The Adventures of Allegra Fullerton (33 page)

“I do. Yes, I understand.”

B
Y THE NEW YEAR
, 1848, all Rome seemed to know that Italy was rising toward a great crisis. Even if the rains had not quit, there was to be another storm yet—the bursting of revolutionary passions throughout Europe. In Rome we heard cries of “Viva Pope Pius IX! Death to the Jesuits!” Milan exploded in the tobacco riots, against the monopoly of the Austrian tyrants, and ended in the massacre of eighty Milanese. In Palermo, on the very birthday of the Bourbon King Ferdinando, insurrection arose and then spread to Sicily and Naples. Demands were made, and later met, for a constitution in Piedmont and Tuscany. The people of Rome grew frantic with hope and fear at the news of the uprisings and suppressions. No one doubted war, or a series of battles like a string of deadly explosions rippling over the land. And by March Miss Fuller's Adam Mickiewicz was in Rome to muster a legion of Polish exiles to fight beside the Italians.

There was a single glorious March-mild day of respite from all such concerns and wet weather, when Margaret, her
Caro Giovane
, Mickiewicz, and I rode out for a gallop on the Campagna. Ossoli led us to a grassy, flowery, undulating stretch of ground where we all suddenly gave free rein to our horses, who leapt madly for the vigorous chase. Larks overhead soared in circles and spirals of melody toward purple clouds that flung their shadows on the turf about us and endampened the powerful smell of violets crushed beneath our horses' hooves. Such delicious images and sensations—the very spirit of spring it seemed—constituted a day of perfect pleasures of body and soul.

And yet there was apprehension, as I say, and I grew fearful for my own safety. I found it more and more difficult to hold on to the Carbonari belief in the destined coming of liberty, unity, and self-rule under a constitutional monarchy. It must have been such hope among the people, however, that turned the enduring spring showers into manna during Carnival week, making even the dreary rains feel suddenly alive and golden. Romans thronged the Corso, dressing as if spring had indeed arrived, throwing flowers at one another as they sang. Women in ball dresses and costumes piled into carriages and drove up and down in the rain.
Contadine
sat in the streets in white cambric dresses and straw hats filled with roses. From all the myriad balconies hangings of bright red, green, blue, white, and gold stirred damply in the shifting breezes, and from windows and housetops and parapets streamers of rich, gaudy, or sparkling colors flapped outward upon the street. Shopfronts had been taken down so that parties might fill them like boxes at a theater to watch the crowds and carriages and the races of riderless horses decorated with shining ornaments, plaited manes, and spiky goads and bells. Masked balls filled the evenings—the German Artists' ball, featuring music, the Italian ball, featuring intrigue, and so on, where every manner of creature and character frolicked. A few churches were even plundered in all this exuberance and melee.

As much as Miss Fuller rejoiced to be in the center of it all, as much as the rebellions and the celebrations were salutary to the Italian people, I nonetheless felt it all to be distraction and danger. By spring, I was certain that any city might be engulfed, and certainly Rome might. In the Colosseum young men enlisted by the thousands. It was not safe either to flee to France or Germany—the bourgeois king, Louis Philippe, dethroned, Metternich crushed in Austria, the fires of revolution burned everywhere.

That April, to take but one instance, when the Pope announced that he could not make war, the Roman people, who had been ecstatic and celebrating, turned angry and, led by the wine-carrier-turned-orator Ciceruacchio, began to riot. Then a young follower, whom I had seen haranguing a crowd outside the Caffé delle Belle Arti, was later kicked to death by members of one reactionary faction or another, some blaming the Sanfedists.

As I had suspected, it was not long that fateful year before the forces of reaction strengthened in the south as well as in the north, and I began to feel mutiny and anarchy at every turn.

So I determined to return to America. I wrote the Spooners to explain my developing plans and ask whether they wished to accompany me. I could not help fearing for their safety as well. Many of the English and Americans had begun their flight, I explained, and even the Germans, French, and Russians were recalled to homelands. But Mr. Spooner and Gibbon were in the midst of several commissions, he felt not the same forebodings as I in still-quiet Florence, and they were no doubt feeling the scars of my leaving them behind. So they determined to stay on.

