Marcel: An Hotel-Child
By Lena Milman
I
I HAD arrived in Venice, after a long journey, and, with a
confused
impression of lapping water, of shimmering mosaic,
and one, far more
distinct, of discontent with the room allotted
me, had gone early to bed.
My window looked upon a court with a
well in the middle, and, as I had
feared, the drawing of water aroused
me betimes, so that it was but seven
o’clock when, exasperated by
the rattle of the chain which seemed suddenly
to have grown
louder than ever, I got up and went to the window. The
clatter
was accounted for by the inadequate strength that drew the
handle to and fro. Surrounded by a group of Venetian women,
each with twin
copper pails slung over her shoulder, a little boy,
evidently a forestier, was pulling with might and main, his foot
set against the side of the well, his lips tightly pressed together.
One of the onlookers good-naturedly laid her brown hand over
his little
fair one as though to help him, but : “No, no,” he
cried, “I can do it
quite well myself,” and, although the words
were strange to the listeners,
the redoubled vigour of his attitude,
and the little frown, just visible
under the brim of his hat, showed
him impatient of aid. It was a pretty
scene, and I watched until
The Yellow Book—Vol. XII. I
all
all the pails were filled, and the little lad could let go the handle
which
had left red traces upon his palm.
Taking off his hat, he leaned for a moment against the wall,
and I was
conscious of an Englishman’s innate contempt for a
picturesque boy, as I
looked at the graceful little figure, whose
lines even the loose sailor’s
suit sufficed not altogether to disguise,
and at the fair hair that waved
upon the child’s forehead. Still
there was no lack of manliness in the
boy’s bearing, and he
bounded into the house in a way which dispelled much
of my
prejudice.
After breakfast, I took a book into the hotel-garden, and was
fortunate
enough to find one of the recesses overlooking the canal
empty, so that,
in the intervals of my desultory reading, I could
look towards San Giorgio and watch the gondolas go by. The
garden was full of roses—pink, and white, and yellow—and,
twin-
ing in and out of the stone balustrade, they shed their petals into
the water. There was just breeze enough stirring to make the
gondolas at the traghetto sway gently, and to flutter
the yellow
hat-ribbons of two gondoliers whose craft lay just below me.
There was something about that gondola which attracted attention.
By
the brilliant velvet carpet, by the embroidered flounces of the
awning, it
seemed to struggle against the sombreness of its body,
and, feeling it to
be as thoroughly “bad form” as a pink-lined
brougham, I was glad to notice
that the stars and stripes floated
at the bows, and not my national
ensign. Presently, at a cry of
“Poppe!” from
the hotel, the two gondoliers sprang up, and,
deftly turning, brought
their boat to the water-steps, where a
gaily-attired lady, and a man,
whose yachting-cap but ill became
him, stood waiting. There was just the
length of the boat be-
tween us, so that, as they took their seats, I could
hear the man
say hurriedly : “Don’t take the child to-day,” and the
woman,
with
with a little pout, answer : “I had promised that he should come,
but, if
he bores you . . .” and, just then, my little friend of the
morning
appeared on the top step. He was evidently in the
highest spirits, and I
was amused to see that he wore the yellow
scarf and sash of a gondolier.
He had just leapt eagerly into the
boat, when the lady said, in a
high-pitched American voice :
“We can’t take you to-day, Marcel ; we shall
not be back until
too late, so you must stay and amuse yourself in the
hotel.” I
cannot bear to see a child disappointed, still less can I bear to
see
a child take disappointment meekly, as this child did. It is well
for men, for women, to school themselves never to hope where
they
wish, but in children such power of self-repression argues a
precocity of
pain. Poor Marcel ! I saw how his face fell, I even
saw him glance
ruefully down at the fluttering fringes of his sash,
but all he did was to
go silently up to his mother, stoop down to
kiss her, and leap out of the
boat again to watch it out of sight,
with tears in his eyes. I detest
hotel-children, but this one so
attracted me, that, when at luncheon, I
saw him preparing to eat
a little lonely meal at the table next to mine, I
invited him to
sit with me, and even told him how sorry I had been for his
disappointment.
“I was sitting in the garden and saw the start,” I explained.
“It was Monsieur’s fault,” said the child ; ” he is often like that.
Mother
always lets me go with her, but mother’s friends always
want her all to
themselves.”
He spoke in a tone so matter-of-fact, that I thought that it
must be forced
and glanced uneasily at him, fearing lest I should
discern some look of
precocious sarcasm ; but the child’s eyes
were innocent of mirth, and all
his attention seemed devoted to
the tangled skein of macaroni before him,
which he was endeavour-
ing to wind into his mouth, Italian-fashion.
“I see
“I see that you are quite an old Italian,” I said, pointing my
fork at his
plate. “I still chop my macaroni into inches, and even
then I find it
unmanageable.”
