Like ships upon the sea

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Chapter I

The Tribune of the People uplifted its voice, metaphoricaUy speaking, for a very ungrateful client. The People cared nothing about it, very seldom read it, and when they did read it, were bored by it. They preferred the Star of Progress, which, equally democratic, was much more amusing and popular. The public has a quick, suspicious sense of any attempt to disguise moral, philosophical, or political teaching in what is supposed to be an alluring form adapted to its rudimentary capacities. It resents all such attempts with a sense of injury, as a child resents bitter powders lurking insidiously in jam. The result is generally to spoil the jam without mitigating the powder.

Some such suspicion attended the perusal of the Tribune of the People. It was not only instructive and doctrinaire, but it attempted to assume a playful

VOL. II. B manner of being so. Its liveliest sallies were mistrusted as a siren song, in the style of

'' Dilly, dilly, dilly, dilly, Co — ome and be killed I "

and were not found to be seductive. Readers looked f<jr a lurking moral in its lightest paragraphs, and fancied they found one whether it were there or not. The Tribune of the People did not gravely enunciate commonplaces easily grasped by the average mind as if they were profound reflections addressed only to select intellects, whereby the reader is naturally pleased on finding that he comprehends them with facility. Neither did it print wordy columns of social philosophy which were not comprehensible at all, but the like of which are often loudly eulogized on a principle similar to that which made the courtiers in the story-book so fervently admire the embroidered robe of the King standing before them in puris naturalibus. Neither did it deal in scandalous stories, nor scatter broadcast shameful imputations with a light insouciance which suggested that the writers held their own reputation by an easy tenure, and were fearless of reprisals which could scarcely give them a worse character than they already possessed. It was not dogmatic, nor hazy, nor slanderous. It condescendingly oflfered its powders in spoonfuls of jam; And although avowedly a political paper, it did not hold through thick and thin with any political party.

Moreover, there was about the whole tone of the journal something indefinably dilettante. It displayed that ineradicable defect common to the amateur in every department of human eflfort, namely, a sanguine expectation of achieving results without previous preparation, which recalls the modest gentleman who said that he did not know whether he could or could not play upon the fiddle, because he had never tried. And so long as the amateur appeals to society as an amateur, he may confidently reckon on success. We are most of us acquainted in private life with vocalists whose performances are preferred by their friends to those of Madame Patti ; violinists quite equal to Herr Joachim ; painters before whom Mr. Millais must pale his ineflfectual palette ; and poets who would make the topmost reputation in contemporary literature totter on its throne, if they ever should appear in print. But happily for Art and artists, these same individuals when addressed collectively as the Great Public, have a very diflferent standard ; and ceasing to be surprised that the animal can stand on its hind legs at all, imperatively require that he should stand well.

Mario Masi had a quick intelligence, a fairly good

B 2 command of his own language, and a considerable gift of raillery. But these are but a slender stock-in-trade for editing a newspaper. That enterprise, indeed, has been known to be successfully conducted by individuals possessing not one of the three. But then they had other more essential qualifications which Masi lacked : experience, an apprenticeship to journalism, a sure perception of what will "do" and what will not, arrived at by long habit, and by the slow but sure method of trying and failing and trying again. Now Mario was ready to try ; perfectly ready. But he was by no means ready not to succeed. And when, after the first intoxicating joys of seeing his own lucubrations in print and hearing the Tritncne of the Feeble bawled about the streets by the itinerant vendors, he was brought face to face with sundry troubles and annoyances inseparable from his calling, he jibbed, and became angry and discouraged. And the most unpromising feature in the case was that he was not chiefly troubled by what reasonably might have troubled him : the fewness of his subscribers, and the gradual dropping oflf of chance sales ; but by the onslaughts of his brother journalists (which Guarini assured him were excellent advertisements), and by any casual expression of unfavourable opinion which happened to come to his ears.

