The Cardinal's snuff-box
The friends in question kept him supplied with sound rappee. Jests and
music he was abundantly competent to supply himself. He played the piano
and the organ, and he sang--in a clear, sweet, slightly faded tenor. Of
secular composers his favourites were “the lucid Scarlatti, the luminous
Bach.” But the music that roused him to enthusiasm was Gregorian. He
would have none other at St. Mary of the Lilies. He had trained his
priests and his people there to sing it admirably--you should have heard
them sing Vespers; and he sang it admirably himself--you should have
heard him sing a Mass--you should have heard that sweet old tenor voice
of his in the Preface and the Pater Noster.
So, then, Beatrice stood before a pier-glass, and studied her new hat;
whilst the Cardinal, amused, indulgent, sat in his high-backed armchair,
and watched her.
“Well--? What do you think?” she asked, turning towards him.
“You appeal to me as an expert?” he questioned.
His speaking-voice, as well as his singing-voice, was sweet, but with
a kind of trenchant edge upon it, a genial asperity, that gave it
character, tang.
“As one who should certainly be able to advise,” said she.
“Well, then--” said he. He took his chin into his hand, as if it were
a beard, and looked up at her, considering; and the lines of
amusement--the “parentheses”--deepened at either side of his mouth.
“Well, then, I think if the feather were to be lifted a little higher in
front, and brought down a little lower behind--”
“Good gracious, I don't mean my hat,” cried Beatrice. “What in the world
can an old dear like you know about hats?”
There was a further deepening of the parentheses.
“Surely,” he contended, “a cardinal should know much. Is it not 'the
badge of all our tribe,' as your poet Byron says?”
Beatrice laughed. Then, “Byron--?” she doubted, with a look.
The Cardinal waved his hand--a gesture of amiable concession.
“Oh, if you prefer, Shakespeare. Everything in English is one or the
other. We will not fall out, like the Morellists, over an attribution.
The point is that I should be a good judge of hats.”
He took snuff.
“It's a shame you haven't a decent snuff-box,” Beatrice observed, with
an eye on the enamelled wooden one, cheap and shabby, from which he
helped himself.
“The box is but the guinea-stamp; the snuff's the thing.--Was it
Shakespeare or Byron who said that?” enquired the Cardinal.
Beatrice laughed again.
“I think it must have been Pulcinella. I'll give you a lovely silver
one, if you'll accept it.”
“Will you? Really?” asked the Cardinal, alert.
“Of course I will. It's a shame you haven't one already.”
“What would a lovely silver one cost?” he asked.
“I don't know. It does n't matter,” answered she.
“But approximately? More or less?” he pursued.
“Oh, a couple of hundred lire, more or less, I daresay.”
“A couple of hundred lire?” He glanced up, alerter. “Do you happen to
have that amount of money on your person?”
Beatrice (the unwary woman) hunted for her pocket--took out her
purse--computed its contents.
“Yes,” she innocently answered.
The Cardinal chuckled--the satisfied chuckle of one whose unsuspected
tactics have succeeded.
“Then give me the couple of hundred lire.”
He put forth his hand.
But Beatrice held back.
“What for?” she asked, suspicion waking.
“Oh, I shall have uses for it.”
His outstretched hand--a slim old tapering, bony hand, in colour like
dusky ivory--closed peremptorily, in a dumb-show of receiving; and now,
by the bye, you could not have failed to notice the big lucent amethyst,
in its setting of elaborately-wrought pale gold, on the third finger.
“Come! Give!” he insisted, imperative.
Rueful but resigned, Beatrice shook her head.
“You have caught me finely,” she sighed, and gave.
“You should n't have jingled your purse--you should n't have flaunted
your wealth in my face,” laughed the Cardinal, putting away the
notes. He took snuff again. “I think I honestly earned that pinch,” he
murmured.
“At any rate,” said Beatrice, laying what unction she could to her soul,
“I am acquainted with a dignitary of the Church, who has lost a handsome
silver snuffbox--beautiful repousse work, with his arms engraved on the
lid.”
“And I,” retaliated he, “I am acquainted with a broken-down old doctor
and his wife, in Trastevere, who shall have meat and wine at dinner for
the next two months--at the expense of a niece of mine. 'I am so glad,'
as Alice of Wonderland says, 'that you married into our family.'”
“Alice of Wonderland--?” doubted Beatrice.
The Cardinal waved his hand.
“Oh, if you prefer, Punch. Everything in English is one or the other.”
Beatrice laughed. “It was the I of which especially surprised my English
ear,” she explained.
“I am your debtor for two hundred lire. I cannot quarrel with you over a
particle,” said he.
“But why,” asked she, “why did you give yourself such superfluous pains?
Why couldn't you ask me for the money point-blank? Why lure it from me,
by trick and device?”
The Cardinal chuckled.
“Ah, one must keep one's hand in. And one must not look like a Jesuit
for nothing.”
“Do you look like a Jesuit?”
“I have been told so.”
“By whom--for mercy's sake?”
“By a gentleman I had the pleasure of meeting not long ago in the
train--a very gorgeous gentleman, with gold chains and diamonds flashing
from every corner of his person, and a splendid waxed moustache, and a
bald head which, I think, was made of polished pink coral. He turned to
me in the most affable manner, and said, 'I see, Reverend Sir, that you
are a Jesuit. There should be a fellow-feeling between you and me. I am
a Jew. Jews and Jesuits have an almost equally bad name!'”
The Cardinal's humorous grey eyes swam in a glow of delighted merriment.
