Chapter XVIII: Browning

The north piazza, which was the widest and pleasantest around the house because the coolest and most quiet, had assumed quite a cozy, festive air since the Tracys came. Several bits of carpet and rugs had been spread upon the floor,—three or four easy chairs had been brought out, with a settee over which a bright afghan was thrown. A hammock had been put up in which Helen posed, with Mark and Craig standing by and swinging her gently to and fro. Alice said the hammock gave her a headache and left it to Helen, who monopolized it entirely, either sitting or reclining, and doing both naturally and gracefully, as a little child might do. A small round table had been brought out and covered with a dainty tea set, which Mrs. Tracy had found in Worcester, and here Helen dispensed tea nearly every afternoon, and sometimes in the evening when the moon was shining upon them, softening the beauty of her face and making it more like a Madonna than a young girl whose brain was sometimes aching with the feeling of unrest gradually stealing over her and bringing into her eyes a troubled look never seen there before.

Every few mornings she found a fresh bouquet of roses upon her tea table. Taking it for granted they were for herself, she went into ecstasies over them and wondered who sent them.

“Not I. I didn’t think of it. I wish I had,” Craig said in his honest way, as she buried her face in the roses and then looked inquiringly at him.

If Craig did not send them, Mark did, and whether she thanked him in the office or on the stairs no one knew. He was satisfied and happy, and would have ordered all the roses in the North Ridgefield greenhouse if he had thought she wanted them. Craig still kept his small table for his lemonade, of which he was very fond, and for his papers and books. These last had been sadly neglected. Browning had scarcely been touched, but was not forgotten. He meant to have the readings yet, and spoke of them several times to the young ladies. Alice was always ready, although frankly admitting that she knew nothing and must be a mere listener. Helen was never ready. Nothing would give her greater pleasure than to spend an hour each day with dear old Browning, she said, but there was always some reason why she couldn’t give herself that pleasure. At last, as the sultry August days came on and it was too hot and dusty to drive until after supper, Craig, who was not one to give up an idea readily, decided to bring his club together, and on a certain morning gave notice that he should expect its members on the north piazza at 4 o’clock sharp, to hear him read Sordello. He was sure of Helen and Alice, and probably his mother and Mrs. Tracy, with Mark, when he could find time, and Mr. and Mrs. Taylor, if they chose to come.

“Come? In course we shall,” Uncle Zacheus said. “I’m rather old to begin to improve my mind and shan’t catch on worth a cent; but Dot will. She’s quick to see a p’int. Who was Browning, anyway? I used to know a family down east by that name. Any relation?”

Craig explained as well as he could and smiled as he thought of Uncle Zach trying to master, or even listen to the intricacies of Sordello. But he was glad for an audience, if half were Uncle Zach’s, and was very much engaged and excited for him. The chairs were arranged in a semi-circle, a little away from the hammock, which would not, of course, be used. Helen, the only one who was really interested, or knew much of the poet, would sit at his right. He had arranged for that by having a chair placed close to the stand on which were the roses which had come fresh that afternoon for the occasion. There were bowls of lilies on the wide railing of the piazza and at 5 o’clock Celine was to bring out biscuits and wafers and preserved ginger to be served with chocolate which Helen was to pour. Nothing could be pleasanter, he thought, as at a quarter before four he took his accustomed seat. Mrs. Tracy was the first to join him. She knew nothing of Browning and cared less, but was glad of any break in her monotonous life which did not require exertion. She did not like to drive, or sail, or walk; she had visited her grandfather’s monument, and the house where he used to live, and had been once to church. For the rest of the time she had stayed at home, doing nothing except to watch the progress of affairs between Helen and Craig. She would like to have her daughter settled, and nothing could suit her better than to see her married to Craig Mason. That morning she had broached the subject to Helen, who had replied, “If Mr. Mason proposes to me I shall not refuse him.” This had put Mrs. Tracy into so good a humor that she had forgotten to see if her diamonds were safe. Twice a day,—morning and night,—since her failure to open the safe herself, she had asked Mark to do it for her. This morning she had not made him her usual visit, and when, as she was going to the north piazza, he called to her and asked if she had forgotten her diamonds, she waved her hand patronizingly, and said, “I had; but no matter, I can wait till night.”

She took the seat indicated by Craig, and was soon joined by Mrs. Mason and Alice. Then Uncle Zach came, pleased as a child “to be invited to a literature.”

“Dot will be here in a minute,” he said, as he seated himself in a chair so high that only his toes could touch the floor. “She’s seein’ to some sass on the stove.”

Dotty soon came, heated and perspiring, and more interested in the jelly she had left in Sarah’s care than in Browning, of whom she had never heard till invited to attend the reading. Even then she would have declined if it had not been for her husband, who told her they didn’t or’to lose a chance to improve their minds.

