the countess led her to a spot where she could plainly see the signora’s well-remembered face and figure.
She did not however do so without being equally well seen by the signora. “Look, look,” said that lady to Mr. Slope, who was still standing near to her; “see the high spiritualities and temporalities of the land in league together, and all against poor me. I’ll wager my bracelet, Mr. Slope, against your next sermon that they’ve taken up their position there on purpose to pull me to pieces. Well, I can’t rush to the combat, but I know how to protect myself if the enemy come near me.”
But the enemy knew better. They could gain nothing by contact with the Signora Neroni, and they could abuse her as they pleased at a distance from her on the lawn.
“She’s that horrid Italian woman, Lady De Courcy; you must have heard of her.”
“What Italian woman?” said her ladyship, quite alive to the coming story. “I don’t think I’ve heard of any Italian woman coming into the country. She doesn’t look Italian, either.”
“Oh, you must have heard of her,” said Mrs. Proudie. “No, she’s not absolutely Italian. She is Dr. Stanhope’s daughter—Dr. Stanhope the prebendary—and she calls herself the Signora Neroni.”
“Oh-h-h-h!” exclaimed the countess.
“I was sure you had heard of her,” continued Mrs. Proudie. I don’t know anything about her husband. They do say that some man named Neroni is still alive. I believe she did marry such a man abroad, but I do not at all know who or what he was.
“Oh-h-h-h!” exclaimed the countess, shaking her head with much intelligence, as every additional “h” fell from her lips. “I know all about it now. I have heard George mention her. George knows all about her. George heard about her in Rome.”
“She’s an abominable woman, at any rate,” said Mrs. Proudie.
“Insufferable,” said the countess.
“She made her way into the palace once, before I knew anything about her, and I cannot tell you how dreadfully indecent her conduct was.”
“Was it?” said the delighted countess.
“Insufferable,” said the prelatess.
“But why does she lie on a sofa?” asked Lady De Courcy.
“She has only one leg,” replied Mrs. Proudie.
“Only one leg!” said Lady De Courcy, who felt to a certain degree dissatisfied that the signora was thus incapacitated. “Was she born so?”
“Oh, no,” said Mrs. Proudie—and her ladyship felt some what recomforted by the assurance—”she had two. But that Signor Neroni beat her, I believe, till she was obliged to have one amputated. At any rate, she entirely lost the use of it.”
“Unfortunate creature!” said the countess, who herself knew something of matrimonial trials.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Proudie, “one would pity her in spite of her past bad conduct, if she now knew how to behave herself. But she does not. She is the most insolent creature I ever put my eyes on.”
“Indeed she is,” said Lady De Courcy.
“And her conduct with men is so abominable that she is not fit to be admitted into any lady’s drawing-room.”
“Dear me!” said the countess, becoming again excited, happy and merciless.
“You saw that man standing near her—the clergyman with the red hair?”
“Yes, yes.”
“She has absolutely ruined that man. The bishop—or I should rather take the blame on myself, for it was I—I brought him down from London to Barchester. He is a tolerable preacher, an active young man, and I therefore introduced him to the bishop. That woman, Lady De Courcy, has got hold of him and has so disgraced him that I am forced to require that he shall leave the palace; and I doubt very much whether he won’t lose his gown!”
“Why, what an idiot the man must be!” said the countess.
“You don’t know the intriguing villainy of that woman,” said Mrs. Proudie, remembering her torn flounces.
“But you say she has only got one leg!”
“She is as full of mischief as tho’ she had ten. Look at her eyes, Lady De Courcy. Did you ever see such eyes in a decent woman’s head?”
“Indeed, I never did, Mrs. Proudie.”
“And her effrontery, and her voice! I quite pity her poor father, who is really a good sort of man.”
“Dr. Stanhope, isn’t he?”
“Yes, Dr. Stanhope. He is one of our prebendaries—a good, quiet sort of man himself. But I am surprised that he should let his daughter conduct herself as she does.”
“I suppose he can’t help it,” said the countess.
“But a clergyman, you know, Lady De Courcy! He should at any rate prevent her from exhibiting in public, if he cannot induce her to behave at home. But he is to be pitied. I believe he has a desperate life of it with the lot of them. That apish-looking man there, with the long beard and the loose trousers—he is the woman’s brother. He is nearly as bad as she is. They are both of them infidels.”
“Infidels!” said Lady De Courcy, “and their father a prebendary!”
“Yes, and likely to be the new dean, too,” said Mrs. Proudie.
“Oh, yes, poor dear Dr. Trefoil!” said the countess, who had once in her life spoken to that gentleman. “I was so distressed to hear it, Mrs. Proudie. And so Dr. Stanhope is to be the new dean! He comes of an excellent family, and I wish him success in spite of his daughter. Perhaps, Mrs. Proudie, when he is dean, they’ll be better able to see the error of their ways.”
To this Mrs. Proudie said nothing. Her dislike of the Signora Neroni was too deep to admit of her even hoping that that lady should see the error of her ways. Mrs. Proudie looked on the signora as one of the lost—one of those beyond the reach of Christian charity—and was therefore able to enjoy the luxury of hating her without the drawback of wishing her eventually well out of her sins.
Any further conversation between these congenial souls was prevented by the advent of Mr. Thorne, who came to lead the countess to the tent. Indeed, he had been desired to do so some ten minutes since, but he had been delayed in the drawing-room by the signora. She had contrived to detain him, to get him near to her sofa, and at last to make him seat himself on a chair close to her beautiful arm. The fish took the bait, was hooked, and caught, and landed. Within that ten minutes he had heard the whole of the signora’s history in such strains as she chose to use in telling it. He learnt from the lady’s own lips the whole of that mysterious tale to which the Honourable George had merely alluded. He discovered that the beautiful creature lying before him had been more sinned against than sinning. She had owned to him that she had been weak, confiding, and indifferent to the world’s opinion, and that she had therefore been illused, deceived, and evil spoken of. She had spoken to him of her mutilated limb, her youth destroyed in fullest bloom, her beauty robbed of its every charm, her life blighted, her hopes withered, and as she did so a tear dropped from her eye to her cheek. She had told him of these things and asked for his sympathy.
What could a goodnatured, genial, Anglo-Saxon Squire Thorne do but promise to sympathize with her? Mr. Thorne did promise to sympathize; promised also to come and see the last of the Neros, to hear more of those fearful Roman days, of those light and innocent but dangerous hours which flitted by so fast on the shores of Como, and to make himself the confidant of the signora’s sorrows.
We need hardly say that he dropped all idea of warning his sister against the dangerous lady. He had been mistaken—never so much mistaken in his life. He had always regarded that Honourable George as a coarse, brutal-minded