“I could have hugged him for his 'almost.' I have been wondering ever
since whether in his mind it was the Jews or the Jesuits who benefited
by that reservation. I have been wondering also what I ought to have
replied.”
“What did you reply?” asked Beatrice, curious.
“No, no,” said the Cardinal. “With sentiments of the highest
consideration, I must respectfully decline to tell you. It was too flat.
I am humiliated whenever I recall it.”
“You might have replied that the Jews, at least, have the advantage of
meriting their bad name,” she suggested.
“Oh, my dear child!” objected he. “My reply was flat--you would have had
it sharp. I should have hurt the poor well-meaning man's feelings, and
perhaps have burdened my own soul with a falsehood, into the bargain.
Who are we, to judge whether people merit their bad name or not? No, no.
The humiliating circumstance is, that if I had possessed the substance
as well as the show, if I had really been a son of St. Ignatius,
I should have found a retort that would have effected the Jew's
conversion.”
“And apropos of conversions,” said Beatrice, “see how far we have
strayed from our muttons.”
“Our muttons--?” The Cardinal looked up, enquiring.
“I want to know what you think--not of my hat--but of my man.”
“Oh--ah, yes; your Englishman, your tenant.” The Cardinal nodded.
“My Englishman--my tenant--my heretic,” said she.
“Well,” said he, pondering, while the parentheses became marked
again,--“I should think, from what you tell me, that you would find him
a useful neighbour. Let me see... You got fifty lire out of him, for a
word; and the children went off, blessing you as their benefactress. I
should think that you would find him a valuable neighbour--and that he,
on his side, might find you an expensive one.”
Beatrice, with a gesture, implored him to be serious.
“Ah, please don't tease about this,” she said. “I want to know what you
think of his conversion?”
“The conversion of a heretic is always 'a consummation devoutly to be
desired,' as well, you may settle it between Shakespeare and Byron,
to suit yourself. And there are none so devoutly desirous of such
consummations as you Catholics of England--especially you women. It is
said that a Catholic Englishwoman once tried to convert the Pope.”
“Well, there have been popes whom it would n't have hurt,” commented
Beatrice. “And as for Mr. Marchdale,” she continued, “he has shown
'dispositions.' He admitted that he could see no reason why it should
not have been Our Blessed Lady who sent us to the children's aid.
Surely, from a Protestant, that is an extraordinary admission?”
“Yes,” said the Cardinal. “And if he meant it, one may conclude that he
has a philosophic mind.”
“If he meant it?” Beatrice cried. “Why should he not have meant it? Why
should he have said it if he did not mean it?”
“Oh, don't ask me,” protested the Cardinal. “There is a thing the French
call politesse. I can conceive a young man professing to agree with a
lady for the sake of what the French might call her beaux yeux.”
“I give you my word,” said Beatrice, “that my beaux yeux had nothing to
do with the case. He said it in the most absolute good faith. He said he
believed that in a universe like ours nothing was impossible--that
there were more things in heaven and earth than people generally dreamed
of--that he could see no reason why the Blessed Virgin should not have
sent us across the children's path. Oh, he meant it. I am perfectly sure
he meant it.”
The Cardinal smiled--at her eagerness, perhaps.
“Well, then,” he repeated, “we must conclude that he has a philosophic
mind.”
“But what is one to do?” asked she. “Surely one ought to do something?
One ought to follow such an admission up? When a man is so far on the
way to the light, it is surely one's duty to lead him farther?”
“Without doubt,” said the Cardinal.
“Well--? What can one do?”
The Cardinal looked grave.
“One can pray,” he said.
“Emilia and I pray for his conversion night and morning.”
“That is good,” he approved.
“But that is surely not enough?”
“One can have Masses said.”
“Monsignor Langshawe, at the castle, says a Mass for him twice a week.”
“That is good,” approved the Cardinal.
“But is that enough?”
“Why doesn't Monsignor Langshawe call upon him--cultivate his
acquaintance--talk with him--set him thinking?” the Cardinal enquired.
“Oh, Monsignor Langshawe!” Beatrice sighed, with a gesture. “He is
interested in nothing but geology--he would talk to him of nothing
but moraines--he would set him thinking of nothing but the march of
glaciers.”
“Hum,” said the Cardinal.
“Well, then--?” questioned Beatrice.
“Well, then, Carissima, why do you not take the affair in hand
yourself?”
“But that is just the difficulty. What can I what can a mere woman--do
in such a case?”
The Cardinal looked into his amethyst, as a crystal-gazer into his
crystal; and the lines about his humorous old mouth deepened and
quivered.
“I will lend you the works of Bellarmine in I forget how many volumes.
You can prime yourself with them, and then invite your heretic to a
course of instructions.”
“Oh, I wish you would n't turn it to a joke,” said Beatrice.
“Bellarmine--a joke!” exclaimed the Cardinal. “It is the first time
I have ever heard him called so. However, I will not press the
suggestion.”
“But then--? Oh, please advise me seriously. What can I do? What can a
mere unlearned woman do?”
The Cardinal took snuff. He gazed into his amethyst again, beaming at
it, as if he could descry something deliciously comical in its depths.
He gave a soft little laugh. At last he looked up.
“Well,” he responded slowly, “in an extremity, I should think that a
mere unlearned woman might, if she made an effort, ask the heretic to
dinner. I 'll come down and stay with you for a day or two, and you can
ask him to dinner.”
“You're a perfect old darling,” cried Beatrice, with rapture. “He'll