If she thought he had not much mind to improve she did not say so, and in her best gingham gown and white apron, she took the only chair left except the one near Craig, reserved for Helen. That young lady had been having a rather unenviable time with Browning. It was now more than three weeks since that first day at the Prospect House when Alice had gone out to find the library, if there was one. She had found it without difficulty and inquired for Browning’s Poems.

“Which volume?” the librarian said.

Alice didn’t know, and confessed her ignorance.

“What particular poem do you wish to read?” was the next question.

“Sordello,” Alice replied, and the librarian brightened at once.

“Oh, yes; Vol. I. We have that, and it is nearly always in, so few care for it; they find it tough reading, they say. You like it, I suppose?” and the librarian looked over his spectacles at Alice, who said, “I don’t know; I never read it.”

“Wouldn’t try, then; hard work and little pay,” and the old man shook his head; then added, as he handed the book to her, “if you must read it, better take the encyclopedia, which will help you amazingly. Here ’tis.”

Alice took the book and turning the leaves found the story which she knew would be a help and which she might herself like to read.

“Thank you,” she said. “I will take both; they don’t look as if they were often used.”

“Very seldom. Not on an average once a year. There’s a chap at the hotel been in twice and looked at the encyclopedia. He’s pretty well up in Browning, I guess. You are from the hotel, too, aren’t you?”

Alice bowed in the affirmative and left the library. For some days the books reposed quietly on Helen’s dressing table. So many things came up to occupy Craig’s mind that it took but little tact to put the club out of it for a while. The moment, however, that Helen saw signs of its revival she attacked Sordello in earnest, taking the poem first and reading five or six pages very carefully, over and over again, first to herself and then to Alice, who consented to listen unwillingly, for she knew that Jeff was waiting to take her to the hornet’s nest and the turtles, and twice his shrill whistle came in at the window telling her he was ready. For a time she sat very quiet, for Helen was a fine reader, but when she reached the “Progress of a Poet’s Soul,” and asked what some of the passages meant, Alice sprang up exclaiming, “I don’t know any more than the dead, and I doubt if anybody does. I’ve promised Jeff to go with him to the woods and pond to see a turtle bed and hornet’s nest. Good bye, and good luck to you.”

She was gone and Helen was alone with Sordello.

“No more soul than to prefer mud turtles and hornets to Browning. I supposed she had a higher grade of mind,” Helen said, with a sigh of self-satisfaction, as she thought of her cousin tramping through the fields to the woods in company with Jeff, while she, with her higher grade of mind, was wrestling with Browning.

She didn’t find him quite as entertaining or easy to be understood as she had at first. It was not much like Tennyson’s “May Queen,” or Tennyson’s anything, she thought, and at last threw the book down in disgust, half tempted to go after Alice and the hornets, especially as she saw Mark walking down the lane in that direction. Taking up the encyclopedia she turned to the story of Sordello, which pleased her better. Here was something she could understand, and she read it over and made copious notes from it for future reference, and felt herself quite mistress of the narrative in all its different phases. She could not explain why, but Mark Hilton always stood for Sordello, while she was Palma, and with this fancy she finished the story. To wade through the poem was a different matter. Then a happy thought occurred to her. She could commit parts of it, and, if necessary, fire them off at Craig, who would be impressed with her superior knowledge. Just what to commit she didn’t know. So she took bits here and there at random, learned them in a short time, with no conception of their meaning, and was ready for the class.

Days and weeks passed. The class was not called and she forgot a good deal she had stored up, and when Craig unexpectedly announced the meeting for that afternoon she was thrown into a state of great consternation and hardly knew whether Sordello had been a troubadour or a hotel clerk,—whether he belonged to a noble family, or was ’Tina’s great-grandson,—and whether he was still in Purgatory, where Dante saw him, or at the Prospect House, receiving orders from Mrs. Taylor. Her Browning knowledge was a good deal of a jumble, which she must disentangle. She had made too many admissions of her liking for him to fail when the test came, and all the morning which was one of the hottest and sultriest of the season, she was shut in her room, going over the story again and re-committing the passages which had escaped her memory. Sordello and Mark Hilton were pretty equally mixed in her mind, which for some reason she found more difficult to concentrate on the subject than she did before, and as she spent the morning so she spent the time after dinner alone in her room, letting no one in and saying she had a headache and was resting. She did look a little heavy-eyed when she was at last ready to join the group on the piazza. Tired as she was she had taken a great deal of pains with her toilet, dressing more for Mark than for Craig, who, she had found, was less of a connoisseur in the matter of women’s attire than Mark. She would have liked to have worn white that hot day, but Mark did not like white gowns and blue ribbons, because ’Tina was said to figure in these when she visited the haunted house. So she chose a soft grey chally with elaborate trimmings of pink and white chiffon. Two or three of Mark’s roses were her only ornaments except her costly rings. With her smelling salts to keep up the appearance of headache, and a fan which matched her dress, she went languidly toward the group on the piazza, all seated except Mark, who was standing at a little distance with a quizzical expression on his face. He was something of a lover of Browning and had read Sordello two or three times. Since the club had been talked of he had thought to read it again and had inquired for the book at the library. He was told one of the young ladies at the Prospect House had had it for some time, and he readily guessed that Helen was “loading up,” as he expressed it. He did not believe she cared a straw for Sordello, or anybody like him, and was anxious to see how she would acquit herself.