In Italy the journalist has not always the refuge of

LIKE SHIPS UPON THE SEA.

muffling himself in that Cloak of Darkness, the anonymous and irresponsible "we." It is not obligatory on him i>o sign his contributions, but neither is it considered a breach of professional etiquette to name the writer of an article when he is widely known. And let any of our public instructors consider within himself whether it would not make a considerable difference to his comfort if, instead of being discussed under the form of an impersonal abstraction, such as the morning Aurora or the evening HesfperuSy he were liable to be publically contradicted and pooh-poohed as the " chronically ill-informed Mr. John Smith," the "pretentiously ignorant Mr. Thomas Jones," or the " spitefully disingenuous Mr. William Brown." Mario Masi would have fought half-a-dozen duels within as many days in the beginning of his editorship, if Gino Peretti had not kept watch and ward over him, and flattered, and coaxed, and told him a variety of sugary falsehoods. Peretti was strongly interested in starting the Tribune of the People with an eflfective burst ; and that had been achieved. For Peretti in this matter all would be well that began well. He had never looked forward to a prolonged existence for the paper ; and if it powerfully directed public attention to the Pontine Marshes Drainage and Amelioration Company, it would have done all he demanded of it.

6 UKE SHIPS UPON THE SEA.

Nina Quarini's negotiations with Prince Massimo Nasoni had resulted in the sale to the company (on advantageous terms for the latter) of the Prince's property at Mattoccia. In accordance with her husband's advice, she had demanded a price for her services. And casting about for a way to make the transaction useful to Masi and Violet (for whose sake, in fact, she had undertaken it), she resolved to stipulate with Peretti that a certain number of shares should be handed over to Masi as an acknowledgment of what he had done for the cause in his capacity of editor of the Tribune of the Feeble. After some deliberation, she made up her mind to tell Peretti the truth : that she was interested in the lady Masi was going to marry, that she wished to help them, that Masi's pride would never allow him to accept the shares as a gift from her hands, and that, therefore, she took this method of transferring them to him. " My name had better not be mentioned in the transaction," she had said to Peretti. *' You can make over the shares as if from yourself. "

This Peretti agreed to readily enough, being willing to take credit to himself even "for the sunshine in July," as the Italian proverb pithily puts it. As to the Signora Nina's motives, however, for this bit of generosity, he did not altogether believe her statement. But, true or untrue, it was no business of his. He said a word or two to sound Beppe Guarini on the subject, but Beppe declined to enter into it.

" I gave my wife carte blanche to do as she pleased," said he. "She has managed the affair for you with her usual tact and success, and I only hope she drove a hard bargain with the company. If she chooses to spend part of her gains in making presents instead of buying earrings for herself, I have nothing to say against it."

Gino Peretti was a little disappointed to find that Guarini knew all about the matter. He would have liked to take down Nina somewhat in her husband's estimation. However, he could but smile in a superior way, and murmur something about women having their foolish caprices sometimes. And he forthwith wrote to announce to Masi that fifty shares in the Pontine Marshes Company had been made over to him. And in the fervour of composition he made so great a flourish about his own liberality as would make it difficult to confess afterwards that he had only been acting as the almoner of some one else.

But the fact of the sale of Prince Nasoni's land was kept strictly secret for the present among the small knot of persons interested. Peretti was in no hurry to announce it, since he could vaunt the exceptional advantages connected with the draining of Mattoccia without appearing to cry up his own property. Prince Nasoni was in no hurry, for sundry good reasons, one of them being a dislike to his creditors' knowing that he had come into possession of a sum of ready money, and another — and by no means the least — a dread of his mother s reproaches when she should hear that he had surreptitiously parted with another fragment of the rapidly-dwindling family estates.

As to his son, the Duke of Pontalto, the Prince troubled himself not a jot. When he did think of him, it was generally with a pleasant anticipation of the young man s discomfiture when the truth should break upon him. And so Don Ciccio remained ignorant of the transaction, which ignorance led him into a disagreeable position.

