The Spell.

by William Dana Orcutt.

BOOK I

MASTER OF FATE

THE SPELL

I

"Now, Jack, here is a chance to put your knowledge of the cla.s.sics to some practical use."

Helen Armstrong paused for a moment before a Latin inscription cut in the upper stones of the boundary wall, and leaned gratefully upon her companion's arm after the steep ascent. "What does it mean?"

Her husband smiled. "That is an easy test. The ancient legend conveys the cheering intelligence that 'from this spot Florence and Fiesole, mother and daughter, are equi-distant.'"

The girl released her hold upon the man's arm and, pushing back a few stray locks which the wind had loosened, turned to regard the panorama behind her. It was a charmingly picturesque and characteristic Italian roadway which they had chosen for their day's excursion. On either side stood plastered stone walls, which bore curious marks and circles, made--who shall say when or by whom?--remaining there as an atavistic suggestion of Etruscan symbolism. The whiteness of the walls was relieved by tall cypresses and ilexes which rose high above them, while below the branches, and reclining upon the stone top, a profusion of wild roses shed their petals and their fragrance for the benefit of the pa.s.sers-by. In the distance, through the trees, showed the shimmering green of olive-groves and vineyards--covering the hillsides, yet yielding occasionally to a gay-blossoming garden; and, as if to complete by contrast, the streaked peaks of Carrara gave a faint suggestion of their marble richness. In front, Fiesole rose sheer and picturesque, while villas, scattered here and there, some large and stately, some small, some antiquated and others modernized, gave evidence that the ancient Via della Piazzola still expressed its own individuality as in the days when the bishops of old trod its paths in visiting their see at the top of the hill, and Boccaccio and Sacchetti, with their kindred spirits, made its echoes ring with merry revelling. But, inevitably turning again, the modern pilgrims saw far below them, and most impressive of all, the languorous City of Flowers, peacefully dreaming on either side of the silver Arno.

All this was a familiar sight to John Armstrong, whose five years'

residence in Florence, just before entering Harvard, made him feel entirely at home in its outskirts. He preferred, therefore, to fix his eyes upon the face of the girl beside him. She was tall and fair, with figure well proportioned, yet the characteristic which left the deepest impress was her peculiar sweetness of expression. Among her Vincent Club friends she was universally considered beautiful, and a girl's verdict of another girl's beauty is rarely exaggerated. Her deep, merry, gray eyes showed whence came the vivacity which ever made her the centre of an animated group, while the sympathy and understanding which shone from them explained her popularity.

The announcement of her engagement to Jack Armstrong was the greatest surprise of a sensational Boston season, not because of any unfitness in the match,--for the Armstrong lineage was quite as distinguished as the Cartwrights',--but because Helen had so persistently discouraged all admiration beyond the point of friendship and comradeship, that those who should have known p.r.o.nounced her immune.

But that was because her friends had read her character even less correctly than they had Armstrong's. They would have told you that she was distinctly a girl of the twentieth century; he discovered that while tempered by its progressiveness, she had not been marred by its extremes. They would have said that her character had not yet found opportunity for expression, since her every wish had always been gratified; he would have explained that the fact that she had learned to wish wisely was in itself sufficient expression of the character which lay beneath.

He watched her in the midst of the social life to which they both belonged, entering naturally, as he did, into its conventionalities as a matter of course, and he rejoiced to find in her, beyond the enjoyment of those every-day pleasures which end where they begin, a response to the deeper thoughts which controlled his own best expression. He could see that these new subjects frightened her a little by their immensity, as he tried to explain them; he sympathized with her momentary despair when she found herself beyond her depth; but he was convinced that the understanding and the interest were both there, as in an undeveloped negative.