“Mother and I have been in Europe ever since I can remember,
but generally
we are at Nice ; it depends on mother’s friends.
I like Venice, but I have
no one to play with.”
I wondered at this, for the hotel seemed swarming with English-
speaking
girls and boys. But my new friend gave me no time
for thought, as, with a
little sigh of relief expressive of difficulty
overcome, he laid his fork
down upon his empty plate, and,
evidently glad of a listener, told me of
the English tutor who had
given him lessons at Nice, not only in Latin and
Greek, but also
in cricket ; of how his mother sometimes talked of putting
him to
school in England ; of how Baldassare, the gondolier, had begun
to teach him to row ; and he showed me a little white blister on the
palm of his hand, which testified to his exertions of the day before.
“Which way did you go ?” I inquired.
“Just beyond the Giudecca. But we couldn’t go far, as
Monsieur wanted the
gondola after dinner again.”
“Is Monsieur a Frenchman ?” I asked.
“Yes,” was the laconic answer, from which I gathered that
Marcel thought
Monsieur unworthy of further remark.
I had feared that, after luncheon, the child might hang heavy on
hand, but,
no ! he said: “Thank you for letting me sit with
you !” and disappeared by
the lift.
I was sitting smoking in the cabin-like hall, when, on an
opposite sofa, I
recognised a Mrs. Campbell, who had been my
fellow-sojourner at Territet
six months before, and crossed over
to speak to her. Presently we were
deep in memories of Geneva,
which she interrupted to say : “I thought I
saw you at luncheon
with Marcel Van Lunn.”
“I did
“I did not so much as know the child’s name, but I felt sorry
for him,
seeing him alone, and invited him to sit at my table.
Who is he ?”
Mrs. Campbell desired nothing better than to impart informa-
tion :
“Poor child ! I too am sorry for him. But, though I am often in
the same
hotel, I dare not take much notice of him, on account of
his impossible
mother. I have to be careful on account of Félise.”
(This was Mrs.
Campbell’s stolid daughter.)
Before ten minutes were passed, I was fully informed as to Mrs.
Van Lunn’s
utter impossibility from the point of view of society.
Monsieur—his
name was Casimir Portel—was not her first
travelling companion ;
others might succeed him. Worse still,
such was her notoriety on the
Riviera, that she was known as
“Sally Lunn !” I cared not at all, as far
as Mrs. Van Lunn was
concerned, but, as I listened to the sordid story, I
saw again the
pathetic profile of Marcel, and felt gloomily conscious of
my
impotence to avert the misery which I saw threaten.
That afternoon I wandered into the Piazza, and, as I sipped
my coffee,
espied at a table, not far off, Marcel, his mother, and
Monsieur. The
child seemed happy enough eating an ice, and,
his back being turned to me,
I had the better opportunity for
studying his mother. She must have seen
five-and-thirty summers,
but, by much artifice, she had knocked off some
ten of them to
the superficial observer.
“Pretty ?” I hesitated ere I answered the self-imposed question.
“Yes !
decidedly pretty, but more remarkably well-dressed.” The
face, framed in
wavy bronze hair, was irregular, but the soft skin,
the very red lips, and
bright eyes, would doubtless have made most
men forgive the little blunt
nose and the square chin, which,
to women, would have seemed the most
remarkable features.
Monsieur
Monsieur was far less attractive. He was tilting his chair back,
so that I
had a full view of him, from his low-crowned sailor-hat
to his high-heeled
boots ; and I noticed how he looked defiantly
round, in a way which rather
challenged attention from the passers-
by to his fair companion than made
it appear impertinent. He
had small eyes and a mouth of almost African
coarseness, which
last he was at no pains to conceal, for, as he looked
round at the
company, he twisted first one side of his moustache and then
the
other.
“Dépêche toi donc” I heard him say to Marcel, who
seemed
trying to make the delight of the ice as lasting as possible, by
consuming it in almost imperceptible mouthfuls. “Nous
t’attendons
déjà depuis une demi-heure” and he rapped impatiently
upon the tray
for the waiter, who was just then giving me my change.
During the next few days, my time was so taken up with sight-
seeing, that I
saw no more of Marcel, except at meals and from a
distance. But, returning
one day past San Moïse, I espied the
painted chalice and waving red over
the door, which announce
Exposition. I am not a Catholic, but the Devotion
of the Forty
Hours so strongly appeals to me, that I pushed aside the buff
curtain and went in. The church is architecturally one of the
most
contemptible in Venice, but riotous Rococo is admirably
adapted for the
display of festal crimson and gold, and that after-
noon the impression was
to me altogether delightful. The altar,
agleam with lights, the faithful
kneeling here and there in twos
and threes or genuflecting as they passed
to and fro, the silence
within, made the more conspicuous by contrast with
the noise of
the calle without, the church, a
palatial Presence-chamber, in which
I gladly lingered. I was still
standing just inside when, my eyes
becoming more accustomed to the dim
light, I recognised a little
kneeling figure not far off as Marcel’s. I
was surprised, I confess,
but
but the child’s praying made the place more solemn than ever.