His late spiritual director, Don Silvestro, a clerical gentleman of considerable ability, who was now a main prop of the reactionary journal, the Messenger of Peace, in Naples, continued to follow up his first article on the subject of the Pontine Marshes scheme by a series of papers strongly recommending it, if it could be put into the right hands, and pointing out how necessary to its accomplishment would be the possession of a certain portion of land in the midst of a most fever-stricken district. The Messenger of Peace never mentioned Mattoccia. It mentioned a variety of other places in the neighbourhood, but never said one syllable of Mattoccia. But it circumscribed the possibiHties of making a wrong guess as to the whereabouts of the bit of land in question by giving accurate topographical details of its position. " And/* said the Messenger of Peace, "were the company once in possession of this special bit of land, the success of their operations would be as good as assured. But could the company get possession of it?" That was what the Messenger of Peace strongly doubted, unless indeed the company could be composed of elements more trustworthy than at present appeared, or unless, at all events, its list of directors could be leavened with the names of one or two pious, honourable, and noble Romans — men who, disdaining to come to a transaction with the revolution, had ever maintained, &c., &c., &c.

These articles made some sensation in "Black" circles. Several distinguished members of that society hankered after fuller information on the subject of the Pontine Marshes scheme ; and more than one, when the shares were announced for sale, boldly invested money in the aflfair, encouraged by the recommendation of so trustworthy an authority as the Messenger of Peace, It was hinted even that the Carlovingi — perhaps the leading family of their party in Rome, claiming a direct descent from King Pepin, and having a less apocryphal hold on the consideration of mankind by the possession of an enormous fortune, inherited from one of the successors of the poor Fisherman — even the Carlovingis were said, figuratively, to have dipped rather deeply into the Pontine Marshes ; and this rumour put the shares up with a rush. The infection extended to other social spheres. Fashionable gentlemen of Liberal politics, and fashionable ladies of no politics at all, talked of the scheme at the clubs, and in boudoirs, and salons, and opera boxes, and showed themselves no less greedy of gain than their fellow-creatures of the opposite party. Whether there was on any side much serious expectation that the peasant of those pestilential districts would be benefited by the scheme, or that any good whatever would accrue from it to any human being but the shareholders, may be doubted. But there was this difference observable : that whilst the "Blacks" expatiated on the impossibility of any good being done to the peasant, save by themselves; and whilst the "Reds" violently insisted on the indifference towards the peasant of everybody but themselves; the purely fashionable portion of society appeared to overlook the necessity of doing him any good at all, and dismissed unpleasant considerations connected with disease, and hunger, and ignorance.

as being distinctly not their business, and requiring to be got rid of and smothered under the disinfecting influences of the newest perfume and the latest French operetta.

Thus, however, through one channel and another, from one motive and another, under one aspect and another, the Pontine Marshes Drainage and Amelioration Company was in the mouths of a great many persons in Rome in those days, and excited a great deal of envy, hatred, malice, and uncharitableness. There were polemics about it in the newspapers (a boon to editors hard up for " copy '* in that slack season 1 ), and the wildest and most inconsistent stories respecting its origin, aims, and promoters, were rife everywhere. Mario Masi upheld the cause of the Company in perfect good faith, and when the popular interest in the matter was at its height Nina Guarini earnestly advised him to sell his shares. " I told you," she said, " that it would be fatal to hold after the good moment had come. It has come, but it will not last."

This was in the evening of the day when she had seen Violet, and Mario had called at the Guarinis to get his lady-lovers address. It had been Sigreed that he should do so. Kitty Low had returned in the course of the day with a message from the Signora, importing that Miss Baines had found her old lodging unoccupied, and had taken it; and Mario was now on his way thither. But he did not show that eager haste which might have been expected under the circumstances. He lingered, talking, and discussing various matters with Nina, and combating her view as to the desirability of immediately getting rid of the shares.