This same power of a.n.a.lysis which enabled him to discover what all could not surmise had separated Armstrong, in Helen's mind, from other men, nearer her own age, whom she had known. She could hardly have put in words what the difference was, but she felt that it existed, and this paved the way for his ultimate success. His personal attributes, inevitably tempered by the early Italian influence, marked him as one considerably above the commonplace. At college he had won the respect of his professors by his strength of mind and tenacity of application, and the affection of his fellow-students by his skill in athletics and his general good-fellowship. Now, eight years out of college, he had already made his place at the Boston bar, and was regarded as a successful man in his profession. But beyond all this, unknown even to himself, Armstrong was an extremist. The seed had been sown during that residence in Florence years before, when unconsciously he had a.s.similated the enthusiasm of an erudite librarian for the learning and achievements of the master spirits of the past. Latin and Greek at college had thus meant much more to him than dead languages; in them he found living personalities which inspired in him the liveliest ambition for emulation.

These were some of the subjects to which he introduced Helen. Little by little he told her of the fascination they possessed for him, of the treasures hidden beneath their austere exterior. But the girl was perhaps more interested by the charm of his presentation than by the possibilities she saw in the subjects themselves. She felt that she could understand him, and admitted her respect for the objects of his enthusiasm, but she was convinced that these were beyond her comprehension, and frankly rebelled at the necessity of going back into dead centuries for them.

"I love the present, and all that it contains," she replied to him one day when something suggested the subject during one of the many walks they took together; "I love the sky, the air, the sunshine, and the flowers. Why should I go back to the past, made up of memories only, when I may enjoy all this beautiful world around me? And you, Jack--I should not have you if I had lived in the past!"

As her friends had said, she possessed strong ideas about marriage, and expressed them without reserve. Until Armstrong's irresistible wooing, she had decided, as a result both of observation and of conclusion, that admiration and attention from many were far to be preferred to the devotion of any single one, and that matrimony was neither essential nor desirable except under ideal conditions.

"There are so many things which seem more interesting to me than a husband," Helen a.s.serted. "I'm afraid that I agree too much with that wise old cynic who said that 'love is the wine of life, and marriage the dram-drinking.' I insist on remaining a teetotaler."

Thus Armstrong felt himself ent.i.tled to enjoy a certain degree of pride and satisfaction in that he had succeeded in convincing her at last that the ideal conditions she demanded had been met.

Even on board the steamer, at the start of their wedding journey, as the familiar sky-line of New York became less and less distinct, Armstrong read in his wife's eyes, still gazing back at the vanishing city, the thoughts which inevitably forced themselves upon her--a last remnant of her former doubt. When she turned and saw him looking at her, she smiled guiltily.

"We are leaving the old life behind us," she said. "With all the philosophy you have tried to teach me, I have not fully realized until now what a change it means."

"Do you regret it?" he asked her, half rebellious that even a pa.s.sing shadow should mar the completeness of their happiness.

Helen quickly became herself again, and threw back her head with a merry laugh at the seriousness of his interrogation. "Regret it! How foolish even to ask such a question! But you cannot wonder that the importance of the event should force itself upon me, now that we are actually married, even if it never did before. It makes so much more of a change in a woman's life than in a man's."

Helen sighed, and then looked mischievously into his face. "With you superior beings," she continued, "it simply signifies a new latch-key, a new head to your household, and the added companionship of a woman whom you have selected as absolutely essential to your happiness. You keep your old friends, give up for a time a few of your bad habits, and transfer a part of your affections from your clubs to your home. To the woman, it means a complete readjustment. New duties and responsibilities come to her all at once. From her earliest memory she has been taught to depend upon the counsel and guidance of her parents, but suddenly she finds herself freed from this long-accustomed habit, with a man standing beside her, only a few years her senior, who is convinced that he can serve in this capacity far better than any one else ever did. Even with a husband as superior as yourself, Mr. John Armstrong, is it not natural that one should recognize the pa.s.sing of the old life, while welcoming the coming of the new?"