So solemn,
indeed, that I felt an intruder, and slipped out into the
air again. I was
crossing the bridge, when I heard a light foot-
fall and Marcel’s voice
greeted me. I said nothing about having
seen him in church, but he began
of his own accord.
“Don’t tell Monsieur that you saw me in San Moïse. I don’t
mind mother’s
knowing, but Monsieur is what they call a Liberal,
and so he always laughs
at me for going to church.”
The sarcasm of the deduction was quite lost upon the child,
and, since I
was not acquainted with Monsieur, I explained that
there was no fear of my
telling tales.
I intended going to Torcello next day, and it struck me that
the child
might enjoy a day on the lagoons, so I invited him to
come too. He
accepted at once, evidently in no fear that anyone
else should want his
company. “May I bring my oar ?” he
asked. Any excuse for loitering on the
lagoons being welcome, I
gladly consented, and accordingly at eleven
o’clock next morning,
Marcel and I set off.
He had put on his gondolier’s dress, and I thought that Mrs.
Van Lunn, at
her entresol window, looked quite proud of her son
as he waved his hand to her.
“This is Mr. Rivers,” shouted Marcel, rather to my confusion,
but I took
off my hat, the lady bowed graciously, and I felt that
I had only myself
to thank for the acquaintance of Mrs. Van
Lunn.
I am an old Venetian, but the delights of the place never pall,
and now, as
I lay back upon the cushions, the eager child’s face
beside me was an
added pleasure as he told me how often he had
longed to go to Torcello,
and how his mother’s dislike to long
excursions (“They tire her so,” he
explained), had always pre-
vented his going.
The
The contrast between sun and shade is never more marked
than at Venice,
when, from the gloom of narrow canals, the gon-
dola shoots out on to the
lagoon. That day there was not enough
wind to ruffle the surface of the
water, which was as smooth as
the sky, so that the islands seemed hanging
in mid-air, and the
velvet folds of the distant Alps fell immediately into
the sea.
Fishing-boats with tawny sails floated by, bearing sacred symbols
as in solemn procession ; here and there in the shallows, brown-
limbed boys waded after shell-fish.
To my joy, my companion spoke but little until we neared
San Francesco in
Destrto, where I had planned lunching ; with
its associations, its
stone-pine, its cypresses, its meadow, and its
monastery, no island of the
lagoons has for me a charm like this
one, and, while the gondoliers were
getting luncheon ready upon
a daisy-strewn bank under the cypress shade, I
took Marcel to
see the cloisters and the chapel. The brother who admitted
us
was delighted with the child s reverence and interest : “Cattolico !”
he said ; and I saw no reason to
distress him by contradiction.
As we ate our luncheon, I told Marcel the story of St. Francis’s
famous
sermon to the birds, and, appropriately enough, the larks
sang over our
heads, while the child, lying full length among the
flowers, sought them
in the blue.
“Last time I listened to the larks,” he said, “I was in England.
Mother had
a little house near Ascot, and I never enjoyed myself
so much, for I had
her all to myself all day long. We did not
know any of the people who
lived round there.”
He paused a moment, and then, as if impelled to speak of what
had long been
in his thoughts, he said, still looking up at the
sky :
“Why is it, I wonder, that Félise Campbell is no longer
allowed to play
with me I Mother says that it is because I’m an
American,
American, and so Mrs. Campbell is afraid lest Félise should grow
to talk
like me. Mother says that I ought to be proud of being
an American, and so
I am ; but I should like some one to play
with all the same. Besides, I
don t think that mother can have
guessed the right reason, for there were
some very noisy Ameri-
can children in the hotel last week, and you must
have seen
Fdlise romping with them all day long. So what do you think is
the real reason, Mr. Rivers ?” and here the speaker rolled over on
the grass and faced me.
It was morally impossible for me tell the truth, it was men-
tally
impossible for me to invent an answer then and there, while
Marcel’s
trusting blue eyes were fixed upon mine, so I evaded
the question by
throwing a stone into the water and saying :
“Do let us talk of something more interesting than Mrs.
Campbell’s reason
or unreason. Tell me about your life at
Ascot ? Had you no friends of your
own there ?”
