Michael Dibdin - A Rich Full Death

It proved, however, to be with Mr Browning that I was most particularly taken-surprisingly, since the object of reverence is of course his wife, to whose genius he ministers in the role of sacristan. And yet, for whatever reason I cannot tell, he struck me almost more forcefully than she. No doubt the fact that I had not expected anything in that direction heightened the effect. Certainly there was nothing whatever remarkable or ‘interesting’ about his appearance. An honest robust no-nonsense English gentleman is all one would take him for: about my own height, with a silvery-grey beard and dark, straight, neatly trimmed hair. Everything about him, indeed, is scrupulously neat and tidy; completely lacking in any hint of eccentricity or cheap artistic affectations of the sort that Powers, for example, is by no means innocent of. But neither is there any suggestion of fussiness or lack of manly vitality. On the contrary, Mr Browning’s manner is forthright, virile and energetic in the extreme; his voice vibrant and full of expression; while his gestures seem more Italian than English, being large, frequent and emphatic. In short, a man’s man-a woman’s too, if I am any judge.

As for his wife, what can I say that has not already been said? It is like trying to say a fresh thing about Florence itself. I will therefore restrict myself to confirming the veracity of the many published accounts-and add my impertinent two cents’ worth to the effect that they are a mighty odd couple. Him I have already described; now picture, if you please, a woman of more than a certain age, swaddled in rugs and propped up in an armchair too large for her, for all the world like an outsize doll; fearfully tiny and pale, with a shrill squeaky voice and features pinched with age and suffering, sickly, drained of all vigour, her general pallor accentuated by the thick black ringlets hanging about her face like funeral drapes.

Such is Elizabeth Barrett Browning-a creature seemingly more akin to one of the ectoplasmic apparitions she so fervently believes in than to any woman of flesh and blood. On her undoubted poetic gifts, on the spirituality which observers have described as shining from her face as light from a lamp, I do not presume to comment. My unspoken question was rather, granted all the genius and spirituality in the world, what the devil can be in it for a man like him? To drag out his days in that dim shadowy shrine of a drawing-room, heavy with tapestries and old Florentine furniture and a bust of Dante glaring at you from the sideboard?

There I was, at any event, and it felt enough that I was there, planted squarely atop the Matterhorn and coolly surveying the view in this fashion.

About eight o’clock, as Mr Browning was in the middle of one of his seemingly inexhaustible supply of lively anecdotes, a servant entered to inform him that someone was at the door with a message. Browning went to investigate. After several minutes he returned looking rather flustered, excused himself, and said that he had unexpectedly to go out. When his wife quite naturally enquired as to the reason for this, Browning muttered something about a man named DeVere.

Now I know a Cecil DeVere, and I therefore innocently asked if the man in question were he. To my surprise, Mr Browning shot me a look of-I don’t know exactly what, but no very warm or happy emotion-and replied that it might be, he was not sure. Mr Powers saved the situation by remarking that his wife and brood of children would be expecting him, and that he too must be going. For a moment it occurred to me take Browning’s ‘No, please don’t leave on my account’ at its face value, and remain a deux with Elizabeth Barrett Browning! But it crossed my mind that this might be a trifle forward, and jeopardise my chances of future invitations to the Guidi palace. I therefore took an elaborate leave of the poetess, with fervent expressions of hope that we might meet again very shortly-to which, it seemed to me, she replied with genuine warmth! — and walked out with the other men.

At the door, I suggested to Mr Browning that we walk together to Cecil DeVere’s house, which lies on the river bank along my natural route home. With an appearance of some confusion, he declined, explaining that the meeting was not at DeVere’s house itself but at a suburban villa. As luck would have it, a cab came along at that moment, returning to the rank opposite the Pitti palace-for the Brownings’ residence is in the most fashionable part of town, just opposite that of the Grand Duke himself-and Mr Browning immediately hailed it.

I did not hear the direction which he gave to the cab-driver-indeed, I fancy he deliberately moderated his voice to prevent my doing so. In which case he missed his object, for the man bawled it out in the strident tones of his profession, together with many expressions of his unwillingness to go so far outside the walls at that time of night. Imagine my feelings when I learned that the address to which Mr Robert Browning had been suddenly and secretly summoned was none other than the villa in which Isabel and her husband had been living for the past five months!

Literally open-mouthed I watched Browning overcome the cabbie’s scruples by liberal recourse to the persuasive powers of coin of the realm. He then took a very perfunctory leave of me, and mounted, shooing the urchin who had delivered the message in ahead of him. As soon as I had recovered my wits I ran down the street to the cab-rank and engaged the solitary vehicle I found standing there, and a few minutes later was also on my way towards the remote villa on Bellosguardo hill.

It was not until we passed through the Roman Gate and outside the protecting circlet of the walls that I realised how violent the wind had become. It was a northerly-the dreaded tramontana which sweeps down on Italy like the barbarian hordes of old, and against which poor Florence’s only defence is that massive and high circuit of stone designed to keep out the French, Germans, Milanese, and all the other bloodthirsty bands which once roamed this land, but whose only function nowadays is as a wind-break. Once we got outside the blast hurled itself at the cab like an animate and malignant force, pawing the vehicle about like a cat toying with a mortally-wounded mouse. The clouds had all been stripped from the sky, and the light of the full moon revealed the landscape of cypresses and olives in varying intensities of luminous grey.

As the cab crawled up the steep hillside I tried to explain to my satisfaction just what Cecil DeVere could be doing summoning Robert Browning to a rendezvous at the Eakins’ villa at eight o’clock on a Sunday night. DeVere, I should explain, is a young Englishman of the languid aristocratic type, who is nominally Her Britannic Majesty’s Consul at Spezia, a small port on the Tuscan coast. This post is in fact a perfect sinecure, and the fortunate DeVere visits the town only in those summer months when the heat drives everyone out of Florence. For the remainder of the year he lives here in the most complete idleness, devoting his energies to his wardrobe, his collection of ancient coins and medallions, and the social round of receptions, balls and afternoon drives in the Cascine gardens. He is a pleasant enough fellow, whose extensive range of contacts I found more useful during my early years here than I do now that I have established myself. None of which went any way at all towards explaining the mystery.

If the wind had seemed strong on the slopes of the hill, the effect at the top, more than two hundred feet above the river valley, was truly indescribable. More than once I feared that the cab would be overturned, and in fact when we reached the gates of the villa-which stood wide open-the driver roundly refused to go any further. Rather than waste precious time arguing I alighted and proceeded on foot.