After landing, they had lingered for a fortnight in Paris, but, beneath the keen enjoyment of the attractions there, Armstrong had felt an impatience, unacknowledged even to himself, to reach Florence, which contained for him so much of interest, and whither his memory--let him give it sway--ever recalled him. He felt that his _dei familiares_ were patiently waiting for him there, indulgent in spite of his long absence, yet insistent that their rights again be recognized. Having dropped his engrossing law-practice, he yearned to take advantage of this opportunity, now near at hand, to devote himself to the girl he had won, and at the same time to gratify this long-cherished wish to study more deeply into the work of those early humanists who had foreshadowed and brought about that mighty thought revolution, the wonderful breaking-away from the deadly pall of ignorance into the light and joyousness and richness of intellectual life known as the Renaissance.

Helen would no longer fail to understand them when she saw them face to face. He would lead her gently, even as Cerini the librarian had led him; and together they would draw from the old life those principles which made it what it was, incorporating them into their new existence, which would thus be the richer and better worth the living. So now that he had actually reached his goal, it was natural that his contentment at finding himself in Florence with his wife was intensified by the joy of being again amid the scenes and personages which his imagination had taken out from the indefiniteness of antiquity, and invested with a living actuality.

The sharp contrast of his two great devotions came to John Armstrong as he stood at the cross-roads on the edge of San Domenico. The one had exerted so powerful an influence on what he was to-day--the other must influence his future to an extent even greater. The one, in spite of the personality with which he had clothed it, was as musty and antiquated as the ancient tomes he loved to study; the other, as she stood there, her cheeks aglow after the brisk walk, her face animated with enthusiastic delight, seemed the personification of present reality. What a force the two must make when once joined together, contributing, each to the other, those qualities which would else be lacking!

"I must take you yet a little higher," Armstrong urged at length; "these walls still cut off much of the glorious view."

In a few moments more they had partly ascended the Via della Fiesolana, which at this hour was wholly deserted. With a sigh, half from satisfaction and half from momentary fatigue, Helen turned to her companion. She caught the admiration which his face so clearly reflected, but, womanlike, preferred to feign ignorance of its origin.

Glancing about her, she discovered a rock, half hidden by the tall gra.s.s and wild poppies, which offered an attractive resting-place. Seating herself, she plucked several of the brilliant blossoms, and began to weave the stems together. At last she broke the silence.

"Why are you so quiet, Jack?"

"For three reasons," he replied, promptly. "This walk has made me romantic, poetic, and hungry."

Helen laughed heartily. "I am glad you added the third reason, for by that I know that you are mortal. This wonderful air and the marvellous view affect me exactly as a fairy-story used to, years ago. When I turned I fully expected to find a fairy prince beside me. You confess that you are romantic, which is becoming in a five-weeks'-old husband, but why poetic?"

"'Poetry is but spoken painting,'" quoted Armstrong, smiling; "and I should be pleased indeed were I able to put on canvas the picture I now see before me."

"Since you cannot do that, suppose you write a sonnet."

Armstrong met her arch smile firmly. The girlish abandon under the influence of new surroundings awoke in him a side of his nature which he had not previously realized he possessed. Stooping, he gently held her face between his hands and looked deep into her responsive eyes before replying:

"'_Say from what vein did Love procure the gold To make those sunny tresses? From what thorn Stole he the rose, and whence the dew of morn, Bidding them breathe and live in Beauty's mould?

What depth of ocean gave the pearls that told Those gentle accents sweet, tho' rarely born?

Whence came so many graces to adorn That brow more fair than summer skies unfold?

Oh! say what angels lead, what spheres control The song divine which wastes my life away?

(Who can with trifles now my senses move?) What sun gave birth unto the lofty soul Of those enchanting eyes, whose glances stray To burn and freeze my heart--the sport of Love?_'"

Helen made no reply for several moments after Armstrong ceased speaking. Then she held out her hand to him and looked up into his face.

"I never knew before that you were a real poet," she said, quietly.

"I wish I were--and such a poet! My precious Petrarch, for whom you profess so little fondness, is responsible for that most splendid tribute ever paid to woman."

Helen was incredulous.

"That sanctimonious old gentleman with the laurel leaves on his head and the very self-confident expression on his face?"

Armstrong nodded.