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Forster</h3> + +<br> + + +<h3 align="CENTER">Chapter 1</h3> + +<p>They were all at Charing Cross to see Lilia off--Philip, +Harriet, Irma, Mrs. Herriton herself. Even Mrs. Theobald, +squired by Mr. Kingcroft, had braved the journey from Yorkshire +to bid her only daughter good-bye. Miss Abbott was likewise +attended by numerous relatives, and the sight of so many people +talking at once and saying such different things caused Lilia to +break into ungovernable peals of laughter.<br> + "Quite an ovation," she cried, sprawling out of her +first-class carriage. "They'll take us for royalty. Oh, Mr. +Kingcroft, get us foot-warmers."<br> + The good-natured young man hurried away, and Philip, taking +his place, flooded her with a final stream of advice and +injunctions--where to stop, how to learn Italian, when to use +mosquito-nets, what pictures to look at. "Remember," he +concluded, "that it is only by going off the track that you get +to know the country. See the little towns--Gubbio, Pienza, +Cortona, San Gemignano, Monteriano. And don't, let me beg you, +go with that awful tourist idea that Italy's only a museum of +antiquities and art. Love and understand the Italians, for the +people are more marvellous than the land."<br> + "How I wish you were coming, Philip," she said, flattered at +the unwonted notice her brother-in-law was giving her.<br> + "I wish I were." He could have managed it without great +difficulty, for his career at the Bar was not so intense as to +prevent occasional holidays. But his family disliked his +continual visits to the Continent, and he himself often found +pleasure in the idea that he was too busy to leave town.<br> + "Good-bye, dear every one. What a whirl!" She caught sight +of her little daughter Irma, and felt that a touch of maternal +solemnity was required. "Good-bye, darling. Mind you're always +good, and do what Granny tells you."<br> + She referred not to her own mother, but to her mother-in-law, +Mrs. Herriton, who hated the title of Granny.<br> + Irma lifted a serious face to be kissed, and said cautiously, +"I'll do my best."<br> + "She is sure to be good," said Mrs. Herriton, who was +standing pensively a little out of the hubbub. But Lilia was +already calling to Miss Abbott, a tall, grave, rather +nice-looking young lady who was conducting her adieus in a more +decorous manner on the platform.<br> + "Caroline, my Caroline! Jump in, or your chaperon will go +off without you."<br> + And Philip, whom the idea of Italy always intoxicated, had +started again, telling her of the supreme moments of her coming +journey--the Campanile of Airolo, which would burst on her when +she emerged from the St. Gothard tunnel, presaging the future; +the view of the Ticino and Lago Maggiore as the train climbed the +slopes of Monte Cenere; the view of Lugano, the view of +Como--Italy gathering thick around her now--the arrival at her +first resting-place, when, after long driving through dark and +dirty streets, she should at last behold, amid the roar of trams +and the glare of arc lamps, the buttresses of the cathedral of +Milan.<br> + "Handkerchiefs and collars," screamed Harriet, "in my inlaid +box! I've lent you my inlaid box."<br> + "Good old Harry!" She kissed every one again, and there was +a moment's silence. They all smiled steadily, excepting Philip, +who was choking in the fog, and old Mrs. Theobald, who had begun +to cry. Miss Abbott got into the carriage. The guard himself +shut the door, and told Lilia that she would be all right. Then +the train moved, and they all moved with it a couple of steps, +and waved their handkerchiefs, and uttered cheerful little +cries. At that moment Mr. Kingcroft reappeared, carrying a +footwarmer by both ends, as if it was a tea-tray. He was sorry +that he was too late, and called out in a quivering voice, +"Good-bye, Mrs. Charles. May you enjoy yourself, and may God +bless you."<br> + Lilia smiled and nodded, and then the absurd position of the +foot-warmer overcame her, and she began to laugh again.<br> + "Oh, I am so sorry," she cried back, "but you do look so +funny. Oh, you all look so funny waving! Oh, pray!" And +laughing helplessly, she was carried out into the fog.<br> + "High spirits to begin so long a journey," said Mrs. +Theobald, dabbing her eyes.<br> + Mr. Kingcroft solemnly moved his head in token of agreement. +"I wish," said he, "that Mrs. Charles had gotten the footwarmer. +These London porters won't take heed to a country chap."<br> + "But you did your best," said Mrs. Herriton. "And I think it +simply noble of you to have brought Mrs. Theobald all the way +here on such a day as this." Then, rather hastily, she shook +hands, and left him to take Mrs. Theobald all the way back.<br> + Sawston, her own home, was within easy reach of London, and +they were not late for tea. Tea was in the dining-room, with an +egg for Irma, to keep up the child's spirits. The house seemed +strangely quiet after a fortnight's bustle, and their +conversation was spasmodic and subdued. They wondered whether +the travellers had got to Folkestone, whether it would be at all +rough, and if so what would happen to poor Miss Abbott.<br> + "And, Granny, when will the old ship get to Italy?" asked +Irma.<br> + "'Grandmother,' dear; not 'Granny,'" said Mrs. Herriton, +giving her a kiss. "And we say 'a boat' or 'a steamer,' not 'a +ship.' Ships have sails. And mother won't go all the way by +sea. You look at the map of Europe, and you'll see why. +Harriet, take her. Go with Aunt Harriet, and she'll show you the +map."<br> + "Righto!" said the little girl, and dragged the reluctant +Harriet into the library. Mrs. Herriton and her son were left +alone. There was immediately confidence between them.<br> + "Here beginneth the New Life," said Philip.<br> + "Poor child, how vulgar!" murmured Mrs. Herriton. "It's +surprising that she isn't worse. But she has got a look of poor +Charles about her."<br> + "And--alas, alas!--a look of old Mrs. Theobald. What +appalling apparition was that! I did think the lady was +bedridden as well as imbecile. Why ever did she come?"<br> + "Mr. Kingcroft made her. I am certain of it. He wanted to +see Lilia again, and this was the only way."<br> + "I hope he is satisfied. I did not think my sister-in-law +distinguished herself in her farewells."<br> + Mrs. Herriton shuddered. "I mind nothing, so long as she has +gone--and gone with Miss Abbott. It is mortifying to think that +a widow of thirty-three requires a girl ten years younger to look +after her."<br> + "I pity Miss Abbott. Fortunately one admirer is chained to +England. Mr. Kingcroft cannot leave the crops or the climate or +something. I don't think, either, he improved his chances +today. He, as well as Lilia, has the knack of being absurd in +public."<br> + Mrs. Herriton replied, "When a man is neither well bred, nor +well connected, nor handsome, nor clever, nor rich, even Lilia +may discard him in time."<br> + "No. I believe she would take any one. Right up to the +last, when her boxes were packed, she was 'playing' the chinless +curate. Both the curates are chinless, but hers had the dampest +hands. I came on them in the Park. They were speaking of the +Pentateuch."<br> + "My dear boy! If possible, she has got worse and worse. It +was your idea of Italian travel that saved us!"<br> + Philip brightened at the little compliment. "The odd part is +that she was quite eager--always asking me for information; and +of course I was very glad to give it. I admit she is a +Philistine, appallingly ignorant, and her taste in art is false. +Still, to have any taste at all is something. And I do believe +that Italy really purifies and ennobles all who visit her. She +is the school as well as the playground of the world. It is +really to Lilia's credit that she wants to go there."<br> + "She would go anywhere," said his mother, who had heard +enough of the praises of Italy. "I and Caroline Abbott had the +greatest difficulty in dissuading her from the Riviera."<br> + "No, Mother; no. She was really keen on Italy. This travel +is quite a crisis for her." He found the situation full of +whimsical romance: there was something half attractive, half +repellent in the thought of this vulgar woman journeying to +places he loved and revered. Why should she not be +transfigured? The same had happened to the Goths.<br> + Mrs. Herriton did not believe in romance nor in +transfiguration, nor in parallels from history, nor in anything +else that may disturb domestic life. She adroitly changed the +subject before Philip got excited. Soon Harriet returned, having +given her lesson in geography. Irma went to bed early, and was +tucked up by her grandmother. Then the two ladies worked and +played cards. Philip read a book. And so they all settled down +to their quiet, profitable existence, and continued it without +interruption through the winter.<br> + It was now nearly ten years since Charles had fallen in love +with Lilia Theobald because she was pretty, and during that time +Mrs. Herriton had hardly known a moment's rest. For six months +she schemed to prevent the match, and when it had taken place she +turned to another task--the supervision of her daughter-in-law. +Lilia must be pushed through life without bringing discredit on +the family into which she had married. She was aided by Charles, +by her daughter Harriet, and, as soon as he was old enough, by +the clever one of the family, Philip. The birth of Irma made +things still more difficult. But fortunately old Mrs. Theobald, +who had attempted interference, began to break up. It was an +effort to her to leave Whitby, and Mrs. Herriton discouraged the +effort as far as possible. That curious duel which is fought +over every baby was fought and decided early. Irma belonged to +her father's family, not to her mother's.<br> + Charles died, and the struggle recommenced. Lilia tried to +assert herself, and said that she should go to take care of Mrs. +Theobald. It required all Mrs. Herriton's kindness to prevent +her. A house was finally taken for her at Sawston, and there for +three years she lived with Irma, continually subject to the +refining influences of her late husband's family.<br> + During one of her rare Yorkshire visits trouble began again. +Lilia confided to a friend that she liked a Mr. Kingcroft +extremely, but that she was not exactly engaged to him. The news +came round to Mrs. Herriton, who at once wrote, begging for +information, and pointing out that Lilia must either be engaged +or not, since no intermediate state existed. It was a good +letter, and flurried Lilia extremely. She left Mr. Kingcroft +without even the pressure of a rescue-party. She cried a great +deal on her return to Sawston, and said she was very sorry. Mrs. +Herriton took the opportunity of speaking more seriously about +the duties of widowhood and motherhood than she had ever done +before. But somehow things never went easily after. Lilia would +not settle down in her place among Sawston matrons. She was a +bad housekeeper, always in the throes of some domestic crisis, +which Mrs. Herriton, who kept her servants for years, had to step +across and adjust. She let Irma stop away from school for +insufficient reasons, and she allowed her to wear rings. She +learnt to bicycle, for the purpose of waking the place up, and +coasted down the High Street one Sunday evening, falling off at +the turn by the church. If she had not been a relative, it would +have been entertaining. But even Philip, who in theory loved +outraging English conventions, rose to the occasion, and gave her +a talking which she remembered to her dying day. It was just +then, too, that they discovered that she still allowed Mr. +Kingcroft to write to her "as a gentleman friend," and to send +presents to Irma.<br> + Philip thought of Italy, and the situation was saved. +Caroline, charming, sober, Caroline Abbott, who lived two +turnings away, was seeking a companion for a year's travel. +Lilia gave up her house, sold half her furniture, left the other +half and Irma with Mrs. Herriton, and had now departed, amid +universal approval, for a change of scene.<br> + She wrote to them frequently during the winter--more +frequently than she wrote to her mother. Her letters were always +prosperous. Florence she found perfectly sweet, Naples a dream, +but very whiffy. In Rome one had simply to sit still and feel. +Philip, however, declared that she was improving. He was +particularly gratified when in the early spring she began to +visit the smaller towns that he had recommended. "In a place +like this," she wrote, "one really does feel in the heart of +things, and off the beaten track. Looking out of a Gothic window +every morning, it seems impossible that the middle ages have +passed away." The letter was from Monteriano, and concluded with +a not unsuccessful description of the wonderful little town.<br> + "It is something that she is contented," said Mrs. Herriton. +"But no one could live three months with Caroline Abbott and not +be the better for it."<br> + Just then Irma came in from school, and she read her mother's +letter to her, carefully correcting any grammatical errors, for +she was a loyal supporter of parental authority--Irma listened +politely, but soon changed the subject to hockey, in which her +whole being was absorbed. They were to vote for colours that +afternoon--yellow and white or yellow and green. What did her +grandmother think?<br> + Of course Mrs. Herriton had an opinion, which she sedately +expounded, in spite of Harriet, who said that colours were +unnecessary for children, and of Philip, who said that they were +ugly. She was getting proud of Irma, who had certainly greatly +improved, and could no longer be called that most appalling of +things--a vulgar child. She was anxious to form her before her +mother returned. So she had no objection to the leisurely +movements of the travellers, and even suggested that they should +overstay their year if it suited them.<br> + Lilia's next letter was also from Monteriano, and Philip grew +quite enthusiastic.<br> + "They've stopped there over a week!" he cried. "Why! I +shouldn't have done as much myself. They must be really keen, +for the hotel's none too comfortable."<br> + "I cannot understand people," said Harriet. "What can they +be doing all day? And there is no church there, I suppose."<br> + "There is Santa Deodata, one of the most beautiful churches +in Italy."<br> + "Of course I mean an English church," said Harriet stiffly. +"Lilia promised me that she would always be in a large town on +Sundays."<br> + "If she goes to a service at Santa Deodata's, she will find +more beauty and sincerity than there is in all the Back Kitchens +of Europe."<br> + The Back Kitchen was his nickname for St. James's, a small +depressing edifice much patronized by his sister. She always +resented any slight on it, and Mrs. Herriton had to +intervene.<br> + "Now, dears, don't. Listen to Lilia's letter. 'We love this +place, and I do not know how I shall ever thank Philip for +telling me it. It is not only so quaint, but one sees the +Italians unspoiled in all their simplicity and charm here. The +frescoes are wonderful. Caroline, who grows sweeter every day, +is very busy sketching.' "<br> + "Every one to his taste!" said Harriet, who always delivered +a platitude as if it was an epigram. She was curiously virulent +about Italy, which she had never visited, her only experience of +the Continent being an occasional six weeks in the Protestant +parts of Switzerland.<br> + "Oh, Harriet is a bad lot!" said Philip as soon as she left +the room. His mother laughed, and told him not to be naughty; +and the appearance of Irma, just off to school, prevented further +discussion. Not only in Tracts is a child a peacemaker.<br> + "One moment, Irma," said her uncle. "I'm going to the +station. I'll give you the pleasure of my company."<br> + They started together. Irma was gratified; but conversation +flagged, for Philip had not the art of talking to the young. +Mrs. Herriton sat a little longer at the breakfast table, +re-reading Lilia's letter. Then she helped the cook to clear, +ordered dinner, and started the housemaid turning out the +drawing-room, Tuesday being its day. The weather was lovely, and +she thought she would do a little gardening, as it was quite +early. She called Harriet, who had recovered from the insult to +St. James's, and together they went to the kitchen garden and +began to sow some early vegetables.<br> + "We will save the peas to the last; they are the greatest +fun," said Mrs. Herriton, who had the gift of making work a +treat. She and her elderly daughter always got on very well, +though they had not a great deal in common. Harriet's education +had been almost too successful. As Philip once said, she had +"bolted all the cardinal virtues and couldn't digest them." +Though pious and patriotic, and a great moral asset for the +house, she lacked that pliancy and tact which her mother so much +valued, and had expected her to pick up for herself. Harriet, if +she had been allowed, would have driven Lilia to an open rupture, +and, what was worse, she would have done the same to Philip two +years before, when he returned full of passion for Italy, and +ridiculing Sawston and its ways.<br> + "It's a shame, Mother!" she had cried. "Philip laughs at +everything--the Book Club, the Debating Society, the Progressive +Whist, the bazaars. People won't like it. We have our +reputation. A house divided against itself cannot stand."<br> + Mrs. Herriton replied in the memorable words, "Let Philip say +what he likes, and he will let us do what we like." And Harriet +had acquiesced.<br> + They sowed the duller vegetables first, and a pleasant +feeling of righteous fatigue stole over them as they addressed +themselves to the peas. Harriet stretched a string to guide the +row straight, and Mrs. Herriton scratched a furrow with a pointed +stick. At the end of it she looked at her watch.<br> + "It's twelve! The second post's in. Run and see if there +are any letters."<br> + Harriet did not want to go. "Let's finish the peas. There +won't be any letters."<br> + "No, dear; please go. I'll sow the peas, but you shall cover +them up--and mind the birds don't see 'em!"<br> + Mrs. Herriton was very careful to let those peas trickle +evenly from her hand, and at the end of the row she was conscious +that she had never sown better. They were expensive too.<br> + "Actually old Mrs. Theobald!" said Harriet, returning.<br> + "Read me the letter. My hands are dirty. How intolerable +the crested paper is."<br> + Harriet opened the envelope.<br> + "I don't understand," she said; "it doesn't make sense."<br> + "Her letters never did."<br> + "But it must be sillier than usual," said Harriet, and her +voice began to quaver. "Look here, read it, Mother; I can't make +head or tail."<br> + Mrs. Herriton took the letter indulgently. "What is the +difficulty?" she said after a long pause. "What is it that +puzzles you in this letter?"<br> + "The meaning--" faltered Harriet. The sparrows hopped nearer +and began to eye the peas.<br> + "The meaning is quite clear--Lilia is engaged to be married. +Don't cry, dear; please me by not crying--don't talk at all. +It's more than I could bear. She is going to marry some one she +has met in a hotel. Take the letter and read for yourself." +Suddenly she broke down over what might seem a small point. "How +dare she not tell me direct! How dare she write first to +Yorkshire! Pray, am I to hear through Mrs. Theobald--a +patronizing, insolent letter like this? Have I no claim at all? +Bear witness, dear"--she choked with passion--"bear witness that +for this I'll never forgive her!"<br> + "Oh, what is to be done?" moaned Harriet. "What is to be +done?"<br> + "This first!" She tore the letter into little pieces and +scattered it over the mould. "Next, a telegram for Lilia! No! +a telegram for Miss Caroline Abbott. She, too, has something to +explain."<br> + "Oh, what is to be done?" repeated Harriet, as she followed +her mother to the house. She was helpless before such +effrontery. What awful thing--what awful person had come to +Lilia? "Some one in the hotel." The letter only said that. +What kind of person? A gentleman? An Englishman? The letter +did not say.<br> + "Wire reason of stay at Monteriano. Strange rumours," read +Mrs. Herriton, and addressed the telegram to Abbott, Stella +d'Italia, Monteriano, Italy. "If there is an office there," she +added, "we might get an answer this evening. Since Philip is +back at seven, and the eight-fifteen catches the midnight boat at +Dover--Harriet, when you go with this, get £100 in £5 +notes at the bank."<br> + "Go, dear, at once; do not talk. I see Irma coming back; go +quickly.... Well, Irma dear, and whose team are you in this +afternoon--Miss Edith's or Miss May's?"<br> + But as soon as she had behaved as usual to her +grand-daughter, she went to the library and took out the large +atlas, for she wanted to know about Monteriano. The name was in +the smallest print, in the midst of a woolly-brown tangle of +hills which were called the "Sub-Apennines." It was not so very +far from Siena, which she had learnt at school. Past it there +wandered a thin black line, notched at intervals like a saw, and +she knew that this was a railway. But the map left a good deal +to imagination, and she had not got any. She looked up the place +in "Childe Harold," but Byron had not been there. Nor did Mark +Twain visit it in the "Tramp Abroad." The resources of +literature were exhausted: she must wait till Philip came home. +And the thought of Philip made her try Philip's room, and there +she found "Central Italy," by Baedeker, and opened it for the +first time in her life and read in it as follows:--</p> + +<blockquote><br> + <em>Monteriano</em> (pop. 4800). Hotels: Stella d'Italia, +moderate only; Globo, dirty. * Caffè Garibaldi. Post and +Telegraph office in Corso Vittorio Emmanuele, next to theatre. +Photographs at Seghena's (cheaper in Florence). Diligence (1 +lira) meets principal trains.