“Yes ! I had one great friend : Father Simeon. He is one of
the fathers at
the convent, which was the next house to ours ;
and I used to go to him
every day for Latin. That was how I
grew to wish to be a Catholic, for
Father Simeon played the
organ at Mass and Benediction, and he used often
to let me sit
up in the gallery with him. Mother had given permission for
me to be ‘received’, when, one day, Monsieur came down and
heard of
it. He made a dreadful fuss, insisted upon my lessons
being stopped, and,
when Father Simeon called to inquire after
me, treated him so rudely that
he never came back. I think,
though, that he wrote me a letter, for I
noticed how Monsieur
walked down the drive to meet the postman for some
time after,
until, one day, I saw him slip a letter into his pocket and,
though
I cannot be sure, I think that I recognised the convent note-
paper. Soon after we left for Nice, and I went to mother and asked
whether
whether I might write to Father Simeon. She said that I might
do so, and
undertook to post the letter herself. I only wrote a
few lines to say how
sorry I was not to see him again, and that I
hoped that some day he would
write to me ; but, although I was
careful to give him the address, he has
never written, or, if he has,
the letter must have been lost. When I am a
man I shall be a
Catholic and take mother to church with me. She will not
need
Monsieur for an escort then, will she ? When shall I be old
enough to take care of mother, Mr. Rivers ? I was ten last
birthday.”
“Oh, you will want to be a good many years older and wiser !”
I said ; ”
and you must learn to take care of yourself first, and not
come out for an
excursion, as I see that you have done to-day,
with no great-coat to put
on when it turns chilly !”
“May I row now ?” asked Marcel, eagerly, as, from below the
great cross at
the landing-stage, we pushed off for Torcello, and,
taking my consent for
granted, he sprang up even as he spoke,
and bade the gondolier take his
oar out of the rest. The man
was willing enough to sit idly down opposite
me and watch his
little substitute. We made the slower progress, and
occasionally
the child s oar slipped ; but he was skilful enough on the
whole,
and the rhythmic sway of the little figure, all within my line of
sight, so soothed me, that I was between sleeping and waking,
until
roused by Marcel’s throwing himself panting down at my
side. He looked
very much over-heated, I thought, and I insisted
upon his putting on one
of the wraps which I had with me.
“Monsieur is always so impatient when I row,” said Marcel,
as soon as he
had recovered his breath. “I have no sooner got
into the swing than he
bids me stop.”
“Perhaps he is more careful of you than I have been !” I
suggested.
But
But “Oh, no! It’s not that!” was the answer in tones so
positive as to
admit of no contradiction.
Presently the child went on : “Sometimes I think that the
reason people don
t care about me has to do with Monsieur. I
remember that when mother and I
were together at Nice last
year, people were very kind to me, until
Monsieur arrived, but
after that I had no more invitations, and some even
pretended
not to see me when they met me in the street. I shouldn’t
have minded so much for myself, but I could see that mother
noticed it. Oh
! how I wish I were a man !”
It was but a few days later that I received news recalling me
to England,
and I was quite touched at the regret Marcel ex-
pressed. I gathered from
the poor child that henceforward he
would have once more to choose between
solitude and making an
unwelcome third with his mother and Monsieur, of
whom the
latter was at no pains to conceal his impatience of Marcel’s
com-
pany even at meals. The child begged me to let him come to
see
me off, and, on the way to the station, asked me for my card,
and whether
he might write to me. I had grown really fond of
him, and gladly
consented.
“We are going south in the spring,” he said, as he stood on
the platform,
“but I will send you our address. Do go on being
my friend, Mr. Rivers !”
That was the last sentence I heard as the train moved off, and
I had no
time to reply.
II
On my return to England, I did not forget to write to Marcel,
but before
hearing from him in answer, I unexpectedly succeeded,
by the death of a
distant relation, to a small estate in the West
Indies,
Indies, and was obliged to go out there without delay. I was
abroad for
over twelve months, during which time I had but little
leisure and a sharp
attack of fever, which two circumstances, com-
bined with the lack of a
fixed address, led me to postpone writing
to my little friend. When at
length I returned home, I felt rather
remorseful at finding among the
letters awaiting me two or three
directed in a childish hand, which I
recognised as Marcel’s. They
were as little informing as children’s
letters are wont to be, and
the last one bearing a date some six months
old expressed dis-
appointment at my long silence, and gave me an address
which
would find the writer but for the next few weeks. The time had
so long passed by, that it had been unavailing forme to write, and
I felt
regretfully how likely it was that I should never see Marcel
again.
The following spring, however, I set off as usual for Italy, and
one wet
day at Naples, was idly turning over the leaves of the hotel
visitors’
book, when, among recent entries, I read the following :
Mrs. Hyman F. Van Lunn,
Marcel Van Lunn, U.S.A.
