Victorian Short Stories | Page 3

her that I was going. And
I lay awake at night wondering how I could let her know the truth, and
fifty plans flitted through my brain, all appearing to be feasible enough
at night, but absolutely wild and impracticable in the morning. One
day--and it was a bright day indeed for me--the old woman who tended
me told me that a gondolier had inquired whether the English signor
had gone away or had died; and so I learnt that the little maid had been
anxious about me, and that she had sent her brother to inquire, and the
brother had no doubt taken to her the reason of my protracted absence
from the window.
From that day, and ever after during my three weeks of bed-keeping, a
flower was found every morning on the ledge of my window, which
was within easy reach of anyone in a boat; and when at last a day came
when I could be moved, I took my accustomed place on my sofa at the
window, and the little maid saw me, and stood on her head (so to speak)
and clapped her hands upside down with a delight that was as eloquent
as my right-end-up delight could be. And so the first time the gondolier
passed my window I beckoned to him, and he pushed alongside, and
told me, with many bright smiles, that he was glad indeed to see me
well again. Then I thanked him and his sister for their many kind
thoughts about me during my retreat, and I then learnt from him that
her name was Angela, and that she was the best and purest maiden in
all Venice, and that anyone might think himself happy indeed who
could call her sister, but that he was happier even than her brother, for
he was to be married to her, and indeed they were to be married the
next day.
Thereupon my heart seemed to swell to bursting, and the blood rushed
through my veins so that I could hear it and nothing else for a while. I
managed at last to stammer forth some words of awkward
congratulation, and he left me, singing merrily, after asking permission
to bring his bride to see me on the morrow as they returned from
church.
'For', said he, 'my Angela has known you very long--ever since she was
a child, and she has often spoken to me of the poor Englishman who
was a good Catholic, and who lay all day long for years and years on a
sofa at a window, and she had said over and over again how dearly she

wished she could speak to him and comfort him; and one day, when
you threw a flower into the canal, she asked me whether she might
throw another, and I told her yes, for he would understand that it meant
sympathy for one sorely afflicted.'
And so I learned that it was pity, and not love, except indeed such love
as is akin to pity, that prompted her to interest herself in my welfare,
and there was an end of it all.
For the two flowers that I thought were on one stem were two flowers
tied together (but I could not tell that), and they were meant to indicate
that she and the gondolier were affianced lovers, and my expressed
pleasure at this symbol delighted her, for she took it to mean that I
rejoiced in her happiness.
And the next day the gondolier came with a train of other gondoliers,
all decked in their holiday garb, and on his gondola sat Angela, happy,
and blushing at her happiness. Then he and she entered the house in
which I dwelt, and came into my room (and it was strange indeed, after
so many years of inversion, to see her with her head above her feet!),
and then she wished me happiness and a speedy restoration to good
health (which could never be); and I in broken words and with tears in
my eyes, gave her the little silver crucifix that had stood by my bed or
my table for so many years. And Angela took it reverently, and crossed
herself, and kissed it, and so departed with her delighted husband.
And as I heard the song of the gondoliers as they went their way--the
song dying away in the distance as the shadows of the sundown closed
around me--I felt that they were singing the requiem of the only love
that had ever entered my heart.

THE PARSON'S DAUGHTER OF OXNEY COLNE
By Anthony Trollope
(_London Review_, 2 March 1861)
The prettiest scenery in all England--and if I am contradicted in that
assertion, I will say in all Europe--is in Devonshire, on the southern and
southeastern skirts of