<br> + Chief attractions (2-3 hours): Santa Deodata, Palazzo +Pubblico, Sant' Agostino, Santa Caterina, Sant' Ambrogio, Palazzo +Capocchi. Guide (2 lire) unnecessary. A walk round the Walls +should on no account be omitted. The view from the Rocca (small +gratuity) is finest at sunset.<br> + History: Monteriano, the Mons Rianus of Antiquity, whose +Ghibelline tendencies are noted by Dante (Purg. xx.), definitely +emancipated itself from Poggibonsi in 1261. Hence the distich, +<em>"Poggibonizzi, faui in là, che Monteriano si fa +città!"</em> till recently enscribed over the Siena +gate. It remained independent till 1530, when it was sacked by +the Papal troops and became part of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. +It is now of small importance, and seat of the district prison. +The inhabitants are still noted for their agreeable manners. + +<div align="CENTER">- - - - -</div> + +<p> The traveller will proceed direct from the Siena gate to +the Collegiate Church of Santa Deodata, and inspect (5th chapel +on right) the charming * Frescoes....</p> +</blockquote> + +<br> + + +<p> Mrs. Herriton did not proceed. She was not one to detect +the hidden charms of Baedeker. Some of the information seemed to +her unnecessary, all of it was dull. Whereas Philip could never +read "The view from the Rocca (small gratuity) is finest at +sunset" without a catching at the heart. Restoring the book to +its place, she went downstairs, and looked up and down the +asphalt paths for her daughter. She saw her at last, two +turnings away, vainly trying to shake off Mr. Abbott, Miss +Caroline Abbott's father. Harriet was always unfortunate. At +last she returned, hot, agitated, crackling with bank-notes, and +Irma bounced to greet her, and trod heavily on her corn.<br> + "Your feet grow larger every day," said the agonized Harriet, +and gave her niece a violent push. Then Irma cried, and Mrs. +Herriton was annoyed with Harriet for betraying irritation. +Lunch was nasty; and during pudding news arrived that the cook, +by sheer dexterity, had broken a very vital knob off the +kitchen-range. "It is too bad," said Mrs. Herriton. Irma said +it was three bad, and was told not to be rude. After lunch +Harriet would get out Baedeker, and read in injured tones about +Monteriano, the Mons Rianus of Antiquity, till her mother stopped +her.<br> + "It's ridiculous to read, dear. She's not trying to marry +any one in the place. Some tourist, obviously, who's stopping in +the hotel. The place has nothing to do with it at all."<br> + "But what a place to go to! What nice person, too, do you +meet in a hotel?"<br> + "Nice or nasty, as I have told you several times before, is +not the point. Lilia has insulted our family, and she shall +suffer for it. And when you speak against hotels, I think you +forget that I met your father at Chamounix. You can contribute +nothing, dear, at present, and I think you had better hold your +tongue. I am going to the kitchen, to speak about the +range."<br> + She spoke just too much, and the cook said that if she could +not give satisfaction--she had better leave. A small thing at +hand is greater than a great thing remote, and Lilia, +misconducting herself upon a mountain in Central Italy, was +immediately hidden. Mrs. Herriton flew to a registry office, +failed; flew to another, failed again; came home, was told by the +housemaid that things seemed so unsettled that she had better +leave as well; had tea, wrote six letters, was interrupted by +cook and housemaid, both weeping, asking her pardon, and +imploring to be taken back. In the flush of victory the +door-bell rang, and there was the telegram: "Lilia engaged to +Italian nobility. Writing. Abbott."<br> + "No answer," said Mrs. Herriton. "Get down Mr. Philip's +Gladstone from the attic."<br> + She would not allow herself to be frightened by the unknown. +Indeed she knew a little now. The man was not an Italian noble, +otherwise the telegram would have said so. It must have been +written by Lilia. None but she would have been guilty of the +fatuous vulgarity of "Italian nobility." She recalled phrases of +this morning's letter: "We love this place--Caroline is sweeter +than ever, and busy sketching--Italians full of simplicity and +charm." And the remark of Baedeker, "The inhabitants are still +noted for their agreeable manners," had a baleful meaning now. +If Mrs. Herriton had no imagination, she had intuition, a more +useful quality, and the picture she made to herself of Lilia's +<em>fiancé</em> did not prove altogether wrong.<br> + So Philip was received with the news that he must start in +half an hour for Monteriano. He was in a painful position. For +three years he had sung the praises of the Italians, but he had +never contemplated having one as a relative. He tried to soften +the thing down to his mother, but in his heart of hearts he +agreed with her when she said, "The man may be a duke or he may +be an organ-grinder. That is not the point. If Lilia marries +him she insults the memory of Charles, she insults Irma, she +insults us. Therefore I forbid her, and if she disobeys we have +done with her for ever."<br> + "I will do all I can," said Philip in a low voice. It was +the first time he had had anything to do. He kissed his mother +and sister and puzzled Irma. The hall was warm and attractive as +he looked back into it from the cold March night, and he departed +for Italy reluctantly, as for something commonplace and dull.<br> + Before Mrs. Herriton went to bed she wrote to Mrs. Theobald, +using plain language about Lilia's conduct, and hinting that it +was a question on which every one must definitely choose sides. +She added, as if it was an afterthought, that Mrs. Theobald's +letter had arrived that morning.<br> + Just as she was going upstairs she remembered that she never +covered up those peas. It upset her more than anything, and +again and again she struck the banisters with vexation. Late as +it was, she got a lantern from the tool-shed and went down the +garden to rake the earth over them. The sparrows had taken every +one. But countless fragments of the letter remained, disfiguring +the tidy ground.</p> + +<hr size="0"> +<br> +<br> + + +<h3 align="CENTER">Chapter 2</h3> + +<p>When the bewildered tourist alights at the station of +Monteriano, he finds himself in the middle of the country. There +are a few houses round the railway, and many more dotted over the +plain and the slopes of the hills, but of a town, mediaeval or +otherwise, not the slightest sign. He must take what is suitably +termed a "legno"--a piece of wood--and drive up eight miles of +excellent road into the middle ages. For it is impossible, as +well as sacrilegious, to be as quick as Baedeker.<br> + It was three in the afternoon when Philip left the realms of +commonsense. He was so weary with travelling that he had fallen +asleep in the train. His fellow-passengers had the usual Italian +gift of divination, and when Monteriano came they knew he wanted +to go there, and dropped him out. His feet sank into the hot +asphalt of the platform, and in a dream he watched the train +depart, while the porter who ought to have been carrying his bag, +ran up the line playing touch-you-last with the guard. Alas! he +was in no humour for Italy. Bargaining for a legno bored him +unutterably. The man asked six lire; and though Philip knew that +for eight miles it should scarcely be more than four, yet he was +about to give what he was asked, and so make the man discontented +and unhappy for the rest of the day. He was saved from this +social blunder by loud shouts, and looking up the road saw one +cracking his whip and waving his reins and driving two horses +furiously, and behind him there appeared the swaying figure of a +woman, holding star-fish fashion on to anything she could touch. +It was Miss Abbott, who had just received his letter from Milan +announcing the time of his arrival, and had hurried down to meet +him.<br> + He had known Miss Abbott for years, and had never had much +opinion about her one way or the other. She was good, quiet, +dull, and amiable, and young only because she was twenty-three: +there was nothing in her appearance or manner to suggest the fire +of youth. All her life had been spent at Sawston with a dull and +amiable father, and her pleasant, pallid face, bent on some +respectable charity, was a familiar object of the Sawston +streets. Why she had ever wished to leave them was surprising; +but as she truly said, "I am John Bull to the backbone, yet I do +want to see Italy, just once. Everybody says it is marvellous, +and that one gets no idea of it from books at all." The curate +suggested that a year was a long time; and Miss Abbott, with +decorous playfulness, answered him, "Oh, but you must let me have +my fling! I promise to have it once, and once only. It will +give me things to think about and talk about for the rest of my +life." The curate had consented; so had Mr. Abbott. And here +she was in a legno, solitary, dusty, frightened, with as much to +answer and to answer for as the most dashing adventuress could +desire.<br> + They shook hands without speaking. She made room for Philip +and his luggage amidst the loud indignation of the unsuccessful +driver, whom it required the combined eloquence of the +station-master and the station beggar to confute. The silence +was prolonged until they started. For three days he had been +considering what he should do, and still more what he should +say. He had invented a dozen imaginary conversations, in all of +which his logic and eloquence procured him certain victory. But +how to begin? He was in the enemy's country, and everything--the +hot sun, the cold air behind the heat, the endless rows of +olive-trees, regular yet mysterious--seemed hostile to the placid +atmosphere of Sawston in which his thoughts took birth. At the +outset he made one great concession. If the match was really +suitable, and Lilia were bent on it, he would give in, and trust +to his influence with his mother to set things right. He would +not have made the concession in England; but here in Italy, +Lilia, however wilful and silly, was at all events growing to be +a human being.<br> + "Are we to talk it over now?" he asked.<br> + "Certainly, please," said Miss Abbott, in great agitation. +"If you will be so very kind."<br> + "Then how long has she been engaged?"<br> + Her face was that of a perfect fool--a fool in terror.<br> + "A short time--quite a short time," she stammered, as if the +shortness of the time would reassure him.<br> + "I should like to know how long, if you can remember."<br> + She entered into elaborate calculations on her fingers. +"Exactly eleven days," she said at last.<br> + "How long have you been here?"<br> + More calculations, while he tapped irritably with his foot. +"Close on three weeks."<br> + "Did you know him before you came?"<br> + "No."<br> + "Oh! Who is he?"<br> + "A native of the place."<br> + The second silence took place. They had left the plain now +and were climbing up the outposts of the hills, the olive-trees +still accompanying. The driver, a jolly fat man, had got out to +ease the horses, and was walking by the side of the carriage.<br> + "I understood they met at the hotel."<br> + "It was a mistake of Mrs. Theobald's."<br> + "I also understand that he is a member of the Italian +nobility."<br> + She did not reply.<br> + "May I be told his name?"<br> + Miss Abbott whispered, "Carella." But the driver heard her, +and a grin split over his face. The engagement must be known +already.<br> + "Carella? Conte or Marchese, or what?"<br> + "Signor," said Miss Abbott, and looked helplessly aside.<br> + "Perhaps I bore you with these questions. If so, I will +stop."<br> + "Oh, no, please; not at all. I am here--my own idea--to give +all information which you very naturally--and to see if +somehow--please ask anything you like."<br> + "Then how old is he?"<br> + "Oh, quite young. Twenty-one, I believe."<br> + There burst from Philip the exclamation, "Good Lord!"<br> + "One would never believe it," said Miss Abbott, flushing. +"He looks much older."<br> + "And is he good-looking?" he asked, with gathering +sarcasm.<br> + She became decisive. "Very good-looking. All his features +are good, and he is well built--though I dare say English +standards would find him too short."<br> + Philip, whose one physical advantage was his height, felt +annoyed at her implied indifference to it.<br> + "May I conclude that you like him?"<br> + She replied decisively again, "As far as I have seen him, I +do."<br> + At that moment the carriage entered a little wood, which lay +brown and sombre across the cultivated hill. The trees of the +wood were small and leafless, but noticeable for this--that their +stems stood in violets as rocks stand in the summer sea. There +are such violets in England, but not so many. Nor are there so +many in Art, for no painter has the courage. The cart-ruts were +channels, the hollow lagoons; even the dry white margin of the +road was splashed, like a causeway soon to be submerged under the +advancing tide of spring. Philip paid no attention at the time: +he was thinking what to say next. But his eyes had registered +the beauty, and next March he did not forget that the road to +Monteriano must traverse innumerable flowers.<br> + "As far as I have seen him, I do like him," repeated Miss +Abbott, after a pause.<br> + He thought she sounded a little defiant, and crushed her at +once.<br> + "What is he, please? You haven't told me that. What's his +position?"<br> + She opened her mouth to speak, and no sound came from it. +Philip waited patiently. She tried to be audacious, and failed +pitiably.<br> + "No position at all. He is kicking his heels, as my father +would say. You see, he has only just finished his military +service."<br> + "As a private?"<br> + "I suppose so. There is general conscription. He was in the +Bersaglieri, I think. Isn't that the crack regiment?"<br> + "The men in it must be short and broad. They must also be +able to walk six miles an hour."<br> + She looked at him wildly, not understanding all that he said, +but feeling that he was very clever. Then she continued her +defence of Signor Carella.<br> + "And now, like most young men, he is looking out for +something to do."<br> + "Meanwhile?"<br> + "Meanwhile, like most young men, he lives with his +people--father, mother, two sisters, and a tiny tot of a +brother."<br> + There was a grating sprightliness about her that drove him +nearly mad. He determined to silence her at last.<br> + "One more question, and only one more. What is his +father?"<br> + "His father," said Miss Abbott. "Well, I don't suppose +you'll think it a good match. But that's not the point. I mean +the point is not--I mean that social differences--love, after +all--not but what--I--"<br> + Philip ground his teeth together and said nothing.<br> + "Gentlemen sometimes judge hardly. But I feel that you, and +at all events your mother--so really good in every sense, so +really unworldly--after all, love-marriages are made in +heaven."<br> + "Yes, Miss Abbott, I know. But I am anxious to hear heaven's +choice. You arouse my curiosity. Is my sister-in-law to marry +an angel?"<br> + "Mr. Herriton, don't--please, Mr. Herriton--a dentist. His +father's a dentist."<br> + Philip gave a cry of personal disgust and pain. He shuddered +all over, and edged away from his companion. A dentist! A +dentist at Monteriano. A dentist in fairyland! False teeth and +laughing gas and the tilting chair at a place which knew the +Etruscan League, and the Pax Romana, and Alaric himself, and the +Countess Matilda, and the Middle Ages, all fighting and holiness, +and the Renaissance, all fighting and beauty! He thought of +Lilia no longer. He was anxious for himself: he feared that +Romance might die.<br> + Romance only dies with life. No pair of pincers will ever +pull it out of us. But there is a spurious sentiment which +cannot resist the unexpected and the incongruous and the +grotesque. A touch will loosen it, and the sooner it goes from +us the better. It was going from Philip now, and therefore he +gave the cry of pain.<br> + "I cannot think what is in the air," he began. "If Lilia was +determined to disgrace us, she might have found a less repulsive +way. A boy of medium height with a pretty face, the son of a +dentist at Monteriano. Have I put it correctly? May I surmise +that he has not got one penny? May I also surmise that his +social position is nil? Furthermore--"<br> + "Stop! I'll tell you no more."<br> + "Really, Miss Abbott, it is a little late for reticence. You +have equipped me admirably!"<br> + "I'll tell you not another word!" she cried, with a spasm of +terror. Then she got out her handkerchief, and seemed as if she +would shed tears. After a silence, which he intended to +symbolize to her the dropping of a curtain on the scene, he began +to talk of other subjects.<br> + They were among olives again, and the wood with its beauty +and wildness had passed away. But as they climbed higher the +country opened out, and there appeared, high on a hill to the +right, Monteriano. The hazy green of the olives rose up to its +walls, and it seemed to float in isolation between trees and sky, +like some fantastic ship city of a dream. Its colour was brown, +and it revealed not a single house--nothing but the narrow circle +of the walls, and behind them seventeen towers--all that was left +of the fifty-two that had filled the city in her prime. Some +were only stumps, some were inclining stiffly to their fall, some +were still erect, piercing like masts into the blue. It was +impossible to praise it as beautiful, but it was also impossible +to damn it as quaint.<br> + Meanwhile Philip talked continually, thinking this to be +great evidence of resource and tact. It showed Miss Abbott that +he had probed her to the bottom, but was able to conquer his +disgust, and by sheer force of intellect continue to be as +agreeable and amusing as ever. He did not know that he talked a +good deal of nonsense, and that the sheer force of his intellect +was weakened by the sight of Monteriano, and by the thought of +dentistry within those walls.<br> + The town above them swung to the left, to the right, to the +left again, as the road wound upward through the trees, and the +towers began to glow in the descending sun. As they drew near, +Philip saw the heads of people gathering black upon the walls, +and he knew well what was happening--how the news was spreading +that a stranger was in sight, and the beggars were aroused from +their content and bid to adjust their deformities; how the +alabaster man was running for his wares, and the Authorized Guide +running for his peaked cap and his two cards of +recommendation--one from Miss M'Gee, Maida Vale, the other, less +valuable, from an Equerry to the Queen of Peru; how some one else +was running to tell the landlady of the Stella d'Italia to put on +her pearl necklace and brown boots and empty the slops from the +spare bedroom; and how the landlady was running to tell Lilia and +her boy that their fate was at hand.<br> + Perhaps it was a pity Philip had talked so profusely. He had +driven Miss Abbott half demented, but he had given himself no +time to concert a plan. The end came so suddenly. They emerged +from the trees on to the terrace before the walk, with the vision +of half Tuscany radiant in the sun behind them, and then they +turned in through the Siena gate, and their journey was over. +The Dogana men admitted them with an air of gracious welcome, and +they clattered up the narrow dark street, greeted by that mixture +of curiosity and kindness which makes each Italian arrival so +wonderful.<br> + He was stunned and knew not what to do. At the hotel he +received no ordinary reception. The landlady wrung him by the +hand; one person snatched his umbrella, another his bag; people +pushed each other out of his way. The entrance seemed blocked +with a crowd. Dogs were barking, bladder whistles being blown, +women waving their handkerchiefs, excited children screaming on +the stairs, and at the top of the stairs was Lilia herself, very +radiant, with her best blouse on.<br> + "Welcome!" she cried. "Welcome to Monteriano!" He greeted +her, for he did not know what else to do, and a sympathetic +murmur rose from the crowd below.<br> + "You told me to come here," she continued, "and I don't +forget it. Let me introduce Signor Carella!"<br> + Philip discerned in the corner behind her a young man who +might eventually prove handsome and well-made, but certainly did +not seem so then. He was half enveloped in the drapery of a cold +dirty curtain, and nervously stuck out a hand, which Philip took +and found thick and damp. There were more murmurs of approval +from the stairs.<br> + "Well, din-din's nearly ready," said Lilia. "Your room's +down the passage, Philip. You needn't go changing."<br> + He stumbled away to wash his hands, utterly crushed by her +effrontery.<br> + "Dear Caroline!" whispered Lilia as soon as he had gone. +"What an angel you've been to tell him! He takes it so well. +But you must have had a <em>mauvais quart d'heure.</em>"<br> + Miss Abbott's long terror suddenly turned into acidity. +"I've told nothing," she snapped. "It's all for you--and if it +only takes a quarter of an hour you'll be lucky!"<br> + Dinner was a nightmare. They had the smelly dining-room to +themselves. Lilia, very smart and vociferous, was at the head of +the table; Miss Abbott, also in her best, sat by Philip, looking, +to his irritated nerves, more like the tragedy confidante every +moment. That scion of the Italian nobility, Signor Carella, sat +opposite. Behind him loomed a bowl of goldfish, who swam round +and round, gaping at the guests.<br> + The face of Signor Carella was twitching too much for Philip +to study it. But he could see the hands, which were not +particularly clean, and did not get cleaner by fidgeting amongst +the shining slabs of hair. His starched cuffs were not clean +either, and as for his suit, it had obviously been bought for the +occasion as something really English--a gigantic check, which did +not even fit. His handkerchief he had forgotten, but never +missed it. Altogether, he was quite unpresentable, and very +lucky to have a father who was a dentist in Monteriano. And why, +even Lilia--But as soon as the meal began it furnished Philip +with an explanation.