I was standing in the bureau of the hotel at the time,
so I
inquired of the clerk whether he knew what had been the Van
Lunns’ destination. At first it seemed as though the man had no
recollection of them at all. Certainly no address had been left for
possible letters, but the landlord, happening to come in and over-
hearing
my inquiries, reminded the clerk of Marcel, of whom he
spoke as “le petit du numéro soixante-dix qui jouait toujours de la
mandoline tout seul dans sa chambre” So I learned
that Mrs. Van
Lunn and her son had spent a fortnight at Naples, and had
then
gone by steamer to Palermo. I hardly know how much a wish
to
see Marcel had to do with it, but I fancy that the child must
have
By Lena Milmanhave excited more interest in me than I admitted to myself ;
for certainly
a languid wish to see Sicily suddenly toughened to a
determination. The
rain had ceased, and the Mediterranean
glittered alluringly in the pale
afternoon sun. There seemed
nothing to detain me in Naples. A steamer was
to start that
very evening, and, taking a berth, I started for Palermo.
There is
practically but one hotel, so I was not surprised to read
Marcel’s
name on the register as, among a crowd of other travellers,
I stood awaiting the landlord’s pleasure in the hall ; nor did I fail
to
notice that, whereas Mrs. Van Lunn had a suite au
premier,
the number of her son’s room was in three figures.
I had half expected to see him at luncheon-time, but not doing
so, I made
my way to his room, which was in the same passage
as mine, but on the
opposite side. As I drew near the door, I
heard the tremolo of a mandoline
within. It was Marcel, and he
was singing “Carmela” in such Neapolitan as
he could com-
mand :
Sleep on, Carmela !
Sweeter far than living ’tis to dream.
I knocked ; the singer stopped and came to open. I received a
warm welcome.
“I was afraid that I should never see you again, Mr. Rivers,”
said Marcel,
as, his hand on my arm, he led me to a chair next
the window ; “and, ever
since I said good-bye at Venice, I seem
to have been collecting things to
tell you ! You must have heard
me singing ‘Carmela.’ Don’t you remember
how they used to
sing it on the Grand Canal that year ? But I had no
mandoline
then. Mrs. Campbell gave it to me when she left. She told me
that Fé1ise could make nothing of it ! You never had much
opinion of
Félise, had you, Mr. Rivers ?” and Marcel, laughing
merrily
merrily at my gesture expressive of the weariness with which the
very
mention of Félise filled me, at once changed the subject to
one more
interesting.
“Have you been to Monreale yet, Mr. Rivers ? I have only
been once. Mother
let me sit on the box the first time she drove
out there.” (From this I
judged that Mrs. Van Lunn was not
alone at Palermo !) “May I go there with
you ? The terrace
is full of flowers now, and the custode will let us lunch there. I
have never forgotten our
luncheon on that island,” and so saying,
he pointed to a photograph of San
Francesco in Deserto, which
was pinned to the wall.
It saddened me, as I looked round, to see evidences of this being
the poor
child’s living-room as well as bedroom. A folding
music-desk stood in one
corner, while the dressing-table was littered
with books and papers. The
window looked into the garden,
thickly planted with fantastic tropical
plants, one great date-
palm growing so near that one could all but touch
the spiky
leaves.
“I think that your room is too near the garden to be quite
healthy,” I
remarked. “What does your mother say about
it?”
“Mother finds the stairs tiring, and she is afraid of lifts,” said
the
child, colouring. “She has never been up here ; her rooms
are nearly as
far from mine as you remember they were at Venice.
I have often asked
Salvatore, our courier, to take a room for me
close to hers, but he never
does.”
Spite of the schoolboy’s jacket and trousers which replaced the
sailor-suit, Marcel looked little less of a child than he had done at
Venice ; but I was glad to notice that his head was now quite on
a level
with my shoulder, and so his fragile appearance might
merely result from
his having outgrown his strength.
I asked
I asked him to come out with me and show me my way about
the town, which he
eagerly consented to do.
So it was that, for the next fortnight I saw a great deal of Marcel,
and
even exchanged a few words with his mother, and a cold
bow or two with
Monsieur, who, in a suit of tight white flannels,
lolled about the hall.
My first impression of Marcel, as singularly
little changed in the last
two years, was much modified. He had
grown more serious, and now never
referred to his dislike to
Monsieur, although I could see that it had in
no wise lessened.
His eagerness for information showed me that his
neglected edu-
cation was a grief to him, and I had soon made up my mind
that,
before again bidding him good-bye, I would overcome my
reluctance to seek an interview, and approach his mother upon the
subject
of sending her son to school. Marcel’s resolve of being a
Catholic was as
strong as ever, and the devotion which he paid at
the Lady-altar of any
church we happened to enter especially struck
me. Poor child ! It was as
though he had a conviction (never
confessed even to himself) that he
needed a woman’s love, such as
his own mother refused him, and sought and
found it in the
Divine Mother of God. Would not a sexless Protestantism
have
left his childish heart uncomforted ? In his room I noticed a
little figure of the blue-robed Immacolata on her
crescent, and I
wondered whether the day would come when he would know how
unfitted was the portrait of his mother to stand beside it.