Thus did I spend the end of April and early May completing my last commissions, packing my belongings, terminating my years of Italian studies, and arranging for transit home. I did not know that my last letter to Tom would never reach him, for even as I posted it, he had already left England to make his progress to Florence in futile search of me.

TWENTY-FIVE

The wreck of the Elizabeth

I
did not regret my flight to America. In those few letters from Miss Fuller, I came to understand the misery and real danger I had left behind. The following spring and summer she had experienced the demise of the new Roman Republic, if one could say there ever was one. Garibaldi, after his heroic return from twelve years of exile and guerrilla warfare in Uruguay, was never the savior of Rome; Charles Albert of Piedmont marched again against the Austrians, only to be defeated at Novara; the French had decided to “liberate” Rome from her Italian anarchy, and by June had placed the city in a state of siege. Amidst all this, Miss Fuller had taken to directing the hospital of
Fate Bene Fratelli
, and soon the dying and wounded had begun to pour in. French shells slammed into the city. “Rome,” she wrote to me, “is being destroyed. The glorious oaks, the villa Raphael, the Villa Albani, the home of Winckelmann, and many other sanctuaries of beauty.”

And by the end of June, the French had breached the Janiculum, and Garibaldi had left with thousands to regroup and continue the struggle wherever destiny might lead him. This news soon arrived in America; and I recall reading Miss Fuller's descriptions of Garibaldi's legion in their red tunics, Greek caps, and long hair blowing back from their resolute, courageous faces. They left the city following their hero in his bold white tunic, in many cases leaving their wives and families behind with Mazzini. Her letters caused me great fear for my friend's life and, though they were safer in Florence for the moment, for the Spooners' lives as well. Yet she would not return, however much her friends and family pleaded, however loud the El Doradon blandishments of the American future—the expansions of the Mexican War, the discoveries of gold in California, the promises of an unlimited future.

On the contrary, such pleas seemed to harden her resolve, as her articles for the
Tribune
made clear. “They talk of my country as the land of the future,” she wrote. “It is so, but that spirit which made it all it is of value in my eyes … is more alive here at present than in America. My country is spoiled by prosperity, stupid with lust of gain, soiled by crime in its willing perpetuation of slavery, shamed by an unjust war, noble sentiment much forgotten even by individuals, the aims of politicians selfish or petty, the literature frivolous and venal. In Europe, amid the teachings of adversity, a nobler spirit is struggling—a spirit which cheers and animates mine!”

With another letter I enclosed a newspaper account describing the first meeting for women's rights in Seneca Falls, New York, but that gambit elicited little response. She had become completely absorbed by her struggles for freedom in Italy and for her day-to-day security.

Yet here I was, finally settled in Boston. Hearing of my return, Mr. Neal continued to support and promote my work; and he continued to send me books—and lists of books—that I should read, a practice he had begun prior to my sojourn abroad. I found myself enjoying a modest reputation, and I was engaged in new commissions from prosperous clients. By now, however, I discovered itinerant Professors of Daguerreotypy setting up their saloons and studios across the countryside or, in the cities, devoting galleries, entire emporia, to this hunger for inexpensive images. And Boston had become the very center of the Daguerreotype.

In the
Evening Transcript
I had seen among the largest advertisements of these Daguerreotypists the announcement of one “Mr. Charles Sparhawk, Professor of Daguerreotypy, Portraits and Views to Order.”

GOLD AND SILVER MEDALS FOR BEST PICTURES AND PLATES

DAGUERREOTYPE ROOMS ARE AT 7 TREMONT ROW

Portraits taken every day without regard to weather, with or without colors, and warranted
superior
to any taken
in this city
or elsewhere,
or no charge
. By the aid of new chemical agents, likenesses are portrayed in a moment, and by your wishes set in frames, cases, pins, or lockets.

Two separate departments for photography, one of which is expressly for ladies.

A variety of specimens may be seen at these rooms, which the ladies and gentlemen of Boston are invited to call and examine.

So old Chas had traded his brush for a camera, as many other limners had. I paid little attention to that fact and to his presence in the city at first. But in several months' time my curiosity got the better of me and I found myself standing outside 7 Tremont Row looking up as if expecting to espy Chas at work through his very window. Eventually, I took the next step and waited on a queue slowly growing behind me, and consisting mostly of energetic young women and girls, with a sprinkling of children with their mothers, and a couple or two.