<br> + For the youth was hungry, and his lady filled his plate with +spaghetti, and when those delicious slippery worms were flying +down his throat, his face relaxed and became for a moment +unconscious and calm. And Philip had seen that face before in +Italy a hundred times--seen it and loved it, for it was not +merely beautiful, but had the charm which is the rightful +heritage of all who are born on that soil. But he did not want +to see it opposite him at dinner. It was not the face of a +gentleman.<br> + Conversation, to give it that name, was carried on in a +mixture of English and Italian. Lilia had picked up hardly any +of the latter language, and Signor Carella had not yet learnt any +of the former. Occasionally Miss Abbott had to act as +interpreter between the lovers, and the situation became uncouth +and revolting in the extreme. Yet Philip was too cowardly to +break forth and denounce the engagement. He thought he should be +more effective with Lilia if he had her alone, and pretended to +himself that he must hear her defence before giving judgment.<br> + Signor Carella, heartened by the spaghetti and the +throat-rasping wine, attempted to talk, and, looking politely +towards Philip, said, "England is a great country. The Italians +love England and the English."<br> + Philip, in no mood for international amenities, merely +bowed.<br> + "Italy too," the other continued a little resentfully, "is a +great country. She has produced many famous men--for example +Garibaldi and Dante. The latter wrote the 'Inferno,' the +'Purgatorio,' the 'Paradiso.' The 'Inferno' is the most +beautiful." And with the complacent tone of one who has received +a solid education, he quoted the opening lines--</p> + +<blockquote><em>Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita<br> +Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura<br> +Che la diritta via era smarrita--</em></blockquote> + +<p>a quotation which was more apt than he supposed.<br> + Lilia glanced at Philip to see whether he noticed that she +was marrying no ignoramus. Anxious to exhibit all the good +qualities of her betrothed, she abruptly introduced the subject +of pallone, in which, it appeared, he was a proficient player. +He suddenly became shy and developed a conceited grin--the grin +of the village yokel whose cricket score is mentioned before a +stranger. Philip himself had loved to watch pallone, that +entrancing combination of lawn-tennis and fives. But he did not +expect to love it quite so much again.<br> + "Oh, look!" exclaimed Lilia, "the poor wee fish!"<br> + A starved cat had been worrying them all for pieces of the +purple quivering beef they were trying to swallow. Signor +Carella, with the brutality so common in Italians, had caught her +by the paw and flung her away from him. Now she had climbed up +to the bowl and was trying to hook out the fish. He got up, +drove her off, and finding a large glass stopper by the bowl, +entirely plugged up the aperture with it.<br> + "But may not the fish die?" said Miss Abbott. "They have no +air."<br> + "Fish live on water, not on air," he replied in a knowing +voice, and sat down. Apparently he was at his ease again, for he +took to spitting on the floor. Philip glanced at Lilia but did +not detect her wincing. She talked bravely till the end of the +disgusting meal, and then got up saying, "Well, Philip, I am sure +you are ready for by-bye. We shall meet at twelve o'clock lunch +tomorrow, if we don't meet before. They give us +<em>caffè</em> later in our rooms."<br> + It was a little too impudent. Philip replied, "I should like +to see you now, please, in my room, as I have come all the way on +business." He heard Miss Abbott gasp. Signor Carella, who was +lighting a rank cigar, had not understood.<br> + It was as he expected. When he was alone with Lilia he lost +all nervousness. The remembrance of his long intellectual +supremacy strengthened him, and he began volubly--<br> + "My dear Lilia, don't let's have a scene. Before I arrived +I thought I might have to question you. It is unnecessary. I +know everything. Miss Abbott has told me a certain amount, and +the rest I see for myself."<br> + "See for yourself?" she exclaimed, and he remembered +afterwards that she had flushed crimson.<br> + "That he is probably a ruffian and certainly a cad."<br> + "There are no cads in Italy," she said quickly.<br> + He was taken aback. It was one of his own remarks. And she +further upset him by adding, "He is the son of a dentist. Why +not?"<br> + "Thank you for the information. I know everything, as I told +you before. I am also aware of the social position of an Italian +who pulls teeth in a minute provincial town."<br> + He was not aware of it, but he ventured to conclude that it +was pretty, low. Nor did Lilia contradict him. But she was +sharp enough to say, "Indeed, Philip, you surprise me. I +understood you went in for equality and so on."<br> + "And I understood that Signor Carella was a member of the +Italian nobility."<br> + "Well, we put it like that in the telegram so as not to shock +dear Mrs. Herriton. But it is true. He is a younger branch. Of +course families ramify--just as in yours there is your cousin +Joseph." She adroitly picked out the only undesirable member of +the Herriton clan. "Gino's father is courtesy itself, and rising +rapidly in his profession. This very month he leaves Monteriano, +and sets up at Poggibonsi. And for my own poor part, I think +what people are is what matters, but I don't suppose you'll +agree. And I should like you to know that Gino's uncle is a +priest--the same as a clergyman at home."<br> + Philip was aware of the social position of an Italian priest, +and said so much about it that Lilia interrupted him with, "Well, +his cousin's a lawyer at Rome."<br> + "What kind of 'lawyer'?"<br> + "Why, a lawyer just like you are--except that he has lots to +do and can never get away."<br> + The remark hurt more than he cared to show. He changed his +method, and in a gentle, conciliating tone delivered the +following speech:--<br> + "The whole thing is like a bad dream--so bad that it cannot +go on. If there was one redeeming feature about the man I might +be uneasy. As it is I can trust to time. For the moment, Lilia, +he has taken you in, but you will find him out soon. It is not +possible that you, a lady, accustomed to ladies and gentlemen, +will tolerate a man whose position is--well, not equal to the son +of the servants' dentist in Coronation Place. I am not blaming +you now. But I blame the glamour of Italy--I have felt it +myself, you know--and I greatly blame Miss Abbott."<br> + "Caroline! Why blame her? What's all this to do with +Caroline?"<br> + "Because we expected her to--" He saw that the answer would +involve him in difficulties, and, waving his hand, continued, "So +I am confident, and you in your heart agree, that this engagement +will not last. Think of your life at home--think of Irma! And +I'll also say think of us; for you know, Lilia, that we count you +more than a relation. I should feel I was losing my own sister +if you did this, and my mother would lose a daughter."<br> + She seemed touched at last, for she turned away her face and +said, "I can't break it off now!"<br> + "Poor Lilia," said he, genuinely moved. "I know it may be +painful. But I have come to rescue you, and, book-worm though I +may be, I am not frightened to stand up to a bully. He's merely +an insolent boy. He thinks he can keep you to your word by +threats. He will be different when he sees he has a man to deal +with."<br> + What follows should be prefaced with some simile--the simile +of a powder-mine, a thunderbolt, an earthquake--for it blew +Philip up in the air and flattened him on the ground and +swallowed him up in the depths. Lilia turned on her gallant +defender and said--<br> + "For once in my life I'll thank you to leave me alone. I'll +thank your mother too. For twelve years you've trained me and +tortured me, and I'll stand it no more. Do you think I'm a +fool? Do you think I never felt? Ah! when I came to your house +a poor young bride, how you all looked me over--never a kind +word--and discussed me, and thought I might just do; and your +mother corrected me, and your sister snubbed me, and you said +funny things about me to show how clever you were! And when +Charles died I was still to run in strings for the honour of your +beastly family, and I was to be cooped up at Sawston and learn to +keep house, and all my chances spoilt of marrying again. No, +thank you! No, thank you! 'Bully?' 'Insolent boy?' Who's that, +pray, but you? But, thank goodness, I can stand up against the +world now, for I've found Gino, and this time I marry for +love!"<br> + The coarseness and truth of her attack alike overwhelmed +him. But her supreme insolence found him words, and he too burst +forth.<br> + "Yes! and I forbid you to do it! You despise me, perhaps, +and think I'm feeble. But you're mistaken. You are ungrateful +and impertinent and contemptible, but I will save you in order to +save Irma and our name. There is going to be such a row in this +town that you and he'll be sorry you came to it. I shall shrink +from nothing, for my blood is up. It is unwise of you to laugh. +I forbid you to marry Carella, and I shall tell him so now."<br> + "Do," she cried. "Tell him so now. Have it out with him. +Gino! Gino! Come in! Avanti! Fra Filippo forbids the +banns!"<br> + Gino appeared so quickly that he must have been listening +outside the door.<br> + "Fra Filippo's blood's up. He shrinks from nothing. Oh, +take care he doesn't hurt you!" She swayed about in vulgar +imitation of Philip's walk, and then, with a proud glance at the +square shoulders of her betrothed, flounced out of the room.<br> + Did she intend them to fight? Philip had no intention of +doing so; and no more, it seemed, had Gino, who stood nervously +in the middle of the room with twitching lips and eyes.<br> + "Please sit down, Signor Carella," said Philip in Italian. +"Mrs. Herriton is rather agitated, but there is no reason we +should not be calm. Might I offer you a cigarette? Please sit +down."<br> + He refused the cigarette and the chair, and remained standing +in the full glare of the lamp. Philip, not averse to such +assistance, got his own face into shadow.<br> + For a long time he was silent. It might impress Gino, and it +also gave him time to collect himself. He would not this time +fall into the error of blustering, which he had caught so +unaccountably from Lilia. He would make his power felt by +restraint.<br> + Why, when he looked up to begin, was Gino convulsed with +silent laughter? It vanished immediately; but he became nervous, +and was even more pompous than he intended.<br> + "Signor Carella, I will be frank with you. I have come to +prevent you marrying Mrs. Herriton, because I see you will both +be unhappy together. She is English, you are Italian; she is +accustomed to one thing, you to another. And--pardon me if I say +it--she is rich and you are poor."<br> + "I am not marrying her because she is rich," was the sulky +reply.<br> + "I never suggested that for a moment," said Philip +courteously. "You are honourable, I am sure; but are you wise? +And let me remind you that we want her with us at home. Her +little daughter will be motherless, our home will be broken up. +If you grant my request you will earn our thanks--and you will +not be without a reward for your disappointment."<br> + "Reward--what reward?" He bent over the back of a chair and +looked earnestly at Philip. They were coming to terms pretty +quickly. Poor Lilia!<br> + Philip said slowly, "What about a thousand lire?"<br> + His soul went forth into one exclamation, and then he was +silent, with gaping lips. Philip would have given double: he had +expected a bargain.<br> + "You can have them tonight."<br> + He found words, and said, "It is too late."<br> + "But why?"<br> + "Because--" His voice broke. Philip watched his face,--a +face without refinement perhaps, but not without +expression,--watched it quiver and re-form and dissolve from +emotion into emotion. There was avarice at one moment, and +insolence, and politeness, and stupidity, and cunning--and let us +hope that sometimes there was love. But gradually one emotion +dominated, the most unexpected of all; for his chest began to +heave and his eyes to wink and his mouth to twitch, and suddenly +he stood erect and roared forth his whole being in one tremendous +laugh.<br> + Philip sprang up, and Gino, who had flung wide his arms to +let the glorious creature go, took him by the shoulders and shook +him, and said, "Because we are married--married--married as soon +as I knew you were, coming. There was no time to tell you. Oh. +oh! You have come all the way for nothing. Oh! And oh, your +generosity!" Suddenly he became grave, and said, "Please pardon +me; I am rude. I am no better than a peasant, and I--" Here he +saw Philip's face, and it was too much for him. He gasped and +exploded and crammed his hands into his mouth and spat them out +in another explosion, and gave Philip an aimless push, which +toppled him on to the bed. He uttered a horrified Oh! and then +gave up, and bolted away down the passage, shrieking like a +child, to tell the joke to his wife.<br> + For a time Philip lay on the bed, pretending to himself that +he was hurt grievously. He could scarcely see for temper, and in +the passage he ran against Miss Abbott, who promptly burst into +tears.<br> + "I sleep at the Globo," he told her, "and start for Sawston +tomorrow morning early. He has assaulted me. I could prosecute +him. But shall not."<br> + "I can't stop here," she sobbed. "I daren't stop here. You +will have to take me with you!"</p> + +<hr size="0"> +<br> +<br> + + +<h3 align="CENTER">Chapter 3</h3> + +<p>Opposite the Volterra gate of Monteriano, outside the city, is +a very respectable white-washed mud wall, with a coping of red +crinkled tiles to keep it from dissolution. It would suggest a +gentleman's garden if there was not in its middle a large hole, +which grows larger with every rain-storm. Through the hole is +visible, firstly, the iron gate that is intended to close it; +secondly, a square piece of ground which, though not quite, mud, +is at the same time not exactly grass; and finally, another wall, +stone this time, which has a wooden door in the middle and two +wooden-shuttered windows each side, and apparently forms the +façade of a one-storey house.<br> + This house is bigger than it looks, for it slides for two +storeys down the hill behind, and the wooden door, which is +always locked, really leads into the attic. The knowing person +prefers to follow the precipitous mule-track round the turn of +the mud wall till he can take the edifice in the rear. +Then--being now on a level with the cellars--he lifts up his head +and shouts. If his voice sounds like something light--a letter, +for example, or some vegetables, or a bunch of flowers--a basket +is let out of the first-floor windows by a string, into which he +puts his burdens and departs. But if he sounds like something +heavy, such as a log of wood, or a piece of meat, or a visitor, +he is interrogated, and then bidden or forbidden to ascend. The +ground floor and the upper floor of that battered house are alike +deserted, and the inmates keep the central portion, just as in a +dying body all life retires to the heart. There is a door at the +top of the first flight of stairs, and if the visitor is admitted +he will find a welcome which is not necessarily cold. There are +several rooms, some dark and mostly stuffy--a reception-room +adorned with horsehair chairs, wool-work stools, and a stove that +is never lit--German bad taste without German domesticity broods +over that room; also a living-room, which insensibly glides into +a bedroom when the refining influence of hospitality is absent, +and real bedrooms; and last, but not least, the loggia, where you +can live day and night if you feel inclined, drinking vermouth +and smoking cigarettes, with leagues of olive-trees and vineyards +and blue-green hills to watch you.<br> + It was in this house that the brief and inevitable tragedy of +Lilia's married life took place. She made Gino buy it for her, +because it was there she had first seen him sitting on the mud +wall that faced the Volterra gate. She remembered how the +evening sun had struck his hair, and how he had smiled down at +her, and being both sentimental and unrefined, was determined to +have the man and the place together. Things in Italy are cheap +for an Italian, and, though he would have preferred a house in +the piazza, or better still a house at Siena, or, bliss above +bliss, a house at Leghorn, he did as she asked, thinking that +perhaps she showed her good taste in preferring so retired an +abode.<br> + The house was far too big for them, and there was a general +concourse of his relatives to fill it up. His father wished to +make it a patriarchal concern, where all the family should have +their rooms and meet together for meals, and was perfectly +willing to give up the new practice at Poggibonsi and preside. +Gino was quite willing too, for he was an affectionate youth who +liked a large home-circle, and he told it as a pleasant bit of +news to Lilia, who did not attempt to conceal her horror.<br> + At once he was horrified too; saw that the idea was +monstrous; abused himself to her for having suggested it; rushed +off to tell his father that it was impossible. His father +complained that prosperity was already corrupting him and making +him unsympathetic and hard; his mother cried; his sisters accused +him of blocking their social advance. He was apologetic, and +even cringing, until they turned on Lilia. Then he turned on +them, saying that they could not understand, much less associate +with, the English lady who was his wife; that there should be one +master in that house--himself.<br> + Lilia praised and petted him on his return, calling him brave +and a hero and other endearing epithets. But he was rather blue +when his clan left Monteriano in much dignity--a dignity which +was not at all impaired by the acceptance of a cheque. They took +the cheque not to Poggibonsi, after all, but to Empoli--a lively, +dusty town some twenty miles off. There they settled down in +comfort, and the sisters said they had been driven to it by +Gino.<br> + The cheque was, of course, Lilia's, who was extremely +generous, and was quite willing to know anybody so long as she +had not to live with them, relations-in-law being on her nerves. +She liked nothing better than finding out some obscure and +distant connection--there were several of them--and acting the +lady bountiful, leaving behind her bewilderment, and too often +discontent. Gino wondered how it was that all his people, who +had formerly seemed so pleasant, had suddenly become plaintive +and disagreeable. He put it down to his lady wife's +magnificence, in comparison with which all seemed common. Her +money flew apace, in spite of the cheap living. She was even +richer than he expected; and he remembered with shame how he had +once regretted his inability to accept the thousand lire that +Philip Herriton offered him in exchange for her. It would have +been a shortsighted bargain.<br> + Lilia enjoyed settling into the house, with nothing to do +except give orders to smiling workpeople, and a devoted husband +as interpreter. She wrote a jaunty account of her happiness to +Mrs. Herriton, and Harriet answered the letter, saying (1) that +all future communications should be addressed to the solicitors; +(2) would Lilia return an inlaid box which Harriet had lent +her--but not given--to keep handkerchiefs and collars in?<br> + "Look what I am giving up to live with you!" she said to +Gino, never omitting to lay stress on her condescension. He took +her to mean the inlaid box, and said that she need not give it up +at all.<br> + "Silly fellow, no! I mean the life. Those Herritons are +very well connected. They lead Sawston society. But what do I +care, so long as I have my silly fellow!" She always treated him +as a boy, which he was, and as a fool, which he was not, thinking +herself so immeasurably superior to him that she neglected +opportunity after opportunity of establishing her rule. He was +good-looking and indolent; therefore he must be stupid. He was +poor; therefore he would never dare to criticize his +benefactress. He was passionately in love with her; therefore +she could do exactly as she liked.<br> + "It mayn't be heaven below," she thought, "but it's better +than Charles."<br> + And all the time the boy was watching her, and growing +up.<br> + She was reminded of Charles by a disagreeable letter from the +solicitors, bidding her disgorge a large sum of money for Irma, +in accordance with her late husband's will. It was just like +Charles's suspicious nature to have provided against a second +marriage. Gino was equally indignant, and between them they +composed a stinging reply, which had no effect. He then said +that Irma had better come out and live with them. "The air is +good, so is the food; she will be happy here, and we shall not +have to part with the money." But Lilia had not the courage even +to suggest this to the Herritons, and an unexpected terror seized +her at the thought of Irma or any English child being educated at +Monteriano.<br> + Gino became terribly depressed over the solicitors' letter, +more depressed than she thought necessary. There was no more to +do in the house, and he spent whole days in the loggia leaning +over the parapet or sitting astride it disconsolately.<br> + "Oh, you idle boy!" she cried, pinching his muscles. "Go and +play pallone."<br> + "I am a married man," he answered, without raising his head. +"I do not play games any more."