“We are waiting for you,” Craig said, getting up and putting his hand on the chair reserved for her. “You are to sit here near me, as you are the one who will be most in sympathy with the reading. The others do not like Browning.”

“What a pity, and how much they lose,” Helen replied, “but if you’ll excuse me I’d rather sit in the hammock. My head still aches a little.”

She had no idea of being in close proximity to Craig, who might ply her with troublesome questions. She preferred the safety of the hammock, and, with the help of Mark, who at once came forward, put herself into it, half sitting, half reclining on the cushions, with her face away from all the party except Mark, who stood just where he could see her. No one would ever have suspected there was anything of the schoolmaster about Craig, but he assumed that role to some extent, and before commencing to read, he said, “I think we shall understand the poem better if we know something of the subject, Sordello. Who was he? Miss Alice will perhaps tell us?”

“Oh, don’t ask me! Pass on to Helen. She is posted,” Alice said, while Helen raised herself on her elbow,—moved her fan back and forth slowly, and replied, hesitatingly, as if cudgelling her memory for something she had once known and which had become a little indistinct.

“I don’t know that I can talk very clearly about him, there were so many fictitious accounts of him. I believe, though, he was a troubadour, who was born in the twelfth or thirteenth century at Goito, near Mantua. Am I right?”

She was looking at Craig, who nodded affirmatively, and smiled upon her as she went on still more slowly.

“Wasn’t he at first in the family of some count, who was chief of the Guelph faction, and didn’t he afterward enter the service of Berenger, of the house of Barcelona?”

Again Craig bowed and Helen continued: “He wrote songs and poems and was distinguished for his pleasing address and grace of manner, although said to be small in stature. The stories told of him are so filled with anachronisms, romances and fictions that it is difficult to decide which are true and which are false.”

“That is all encyclopedia. Of herself Helen never mastered such a word as anachronism,” Alice thought, while Mark had a similar idea.

Craig had no suspicion, and was delighted to find one person in so perfect accord with himself. He motioned her to go on, and, pleased with the attention she was receiving, she went on rapidly now and a little incoherently, as her memory was beginning to fail her.

“I think,” she said, “that some writers have accused him of eloping with another man’s wife. This is doubtful. There is a Palma, who figures very conspicuously with him. I can’t tell you all about it, or just how he died. I know Dante met him in Purgatory with those who had died without a chance to repent.”

“Served him right, too, for running off with another man’s wife. Has he ever got out of Purgatory?” Uncle Zach exclaimed, and Helen blessed him for creating a diversion at a point from which she dared not venture much farther.

Everybody laughed except Mrs. Taylor, who had caught a whiff of burning jelly and arose hastily, saying she must be excused.

“Come back, Dot, as quick as you can; it won’t do to lose none of this feast of——, what do you call it?” Uncle Zach said to her, putting his hand on her chair as if to keep it from some imaginary claimant.

Dot did not answer, nor did she come back.

“I think I’ve done my part,” Helen said, but as Craig urged her to go on she continued, with an air of superior wisdom, “As to the much-abused poem, it was written, I suppose, to show the times in which Sordello lived, and is in some sense the history of the development of a great soul. It is the most obscure of all Mr. Browning’s poems, and is like a beautiful palace without a staircase; so if one would reach the rooms on the second floor, he must climb.”

“Bravo! Miss Tracy. That is a most original idea, and you have described it exactly,” Craig cried, enthusiastically.

He evidently had not studied the encyclopedia as she had, and was giving Helen credit for an originality of thought she did not possess. The absence of a staircase had struck her forcibly, and she remembered and repeated it, and, flushed with success, ventured out into waters which proved too deep for her. Why commit portions of Sordello, if she did not use them? she thought. “It is a grand poem, with so many fine passages,” she said, and began to repeat portions of it, but became confused, and strung together parts of sentences in two or three different books, making a medley at which even Craig looked perplexed, wondering where such passages occurred, while Mark disappeared around the corner to hide his merriment.