When my turn came, a young assistant, wearing a provocative indigo dress, opened the door and flashed me a brilliant stage smile. I walked in; Chas was turning from his apparatus to greet his next sitter.

“Allegra!” he cried, motioning to his surprised assistant—a dark but cheery, bustling young woman with big shiny eyes—to close the door quickly.

“Good Lord, woman,” he then said, “why didn't you tell me you had returned … send me a note, or your card, so's we might meet privately?” In two strides he was at my side and holding me by the arm and hand. He looked at his assistant and said, “No more today, Nan. Thank you very much. Ten o'clock tomorrow morning, then?”

She nodded, smiled, opened the door and announced in her sweetest voice that there had been a mechanical difficulty with Mr. Sparhawk's photographic apparatus; he would reopen at ten sharp the next morning, portraits at twenty-percent discount for the inconvenience. She closed the door, put on her cloak and hat, placed her umbrella over her arm, smiled at us pleasantly one last time, and went her way.

“She's perfectly trained, Chas,” I said.

“My dear, dear Allegra!” He took me firmly by the shoulders and smiled down at me. He was wearing a dark brown coat and vest, a great golden scarf tied and pinned cravat fashion, and trousers of a brown and yellow check. His white-blond hair and beard were now quite trim, and he was as dazzlingly handsome as I had remembered him. “Come here a moment,” he said, and moved me toward a raised settee beneath a skylight and a sort of moveable sounding board. He sat me down and silently adjusted me for a portrait. Then he went to his camera and began rapid and precise operations upon that strange box made of several woods, and with a metallic, porcine lens sticking out at me. At his camera, he began to tell me of his learning the process from Mr. Plumbe himself, and assured me that making such photographic images as he did had become the sole source of his livelihood. He now spent May through October in and about Boston, traveling if business grew the slightest bit sluggish, and November through April in and about Charleston.

“One must change with the times, Allegra,” he said. “Let me show you how simple this is. Now, hold absolutely still, my dear, until I tell you to move again.”

“I suppose one must change with the times. There seems little demand for quickly painted likenesses these days.”

“So it is. There now. No movement or talking just now, if you please. Ah, yes … . So it is, my dear. One changes as one must … and benefits wonderfully. I admit that I like this work, much prefer it to the other now that I'm in it up to my nose. It has simplified things, Allegra. It really has. And much more lucrative.” He busied himself about some adjustments and attentions to his new mechanism while I sat still as a stone for him.

“Would you yourself be left behind, my dear?” he continued, laughing lightly. “No, don't answer.” He held up his hand while his apparatus registered my image. “There,” he said. “There. All done. Your exact image … I have captured you here forever now, my darling.” He laughed. “And you will simply have to believe, this time, precisely what you see.”

“Left behind?” I said, when he motioned me to relax. “I no longer wish to live as a limner, either. I have traveled another path, you see.”

“Oh yes. The fine arts! But hardly a source of income, wouldn't you say?” He began putting his equipment away carefully. “With those rare exceptions we all know of. Like your famous Mr. Spooner, for example.”

“It's the life I've chosen.”

“Ah, of course,” he said, but he was still busy attending to his machine. “No doubt of your gift … And your … constancy, my dear.” He laughed. “No doubt at all.”

Finally, he returned to help me off the seat. We stepped from the platform and he held me by the shoulders again, looking directly into my eyes. “And beautiful as ever, too. No: more so, more so! Italy has agreed with you. I'll have to see some of your new work soon!”

“I'm very busy at the moment. I just wanted to say hello. For the sake of our old times together.”

He bent over and kissed me softly and deliciously, and without urgency. “And I couldn't be more delighted that you have. Now, tell me, darling, truly. What would you say if I asked you to join me? Really. I mean it. I could teach you in a day to make these true images. Everyone loves them.” He returned briefly to his apparatus, withdrew a small plate upon which he worked some further chemic adjustments, returned to me with a small image of myself, looking rather pale and stiffened (rather like a corpse in a mirror, I thought), and smiled as he held the product of his wizardry before me.