<br> + "Go and see your friends then."<br> + "I have no friends now."<br> + "Silly, silly, silly! You can't stop indoors all day!"<br> + "I want to see no one but you." He spat on to an +olive-tree.<br> + "Now, Gino, don't be silly. Go and see your friends, and +bring them to see me. We both of us like society."<br> + He looked puzzled, but allowed himself to be persuaded, went +out, found that he was not as friendless as he supposed, and +returned after several hours in altered spirits. Lilia +congratulated herself on her good management.<br> + "I'm ready, too, for people now," she said. "I mean to wake +you all up, just as I woke up Sawston. Let's have plenty of +men--and make them bring their womenkind. I mean to have real +English tea-parties."<br> + "There is my aunt and her husband; but I thought you did not +want to receive my relatives."<br> + "I never said such a--"<br> + "But you would be right," he said earnestly. "They are not +for you. Many of them are in trade, and even we are little more; +you should have gentlefolk and nobility for your friends."<br> + "Poor fellow," thought Lilia. "It is sad for him to discover +that his people are vulgar." She began to tell him that she +loved him just for his silly self, and he flushed and began +tugging at his moustache.<br> + "But besides your relatives I must have other people here. +Your friends have wives and sisters, haven't they?"<br> + "Oh, yes; but of course I scarcely know them."<br> + "Not know your friends' people?"<br> + "Why, no. If they are poor and have to work for their living +I may see them--but not otherwise. Except--" He stopped. The +chief exception was a young lady, to whom he had once been +introduced for matrimonial purposes. But the dowry had proved +inadequate, and the acquaintance terminated.<br> + "How funny! But I mean to change all that. Bring your +friends to see me, and I will make them bring their people."<br> + He looked at her rather hopelessly.<br> + "Well, who are the principal people here? Who leads +society?"<br> + The governor of the prison, he supposed, and the officers who +assisted him.<br> + "Well, are they married?"<br> + "Yes."<br> + "There we are. Do you know them?"<br> + "Yes--in a way."<br> + "I see," she exclaimed angrily. "They look down on you, do +they, poor boy? Wait!" He assented. "Wait! I'll soon stop +that. Now, who else is there?"<br> + "The marchese, sometimes, and the canons of the Collegiate +Church."<br> + "Married?"<br> + "The canons--" he began with twinkling eyes.<br> + "Oh, I forgot your horrid celibacy. In England they would be +the centre of everything. But why shouldn't I know them? Would +it make it easier if I called all round? Isn't that your foreign +way?"<br> + He did not think it would make it easier.<br> + "But I must know some one! Who were the men you were talking +to this afternoon?"<br> + Low-class men. He could scarcely recollect their names.<br> + "But, Gino dear, if they're low class, why did you talk to +them? Don't you care about your position?"<br> + All Gino cared about at present was idleness and +pocket-money, and his way of expressing it was to exclaim, +"Ouf-pouf! How hot it is in here. No air; I sweat all over. I +expire. I must cool myself, or I shall never get to sleep." In +his funny abrupt way he ran out on to the loggia, where he lay +full length on the parapet, and began to smoke and spit under the +silence of the stars.<br> + Lilia gathered somehow from this conversation that +Continental society was not the go-as-you-please thing she had +expected. Indeed she could not see where Continental society +was. Italy is such a delightful place to live in if you happen +to be a man. There one may enjoy that exquisite luxury of +Socialism--that true Socialism which is based not on equality of +income or character, but on the equality of manners. In the +democracy of the <em>caffè</em> or the street the great +question of our life has been solved, and the brotherhood of man +is a reality. But is accomplished at the expense of the +sisterhood of women. Why should you not make friends with your +neighbour at the theatre or in the train, when you know and he +knows that feminine criticism and feminine insight and feminine +prejudice will never come between you? Though you become as +David and Jonathan, you need never enter his home, nor he yours. +All your lives you will meet under the open air, the only +roof-tree of the South, under which he will spit and swear, and +you will drop your h's, and nobody will think the worse of +either.<br> + Meanwhile the women--they have, of course, their house and +their church, with its admirable and frequent services, to which +they are escorted by the maid. Otherwise they do not go out +much, for it is not genteel to walk, and you are too poor to keep +a carriage. Occasionally you will take them to the +<em>caffè</em> or theatre, and immediately all your wonted +acquaintance there desert you, except those few who are expecting +and expected to marry into your family. It is all very sad. But +one consolation emerges--life is very pleasant in Italy if you +are a man.<br> + Hitherto Gino had not interfered with Lilia. She was so much +older than he was, and so much richer, that he regarded her as a +superior being who answered to other laws. He was not wholly +surprised, for strange rumours were always blowing over the Alps +of lands where men and women had the same amusements and +interests, and he had often met that privileged maniac, the lady +tourist, on her solitary walks. Lilia took solitary walks too, +and only that week a tramp had grabbed at her watch--an episode +which is supposed to be indigenous in Italy, though really less +frequent there than in Bond Street. Now that he knew her better, +he was inevitably losing his awe: no one could live with her and +keep it, especially when she had been so silly as to lose a gold +watch and chain. As he lay thoughtful along the parapet, he +realized for the first time the responsibilities of monied life. +He must save her from dangers, physical and social, for after all +she was a woman. "And I," he reflected, "though I am young, am +at all events a man, and know what is right."<br> + He found her still in the living-room, combing her hair, for +she had something of the slattern in her nature, and there was no +need to keep up appearances.<br> + "You must not go out alone," he said gently. "It is not +safe. If you want to walk, Perfetta shall accompany you." +Perfetta was a widowed cousin, too humble for social aspirations, +who was living with them as factotum.<br> + "Very well," smiled Lilia, "very well"--as if she were +addressing a solicitous kitten. But for all that she never took +a solitary walk again, with one exception, till the day of her +death.<br> + Days passed, and no one called except poor relatives. She +began to feel dull. Didn't he know the Sindaco or the bank +manager? Even the landlady of the Stella d'Italia would be +better than no one. She, when she went into the town, was +pleasantly received; but people naturally found a difficulty in +getting on with a lady who could not learn their language. And +the tea-party, under Gino's adroit management, receded ever and +ever before her.<br> + He had a good deal of anxiety over her welfare, for she did +not settle down in the house at all. But he was comforted by a +welcome and unexpected visitor. As he was going one afternoon +for the letters--they were delivered at the door, but it took +longer to get them at the office--some one humorously threw a +cloak over his head, and when he disengaged himself he saw his +very dear friend Spiridione Tesi of the custom-house at Chiasso, +whom he had not met for two years. What joy! what salutations! +so that all the passersby smiled with approval on the amiable +scene. Spiridione's brother was now station-master at Bologna, +and thus he himself could spend his holiday travelling over Italy +at the public expense. Hearing of Gino's marriage, he had come +to see him on his way to Siena, where lived his own uncle, lately +monied too.<br> + "They all do it," he exclaimed, "myself excepted." He was +not quite twenty-three. "But tell me more. She is English. +That is good, very good. An English wife is very good indeed. +And she is rich?"<br> + "Immensely rich."<br> + "Blonde or dark?"<br> + "Blonde."<br> + "Is it possible!"<br> + "It pleases me very much," said Gino simply. "If you +remember, I always desired a blonde." Three or four men had +collected, and were listening.<br> + "We all desire one," said Spiridione. "But you, Gino, +deserve your good fortune, for you are a good son, a brave man, +and a true friend, and from the very first moment I saw you I +wished you well."<br> + "No compliments, I beg," said Gino, standing with his hands +crossed on his chest and a smile of pleasure on his face.<br> + Spiridione addressed the other men, none of whom he had ever +seen before. "Is it not true? Does not he deserve this wealthy +blonde?"<br> + "He does deserve her," said all the men.<br> + It is a marvellous land, where you love it or hate it.<br> + There were no letters, and of course they sat down at the +Caffè Garibaldi, by the Collegiate Church--quite a good +<em>caffè</em> that for so small a city. There were +marble-topped tables, and pillars terra-cotta below and gold +above, and on the ceiling was a fresco of the battle of +Solferino. One could not have desired a prettier room. They had +vermouth and little cakes with sugar on the top, which they chose +gravely at the counter, pinching them first to be sure they were +fresh. And though vermouth is barely alcoholic, Spiridione +drenched his with soda-water to be sure that it should not get +into his head.<br> + They were in high spirits, and elaborate compliments +alternated curiously with gentle horseplay. But soon they put up +their legs on a pair of chairs and began to smoke.<br> + "Tell me," said Spiridione--"I forgot to ask--is she +young?"<br> + "Thirty-three."<br> + "Ah, well, we cannot have everything."<br> + "But you would be surprised. Had she told me twenty-eight, I +should not have disbelieved her."<br> + "Is she <em>simpatica?</em>" (Nothing will translate that +word.)<br> + Gino dabbed at the sugar and said after a silence, +"Sufficiently so."<br> + "It is a most important thing."<br> + "She is rich, she is generous, she is affable, she addresses +her inferiors without haughtiness."<br> + There was another silence. "It is not sufficient," said the +other. "One does not define it thus." He lowered his voice to a +whisper. "Last month a German was smuggling cigars. The +custom-house was dark. Yet I refused because I did not like +him. The gifts of such men do not bring happiness. <em>Non era +simpatico.</em> He paid for every one, and the fine for +deception besides."<br> + "Do you gain much beyond your pay?" asked Gino, diverted for +an instant.<br> + "I do not accept small sums now. It is not worth the risk. +But the German was another matter. But listen, my Gino, for I am +older than you and more full of experience. The person who +understands us at first sight, who never irritates us, who never +bores, to whom we can pour forth every thought and wish, not only +in speech but in silence--that is what I mean by +<em>simpatico</em>."<br> + "There are such men, I know," said Gino. "And I have heard +it said of children. But where will you find such a woman?"<br> + "That is true. Here you are wiser than I. <em>Sono poco +simpatiche le donne.</em> And the time we waste over them is +much." He sighed dolefully, as if he found the nobility of his +sex a burden.<br> + "One I have seen who may be so. She spoke very little, but +she was a young lady--different to most. She, too, was English, +the companion of my wife here. But Fra Filippo, the +brother-in-law, took her back with him. I saw them start. He +was very angry."<br> + Then he spoke of his exciting and secret marriage, and they +made fun of the unfortunate Philip, who had travelled over Europe +to stop it.<br> + "I regret though," said Gino, when they had finished +laughing, "that I toppled him on to the bed. A great tall man! +And when I am really amused I am often impolite."<br> + "You will never see him again," said Spiridione, who carried +plenty of philosophy about him. "And by now the scene will have +passed from his mind."<br> + "It sometimes happens that such things are recollected +longest. I shall never see him again, of course; but it is no +benefit to me that he should wish me ill. And even if he has +forgotten, I am still sorry that I toppled him on to the +bed."<br> + So their talk continued, at one moment full of childishness +and tender wisdom, the next moment scandalously gross. The +shadows of the terra-cotta pillars lengthened, and tourists, +flying through the Palazzo Pubblico opposite, could observe how +the Italians wasted time.<br> + The sight of tourists reminded Gino of something he might +say. "I want to consult you since you are so kind as to take an +interest in my affairs. My wife wishes to take solitary +walks."<br> + Spiridione was shocked.<br> + "But I have forbidden her."<br> + "Naturally."<br> + "She does not yet understand. She asked me to accompany her +sometimes--to walk without object! You know, she would like me +to be with her all day."<br> + "I see. I see." He knitted his brows and tried to think how +he could help his friend. "She needs employment. Is she a +Catholic?"<br> + "No."<br> + "That is a pity. She must be persuaded. It will be a great +solace to her when she is alone."<br> + "I am a Catholic, but of course I never go to church."<br> + "Of course not. Still, you might take her at first. That is +what my brother has done with his wife at Bologna and he has +joined the Free Thinkers. He took her once or twice himself, and +now she has acquired the habit and continues to go without +him."<br> + "Most excellent advice, and I thank you for it. But she +wishes to give tea-parties--men and women together whom she has +never seen."<br> + "Oh, the English! they are always thinking of tea. They +carry it by the kilogramme in their trunks, and they are so +clumsy that they always pack it at the top. But it is +absurd!"<br> + "What am I to do about it?"<br> + "Do nothing. Or ask me!"<br> + "Come!" cried Gino, springing up. "She will be quite +pleased."<br> + The dashing young fellow coloured crimson. "Of course I was +only joking."<br> + "I know. But she wants me to take my friends. Come now! +Waiter!"<br> + "If I do come," cried the other, "and take tea with you, this +bill must be my affair."<br> + "Certainly not; you are in my country!"<br> + A long argument ensued, in which the waiter took part, +suggesting various solutions. At last Gino triumphed. The bill +came to eightpence-halfpenny, and a halfpenny for the waiter +brought it up to ninepence. Then there was a shower of gratitude +on one side and of deprecation on the other, and when courtesies +were at their height they suddenly linked arms and swung down the +street, tickling each other with lemonade straws as they +went.<br> + Lilia was delighted to see them, and became more animated +than Gino had known her for a long time. The tea tasted of +chopped hay, and they asked to be allowed to drink it out of a +wine-glass, and refused milk; but, as she repeatedly observed, +this was something like. Spiridione's manners were very +agreeable. He kissed her hand on introduction, and as his +profession had taught him a little English, conversation did not +flag.<br> + "Do you like music?" she asked.<br> + "Passionately," he replied. "I have not studied scientific +music, but the music of the heart, yes."<br> + So she played on the humming piano very badly, and he sang, +not so badly. Gino got out a guitar and sang too, sitting out on +the loggia. It was a most agreeable visit.<br> + Gino said he would just walk his friend back to his +lodgings. As they went he said, without the least trace of +malice or satire in his voice, "I think you are quite right. I +shall not bring people to the house any more. I do not see why +an English wife should be treated differently. This is +Italy."<br> + "You are very wise," exclaimed the other; "very wise indeed. +The more precious a possession the more carefully it should be +guarded."<br> + They had reached the lodging, but went on as far as the +Caffè Garibaldi, where they spent a long and most +delightful evening.</p> + +<hr size="0"> +<br> +<br> + + +<h3 align="CENTER">Chapter 4</h3> + +<p>The advance of regret can be so gradual that it is impossible +to say "yesterday I was happy, today I am not." At no one moment +did Lilia realize that her marriage was a failure; yet during the +summer and autumn she became as unhappy as it was possible for +her nature to be. She had no unkind treatment, and few unkind +words, from her husband. He simply left her alone. In the +morning he went out to do "business," which, as far as she could +discover, meant sitting in the Farmacia. He usually returned to +lunch, after which he retired to another room and slept. In the +evening he grew vigorous again, and took the air on the ramparts, +often having his dinner out, and seldom returning till midnight +or later. There were, of course, the times when he was away +altogether--at Empoli, Siena, Florence, Bologna--for he delighted +in travel, and seemed to pick up friends all over the country. +Lilia often heard what a favorite he was.<br> + She began to see that she must assert herself, but she could +not see how. Her self-confidence, which had overthrown Philip, +had gradually oozed away. If she left the strange house there +was the strange little town. If she were to disobey her husband +and walk in the country, that would be stranger still--vast +slopes of olives and vineyards, with chalk-white farms, and in +the distance other slopes, with more olives and more farms, and +more little towns outlined against the cloudless sky. "I don't +call this country," she would say. "Why, it's not as wild as +Sawston Park!" And, indeed, there was scarcely a touch of +wildness in it--some of those slopes had been under cultivation +for two thousand years. But it was terrible and mysterious all +the same, and its continued presence made Lilia so uncomfortable +that she forgot her nature and began to reflect.<br> + She reflected chiefly about her marriage. The ceremony had +been hasty and expensive, and the rites, whatever they were, were +not those of the Church of England. Lilia had no religion in +her; but for hours at a time she would be seized with a vulgar +fear that she was not "married properly," and that her social +position in the next world might be as obscure as it was in +this. It might be safer to do the thing thoroughly, and one day +she took the advice of Spiridione and joined the Roman Catholic +Church, or as she called it, "Santa Deodata's." Gino approved; +he, too, thought it safer, and it was fun confessing, though the +priest was a stupid old man, and the whole thing was a good slap +in the face for the people at home.<br> + The people at home took the slap very soberly; indeed, there +were few left for her to give it to. The Herritons were out of +the question; they would not even let her write to Irma, though +Irma was occasionally allowed to write to her. Mrs. Theobald was +rapidly subsiding into dotage, and, as far as she could be +definite about anything, had definitely sided with the +Herritons. And Miss Abbott did likewise. Night after night did +Lilia curse this false friend, who had agreed with her that the +marriage would "do," and that the Herritons would come round to +it, and then, at the first hint of opposition, had fled back to +England shrieking and distraught. Miss Abbott headed the long +list of those who should never be written to, and who should +never be forgiven. Almost the only person who was not on that +list was Mr. Kingcroft, who had unexpectedly sent an affectionate +and inquiring letter. He was quite sure never to cross the +Channel, and Lilia drew freely on her fancy in the reply.<br> + At first she had seen a few English people, for Monteriano +was not the end of the earth. One or two inquisitive ladies, who +had heard at home of her quarrel with the Herritons, came to +call. She was very sprightly, and they thought her quite +unconventional, and Gino a charming boy, so all that was to the +good. But by May the season, such as it was, had finished, and +there would be no one till next spring. As Mrs. Herriton had +often observed, Lilia had no resources. She did not like music, +or reading, or work. Her one qualification for life was rather +blowsy high spirits, which turned querulous or boisterous +according to circumstances. She was not obedient, but she was +cowardly, and in the most gentle way, which Mrs. Herriton might +have envied, Gino made her do what he wanted. At first it had +been rather fun to let him get the upper hand. But it was +galling to discover that he could not do otherwise. He had a +good strong will when he chose to use it, and would not have had +the least scruple in using bolts and locks to put it into +effect. There was plenty of brutality deep down in him, and one +day Lilia nearly touched it.<br> + It was the old question of going out alone.<br> + "I always do it in England."<br> + "This is Italy."<br> + "Yes, but I'm older than you, and I'll settle."<br> + "I am your husband," he said, smiling. They had finished +their mid-day meal, and he wanted to go and sleep. Nothing would +rouse him up, until at last Lilia, getting more and more angry, +said, "And I've got the money."<br> + He looked horrified.<br> + Now was the moment to assert herself. She made the statement +again. He got up from his chair.<br> + "And you'd better mend your manners," she continued, "for +you'd find it awkward if I stopped drawing cheques."<br> + She was no reader of character, but she quickly became +alarmed. As she said to Perfetta afterwards, "None of his +clothes seemed to fit--too big in one place, too small in +another." His figure rather than his face altered, the shoulders +falling forward till his coat wrinkled across the back and pulled +away from his wrists. He seemed all arms. He edged round the +table to where she was sitting, and she sprang away and held the +chair between them, too frightened to speak or to move. He +looked at her with round, expressionless eyes, and slowly +stretched out his left hand.