"They will go higher yet, Signora Nina," said he. " I am a little behind the scenes in these aflfairs now, my friend ; I have to be, you know. And I can assure you that they will go up."

It was piteous to her to see him thus elated by the importance of his editorial position, and pluming himself on his intimate knowledge of matters about which he was so inexperienced as to be absolutely at the mercy of a man like Peretti. But she saw that it was necessary to be cautious.

"His vanity," thought she, "will take alarm if he thinks I am assuming more knowledge of these matters than he has. Heaven help us, what a knowledge to be proud of ! And how gladly I would relinquish mine, if I could get back the price I paid for it !" Then she sighed out half aloud, "Ah, poor thing; poor thing!" And it need scarcely be said that this ejaculation did not apply to Mario Masi.

He, meanwhile, reached Miss Baines's old quarters, and was admitted by Mariuccia in her wide-latticed stay bodice and short skirt, who addressed him with a loud and hoarse salutation like a boatswain's hail, and seemed in her hospitable welcome and display of good fellowship to be very near slapping him on the back.

Violet was in the little sitting-room when he entered it. At the sound of the opening door she turned round, sprang up with a little cry, and ran into his arms. There was something so innocent, confiding, and loving in the action, and in her little fluttering cry, " Oh Mario, oh Mario 1 " — something so expressive of her faith in him and her devotion to him, that he was moved more deeply than was his wont, and pressed his lips on her bright hair as her head rested for a moment against his breast, not only tenderly but reverently. The next moment his glance alighted on Kitty Low, who had risen from her chair, and stood, with some needlework in her hand, attentively regarding him.

Mario released Violet from his embrace, and whispered to her hurriedly in Italian, " Who is she ? What is she doing here ? "

Violet raised her blushing face on which some happy tears were shining, and answered him in English, "This is Kitty Low, my aunt's maid. I have mentioned her in my letters, you know. I had forgotten you were there, Kitty, for the moment. I am engaged to marry Captain Masi. I was engaged to him before

14 LIKE SHIPS UPON THK SEA,

I went home. But it is a secret for the present from every one. I know you will keep it faithfully."

" Vm not much given to talking anyway, Miss Violet ; and when you trust me with a secret you can depend on me/* answered Kitty quietly. But she was not unmoved ; and she looked again at Masi's face with a keener attention than hefore.

For his part he was not well pleased at having this stranger forced into his confidence. In the first place, he had very little faith in her silence. In the next place, he objected to feel that he was in her power. She might choose to betray him to Violet's uncle. However, there was no help for it now. And he could not reproach Violet in the first moments of their reunion for heedlessly betraying their secret, especially since that betrayal had arisen from an impulse of her strong aflfection for him.

Kitty discreetly withdrew, saying that she would go and see if Miss Baines wanted her ; and the lovers were left alone.

"Why do you have such an ugly woman for your maid ? '' was Masi's first question when that staid spinster had departed.

"How strange that you should think her so ugly," cri^d Violet. " To me her face is very pleasant. But she thinks herself plain."

" Diavolo ! What else can she think ? "

"But she is such a good creature, Mario; and so sensible, and "

"Very likely; but I can't waste the short time I have to stay with you in talking of her."

" Must it be so short, Mario ? " asked Violet wistfully. " I hoped that you would be able to stay this evening."

" And what would become of to-morrow's paper ? "

As a matter of fact, to-morrow's paper was prepared, so far as he had anything to do with preparing it. But there were the evening's lounging and smoking and gossip to be accomplished ; seasoned with the delightful sense that they were " business " done in the interests of the journal, and necessary to keep its editor well up to the course of public opinion.

" I hope you are not working too hard, Mario," said Violet innocently. "You look thinner than when we parted."