“An easy income once you are set up,” he went on, “and here I am all set, you see. At five bills a snap, we can be dancing together. Your independence would be assured. And travel, we could travel together, or you could stay here in Boston, whether I travel about or no. And of course join me in the mild sweet winters of old Charleston.”

“Are you proposing marriage, Chas? I can't believe it.”

“Marriage, my dear? Well, not necessarily, you see. Is that your desire?”

I laughed. “I only desire to continue as I am.”

“Well, then, there you have it! You can travel or not, as you wish. Learn the process or not. Continue to paint! Do whatever you want, entirely. Yet you should be with me and I with you. As we once were, you see. I'll get us new rooms, and you can join me … as soon as I have them.”

“You can't be serious. Here in Boston?”

“Oh, to Hell with people and their silly scandals! What should we care? I ask you. I tell you, times are changing, in every way, my dear. We can tell people whatever they want to hear. Married, not married. You decide on that—whatever's your pleasure.”

“My pleasure, Chas, is to remain constant to what I have done, am doing, and have set out to do.”

“So it shall be!” He laughed. “Only we can be together too. And why not, why shouldn't we be then?”

“And your pretty young assistant? What did you call her?”

“Nan,” he said and grinned broadly. “She's a sweet, luscious, young bit of stuff. I won't play the fool by denying that, and a great help to me. But she needn't stay on if you don't want her about. I can train some old crone to assist me.”

“Chas, am I the fool? Boston, and I dare say Charleston, are full of sweet, luscious young bits of stuff. They are a penny-a-score. Look, my dear old Chas. I did not come here for a marriage proposal, nor to make any … arrangements, only to say hello and see how you were getting on. It's nothing more than that. Not anymore. Can you believe me?”

He smiled, reached for me, and lifted me up off the floor. Then he set me down and kissed me again. Longer this time and deeper, his hands starting to rove with a sort of tender familiarity that set me softly atingle like some silly schoolgirl. “We'll see if you don't change your mind,” he murmured.

I pulled away. “Still the old Chas, just as I expected. I know you only too well! Your new clothes, your new process, all your changing with the times—well, that's all fine enough, but underneath it's Chas, Chas, Chas.”

He laughed. But he left off his campaign, rather more readily than I had expected, and I was thankful for it. No doubt he believed I would in time think better of his proposals. I wouldn't say I was not tempted. But I left him, disappointed yet in good spirits, with a promise to meet him again for a late dinner some two days hence.

A
LL THIS IS NOT TO SAY
, as well, that there were not those who still had the desire and the means for oil portraits. I began to see, moreover, that sales and commissions were as likely to proceed from landscapes, seascapes, still-lifes, and narrative pieces, so that I was now more at liberty to continue developing my skill along these lines than previously. The difficulty, as always, was in striking the balance between the temptations to slide over into mercenary productions merely or to fall over the other side into that eternal limbo of impoverished, debilitated fine artists. I bent my every effort toward that balance which would sustain me both as an artist and as a woman-without-means who had to earn her own way.

Whenever I stopped to consider my circumstances after returning to America, I understood my good fortune in being unmarried still. “My art,” Michaelangelo is reported to have answered when asked why he never married, “is my mistress and has given me trouble enough!” I truly began to understand Monsieur Nantieul. And in later years, I have kept a name above my easel as a warning:
Francis Alexander
—that fashionable old portrait painter who ended his productive years as a mere copyist of masterworks for British and American tourists in Florence.

But during that first year of my return to Boston, I kept in my workroom a different token, something I had copied out from one of Mr. Ruskin's letters to me in America. He had been writing about the necessity of sustaining proportions in my life.

“The distinction is inevitable,” he wrote. “Is your art first with you? Then you are an artist; you may be, after you have made your money, a miser and usurer; you may be, after you have got your fame, jealous and proud, and wretched and base; but yet, as long as you won't spoil your work, you are an artist. On the other hand, is your money first with you, and your fame first with you? Then you may be very charitable with your money, and very magnificent with your money, and very graceful in the way you wear your reputation, and very courteous to those beneath you, and very acceptable to those above you; but you are
not
an artist. You are a mechanic and a drudge.”