<br> + Perfetta was heard coming up from the kitchen. It seemed to +wake him up, and he turned away and went to his room without a +word.<br> + "What has happened?" cried Lilia, nearly fainting. "He is +ill--ill."<br> + Perfetta looked suspicious when she heard the account. "What +did you say to him?" She crossed herself.<br> + "Hardly anything," said Lilia and crossed herself also. Thus +did the two women pay homage to their outraged male.<br> + It was clear to Lilia at last that Gino had married her for +money. But he had frightened her too much to leave any place for +contempt. His return was terrifying, for he was frightened too, +imploring her pardon, lying at her feet, embracing her, murmuring +"It was not I," striving to define things which he did not +understand. He stopped in the house for three days, positively +ill with physical collapse. But for all his suffering he had +tamed her, and she never threatened to cut off supplies +again.<br> + Perhaps he kept her even closer than convention demanded. +But he was very young, and he could not bear it to be said of him +that he did not know how to treat a lady--or to manage a wife. +And his own social position was uncertain. Even in England a +dentist is a troublesome creature, whom careful people find +difficult to class. He hovers between the professions and the +trades; he may be only a little lower than the doctors, or he may +be down among the chemists, or even beneath them. The son of the +Italian dentist felt this too. For himself nothing mattered; he +made friends with the people he liked, for he was that glorious +invariable creature, a man. But his wife should visit nowhere +rather than visit wrongly: seclusion was both decent and safe. +The social ideals of North and South had had their brief +contention, and this time the South had won.<br> + It would have been well if he had been as strict over his own +behaviour as he was over hers. But the incongruity never +occurred to him for a moment. His morality was that of the +average Latin, and as he was suddenly placed in the position of a +gentleman, he did not see why he should not behave as such. Of +course, had Lilia been different--had she asserted herself and +got a grip on his character--he might possibly--though not +probably--have been made a better husband as well as a better +man, and at all events he could have adopted the attitude of the +Englishman, whose standard is higher even when his practice is +the same. But had Lilia been different she might not have +married him.<br> + The discovery of his infidelity--which she made by +accident--destroyed such remnants of self-satisfaction as her +life might yet possess. She broke down utterly and sobbed and +cried in Perfetta's arms. Perfetta was kind and even +sympathetic, but cautioned her on no account to speak to Gino, +who would be furious if he was suspected. And Lilia agreed, +partly because she was afraid of him, partly because it was, +after all, the best and most dignified thing to do. She had +given up everything for him--her daughter, her relatives, her +friends, all the little comforts and luxuries of a civilized +life--and even if she had the courage to break away, there was no +one who would receive her now. The Herritons had been almost +malignant in their efforts against her, and all her friends had +one by one fallen off. So it was better to live on humbly, +trying not to feel, endeavouring by a cheerful demeanour to put +things right. "Perhaps," she thought, "if I have a child he will +be different. I know he wants a son."<br> + Lilia had achieved pathos despite herself, for there are some +situations in which vulgarity counts no longer. Not Cordelia nor +Imogen more deserves our tears.<br> + She herself cried frequently, making herself look plain and +old, which distressed her husband. He was particularly kind to +her when he hardly ever saw her, and she accepted his kindness +without resentment, even with gratitude, so docile had she +become. She did not hate him, even as she had never loved him; +with her it was only when she was excited that the semblance of +either passion arose. People said she was headstrong, but really +her weak brain left her cold.<br> + Suffering, however, is more independent of temperament, and +the wisest of women could hardly have suffered more.<br> + As for Gino, he was quite as boyish as ever, and carried his +iniquities like a feather. A favourite speech of his was, "Ah, +one ought to marry! Spiridione is wrong; I must persuade him. +Not till marriage does one realize the pleasures and the +possibilities of life." So saying, he would take down his felt +hat, strike it in the right place as infallibly as a German +strikes his in the wrong place, and leave her.<br> + One evening, when he had gone out thus, Lilia could stand it +no longer. It was September. Sawston would be just filling up +after the summer holidays. People would be running in and out of +each other's houses all along the road. There were bicycle +gymkhanas, and on the 30th Mrs. Herriton would be holding the +annual bazaar in her garden for the C.M.S. It seemed impossible +that such a free, happy life could exist. She walked out on to +the loggia. Moonlight and stars in a soft purple sky. The walls +of Monteriano should be glorious on such a night as this. But +the house faced away from them.<br> + Perfetta was banging in the kitchen, and the stairs down led +past the kitchen door. But the stairs up to the attic--the +stairs no one ever used--opened out of the living-room, and by +unlocking the door at the top one might slip out to the square +terrace above the house, and thus for ten minutes walk in freedom +and peace.<br> + The key was in the pocket of Gino's best suit--the English +check--which he never wore. The stairs creaked and the key-hole +screamed; but Perfetta was growing deaf. The walls were +beautiful, but as they faced west they were in shadow. To see +the light upon them she must walk round the town a little, till +they were caught by the beams of the rising moon. She looked +anxiously at the house, and started.<br> + It was easy walking, for a little path ran all outside the +ramparts. The few people she met wished her a civil good-night, +taking her, in her hatless condition, for a peasant. The walls +trended round towards the moon; and presently she came into its +light, and saw all the rough towers turn into pillars of silver +and black, and the ramparts into cliffs of pearl. She had no +great sense of beauty, but she was sentimental, and she began to +cry; for here, where a great cypress interrupted the monotony of +the girdle of olives, she had sat with Gino one afternoon in +March, her head upon his shoulder, while Caroline was looking at +the view and sketching. Round the corner was the Siena gate, from +which the road to England started, and she could hear the rumble +of the diligence which was going down to catch the night train to +Empoli. The next moment it was upon her, for the highroad came +towards her a little before it began its long zigzag down the +hill.<br> + The driver slackened, and called to her to get in. He did +not know who she was. He hoped she might be coming to the +station.<br> + "Non vengo!" she cried.<br> + He wished her good-night, and turned his horses down the +corner. As the diligence came round she saw that it was +empty.<br> + "Vengo . . ."<br> + Her voice was tremulous, and did not carry. The horses swung +off.<br> + "Vengo! Vengo!"<br> + He had begun to sing, and heard nothing. She ran down the +road screaming to him to stop--that she was coming; while the +distance grew greater and the noise of the diligence increased. +The man's back was black and square against the moon, and if he +would but turn for an instant she would be saved. She tried to +cut off the corner of the zigzag, stumbling over the great clods +of earth, large and hard as rocks, which lay between the eternal +olives. She was too late; for, just before she regained the +road, the thing swept past her, thunderous, ploughing up choking +clouds of moonlit dust.<br> + She did not call any more, for she felt very ill, and +fainted; and when she revived she was lying in the road, with +dust in her eyes, and dust in her mouth, and dust down her ears. +There is something very terrible in dust at night-time.<br> + "What shall I do?" she moaned. "He will be so angry."<br> + And without further effort she slowly climbed back to +captivity, shaking her garments as she went.<br> + Ill luck pursued her to the end. It was one of the nights +when Gino happened to come in. He was in the kitchen, swearing +and smashing plates, while Perfetta, her apron over her head, was +weeping violently. At the sight of Lilia he turned upon her and +poured forth a flood of miscellaneous abuse. He was far more +angry but much less alarming than he had been that day when he +edged after her round the table. And Lilia gained more courage +from her bad conscience than she ever had from her good one, for +as he spoke she was seized with indignation and feared him no +longer, and saw him for a cruel, worthless, hypocritical, +dissolute upstart, and spoke in return.<br> + Perfetta screamed for she told him everything--all she knew +and all she thought. He stood with open mouth, all the anger +gone out of him, feeling ashamed, and an utter fool. He was +fairly and rightfully cornered. When had a husband so given +himself away before? She finished; and he was dumb, for she had +spoken truly. Then, alas! the absurdity of his own position +grew upon him, and he laughed--as he would have laughed at the +same situation on the stage.<br> + "You laugh?" stammered Lilia.<br> + "Ah!" he cried, "who could help it? I, who thought you knew +and saw nothing--I am tricked--I am conquered. I give in. Let +us talk of it no more."<br> + He touched her on the shoulder like a good comrade, half +amused and half penitent, and then, murmuring and smiling to +himself, ran quietly out of the room.<br> + Perfetta burst into congratulations. "What courage you +have!" she cried; "and what good fortune! He is angry no +longer! He has forgiven you!"<br> + Neither Perfetta, nor Gino, nor Lilia herself knew the true +reason of all the misery that followed. To the end he thought +that kindness and a little attention would be enough to set +things straight. His wife was a very ordinary woman, and why +should her ideas differ from his own? No one realized that more +than personalities were engaged; that the struggle was national; +that generations of ancestors, good, bad, or indifferent, forbad +the Latin man to be chivalrous to the northern woman, the +northern woman to forgive the Latin man. All this might have +been foreseen: Mrs. Herriton foresaw it from the first.<br> + Meanwhile Lilia prided herself on her high personal standard, +and Gino simply wondered why she did not come round. He hated +discomfort and yearned for sympathy, but shrank from mentioning +his difficulties in the town in case they were put down to his +own incompetence. Spiridione was told, and replied in a +philosophical but not very helpful letter. His other great +friend, whom he trusted more, was still serving in Eritrea or +some other desolate outpost. And, besides, what was the good of +letters? Friends cannot travel through the post.<br> + Lilia, so similar to her husband in many ways, yearned for +comfort and sympathy too. The night he laughed at her she wildly +took up paper and pen and wrote page after page, analysing his +character, enumerating his iniquities, reporting whole +conversations, tracing all the causes and the growth of her +misery. She was beside herself with passion, and though she +could hardly think or see, she suddenly attained to magnificence +and pathos which a practised stylist might have envied. It was +written like a diary, and not till its conclusion did she realize +for whom it was meant.<br> + "Irma, darling Irma, this letter is for you. I almost forgot +I have a daughter. It will make you unhappy, but I want you to +know everything, and you cannot learn things too soon. God bless +you, my dearest, and save you. God bless your miserable +mother."<br> + Fortunately Mrs. Herriton was in when the letter arrived. +She seized it and opened it in her bedroom. Another moment, and +Irma's placid childhood would have been destroyed for ever.<br> + Lilia received a brief note from Harriet, again forbidding +direct communication between mother and daughter, and concluding +with formal condolences. It nearly drove her mad.<br> + "Gently! gently!" said her husband. They were sitting +together on the loggia when the letter arrived. He often sat +with her now, watching her for hours, puzzled and anxious, but +not contrite.<br> + "It's nothing." She went in and tore it up, and then began +to write--a very short letter, whose gist was "Come and save +me."<br> + It is not good to see your wife crying when she +writes--especially if you are conscious that, on the whole, your +treatment of her has been reasonable and kind. It is not good, +when you accidentally look over her shoulder, to see that she is +writing to a man. Nor should she shake her fist at you when she +leaves the room, under the impression that you are engaged in +lighting a cigar and cannot see her.<br> + Lilia went to the post herself. But in Italy so many things +can be arranged. The postman was a friend of Gino's, and Mr. +Kingcroft never got his letter.<br> + So she gave up hope, became ill, and all through the autumn +lay in bed. Gino was distracted. She knew why; he wanted a +son. He could talk and think of nothing else. His one desire +was to become the father of a man like himself, and it held him +with a grip he only partially understood, for it was the first +great desire, the first great passion of his life. Falling in +love was a mere physical triviality, like warm sun or cool water, +beside this divine hope of immortality: "I continue." He gave +candles to Santa Deodata, for he was always religious at a +crisis, and sometimes he went to her himself and prayed the crude +uncouth demands of the simple. Impetuously he summoned all his +relatives back to bear him company in his time of need, and Lilia +saw strange faces flitting past her in the darkened room.<br> + "My love!" he would say, "my dearest Lilia! Be calm. I have +never loved any one but you."<br> + She, knowing everything, would only smile gently, too broken +by suffering to make sarcastic repartees.<br> + Before the child was born he gave her a kiss, and said, "I +have prayed all night for a boy."<br> + Some strangely tender impulse moved her, and she said +faintly, "You are a boy yourself, Gino."<br> + He answered, "Then we shall be brothers."<br> + He lay outside the room with his head against the door like a +dog. When they came to tell him the glad news they found him +half unconscious, and his face was wet with tears.<br> + As for Lilia, some one said to her, "It is a beautiful boy!" +But she had died in giving birth to him.</p> + +<hr size="0"> +<br> +<br> + + +<h3 align="CENTER">Chapter 5</h3> + +<p>At the time of Lilia's death Philip Herriton was just +twenty-four years of age--indeed the news reached Sawston on his +birthday. He was a tall, weakly-built young man, whose clothes +had to be judiciously padded on the shoulders in order to make +him pass muster. His face was plain rather than not, and there +was a curious mixture in it of good and bad. He had a fine +forehead and a good large nose, and both observation and sympathy +were in his eyes. But below the nose and eyes all was confusion, +and those people who believe that destiny resides in the mouth +and chin shook their heads when they looked at him.<br> + Philip himself, as a boy, had been keenly conscious of these +defects. Sometimes when he had been bullied or hustled about at +school he would retire to his cubicle and examine his features in +a looking-glass, and he would sigh and say, "It is a weak face. +I shall never carve a place for myself in the world." But as +years went on he became either less self-conscious or more +self-satisfied. The world, he found, made a niche for him as it +did for every one. Decision of character might come later--or he +might have it without knowing. At all events he had got a sense +of beauty and a sense of humour, two most desirable gifts. The +sense of beauty developed first. It caused him at the age of +twenty to wear parti-coloured ties and a squashy hat, to be late +for dinner on account of the sunset, and to catch art from +Burne-Jones to Praxiteles. At twenty-two he went to Italy with +some cousins, and there he absorbed into one æsthetic whole +olive-trees, blue sky, frescoes, country inns, saints, peasants, +mosaics, statues, beggars. He came back with the air of a +prophet who would either remodel Sawston or reject it. All the +energies and enthusiasms of a rather friendless life had passed +into the championship of beauty.<br> + In a short time it was over. Nothing had happened either in +Sawston or within himself. He had shocked half-a-dozen people, +squabbled with his sister, and bickered with his mother. He +concluded that nothing could happen, not knowing that human love +and love of truth sometimes conquer where love of beauty +fails.<br> + A little disenchanted, a little tired, but æsthetically +intact, he resumed his placid life, relying more and more on his +second gift, the gift of humour. If he could not reform the +world, he could at all events laugh at it, thus attaining at +least an intellectual superiority. Laughter, he read and +believed, was a sign of good moral health, and he laughed on +contentedly, till Lilia's marriage toppled contentment down for +ever. Italy, the land of beauty, was ruined for him. She had no +power to change men and things who dwelt in her. She, too, could +produce avarice, brutality, stupidity--and, what was worse, +vulgarity. It was on her soil and through her influence that a +silly woman had married a cad. He hated Gino, the betrayer of +his life's ideal, and now that the sordid tragedy had come, it +filled him with pangs, not of sympathy, but of final +disillusion.<br> + The disillusion was convenient for Mrs. Herriton, who saw a +trying little period ahead of her, and was glad to have her +family united.<br> + "Are we to go into mourning, do you think?" She always asked +her children's advice where possible.<br> + Harriet thought that they should. She had been detestable to +Lilia while she lived, but she always felt that the dead deserve +attention and sympathy. "After all she has suffered. That +letter kept me awake for nights. The whole thing is like one of +those horrible modern plays where no one is in 'the right.' But +if we have mourning, it will mean telling Irma."<br> + "Of course we must tell Irma!" said Philip.<br> + "Of course," said his mother. "But I think we can still not +tell her about Lilia's marriage."<br> + "I don't think that. And she must have suspected something +by now."<br> + "So one would have supposed. But she never cared for her +mother, and little girls of nine don't reason clearly. She looks +on it as a long visit. And it is important, most important, that +she should not receive a shock. All a child's life depends on +the ideal it has of its parents. Destroy that and everything +goes--morals, behaviour, everything. Absolute trust in some one +else is the essence of education. That is why I have been so +careful about talking of poor Lilia before her."<br> + "But you forget this wretched baby. Waters and Adamson write +that there is a baby."<br> + "Mrs. Theobald must be told. But she doesn't count. She is +breaking up very quickly. She doesn't even see Mr. Kingcroft +now. He, thank goodness, I hear, has at last consoled himself +with someone else."<br> + "The child must know some time," persisted Philip, who felt a +little displeased, though he could not tell with what.<br> + "The later the better. Every moment she is developing."<br> + "I must say it seems rather hard luck, doesn't it?"<br> + "On Irma? Why?"<br> + "On us, perhaps. We have morals and behaviour also, and I +don't think this continual secrecy improves them."<br> + "There's no need to twist the thing round to that," said +Harriet, rather disturbed.<br> + "Of course there isn't," said her mother. "Let's keep to the +main issue. This baby's quite beside the point. Mrs. Theobald +will do nothing, and it's no concern of ours."<br> + "It will make a difference in the money, surely," said +he.<br> + "No, dear; very little. Poor Charles provided for every kind +of contingency in his will. The money will come to you and +Harriet, as Irma's guardians."<br> + "Good. Does the Italian get anything?"<br> + "He will get all hers. But you know what that is."<br> + "Good. So those are our tactics--to tell no one about the +baby, not even Miss Abbott."<br> + "Most certainly this is the proper course," said Mrs. +Herriton, preferring "course" to "tactics" for Harriet's sake. +"And why ever should we tell Caroline?"<br> + "She was so mixed up in the affair."<br> + "Poor silly creature. The less she hears about it the better +she will be pleased. I have come to be very sorry for Caroline. +She, if any one, has suffered and been penitent. She burst into +tears when I told her a little, only a little, of that terrible +letter. I never saw such genuine remorse. We must forgive her +and forget. Let the dead bury their dead. We will not trouble +her with them."<br> + Philip saw that his mother was scarcely logical. But there +was no advantage in saying so. "Here beginneth the New Life, +then. Do you remember, mother, that was what we said when we saw +Lilia off?"<br> + "Yes, dear; but now it is really a New Life, because we are +all at accord. Then you were still infatuated with Italy. It +may be full of beautiful pictures and churches, but we cannot +judge a country by anything but its men."