It was his face which told Helen of her blunder, but she was equal to it. With a gay laugh she said, “I’ve made a horrid mistake, I guess, and jumbled things some, but have done the best I could. Now I’ll give place to the master.”

She made a graceful gesture with her hands toward Craig, and then lay down among her cushions and prepared to listen. Craig was a fine reader and interested in his subject, but the air was hot and sultry and none of his audience very appreciative except Helen. He was sure of her; he was reading to her, and occasionally casting a look at the hammock and the white hand which lay on her grey dress, and the perfect contour of the side of her face he could see, with the rich coloring on her cheek and the soft curl of hair around her delicate ear. He did not mind if Mrs. Tracy did nod occasionally and his mother yawn and Alice cast glances at the village clock which could be seen up the street, while Uncle Zach was placidly sleeping with his head thrown back and his mouth wide open. He had his Plato and was satisfied. As yet he had asked no one for their ideas of the meaning of anything he had read. He had merely given his own and that of the most approved critics.

At last he came to a sentence rather obscure to himself. He asked for an opinion, looking first at Mrs. Tracy, whose eyes were closed,—then at his mother who shook her head,—then at Alice, who was convulsed with laughter, although what there was to laugh about he could not guess.

“Miss Tracy will have to help me out,” he said, turning to the hammock, and dropping his silver paper cutter at the same time so that he only caught a faint sound of what he had not observed before, or which his voice had drowned.

“What did you say, please? I didn’t quite catch it,” he asked, bending towards the hammock from which the sound came again and very decided this time; not an explanation of Sordello, but an unmistakable snore!

Helen was fast asleep. Mark, who had returned to his post and had been watching her for a few moments, gave a loud laugh, in which Craig, after a moment’s discomfiture, joined.

“I think it time to stop,” he said, “as I have read part of my audience to sleep.”

Helen was awake by this time, greatly distressed and a little ashamed as she guessed why they were all laughing.

“I am so sorry and mortified,” she said, getting out of the hammock and stretching up her white arms like one rousing from sleep, “but my head aches and the day is so hot that I cannot help it. Did I,—did I really—?”

She looked at Alice, who answered, “Yes, you did; but it was a very ladylike snore, and not at all like Mr. Taylor’s; he has been off for some time.”

He was awake now, and rubbing his eyes, looked round bewildered, “What’s that? What’s that?” he said. “Is the meetin’ over? I must have fell off a minit. Great chap, that Sour fellow; mighty queer name! Where’d you say he was? In Purgatory? Let him stay there! Honest, though,” he continued, as his truthfulness came to the rescue, “I couldn’t get head nor tail to it, if there was any. I s’pose though to you who see through it ’twas a feast of—, what do you call it? Hello, there comes the chocklet. I guess we are all ready for that kind of feast,” he exclaimed, as Sarah appeared with the chocolate mug and the basket of biscuits and wafers.

Helen was certainly ready for it, and took her seat at the table, and poured the chocolate, which Craig handed round, while Sarah passed the wafers and biscuits. It was a very merry party which gathered near the table and Helen was the merriest of all, and was so graceful and fascinating that Craig would have forgiven a much graver offence than falling asleep while he was reading. Having no sisters, and a mother who was almost painfully matter-of-fact and frank, he had no knowledge of girls and their ways, and could not understand that nothing about Helen was genuine except her beauty; everything else was studied for effect,—from the intonation of her voice to the droop of her long eyelashes and the tears she could summon when she wished to be particularly pathetic and interesting. Mark knew her much better than Craig, but her deceptions, which would have filled Craig with disgust had he known of them, did not touch his moral sense of what was right and wrong. He did not look beyond the beauty of her person, which he coveted and meant to possess. He knew she did not care for Browning, or books of any kind, and was not at all surprised at her falling asleep. The flippancy with which she repeated Sordello was easily accounted for. He knew she had the encyclopedia, and Jeff, who was everywhere and saw and heard everything, had heard her reciting passages from Sordello, and when he was under the window waiting for Alice to go with him to the woods he had caught snatches of the conversation and had heard Helen say “I hate it all, but must keep up my reputation as a Browningite.”

This he had reported to Mark, and had asked, “Is she going to speak a piece, and can I hear her?” Jeff was obedient to every known wish of Mark, whose will dominated him, and, actuated by a desire that the latter should be a winner in the race he saw was running between the two men, he frequently gave information to his master as to where Helen could be found alone, and sometimes stood guard at a little distance, ready to whistle, or turn a summersault when any one was approaching.

“Both of ’em after her,” he thought, “and it’s a toss up which will win. Time will tell. I can’t.”