but triumphantly.
He said yes, he knew that Mrs. Vervain was not strong, and Florida continued: "It"s only advice that I want for her, but I think we had better see some one--or know some one that we could go to in need. We are so far from any one we know, or help of any kind." She seemed to be trying to account to herself, rather than to Ferris, for what she was doing. "We mustn"t let anything pa.s.s unnoticed".... She looked at him entreatingly, but a shadow, as of some wounding memory, pa.s.sed over her face, and she said no more.
"I"ll go with you to a doctor"s," said Ferris, kindly.
"No, please, I won"t trouble you."