<br> + "That is quite true," he said sadly. And as the tactics were +now settled, he went out and took an aimless and solitary +walk.<br> + By the time he came back two important things had happened. +Irma had been told of her mother's death, and Miss Abbott, who +had called for a subscription, had been told also.<br> + Irma had wept loudly, had asked a few sensible questions and +a good many silly ones, and had been content with evasive +answers. Fortunately the school prize-giving was at hand, and +that, together with the prospect of new black clothes, kept her +from meditating on the fact that Lilia, who had been absent so +long, would now be absent for ever.<br> + "As for Caroline," said Mrs. Herriton, "I was almost +frightened. She broke down utterly. She cried even when she +left the house. I comforted her as best I could, and I kissed +her. It is something that the breach between her and ourselves +is now entirely healed."<br> + "Did she ask no questions--as to the nature of Lilia's death, +I mean?"<br> + "She did. But she has a mind of extraordinary delicacy. She +saw that I was reticent, and she did not press me. You see, +Philip, I can say to you what I could not say before Harriet. +Her ideas are so crude. Really we do not want it known in +Sawston that there is a baby. All peace and comfort would be +lost if people came inquiring after it."<br> + His mother knew how to manage him. He agreed +enthusiastically. And a few days later, when he chanced to +travel up to London with Miss Abbott, he had all the time the +pleasant thrill of one who is better informed. Their last +journey together had been from Monteriano back across Europe. It +had been a ghastly journey, and Philip, from the force of +association, rather expected something ghastly now.<br> + He was surprised. Miss Abbott, between Sawston and Charing +Cross, revealed qualities which he had never guessed her to +possess. Without being exactly original, she did show a +commendable intelligence, and though at times she was gauche and +even uncourtly, he felt that here was a person whom it might be +well to cultivate.<br> + At first she annoyed him. They were talking, of course, +about Lilia, when she broke the thread of vague commiseration and +said abruptly, "It is all so strange as well as so tragic. And +what I did was as strange as anything."<br> + It was the first reference she had ever made to her +contemptible behaviour. "Never mind," he said. "It's all over +now. Let the dead bury their dead. It's fallen out of our +lives."<br> + "But that's why I can talk about it and tell you everything I +have always wanted to. You thought me stupid and sentimental and +wicked and mad, but you never really knew how much I was to +blame."<br> + "Indeed I never think about it now," said Philip gently. He +knew that her nature was in the main generous and upright: it was +unnecessary for her to reveal her thoughts.<br> + "The first evening we got to Monteriano," she persisted, +"Lilia went out for a walk alone, saw that Italian in a +picturesque position on a wall, and fell in love. He was +shabbily dressed, and she did not even know he was the son of a +dentist. I must tell you I was used to this sort of thing. Once +or twice before I had had to send people about their +business."<br> + "Yes; we counted on you," said Philip, with sudden +sharpness. After all, if she would reveal her thoughts, she must +take the consequences.<br> + "I know you did," she retorted with equal sharpness. "Lilia +saw him several times again, and I knew I ought to interfere. I +called her to my bedroom one night. She was very frightened, for +she knew what it was about and how severe I could be. 'Do you +love this man?' I asked. 'Yes or no?' She said 'Yes.' And I +said, 'Why don't you marry him if you think you'll be happy?' +"<br> + "Really--really," exploded Philip, as exasperated as if the +thing had happened yesterday. "You knew Lilia all your life. +Apart from everything else--as if she could choose what could +make her happy!"<br> + "Had you ever let her choose?" she flashed out. "I'm afraid +that's rude," she added, trying to calm herself.<br> + "Let us rather say unhappily expressed," said Philip, who +always adopted a dry satirical manner when he was puzzled.<br> + "I want to finish. Next morning I found Signor Carella and +said the same to him. He--well, he was willing. That's +all."<br> + "And the telegram?" He looked scornfully out of the +window.<br> + Hitherto her voice had been hard, possibly in +self-accusation, possibly in defiance. Now it became +unmistakably sad. "Ah, the telegram! That was wrong. Lilia +there was more cowardly than I was. We should have told the +truth. It lost me my nerve, at all events. I came to the +station meaning to tell you everything then. But we had started +with a lie, and I got frightened. And at the end, when you left, +I got frightened again and came with you."<br> + "Did you really mean to stop?"<br> + "For a time, at all events."<br> + "Would that have suited a newly married pair?"<br> + "It would have suited them. Lilia needed me. And as for +him--I can't help feeling I might have got influence over +him."<br> + "I am ignorant of these matters," said Philip; "but I should +have thought that would have increased the difficulty of the +situation."<br> + The crisp remark was wasted on her. She looked hopelessly at +the raw over-built country, and said, "Well, I have +explained."<br> + "But pardon me, Miss Abbott; of most of your conduct you have +given a description rather than an explanation."<br> + He had fairly caught her, and expected that she would gape +and collapse. To his surprise she answered with some spirit, "An +explanation may bore you, Mr. Herriton: it drags in other +topics."<br> + "Oh, never mind."<br> + "I hated Sawston, you see."<br> + He was delighted. "So did and do I. That's splendid. Go +on."<br> + "I hated the idleness, the stupidity, the respectability, the +petty unselfishness."<br> + "Petty selfishness," he corrected. Sawston psychology had +long been his specialty.<br> + "Petty unselfishness," she repeated. "I had got an idea that +every one here spent their lives in making little sacrifices for +objects they didn't care for, to please people they didn't love; +that they never learnt to be sincere--and, what's as bad, never +learnt how to enjoy themselves. That's what I thought--what I +thought at Monteriano."<br> + "Why, Miss Abbott," he cried, "you should have told me this +before! Think it still! I agree with lots of it. +Magnificent!"<br> + "Now Lilia," she went on, "though there were things about her +I didn't like, had somehow kept the power of enjoying herself +with sincerity. And Gino, I thought, was splendid, and young, +and strong not only in body, and sincere as the day. If they +wanted to marry, why shouldn't they do so? Why shouldn't she +break with the deadening life where she had got into a groove, +and would go on in it, getting more and more--worse than +unhappy--apathetic till she died? Of course I was wrong. She +only changed one groove for another--a worse groove. And as for +him--well, you know more about him than I do. I can never trust +myself to judge characters again. But I still feel he cannot +have been quite bad when we first met him. Lilia--that I should +dare to say it! --must have been cowardly. He was only a +boy--just going to turn into something fine, I thought--and she +must have mismanaged him. So that is the one time I have gone +against what is proper, and there are the results. You have an +explanation now."<br> + "And much of it has been most interesting, though I don't +understand everything. Did you never think of the disparity of +their social position?"<br> + "We were mad--drunk with rebellion. We had no common-sense. +As soon as you came, you saw and foresaw everything."<br> + "Oh, I don't think that." He was vaguely displeased at being +credited with common-sense. For a moment Miss Abbott had seemed +to him more unconventional than himself.<br> + "I hope you see," she concluded, "why I have troubled you +with this long story. Women--I heard you say the other day--are +never at ease till they tell their faults out loud. Lilia is +dead and her husband gone to the bad--all through me. You see, +Mr. Herriton, it makes me specially unhappy; it's the only time +I've ever gone into what my father calls 'real life'--and look +what I've made of it! All that winter I seemed to be waking up +to beauty and splendour and I don't know what; and when the +spring came, I wanted to fight against the things I +hated--mediocrity and dulness and spitefulness and society. I +actually hated society for a day or two at Monteriano. I didn't +see that all these things are invincible, and that if we go +against them they will break us to pieces. Thank you for +listening to so much nonsense."<br> + "Oh, I quite sympathize with what you say," said Philip +encouragingly; "it isn't nonsense, and a year or two ago I should +have been saying it too. But I feel differently now, and I hope +that you also will change. Society is invincible--to a certain +degree. But your real life is your own, and nothing can touch +it. There is no power on earth that can prevent your criticizing +and despising mediocrity--nothing that can stop you retreating +into splendour and beauty--into the thoughts and beliefs that +make the real life--the real you."<br> + "I have never had that experience yet. Surely I and my life +must be where I live."<br> + Evidently she had the usual feminine incapacity for grasping +philosophy. But she had developed quite a personality, and he +must see more of her. "There is another great consolation +against invincible mediocrity," he said--"the meeting a +fellow-victim. I hope that this is only the first of many +discussions that we shall have together."<br> + She made a suitable reply. The train reached Charing Cross, +and they parted,--he to go to a matinée, she to buy +petticoats for the corpulent poor. Her thoughts wandered as she +bought them: the gulf between herself and Mr. Herriton, which she +had always known to be great, now seemed to her immeasurable.<br> + These events and conversations took place at Christmas-time. +The New Life initiated by them lasted some seven months. Then a +little incident--a mere little vexatious incident--brought it to +its close.<br> + Irma collected picture post-cards, and Mrs. Herriton or +Harriet always glanced first at all that came, lest the child +should get hold of something vulgar. On this occasion the +subject seemed perfectly inoffensive--a lot of ruined factory +chimneys--and Harriet was about to hand it to her niece when her +eye was caught by the words on the margin. She gave a shriek and +flung the card into the grate. Of course no fire was alight in +July, and Irma only had to run and pick it out again.<br> + "How dare you!" screamed her aunt. "You wicked girl! Give +it here!"<br> + Unfortunately Mrs. Herriton was out of the room. Irma, who +was not in awe of Harriet, danced round the table, reading as she +did so, "View of the superb city of Monteriano--from your lital +brother."<br> + Stupid Harriet caught her, boxed her ears, and tore the +post-card into fragments. Irma howled with pain, and began +shouting indignantly, "Who is my little brother? Why have I +never heard of him before? Grandmamma! Grandmamma! Who is my +little brother? Who is my--"<br> + Mrs. Herriton swept into the room, saying, "Come with me, +dear, and I will tell you. Now it is time for you to know."<br> + Irma returned from the interview sobbing, though, as a matter +of fact, she had learnt very little. But that little took hold +of her imagination. She had promised secrecy--she knew not why. +But what harm in talking of the little brother to those who had +heard of him already?<br> + "Aunt Harriet!" she would say. "Uncle Phil! Grandmamma! +What do you suppose my little brother is doing now? Has he begun +to play? Do Italian babies talk sooner than us, or would he be +an English baby born abroad? Oh, I do long to see him, and be +the first to teach him the Ten Commandments and the +Catechism."<br> + The last remark always made Harriet look grave.<br> + "Really," exclaimed Mrs. Herriton, "Irma is getting too +tiresome. She forgot poor Lilia soon enough."<br> + "A living brother is more to her than a dead mother," said +Philip dreamily. "She can knit him socks."<br> + "I stopped that. She is bringing him in everywhere. It is +most vexatious. The other night she asked if she might include +him in the people she mentions specially in her prayers."<br> + "What did you say?"<br> + "Of course I allowed her," she replied coldly. "She has a +right to mention any one she chooses. But I was annoyed with her +this morning, and I fear that I showed it."<br> + "And what happened this morning?"<br> + "She asked if she could pray for her 'new father'--for the +Italian!"<br> + "Did you let her?"<br> + "I got up without saying anything."<br> + "You must have felt just as you did when I wanted to pray for +the devil."<br> + "He is the devil," cried Harriet.<br> + "No, Harriet; he is too vulgar."<br> + "I will thank you not to scoff against religion!" was +Harriet's retort. "Think of that poor baby. Irma is right to +pray for him. What an entrance into life for an English +child!"<br> + "My dear sister, I can reassure you. Firstly, the beastly +baby is Italian. Secondly, it was promptly christened at Santa +Deodata's, and a powerful combination of saints watch over--"<br> + "Don't, dear. And, Harriet, don't be so serious--I mean not +so serious when you are with Irma. She will be worse than ever +if she thinks we have something to hide."<br> + Harriet's conscience could be quite as tiresome as Philip's +unconventionality. Mrs. Herriton soon made it easy for her +daughter to go for six weeks to the Tirol. Then she and Philip +began to grapple with Irma alone.<br> + Just as they had got things a little quiet the beastly baby +sent another picture post-card--a comic one, not particularly +proper. Irma received it while they were out, and all the +trouble began again.<br> + "I cannot think," said Mrs. Herriton, "what his motive is in +sending them."<br> + Two years before, Philip would have said that the motive was +to give pleasure. Now he, like his mother, tried to think of +something sinister and subtle.<br> + "Do you suppose that he guesses the situation--how anxious we +are to hush the scandal up?"<br> + "That is quite possible. He knows that Irma will worry us +about the baby. Perhaps he hopes that we shall adopt it to quiet +her."<br> + "Hopeful indeed."<br> + "At the same time he has the chance of corrupting the child's +morals." She unlocked a drawer, took out the post-card, and +regarded it gravely. "He entreats her to send the baby one," was +her next remark.<br> + "She might do it too!"<br> + "I told her not to; but we must watch her carefully, without, +of course, appearing to be suspicious."<br> + Philip was getting to enjoy his mother's diplomacy. He did +not think of his own morals and behaviour any more.<br> + "Who's to watch her at school, though? She may bubble out +any moment."<br> + "We can but trust to our influence," said Mrs. Herriton.<br> + Irma did bubble out, that very day. She was proof against a +single post-card, not against two. A new little brother is a +valuable sentimental asset to a school-girl, and her school was +then passing through an acute phase of baby-worship. Happy the +girl who had her quiver full of them, who kissed them when she +left home in the morning, who had the right to extricate them +from mail-carts in the interval, who dangled them at tea ere they +retired to rest! That one might sing the unwritten song of +Miriam, blessed above all school-girls, who was allowed to hide +her baby brother in a squashy place, where none but herself could +find him!<br> + How could Irma keep silent when pretentious girls spoke of +baby cousins and baby visitors--she who had a baby brother, who +wrote her post-cards through his dear papa? She had promised not +to tell about him--she knew not why--and she told. And one girl +told another, and one girl told her mother, and the thing was +out.<br> + "Yes, it is all very sad," Mrs. Herriton kept saying. "My +daughter-in-law made a very unhappy marriage, as I dare say you +know. I suppose that the child will be educated in Italy. +Possibly his grandmother may be doing something, but I have not +heard of it. I do not expect that she will have him over. She +disapproves of the father. It is altogether a painful business +for her."<br> + She was careful only to scold Irma for disobedience--that +eighth deadly sin, so convenient to parents and guardians. +Harriet would have plunged into needless explanations and abuse. +The child was ashamed, and talked about the baby less. The end +of the school year was at hand, and she hoped to get another +prize. But she also had put her hand to the wheel.<br> + It was several days before they saw Miss Abbott. Mrs. +Herriton had not come across her much since the kiss of +reconciliation, nor Philip since the journey to London. She had, +indeed, been rather a disappointment to him. Her creditable +display of originality had never been repeated: he feared she was +slipping back. Now she came about the Cottage Hospital--her life +was devoted to dull acts of charity--and though she got money out +of him and out of his mother, she still sat tight in her chair, +looking graver and more wooden than ever.<br> + "I dare say you have heard," said Mrs. Herriton, well knowing +what the matter was.<br> + "Yes, I have. I came to ask you; have any steps been +taken?"<br> + Philip was astonished. The question was impertinent in the +extreme. He had a regard for Miss Abbott, and regretted that she +had been guilty of it.<br> + "About the baby?" asked Mrs. Herriton pleasantly.<br> + "Yes."<br> + "As far as I know, no steps. Mrs. Theobald may have decided +on something, but I have not heard of it."<br> + "I was meaning, had you decided on anything?"<br> + "The child is no relation of ours," said Philip. "It is +therefore scarcely for us to interfere."<br> + His mother glanced at him nervously. "Poor Lilia was almost +a daughter to me once. I know what Miss Abbott means. But now +things have altered. Any initiative would naturally come from +Mrs. Theobald."<br> + "But does not Mrs. Theobald always take any initiative from +you?" asked Miss Abbott.<br> + Mrs. Herriton could not help colouring. "I sometimes have +given her advice in the past. I should not presume to do so +now."<br> + "Then is nothing to be done for the child at all?"<br> + "It is extraordinarily good of you to take this unexpected +interest," said Philip.<br> + "The child came into the world through my negligence," +replied Miss Abbott. "It is natural I should take an interest in +it."<br> + "My dear Caroline," said Mrs. Herriton, "you must not brood +over the thing. Let bygones be bygones. The child should worry +you even less than it worries us. We never even mention it. It +belongs to another world."<br> + Miss Abbott got up without replying and turned to go. Her +extreme gravity made Mrs. Herriton uneasy. "Of course," she +added, "if Mrs. Theobald decides on any plan that seems at all +practicable--I must say I don't see any such--I shall ask if I +may join her in it, for Irma's sake, and share in any possible +expenses."<br> + "Please would you let me know if she decides on anything. I +should like to join as well."<br> + "My dear, how you throw about your money! We would never +allow it."<br> + "And if she decides on nothing, please also let me know. Let +me know in any case."<br> + Mrs. Herriton made a point of kissing her.<br> + "Is the young person mad?" burst out Philip as soon as she +had departed. "Never in my life have I seen such colossal +impertinence. She ought to be well smacked, and sent back to +Sunday-school."<br> + His mother said nothing.<br> + "But don't you see--she is practically threatening us? You +can't put her off with Mrs. Theobald; she knows as well as we do +that she is a nonentity. If we don't do anything she's going to +raise a scandal--that we neglect our relatives, &c., which +is, of course, a lie. Still she'll say it. Oh, dear, sweet, +sober Caroline Abbott has a screw loose! We knew it at +Monteriano. I had my suspicions last year one day in the train; +and here it is again. The young person is mad."<br> + She still said nothing.<br> + "Shall I go round at once and give it her well? I'd really +enjoy it."<br> + In a low, serious voice--such a voice as she had not used to +him for months--Mrs. Herriton said, "Caroline has been extremely +impertinent. Yet there may be something in what she says after +all. Ought the child to grow up in that place--and with that +father?"<br> + Philip started and shuddered. He saw that his mother was not +sincere. Her insincerity to others had amused him, but it was +disheartening when used against himself.<br> + "Let us admit frankly," she continued, "that after all we may +have responsibilities."<br> + "I don't understand you, Mother. You are turning absolutely +round. What are you up to?"<br> + In one moment an impenetrable barrier had been erected +between them. They were no longer in smiling confidence. Mrs. +Herriton was off on tactics of her own--tactics which might be +beyond or beneath him.<br> + His remark offended her. "Up to? I am wondering whether I +ought not to adopt the child. Is that sufficiently plain?"<br> + "And this is the result of half-a-dozen idiocies of Miss +Abbott?"<br> + "It is. I repeat, she has been extremely impertinent. None +the less she is showing me my duty. If I can rescue poor Lilia's +baby from that horrible man, who will bring it up either as +Papist or infidel--who will certainly bring it up to be +vicious--I shall do it."<br> + "You talk like Harriet."<br> + "And why not?" said she, flushing at what she knew to be an +insult. "Say, if you choose, that I talk like Irma. That child +has seen the thing more clearly than any of us. She longs for +her little brother. She shall have him. I don't care if I am +impulsive."