One day Marcel told me what he considered delightful tidings.
Monsieur was
going away on business to Naples, while his mother
stayed on at Palermo.
This being so, I felt that Marcel stood in
no need of my company, and I
decided to seize the opportunity of
making a tour of the island, returning
to Palermo in a fortnight’s
time, and postponing until then the interview
with Mrs. Van
Lunn on her son’s behalf. Marcel was so elated at
Monsieur’s
departure
departure that he hardly expressed regret at mine, since I promised
to
return so soon. He would like to write to me though, he said,
but, as I
was travelling chiefly by sea, I could only give him the
name of the hotel
at Taormina, at which I intended spending the
last few days of my
fortnight.
Marcel was usually so methodical that I wondered at rinding
no letter
awaiting me, nor did I receive any during my four days’
sojourn at
Taormina. Again, at the station at Palermo, there
was no Marcel, although
at parting he had eagerly volunteered to
meet me, and although I had not
failed to send a post-card giving
the time of my arrival. Could it be that
Mrs. Van Lunn had
already gone ? I inquired of the landlord as soon as I
reached
the hotel. “He is here !” was the answer, “he has been ill ever
since you went away,” and I noticed how Signor Tiziano lowered
his
voice as a group of visitors went by.
“But what is the matter ?” I asked impatiently.
“Oh, a feverish attack ; but I must beg of you, sir, to say
nothing about
it. It will do me so much harm if it is known
that there is any sickness
in the house. But here comes the
English doctor !”
I gladly left Signor Tiziano’s side to inquire of the doctor after
his
little patient.
He looked very grave. “It’s a serious case,” he said, as I
followed him out
of the hotel ; “Malarial fever, caught from
sleeping in one of the rooms
looking on the garden. At this
season they are most unhealthy, but Tiziano
always gives them
when no particular inquiries are made, as seems to have
been the
case in this instance. The child seems strangely lacking in
re-
cuperative force, but to-day there is a decided improvement. He
has often asked for you, but, as I hope he may sleep, I must beg
of you to
wait until to-morrow to see him. Can you tell me, by
the
the way, whether the child is a Catholic ? The mother denies
it, but
certainly, in his delirium, he would constantly repeat pas-
sages of the
Rosary.”
I gave what information I could about Marcel’s religion. “He
is far too
much alone,” I added, “his is not a morbid tempera-
ment though a sensitive
one, but his life has been too empty of
the amusements natural to his
age.”
At ten o’clock next morning the doctor knocked at my door :
“Will you come
to see the child now ?” he said ; and I followed
him.
I was prepared for a great change in Marcel, but not for so
great a one as
I found. His curls had been shorn, so that the
little thin face was
outlined sharply upon the pillow. Too
weak to greet me except by a little
smile, I noticed how the
hand that lay upon the sheet moved restlessly,
and I took hold
of it to find the fingers scarcely able to return the
slightest
pressure.
I sat down beside him. “I am so grieved to find you like
this,” I said ;
“now, I shall not leave you until you have grown
quite strong again.” The
room struck me as sadder than sick
rooms are wont to be. All Marcel’s
little belongings were
heaped together in one corner, and covered with a
sheet, through
which I could trace the gourd-like outline of his
mandoline.
The photographs and music had been stripped from the walls, and
all that was left was the crucifix over his head, from behind
which
a plaited palm, which he had jealously guarded, had been
ruthlessly torn.
On the table beside him, among an array of
medicine bottles, soared the
Immacolata. His mother’s portrait
lay on
the bed within reach of his hand. The palm-leaves with-
out, swayed by the
sirocco, seemed to wave menaces. I sat there
for some time stroking the
hand that lay so passively in mine, and
The Yellow Book—Vol. XII. K
was
was glad to see that, far from exciting, my presence seemed to
soothe the
invalid, so that he soon fell asleep. I was so afraid of
moving, lest I
should awake him, that I did not get up when
Mrs. Van Lunn came in.
Apparently, she had come on my
account rather than her child s, for,
almost without glancing at
him, she handed me a visiting-card, on which I
read the words :
“Will you come to see me this afternoon ? Room 15.” It
was
no time for ceremony so I merely bowed my head in assent, and
she hurried away.
Directly after luncheon, I bade a waiter announce me to
Mrs. Van Lunn,
whom, to my surprise, I found in a room
encumbered with luggage. She
wasted a little time in pre-
liminary apologies for the untidiness of her
salon, and then said
that she ventured to
ask me to do her a service, which she had
the less hesitation in asking,
as she had noticed the kind
interest which I took in Marcel, of whom she
spoke as her
“dear child.”