It was true. He was thinner, and looked older, and l;iad a more sharp and irritable manner. So little gentle, indeed, was his manner, that Violet felt timid of urging on him her desire to tell her uncle of their engagement. But the desire was strong, and those reasons she had to give for it seemed to her so unanswerable, that she nerved herself to speak. She pointed out that to keep the secret now, when they were all likely to meet frequently, would be impossible without active duplicity, and that both he and she would have to play a part, and to act lies, even if they spoke none. But these representations failed to affect Mario as she had expected. He appeared to look upon them as childish and overstrained, and he said: "Do not, my dear Violetta, give way to what you English call humbug."

Nina Guarini's words recurred to the girl's mind — "Your standard of life is different from his. You would expect what he could not give you, and what he would think you childish for expecting. Your views of many things would be incomprehensible to him, as his would be incomprehensible to you." Violet tried to put these words aside, but they persistently forced themselves on her memory, and she felt unreasonably angry with Nina for having said them, and unreasonably angry with herself for recalling them just then, and altogether confusedly dispirited.

Mario was too much absorbed in his own reflections to pay much heed to her tell-tale face. After a little pause, he asked her if she knew the extent of her uncle's wealth, and whether he were avaricious, like most rich men. And when she told him of the wedding gift of fifty pounds which she had received, besides her travelling expenses, Mario opened his eyes and ears, and exclaimed, "Fifty pounds? That is more than twelve hundred francs ! But he must be a millionnaiie, your uncle ? "

And then Miss Baines came in; and they agreed that she should introduce Masi to Mr. Higgins as a friend of hers, and they appointed a day for that purpose. And by this time Masi declared that his engagements made it imperatively necessary for him to tear himself away.

VOL. II.

r

Chapter II

In due course Nina Guarini made her visit to Mrs. Higgins, and in her quiet way she soon formed a pretty correct judgment of that lady. But Nina found her knowledge of English people and English ways by no means sufficient to enable her to interpret Joshua Higgins as glibly as she interpreted his wife.

" You know Rome already, Madame Higgins ? '* said Nina after the first greetings had been exchanged.

"Oh dear yes!'* answered Mrs. Higgins, in a tone expressive of the most profound and intimate acquaintance with the Eternal City. (She had been in Rome once for eight days, including an excursion to Naples, with a flock of tourists driven through Europe by contract.)

" And I suppose you will be able to play cicerone to your husband.**

"No, maam, no,** interposed Mr. Higgins, with dignity. "My wife don't play anything; and if she did, IVe something else to do than to listen to her. In my country, ma'am, we're busy — occupied. It is diflferent in Italy, I am led to understand. More play than work here, ma'am."

"I hope you dont dislike the Italians, Mr. Higgins," said Nina, with her pretty, subtle smile.

" I can t say I do, ma am, having seen so very little of them," answered Mr. Higgins, naively,

"Ah, that is very just! You shall give me your opinion by-and-by, will you not ? "

Mr. Higgins took this demand quite literally, and made answer that he should be happy to impart his opinion to Madame Guarini as soon as he had formed it; and that in point of fact, he had made that long journey partly to gratify his wife's desire to have his opinion of Rome.

" Ah ! " exclaimed Nina in a tone of considerable surprise. Then with a sudden light of comprehension in her face, she said, " I see. You are, then, a student of Roman archaeology."

"Not at all, ma'am," answered Uncle Joshua, as contemptuously as though she had accused him of devoting his time to Berlin wool work. "Not at all. But Rome is a place that there has been a good deal of talk about, one way or another. It is what may be called a celebrated place, ma'am. Many persons have c 2 cried it up in my presence. But you wiD understand that that kind of thing doesn't make much impression on a man of my time of life, and with my experience of the world. My wife, for instance, was quite carried away in her descriptions of Rome. The female mind is naturally more easily carried away than ours, owing to a want of ballast, or, since I am talking to a foreigner I may put it more plainly as brains."

"And you might add, Mr. Higgins, by being more sensitive and delicate," put in his wife.