<br> + He was sure that she was not impulsive, but did not dare to +say so. Her ability frightened him. All his life he had been +her puppet. She let him worship Italy, and reform Sawston--just +as she had let Harriet be Low Church. She had let him talk as +much as he liked. But when she wanted a thing she always got +it.<br> + And though she was frightening him, she did not inspire him +with reverence. Her life, he saw, was without meaning. To what +purpose was her diplomacy, her insincerity, her continued +repression of vigour? Did they make any one better or happier? +Did they even bring happiness to herself? Harriet with her +gloomy peevish creed, Lilia with her clutches after pleasure, +were after all more divine than this well-ordered, active, +useless machine.<br> + Now that his mother had wounded his vanity he could criticize +her thus. But he could not rebel. To the end of his days he +could probably go on doing what she wanted. He watched with a +cold interest the duel between her and Miss Abbott. Mrs. +Herriton's policy only appeared gradually. It was to prevent +Miss Abbott interfering with the child at all costs, and if +possible to prevent her at a small cost. Pride was the only +solid element in her disposition. She could not bear to seem +less charitable than others.<br> + "I am planning what can be done," she would tell people, "and +that kind Caroline Abbott is helping me. It is no business of +either of us, but we are getting to feel that the baby must not +be left entirely to that horrible man. It would be unfair to +little Irma; after all, he is her half-brother. No, we have come +to nothing definite."<br> + Miss Abbott was equally civil, but not to be appeased by good +intentions. The child's welfare was a sacred duty to her, not a +matter of pride or even of sentiment. By it alone, she felt, +could she undo a little of the evil that she had permitted to +come into the world. To her imagination Monteriano had become a +magic city of vice, beneath whose towers no person could grow up +happy or pure. Sawston, with its semi-detached houses and snobby +schools, its book teas and bazaars, was certainly petty and dull; +at times she found it even contemptible. But it was not a place +of sin, and at Sawston, either with the Herritons or with +herself, the baby should grow up.<br> + As soon as it was inevitable, Mrs. Herriton wrote a letter +for Waters and Adamson to send to Gino--the oddest letter; Philip +saw a copy of it afterwards. Its ostensible purpose was to +complain of the picture postcards. Right at the end, in a few +nonchalant sentences, she offered to adopt the child, provided +that Gino would undertake never to come near it, and would +surrender some of Lilia's money for its education.<br> + "What do you think of it?" she asked her son. "It would not +do to let him know that we are anxious for it."<br> + "Certainly he will never suppose that."<br> + "But what effect will the letter have on him?"<br> + "When he gets it he will do a sum. If it is less expensive +in the long run to part with a little money and to be clear of +the baby, he will part with it. If he would lose, he will adopt +the tone of the loving father."<br> + "Dear, you're shockingly cynical." After a pause she added, +"How would the sum work out?"<br> + "I don't know, I'm sure. But if you wanted to ensure the +baby being posted by return, you should have sent a little sum to +<em>him</em>. Oh, I'm not cynical--at least I only go by what I +know of him. But I am weary of the whole show. Weary of Italy. +Weary, weary, weary. Sawston's a kind, pitiful place, isn't it? +I will go walk in it and seek comfort."<br> + He smiled as he spoke, for the sake of not appearing +serious. When he had left her she began to smile also.<br> + It was to the Abbotts' that he walked. Mr. Abbott offered +him tea, and Caroline, who was keeping up her Italian in the next +room, came in to pour it out. He told them that his mother had +written to Signor Carella, and they both uttered fervent wishes +for her success.<br> + "Very fine of Mrs. Herriton, very fine indeed," said Mr. +Abbott, who, like every one else, knew nothing of his daughter's +exasperating behaviour. "I'm afraid it will mean a lot of +expense. She will get nothing out of Italy without paying."<br> + "There are sure to be incidental expenses," said Philip +cautiously. Then he turned to Miss Abbott and said, "Do you +suppose we shall have difficulty with the man?"<br> + "It depends," she replied, with equal caution.<br> + "From what you saw of him, should you conclude that he would +make an affectionate parent?"<br> + "I don't go by what I saw of him, but by what I know of +him."<br> + "Well, what do you conclude from that?"<br> + "That he is a thoroughly wicked man."<br> + "Yet thoroughly wicked men have loved their children. Look +at Rodrigo Borgia, for example."<br> + "I have also seen examples of that in my district."<br> + With this remark the admirable young woman rose, and returned +to keep up her Italian. She puzzled Philip extremely. He could +understand enthusiasm, but she did not seem the least +enthusiastic. He could understand pure cussedness, but it did +not seem to be that either. Apparently she was deriving neither +amusement nor profit from the struggle. Why, then, had she +undertaken it? Perhaps she was not sincere. Perhaps, on the +whole, that was most likely. She must be professing one thing +and aiming at another. What the other thing could be he did not +stop to consider. Insincerity was becoming his stock explanation +for anything unfamiliar, whether that thing was a kindly action +or a high ideal.<br> + "She fences well," he said to his mother afterwards.<br> + "What had you to fence about?" she said suavely. Her son +might know her tactics, but she refused to admit that he knew. +She still pretended to him that the baby was the one thing she +wanted, and had always wanted, and that Miss Abbott was her +valued ally.<br> + And when, next week, the reply came from Italy, she showed +him no face of triumph. "Read the letters," she said. "We have +failed."<br> + Gino wrote in his own language, but the solicitors had sent a +laborious English translation, where "Preghiatissima Signora" was +rendered as "Most Praiseworthy Madam," and every delicate +compliment and superlative--superlatives are delicate in +Italian--would have felled an ox. For a moment Philip forgot the +matter in the manner; this grotesque memorial of the land he had +loved moved him almost to tears. He knew the originals of these +lumbering phrases; he also had sent "sincere auguries"; he also +had addressed letters--who writes at home? --from the +Caffè Garibaldi. "I didn't know I was still such an ass," +he thought. "Why can't I realize that it's merely tricks of +expression? A bounder's a bounder, whether he lives in Sawston +or Monteriano."<br> + "Isn't it disheartening?" said his mother.<br> + He then read that Gino could not accept the generous offer. +His paternal heart would not permit him to abandon this symbol of +his deplored spouse. As for the picture post-cards, it +displeased him greatly that they had been obnoxious. He would +send no more. Would Mrs. Herriton, with her notorious kindness, +explain this to Irma, and thank her for those which Irma +(courteous Miss!) had sent to him?<br> + "The sum works out against us," said Philip. "Or perhaps he +is putting up the price."<br> + "No," said Mrs. Herriton decidedly. "It is not that. For +some perverse reason he will not part with the child. I must go +and tell poor Caroline. She will be equally distressed."<br> + She returned from the visit in the most extraordinary +condition. Her face was red, she panted for breath, there were +dark circles round her eyes.<br> + "The impudence!" she shouted. "The cursed impudence! Oh, +I'm swearing. I don't care. That beastly woman--how dare she +interfere--I'll--Philip, dear, I'm sorry. It's no good. You +must go."<br> + "Go where? Do sit down. What's happened?" This outburst of +violence from his elegant ladylike mother pained him dreadfully. +He had not known that it was in her.<br> + "She won't accept--won't accept the letter as final. You +must go to Monteriano!"<br> + "I won't!" he shouted back. "I've been and I've failed. +I'll never see the place again. I hate Italy."<br> + "If you don't go, she will."<br> + "Abbott?"<br> + "Yes. Going alone; would start this evening. I offered to +write; she said it was 'too late!' Too late! The child, if you +please--Irma's brother--to live with her, to be brought up by her +and her father at our very gates, to go to school like a +gentleman, she paying. Oh, you're a man! It doesn't matter for +you. You can laugh. But I know what people say; and that woman +goes to Italy this evening."<br> + He seemed to be inspired. "Then let her go! Let her mess +with Italy by herself. She'll come to grief somehow. Italy's +too dangerous, too--"<br> + "Stop that nonsense, Philip. I will not be disgraced by +her. I <em>will</em> have the child. Pay all we've got for it. +I will have it."<br> + "Let her go to Italy!" he cried. "Let her meddle with what +she doesn't understand! Look at this letter! The man who wrote +it will marry her, or murder her, or do for her somehow. He's a +bounder, but he's not an English bounder. He's mysterious and +terrible. He's got a country behind him that's upset people from +the beginning of the world."<br> + "Harriet!" exclaimed his mother. "Harriet shall go too. +Harriet, now, will be invaluable!" And before Philip had stopped +talking nonsense, she had planned the whole thing and was looking +out the trains.</p> + +<hr size="0"> +<br> +<br> + + +<h3 align="CENTER">Chapter 6</h3> + +<p>Italy, Philip had always maintained, is only her true self in +the height of the summer, when the tourists have left her, and +her soul awakes under the beams of a vertical sun. He now had +every opportunity of seeing her at her best, for it was nearly +the middle of August before he went out to meet Harriet in the +Tirol.<br> + He found his sister in a dense cloud five thousand feet above +the sea, chilled to the bone, overfed, bored, and not at all +unwilling to be fetched away.<br> + "It upsets one's plans terribly," she remarked, as she +squeezed out her sponges, "but obviously it is my duty."<br> + "Did mother explain it all to you?" asked Philip.<br> + "Yes, indeed! Mother has written me a really beautiful +letter. She describes how it was that she gradually got to feel +that we must rescue the poor baby from its terrible surroundings, +how she has tried by letter, and it is no good--nothing but +insincere compliments and hypocrisy came back. Then she says, +'There is nothing like personal influence; you and Philip will +succeed where I have failed.' She says, too, that Caroline Abbott +has been wonderful."<br> + Philip assented.<br> + "Caroline feels it as keenly almost as us. That is because +she knows the man. Oh, he must be loathsome! Goodness me! I've +forgotten to pack the ammonia! . . . It has been a terrible +lesson for Caroline, but I fancy it is her turning-point. I +can't help liking to think that out of all this evil good will +come."<br> + Philip saw no prospect of good, nor of beauty either. But +the expedition promised to be highly comic. He was not averse to +it any longer; he was simply indifferent to all in it except the +humours. These would be wonderful. Harriet, worked by her +mother; Mrs. Herriton, worked by Miss Abbott; Gino, worked by a +cheque--what better entertainment could he desire? There was +nothing to distract him this time; his sentimentality had died, +so had his anxiety for the family honour. He might be a puppet's +puppet, but he knew exactly the disposition of the strings.<br> + They travelled for thirteen hours down-hill, whilst the +streams broadened and the mountains shrank, and the vegetation +changed, and the people ceased being ugly and drinking beer, and +began instead to drink wine and to be beautiful. And the train +which had picked them at sunrise out of a waste of glaciers and +hotels was waltzing at sunset round the walls of Verona.<br> + "Absurd nonsense they talk about the heat," said Philip, as +they drove from the station. "Supposing we were here for +pleasure, what could be more pleasurable than this?"<br> + "Did you hear, though, they are remarking on the cold?" said +Harriet nervously. "I should never have thought it cold."<br> + And on the second day the heat struck them, like a hand laid +over the mouth, just as they were walking to see the tomb of +Juliet. From that moment everything went wrong. They fled from +Verona. Harriet's sketch-book was stolen, and the bottle of +ammonia in her trunk burst over her prayer-book, so that purple +patches appeared on all her clothes. Then, as she was going +through Mantua at four in the morning, Philip made her look out +of the window because it was Virgil's birthplace, and a smut flew +in her eye, and Harriet with a smut in her eye was notorious. At +Bologna they stopped twenty-four hours to rest. It was a +<em>festa</em>, and children blew bladder whistles night and +day. "What a religion!" said Harriet. The hotel smelt, two +puppies were asleep on her bed, and her bedroom window looked +into a belfry, which saluted her slumbering form every quarter of +an hour. Philip left his walking-stick, his socks, and the +Baedeker at Bologna; she only left her sponge-bag. Next day they +crossed the Apennines with a train-sick child and a hot lady, who +told them that never, never before had she sweated so profusely. +"Foreigners are a filthy nation," said Harriet. "I don't care if +there are tunnels; open the windows." He obeyed, and she got +another smut in her eye. Nor did Florence improve matters. +Eating, walking, even a cross word would bathe them both in +boiling water. Philip, who was slighter of build, and less +conscientious, suffered less. But Harriet had never been to +Florence, and between the hours of eight and eleven she crawled +like a wounded creature through the streets, and swooned before +various masterpieces of art. It was an irritable couple who took +tickets to Monteriano.<br> + "Singles or returns?" said he.<br> + "A single for me," said Harriet peevishly; "I shall never get +back alive."<br> + "Sweet creature!" said her brother, suddenly breaking down. +"How helpful you will be when we come to Signor Carella!"<br> + "Do you suppose," said Harriet, standing still among a whirl +of porters--"do you suppose I am going to enter that man's +house?"<br> + "Then what have you come for, pray? For ornament?"<br> + "To see that you do your duty."<br> + "Oh, thanks!"<br> + "So mother told me. For goodness sake get the tickets; here +comes that hot woman again! She has the impudence to bow."<br> + "Mother told you, did she?" said Philip wrathfully, as he +went to struggle for tickets at a slit so narrow that they were +handed to him edgeways. Italy was beastly, and Florence station +is the centre of beastly Italy. But he had a strange feeling +that he was to blame for it all; that a little influx into him of +virtue would make the whole land not beastly but amusing. For +there was enchantment, he was sure of that; solid enchantment, +which lay behind the porters and the screaming and the dust. He +could see it in the terrific blue sky beneath which they +travelled, in the whitened plain which gripped life tighter than +a frost, in the exhausted reaches of the Arno, in the ruins of +brown castles which stood quivering upon the hills. He could see +it, though his head ached and his skin was twitching, though he +was here as a puppet, and though his sister knew how he was +here. There was nothing pleasant in that journey to Monteriano +station. But nothing--not even the discomfort--was +commonplace.<br> + "But do people live inside?" asked Harriet. They had +exchanged railway-carriage for the legno, and the legno had +emerged from the withered trees, and had revealed to them their +destination. Philip, to be annoying, answered "No."<br> + "What do they do there?" continued Harriet, with a frown.<br> + "There is a <em>caffè</em>. A prison. A theatre. A +church. Walls. A view."<br> + "Not for me, thank you," said Harriet, after a weighty +pause.<br> + "Nobody asked you, Miss, you see. Now Lilia was asked by +such a nice young gentleman, with curls all over his forehead, +and teeth just as white as father makes them." Then his manner +changed. "But, Harriet, do you see nothing wonderful or +attractive in that place--nothing at all?"<br> + "Nothing at all. It's frightful."<br> + "I know it is. But it's old--awfully old."<br> + "Beauty is the only test," said Harriet. "At least so you +told me when I sketched old buildings--for the sake, I suppose, +of making yourself unpleasant."<br> + "Oh, I'm perfectly right. But at the same time--I don't +know--so many things have happened here--people have lived so +hard and so splendidly--I can't explain."<br> + "I shouldn't think you could. It doesn't seem the best +moment to begin your Italy mania. I thought you were cured of it +by now. Instead, will you kindly tell me what you are going to +do when you arrive. I do beg you will not be taken unawares this +time."<br> + "First, Harriet, I shall settle you at the Stella d'Italia, +in the comfort that befits your sex and disposition. Then I +shall make myself some tea. After tea I shall take a book into +Santa Deodata's, and read there. It is always fresh and +cool."<br> + The martyred Harriet exclaimed, "I'm not clever, Philip. I +don't go in for it, as you know. But I know what's rude. And I +know what's wrong."<br> + "Meaning--?"<br> + "You!" she shouted, bouncing on the cushions of the legno and +startling all the fleas. "What's the good of cleverness if a +man's murdered a woman?"<br> + "Harriet, I am hot. To whom do you refer?"<br> + "He. Her. If you don't look out he'll murder you. I wish +he would."<br> + "Tut tut, tutlet! You'd find a corpse extraordinarily +inconvenient." Then he tried to be less aggravating. "I +heartily dislike the fellow, but we know he didn't murder her. +In that letter, though she said a lot, she never said he was +physically cruel."<br> + "He has murdered her. The things he did--things one can't +even mention--"<br> + "Things which one must mention if one's to talk at all. And +things which one must keep in their proper place. Because he was +unfaithful to his wife, it doesn't follow that in every way he's +absolutely vile." He looked at the city. It seemed to approve +his remark.<br> + "It's the supreme test. The man who is unchivalrous to a +woman--"<br> + "Oh, stow it! Take it to the Back Kitchen. It's no more a +supreme test than anything else. The Italians never were +chivalrous from the first. If you condemn him for that, you'll +condemn the whole lot."<br> + "I condemn the whole lot."<br> + "And the French as well?"<br> + "And the French as well."<br> + "Things aren't so jolly easy," said Philip, more to himself +than to her.<br> + But for Harriet things were easy, though not jolly, and she +turned upon her brother yet again. "What about the baby, pray? +You've said a lot of smart things and whittled away morality and +religion and I don't know what; but what about the baby? You +think me a fool, but I've been noticing you all today, and you +haven't mentioned the baby once. You haven't thought about it, +even. You don't care. Philip! I shall not speak to you. You +are intolerable."<br> + She kept her promise, and never opened her lips all the rest +of the way. But her eyes glowed with anger and resolution. For +she was a straight, brave woman, as well as a peevish one.<br> + Philip acknowledged her reproof to be true. He did not care +about the baby one straw. Nevertheless, he meant to do his duty, +and he was fairly confident of success. If Gino would have sold +his wife for a thousand lire, for how much less would he not sell +his child? It was just a commercial transaction. Why should it +interfere with other things? His eyes were fixed on the towers +again, just as they had been fixed when he drove with Miss +Abbott. But this time his thoughts were pleasanter, for he had +no such grave business on his mind. It was in the spirit of the +cultivated tourist that he approached his destination.<br> + One of the towers, rough as any other, was topped by a +cross--the tower of the Collegiate Church of Santa Deodata. She +was a holy maiden of the Dark Ages, the city's patron saint, and +sweetness and barbarity mingle strangely in her story. So holy +was she that all her life she lay upon her back in the house of +her mother, refusing to eat, refusing to play, refusing to work. +The devil, envious of such sanctity, tempted her in various +ways. He dangled grapes above her, he showed her fascinating +toys, he pushed soft pillows beneath her aching head. When all +proved vain he tripped up the mother and flung her downstairs +before her very eyes. But so holy was the saint that she never +picked her mother up, but lay upon her back through all, and thus +assured her throne in Paradise. She was only fifteen when she +died, which shows how much is within the reach of any +school-girl. Those who think her life was unpractical need only +think of the victories upon Poggibonsi, San Gemignano, Volterra, +Siena itself--all gained through the invocation of her name; they +need only look at the church which rose over her grave. The +grand schemes for a marble façade were never carried out, +and it is brown unfinished stone until this day. But for the +inside Giotto was summoned to decorate the walls of the nave. +Giotto came--that is to say, he did not come, German research +having decisively proved--but at all events the nave is covered +with frescoes, and so are two chapels in the left transept, and +the arch into the choir, and there are scraps in the choir +itself. There the decoration stopped, till in the full spring of +the Renaissance a great painter came to pay a few weeks' visit to +his friend the Lord of Monteriano. In the intervals between the +banquets and the discussions on Latin etymology and the dancing, +he would stroll over to the church, and there in the fifth chapel +to the right he has painted two frescoes of the death and burial +of Santa Deodata. That is why Baedeker gives the place a +star.