Shortly, apart from many specious excuses, she proposed leaving
her only
child, whom she knew to be, at least, seriously ill, in the
care of a
stranger. She had received a telegram, she said, sum-
moning her to Naples
on business, and go she must, by the
evening steamer. She had observed my
kind feeling for Marcel,
and she hoped that, if I were staying on at
Palermo, I would
look in occasionally, and see that he was receiving
proper atten-
tion. She said that the child was so fond of me that she felt
quite happy about leaving him, and she had left a cheque with
Signor
Tiziano.
I was so amazed at the woman’s effrontery that I found myself
stammering
consent in disjointed sentences, and not doing what,
all the while, I felt
to be my duty, namely, to urge her to delay
her start at least for a few
days, lest the sorrow for her departure
should
should throw the child back again. I made the litter of packing
in the room
an excuse for hastily taking my leave, merely begging
her not to omit to
assure Marcel that I would stay with him until
she returned, which she
said she would certainly do within a week
or two.
I happened to be sitting, writing on my knee beside Marcel’s
bed, when his
mother came to tell him she was going away, but :
“Do not let me disturb you,” she said, “I can only stay a
minute.”
I could see by the way his countenance changed that her
travelling dress
had partly prepared Marcel for the announcement
she came to make. She
leant over to kiss him, “Marcel,” she
said, “I am obliged to go away for a
few days ; mind that you do
all that Mr. Rivers bids you, and next week I
shall hope to find
you almost yourself again. The doctor tells me that you
are
getting on famously.”
Marcel would have suffered anything at his mother’s hands
without a murmur,
and, though I saw his lips tremble, he merely
whispered :
“Good-bye, mother !” and Mrs. Van Lunn’s red lips brushed
her son’s
forehead, her tightly gloved hand was laid but for a
moment in mine,
before, with a tinkle of the little gold lucky-
bell at her wrist, she
went her way. I sat down to my
writing again, and, when next I looked up,
Marcel’s eyes were
brimming.
“Be a good, brave boy !” I said, laying my hand on his, which
were tightly
clasped together, and he smiled through his tears as
he said : “After all
it is Monsieur’s fault, mother did not want to
leave me.”
Next morning I inquired anxiously of the nursing-sister how
he had slept,
and was relieved at her fairly good report. Once,
indeed
indeed she told me that he had started from his pillow crying : “I
hate
him, I hate him,” and the words were so unlike her gentle
little patient
that she had feared a return of fever, but none such
had ensued. I knew
only too well to whom these words referred,
and I knew too that this
hatred had been begotten of love, as such
hates are.
The convalescence was so slow that the doctor recommended a
move to the
sunny side of the house. Signor Tiziano was loth to
allow it. He said that
if it once got about that there was sickness
in the house, his season was
spoilt ; but I insisted, and at last he
consented on condition that the
move was made under his personal
supervision and after dark. Accordingly
the room was made
ready and, at dead of night, Signor Tiziano in his
stockinged
feet held the light before me as I carried Marcel through the
passages. Spite of the many blankets in which he was wrapped,
I was
quite shocked at the lightness of my burden. As events
proved, we were
only too successful in effecting the change
noiselessly.
The child’s strength was gradually returning, and he had even
walked twice
up and down the room supporting himself by chairs
and tables, when one day
I looked into his room on my way out.
The sister with her finger on her
lip, pointed to where the little
invalid lay calmly asleep upon a sofa.
Softly I closed the door
behind me, but hardly had I done so, when it
appears that the
sister thought of something she required from the
chemist’s, and,
running after me, stopped me a few minutes in the hall.
What
happened in the interval I learned later !
The room next to Marcel’s had been empty some days, but, as
I had passed
down the passage, I had noticed a portmanteau at
the door and had
recognised the initials as belonging to an
English family called Ford,
whom I had known slightly at
Geneva
Geneva and whom I had grown to know better during my
stay at Palermo. Mrs.
Ford told me how that morning she
and her sister (not knowing that Marcel
was next door) fell
to discussing Mrs. Vann Lunn, whom they had seen and
observed
at Nice.
“I could forgive her anything save her neglect of that dear
child,” said
Mrs. Ford ; “he is in the hotel now, ill with fever,
from which a little
care would have preserved him, while she has
gone to amuse herself at
Naples.”
While she was speaking, she heard a soft knock, and almost
before she had
had time to answer, the door was pushed open with
a jerk, and Marcel,
supporting himself by the handle, stood before
her. Wasted with illness, a
feverish flush upon his cheek, he
exclaimed: “It is not true! Indeed,
indeed, it is not true.
Mother stayed here until the doctor said I was
nearly all right
again, and she did not want to go. It was Monsieur who
made
her, and she is ever so fond of me and ever so kind, and I love
her more than . . .” the poor child’s voice failed and Mrs. Ford
caught
him as he fell. Marcel had fainted.