"Very true, Jane Higgins. Sensitiveness and delicacy are appropriate to the female character.*'

'* Our dear Violet, your niece, is very fond of Rome," said Nina. " And Rome is very fond of her,— at least that little bit of Rome which knows her. She is sweet and charming."

" She is, ma'am," assented Uncle Joshua graciously.

" Such a clear, candid nature."

"That, ma'am, runs in my family. The Higginses always hated a lie."

This statement, so far as it concerned himself, was true. Joshua Higgins would have unhesitatingly rejected the most flattering praises if he had thought them to be lies, and would have despised the flatterer. And he would equally have admitted any verdict adverse to his own consummate wisdom, could he have believed it. But then, knowing himself to be so extremely sagacious, such an excellent man of business, so fair a dealer, so steady a church-goer, so liberal a master, so hospitable a host, so generally judicious, experienced, respectable, and respected, it would have seemed to him mere wrong-headed perversity to doubt the sincerity of persons who affirmed those facts, or to credit with veracity those who denied them.

" And what chiefly interests you in Rome, madame ? " asked Nina, mindful of her resolution to ingratiate herself if possible with Violet's new aunt. "Are you most fond of antiquities, or pictures, or churches, or scenery ? The English are admirers of scenery."

" Oh, I adore scenery, and pictures, and churches, and catacombs, and I am particularly fond of those coloured worsted-work aprons, something like crewel samplers in the days of my — such as I have seen worked by my mamma, sold by those women in peasant costumes. And statues," added Mrs. Higgins, with a sudden reminiscence of the table of contents in her guide-book.

" Ah, you have a truly catholic taste, madame ! "

"Well now, ma'am," broke in Mr. Higgins, "since you have mentioned the word yourself, I will take the opportunity of informing you that I don't approve of the Catholic religion, or rather of the Popish religion, for we believe in the Holy Catholic Church, and there it stands in plain English in our Church Service. I don't wish to make you uncomfortable as a member of the Popish religion, which may be suited to foreigners ; although," with a burst of conscientiousness as of one unwilling to lead his hearers astray by a weak indulgence, " I carUt say that I've noticed it make 'em clean and comfortable in their ways so far as I've gone yet. But I'm bound to tell you that my principles are Church of England staunch to the backbone, and Jane Higgins's are the same."

As to this latter point, by the way, he had never made the slightest inquiry, but had assumed it as confidently as that she washed her face and combed her hair.

" I shall not seek to convert you, Mr. Higgins," said Nina, with a smile. Then, to change the subject, she inquired which of the sights of Rome they had been looking at that day.

" Oh, we have revisited some of my favourite haunts," said Mrs. Higgins. "Entwined with poetic memories, where I was wont to wander in days of yore." Mrs. Higgins, when she bore the name of Lucas, had been " personally conducted " through several of the more famous ruins at a smart pace, and conveyed from point to point, together with eleven others of the flock, in a vehicle of the kind familiar to English eyes in connection with school feasts, temperance celebrations, drunken returns from the Derby, and other festive occasions.

" The fact is," said Mr. Higgins, reducing his wife's poetic style to the level of prose, "we have been inspecting the Forum, the Coliseum, and the Baths of Carrycallo." And here Mr. Higgins shook his head.

" Were you not pleased ? " asked Nina.

" I will not deceive you, ma'am, I wamt. Not to any such an extent as I'd been led to believe."

" Oh, but then the associations, Mr. Higgins ! " exclaimed his wife. "The poetic memories entwined, you know, Mr. Higgins ! Look at Byron, for instance ! What poetical opinions he expressed about — a variety of things in Rome ! "

"Allow me, if you please, Jane Higgins. Madame Gwarinny was not requiring to hear Lord Byron's opinions, — which so far as I am aware were not of a nature to improve the female mind, — but my opinions. — Well now, ma'am, take the Roman Forum. There's something about it very uncomfortable to an English eye. A want of mellowness, a dustiness, a dryness, a general look of bleached bones and a higgledy-piggledyness about the way the retaining fragments of building