The nurse came along the passage just then, and met the two
terrified
ladies carrying the boy back to his room. It was some
time ere he
recovered consciousness, and, even before the doctor
came, I knew the
truth : this last effort had overtaxed his feeble
stock of
strength—he was dying.
I lost no time in telegraphing for his mother and I told Marcel
that I had
done so, for, although giving no hope of his recovery,
the Doctor said
that he might last a week.
Poor child ! he seemed clinging to life, and the way in which
he eagerly
looked towards the door when any one came in or even
when there were
footsteps in the passage, told me for whose
coming he chiefly longed. What
could I do ? Mrs. Van Lunn
was
was possibly hurrying to him, possibly she had gone on beyond
Naples and
the telegram had not reached her (I have an English-
man’s distrust of
foreign posts). So I thought as I stood beside
the bedside, grieving that,
though Marcel looked the more
piteous when I left him, I was powerless to
give him his
heart’s desire. Suddenly my eye fell upon the Immacolata, who
was the more conspicuous that,
since the child was beyond
human aid, there was little need of medicine
bottles. Marcel’s
own mother had failed him, what of letting him draw
nearer
to the Mother of God ? I laid the blue and white statuette
upon the sheet before him and whispered, using the idiom
which I knew to
be familiar to him, “Would it be any comfort
to you if I went to San
Giuseppe’s, and asked the priest to
‘receive’ you ?”
We had forbidden him to speak and he was very docile, so he
merely bowed
his head in assent, while an expression of real delight
came over the wan
little face. I told the nursing-sister in a few
words what I intended to
do, and she was quite overcome with
joy. It had been such a grief to her,
she said, when she heard
that the child was only at heart a Catholic, and
therefore would be
denied the last sacraments.
It was still so early that I met the priest in the church, preceded
by a
tiny server about to celebrate Mass. I formed his con-
gregation in a
side-chapel, and followed him into the sacristy,
where my Italian but just
sufficed to tell him what I needed. I
explained how Marcel had been
instructed two years ago, had
constantly attended Mass and read the books
given him by Father
Simeon. I told him, too, that the child understood a
fair amount
of Latin. I was not personally attracted by the good Father.
He was evidently of the peasant class and totally uneducated
in all
but theology. For a moment, my heretic blood rebelled
against
against the idea of the gross, unkempt man having any dealings
with the
pure little body and soul of Marcel. But, as I talked, a
light of real
enthusiasm lit up the coarsely-moulded face, so that I
lost sight of the
man in the priest, and eagerly accepted his offer of
coming there and
then.
The ceremony was a short one, merely conditional Baptism, and
the
expression of peace on the little convert’s face more than repaid
me for
the responsibility which I had taken. He was sinking.
There was no doubt
of that, and it pained me to see how, even
now, his eyes were constantly
fixed upon the door. Evidently
the hope of seeing his mother had not quite
died out. The end
came even sooner than we had feared. Three days after
his
“reception” I was sitting beside him, when I saw his lips move
and bent down to listen :
“Tell her that I forgive . . .” But the effort to speak even so
few words
brought on so alarming an attack of faintness that I
sent for the priest,
who hastened to administer Extreme Unction.
The nursing-sister and I were
quite overcome with grief, but there
was little suffering. Only a few
moments of gasping for breath,
the hands let go their hold of the Immacolata, a look of almost
rapture was in his
eyes as a little sobbing cry of “Mother !”
burst from him, and so startled
me that I, too, turned and looked
towards the door, expecting to see that
Mrs. Van Lunn had
indeed come. But, no ! and, when again I looked at the
little
figure in the bed, I saw that all was over.
Was it a vision of the blue-robed, star-crowned Madonna that
he had so
greeted, or one of Mrs. Van Lunn, in her Doucet
tra-
velling suit, as he had seen her last, as he had so longed to see
her again ?
* * * * * *
It was about six months after this that, one day in Paris, my
eye,
eye, catching sight of a familiar name among the society para-
graphs in
Galignani, I read the following announcement
:
Wedding.—At the American Church of the
Ascension, on Thursday,
the loth inst., Lillie, widow of Hyman F. Van
Lunn, of Kansas,
U.S.A., was married to M. Casimir Portel, of the Villa
Paradis, Nice.
So Mrs. Van Lunn was rangée. The obstacle had been
removed.
MLA citation:
Milman, Lena. “Marcel: An Hotel-Child.” The Yellow Book, vol. 12, January 1897, pp. 141-164. Yellow Book Digital Edition, edited by Dennis Denisoff and Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, 2010-2014. Yellow Nineties 2.0, Ryerson University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2020. https://1890s.ca/YBV12_milman_marcel/