<br> + Santa Deodata was better company than Harriet, and she kept +Philip in a pleasant dream until the legno drew up at the hotel. +Every one there was asleep, for it was still the hour when only +idiots were moving. There were not even any beggars about. The +cabman put their bags down in the passage--they had left heavy +luggage at the station--and strolled about till he came on the +landlady's room and woke her, and sent her to them.<br> + Then Harriet pronounced the monosyllable "Go!"<br> + "Go where?" asked Philip, bowing to the landlady, who was +swimming down the stairs.<br> + "To the Italian. Go."<br> + "Buona sera, signora padrona. Si ritorna volontieri a +Monteriano!" (Don't be a goose. I'm not going now. You're in +the way, too.) "Vorrei due camere--"<br> + "Go. This instant. Now. I'll stand it no longer. Go!"<br> + "I'm damned if I'll go. I want my tea."<br> + "Swear if you like!" she cried. "Blaspheme! Abuse me! But +understand, I'm in earnest."<br> + "Harriet, don't act. Or act better."<br> + "We've come here to get the baby back, and for nothing else. +I'll not have this levity and slackness, and talk about pictures +and churches. Think of mother; did she send you out for +<em>them?</em>"<br> + "Think of mother and don't straddle across the stairs. Let +the cabman and the landlady come down, and let me go up and +choose rooms."<br> + "I shan't."<br> + "Harriet, are you mad?"<br> + "If you like. But you will not come up till you have seen +the Italian."<br> + "La signorina si sente male," said Philip, "C' è il +sole."<br> + "Poveretta!" cried the landlady and the cabman.<br> + "Leave me alone!" said Harriet, snarling round at them. "I +don't care for the lot of you. I'm English, and neither you'll +come down nor he up till he goes for the baby."<br> + "La prego-piano-piano-c è un' altra signorina che +dorme--"<br> + "We shall probably be arrested for brawling, Harriet. Have +you the very slightest sense of the ludicrous?"<br> + Harriet had not; that was why she could be so powerful. She +had concocted this scene in the carriage, and nothing should +baulk her of it. To the abuse in front and the coaxing behind she +was equally indifferent. How long she would have stood like a +glorified Horatius, keeping the staircase at both ends, was never +to be known. For the young lady, whose sleep they were +disturbing, awoke and opened her bedroom door, and came out on to +the landing. She was Miss Abbott.<br> + Philip's first coherent feeling was one of indignation. To +be run by his mother and hectored by his sister was as much as he +could stand. The intervention of a third female drove him +suddenly beyond politeness. He was about to say exactly what he +thought about the thing from beginning to end. But before he +could do so Harriet also had seen Miss Abbott. She uttered a +shrill cry of joy.<br> + "You, Caroline, here of all people!" And in spite of the +heat she darted up the stairs and imprinted an affectionate kiss +upon her friend.<br> + Philip had an inspiration. "You will have a lot to tell Miss +Abbott, Harriet, and she may have as much to tell you. So I'll +pay my call on Signor Carella, as you suggested, and see how +things stand."<br> + Miss Abbott uttered some noise of greeting or alarm. He did +not reply to it or approach nearer to her. Without even paying +the cabman, he escaped into the street.<br> + "Tear each other's eyes out!" he cried, gesticulating at the +façade of the hotel. "Give it to her, Harriet! Teach her +to leave us alone. Give it to her, Caroline! Teach her to be +grateful to you. Go it, ladies; go it!"<br> + Such people as observed him were interested, but did not +conclude that he was mad. This aftermath of conversation is not +unknown in Italy.<br> + He tried to think how amusing it was; but it would not +do--Miss Abbott's presence affected him too personally. Either +she suspected him of dishonesty, or else she was being dishonest +herself. He preferred to suppose the latter. Perhaps she had +seen Gino, and they had prepared some elaborate mortification for +the Herritons. Perhaps Gino had sold the baby cheap to her for a +joke: it was just the kind of joke that would appeal to him. +Philip still remembered the laughter that had greeted his +fruitless journey, and the uncouth push that had toppled him on +to the bed. And whatever it might mean, Miss Abbott's presence +spoilt the comedy: she would do nothing funny.<br> + During this short meditation he had walked through the city, +and was out on the other side. "Where does Signor Carella live?" +he asked the men at the Dogana.<br> + "I'll show you," said a little girl, springing out of the +ground as Italian children will.<br> + "She will show you," said the Dogana men, nodding +reassuringly. "Follow her always, always, and you will come to +no harm. She is a trustworthy guide. She is my</p> + +<blockquote>daughter."<br> +cousin."<br> +sister."</blockquote> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p> Philip knew these relatives well: they ramify, if need be, +all over the peninsula.<br> + "Do you chance to know whether Signor Carella is in?" he +asked her.<br> + She had just seen him go in. Philip nodded. He was looking +forward to the interview this time: it would be an intellectual +duet with a man of no great intellect. What was Miss Abbott up +to? That was one of the things he was going to discover. While +she had it out with Harriet, he would have it out with Gino. He +followed the Dogana's relative softly, like a diplomatist.<br> + He did not follow her long, for this was the Volterra gate, +and the house was exactly opposite to it. In half a minute they +had scrambled down the mule-track and reached the only +practicable entrance. Philip laughed, partly at the thought of +Lilia in such a building, partly in the confidence of victory. +Meanwhile the Dogana's relative lifted up her voice and gave a +shout.<br> + For an impressive interval there was no reply. Then the +figure of a woman appeared high up on the loggia.<br> + "That is Perfetta," said the girl.<br> + "I want to see Signor Carella," cried Philip.<br> + "Out!"<br> + "Out," echoed the girl complacently.<br> + "Why on earth did you say he was in?" He could have +strangled her for temper. He had been just ripe for an +interview--just the right combination of indignation and +acuteness: blood hot, brain cool. But nothing ever did go right +in Monteriano. "When will he be back?" he called to Perfetta. +It really was too bad.<br> + She did not know. He was away on business. He might be back +this evening, he might not. He had gone to Poggibonsi.<br> + At the sound of this word the little girl put her fingers to +her nose and swept them at the plain. She sang as she did so, +even as her foremothers had sung seven hundred years back--</p> + +<blockquote><em>Poggibonizzi, fatti in là,<br> +Che Monteriano si fa città!</em></blockquote> + +<p> Then she asked Philip for a halfpenny. A German lady, +friendly to the Past, had given her one that very spring.<br> + "I shall have to leave a message," he called.<br> + "Now Perfetta has gone for her basket," said the little +girl. "When she returns she will lower it--so. Then you will +put your card into it. Then she will raise it--thus. By this +means--"<br> + When Perfetta returned, Philip remembered to ask after the +baby. It took longer to find than the basket, and he stood +perspiring in the evening sun, trying to avoid the smell of the +drains and to prevent the little girl from singing against +Poggibonsi. The olive-trees beside him were draped with the +weekly--or more probably the monthly--wash. What a frightful +spotty blouse! He could not think where he had seen it. Then he +remembered that it was Lilia's. She had brought it "to hack +about in" at Sawston, and had taken it to Italy because "in Italy +anything does." He had rebuked her for the sentiment.<br> + "Beautiful as an angel!" bellowed Perfetta, holding out +something which must be Lilia's baby. "But who am I +addressing?"<br> + "Thank you--here is my card." He had written on it a civil +request to Gino for an interview next morning. But before he +placed it in the basket and revealed his identity, he wished to +find something out. "Has a young lady happened to call here +lately--a young English lady?"<br> + Perfetta begged his pardon: she was a little deaf.<br> + "A young lady--pale, large, tall."<br> + She did not quite catch.<br> + "A YOUNG LADY!"<br> + "Perfetta is deaf when she chooses," said the Dogana's +relative. At last Philip admitted the peculiarity and strode +away. He paid off the detestable child at the Volterra gate. +She got two nickel pieces and was not pleased, partly because it +was too much, partly because he did not look pleased when he gave +it to her. He caught her fathers and cousins winking at each +other as he walked past them. Monteriano seemed in one +conspiracy to make him look a fool. He felt tired and anxious +and muddled, and not sure of anything except that his temper was +lost. In this mood he returned to the Stella d'Italia, and +there, as he was ascending the stairs, Miss Abbott popped out of +the dining-room on the first floor and beckoned to him +mysteriously.<br> + "I was going to make myself some tea," he said, with his hand +still on the banisters.<br> + "I should be grateful--"<br> + So he followed her into the dining-room and shut the +door.<br> + "You see," she began, "Harriet knows nothing."<br> + "No more do I. He was out."<br> + "But what's that to do with it?"<br> + He presented her with an unpleasant smile. She fenced well, +as he had noticed before. "He was out. You find me as ignorant +as you have left Harriet."<br> + "What do you mean? Please, please Mr. Herriton, don't be +mysterious: there isn't the time. Any moment Harriet may be +down, and we shan't have decided how to behave to her. Sawston +was different: we had to keep up appearances. But here we must +speak out, and I think I can trust you to do it. Otherwise we'll +never start clear."<br> + "Pray let us start clear," said Philip, pacing up and down +the room. "Permit me to begin by asking you a question. In +which capacity have you come to Monteriano--spy or traitor?"<br> + "Spy!" she answered, without a moment's hesitation. She was +standing by the little Gothic window as she spoke--the hotel had +been a palace once--and with her finger she was following the +curves of the moulding as if they might feel beautiful and +strange. "Spy," she repeated, for Philip was bewildered at +learning her guilt so easily, and could not answer a word. "Your +mother has behaved dishonourably all through. She never wanted +the child; no harm in that; but she is too proud to let it come +to me. She has done all she could to wreck things; she did not +tell you everything; she has told Harriet nothing at all; she has +lied or acted lies everywhere. I cannot trust your mother. So I +have come here alone--all across Europe; no one knows it; my +father thinks I am in Normandy--to spy on Mrs. Herriton. Don't +let's argue!" for he had begun, almost mechanically, to rebuke +her for impertinence. "If you are here to get the child, I will +help you; if you are here to fail, I shall get it instead of +you."<br> + "It is hopeless to expect you to believe me," he stammered. +"But I can assert that we are here to get the child, even if it +costs us all we've got. My mother has fixed no money limit +whatever. I am here to carry out her instructions. I think that +you will approve of them, as you have practically dictated them. +I do not approve of them. They are absurd."<br> + She nodded carelessly. She did not mind what he said. All +she wanted was to get the baby out of Monteriano.<br> + "Harriet also carries out your instructions," he continued. +"She, however, approves of them, and does not know that they +proceed from you. I think, Miss Abbott, you had better take +entire charge of the rescue party. I have asked for an interview +with Signor Carella tomorrow morning. Do you acquiesce?"<br> + She nodded again.<br> + "Might I ask for details of your interview with him? They +might be helpful to me."<br> + He had spoken at random. To his delight she suddenly +collapsed. Her hand fell from the window. Her face was red with +more than the reflection of evening.<br> + "My interview--how do you know of it?"<br> + "From Perfetta, if it interests you."<br> + "Who ever is Perfetta?"<br> + "The woman who must have let you in."<br> + "In where?"<br> + "Into Signor Carella's house."<br> + "Mr. Herriton!" she exclaimed. "How could you believe her? +Do you suppose that I would have entered that man's house, +knowing about him all that I do? I think you have very odd ideas +of what is possible for a lady. I hear you wanted Harriet to +go. Very properly she refused. Eighteen months ago I might have +done such a thing. But I trust I have learnt how to behave by +now."<br> + Philip began to see that there were two Miss Abbotts--the +Miss Abbott who could travel alone to Monteriano, and the Miss +Abbott who could not enter Gino's house when she got there. It +was an amusing discovery. Which of them would respond to his +next move?<br> + "I suppose I misunderstood Perfetta. Where did you have your +interview, then?"<br> + "Not an interview--an accident--I am very sorry--I meant you +to have the chance of seeing him first. Though it is your +fault. You are a day late. You were due here yesterday. So I +came yesterday, and, not finding you, went up to the Rocca--you +know that kitchen-garden where they let you in, and there is a +ladder up to a broken tower, where you can stand and see all the +other towers below you and the plain and all the other +hills?"<br> + "Yes, yes. I know the Rocca; I told you of it."<br> + "So I went up in the evening for the sunset: I had nothing to +do. He was in the garden: it belongs to a friend of his."<br> + "And you talked."<br> + "It was very awkward for me. But I had to talk: he seemed to +make me. You see he thought I was here as a tourist; he thinks so +still. He intended to be civil, and I judged it better to be +civil also."<br> + "And of what did you talk?"<br> + "The weather--there will be rain, he says, by tomorrow +evening--the other towns, England, myself, about you a little, +and he actually mentioned Lilia. He was perfectly disgusting; he +pretended he loved her; he offered to show me her grave--the +grave of the woman he has murdered!"<br> + "My dear Miss Abbott, he is not a murderer. I have just been +driving that into Harriet. And when you know the Italians as +well as I do, you will realize that in all that he said to you he +was perfectly sincere. The Italians are essentially dramatic; +they look on death and love as spectacles. I don't doubt that he +persuaded himself, for the moment, that he had behaved admirably, +both as husband and widower."<br> + "You may be right," said Miss Abbott, impressed for the first +time. "When I tried to pave the way, so to speak--to hint that +he had not behaved as he ought--well, it was no good at all. He +couldn't or wouldn't understand."<br> + There was something very humorous in the idea of Miss Abbott +approaching Gino, on the Rocca, in the spirit of a district +visitor. Philip, whose temper was returning, laughed.<br> + "Harriet would say he has no sense of sin."<br> + "Harriet may be right, I am afraid."<br> + "If so, perhaps he isn't sinful!"<br> + Miss Abbott was not one to encourage levity. "I know what he +has done," she said. "What he says and what he thinks is of very +little importance."<br> + Philip smiled at her crudity. "I should like to hear, +though, what he said about me. Is he preparing a warm +reception?"<br> + "Oh, no, not that. I never told him that you and Harriet +were coming. You could have taken him by surprise if you liked. +He only asked for you, and wished he hadn't been so rude to you +eighteen months ago."<br> + "What a memory the fellow has for little things!" He turned +away as he spoke, for he did not want her to see his face. It +was suffused with pleasure. For an apology, which would have +been intolerable eighteen months ago, was gracious and agreeable +now.<br> + She would not let this pass. "You did not think it a little +thing at the time. You told me he had assaulted you."<br> + "I lost my temper," said Philip lightly. His vanity had been +appeased, and he knew it. This tiny piece of civility had +changed his mood. "Did he really--what exactly did he say?"<br> + "He said he was sorry--pleasantly, as Italians do say such +things. But he never mentioned the baby once."<br> + What did the baby matter when the world was suddenly right +way up? Philip smiled, and was shocked at himself for smiling, +and smiled again. For romance had come back to Italy; there were +no cads in her; she was beautiful, courteous, lovable, as of +old. And Miss Abbott--she, too, was beautiful in her way, for +all her gaucheness and conventionality. She really cared about +life, and tried to live it properly. And Harriet--even Harriet +tried.<br> + This admirable change in Philip proceeds from nothing +admirable, and may therefore provoke the gibes of the cynical. +But angels and other practical people will accept it reverently, +and write it down as good.<br> + "The view from the Rocca (small gratuity) is finest at +sunset," he murmured, more to himself than to her.<br> + "And he never mentioned the baby once," Miss Abbott +repeated. But she had returned to the window, and again her +finger pursued the delicate curves. He watched her in silence, +and was more attracted to her than he had ever been before. She +really was the strangest mixture.<br> + "The view from the Rocca--wasn't it fine?"<br> + "What isn't fine here?" she answered gently, and then added, +"I wish I was Harriet," throwing an extraordinary meaning into +the words.<br> + "Because Harriet--?"<br> + She would not go further, but he believed that she had paid +homage to the complexity of life. For her, at all events, the +expedition was neither easy nor jolly. Beauty, evil, charm, +vulgarity, mystery--she also acknowledged this tangle, in spite +of herself. And her voice thrilled him when she broke silence +with "Mr. Herriton--come here--look at this!"<br> + She removed a pile of plates from the Gothic window, and they +leant out of it. Close opposite, wedged between mean houses, +there rose up one of the great towers. It is your tower: you +stretch a barricade between it and the hotel, and the traffic is +blocked in a moment. Farther up, where the street empties out by +the church, your connections, the Merli and the Capocchi, do +likewise. They command the Piazza, you the Siena gate. No one +can move in either but he shall be instantly slain, either by +bows or by crossbows, or by Greek fire. Beware, however, of the +back bedroom windows. For they are menaced by the tower of the +Aldobrandeschi, and before now arrows have stuck quivering over +the washstand. Guard these windows well, lest there be a +repetition of the events of February 1338, when the hotel was +surprised from the rear, and your dearest friend--you could just +make out that it was he--was thrown at you over the stairs.<br> + "It reaches up to heaven," said Philip, "and down to the +other place." The summit of the tower was radiant in the sun, +while its base was in shadow and pasted over with +advertisements. "Is it to be a symbol of the town?"<br> + She gave no hint that she understood him. But they remained +together at the window because it was a little cooler and so +pleasant. Philip found a certain grace and lightness in his +companion which he had never noticed in England. She was +appallingly narrow, but her consciousness of wider things gave to +her narrowness a pathetic charm. He did not suspect that he was +more graceful too. For our vanity is such that we hold our own +characters immutable, and we are slow to acknowledge that they +have changed, even for the better.<br> + Citizens came out for a little stroll before dinner. Some of +them stood and gazed at the advertisements on the tower.<br> + "Surely that isn't an opera-bill?" said Miss Abbott.<br> + Philip put on his pince-nez. " 'Lucia di Lammermoor. By the +Master Donizetti. Unique representation. This evening.'<br> + "But is there an opera? Right up here?"<br> + "Why, yes. These people know how to live. They would sooner +have a thing bad than not have it at all. That is why they have +got to have so much that is good. However bad the performance is +tonight, it will be alive. Italians don't love music silently, +like the beastly Germans. The audience takes its +share--sometimes more."<br> + "Can't we go?"<br> + He turned on her, but not unkindly. "But we're here to +rescue a child!"<br> + He cursed himself for the remark. All the pleasure and the +light went out of her face, and she became again Miss Abbott of +Sawston--good, oh, most undoubtedly good, but most appallingly +dull. Dull and remorseful: it is a deadly combination, and he +strove against it in vain till he was interrupted by the opening +of the dining-room door.<br> + They started as guiltily as if they had been flirting. Their +interview had taken such an unexpected course. Anger, cynicism, +stubborn morality--all had ended in a feeling of good-will +towards each other and towards the city which had received them. +And now Harriet was here--acrid, indissoluble, large; the same in +Italy as in England--changing her disposition never, and her +atmosphere under protest.<br> + Yet even Harriet was human, and the better for a little tea. +She did not scold Philip for finding Gino out, as she might +reasonably have done. She showered civilities on Miss Abbott, +exclaiming again and again that Caroline's visit was one of the +most fortunate coincidences in the world. Caroline did not +contradict her.<br> + "You see him tomorrow at ten, Philip. Well, don't forget the +blank cheque. Say an hour for the business. No, Italians are so +slow; say two. Twelve o'clock. Lunch. Well--then it's no good +going till the evening train. I can manage the baby as far as +Florence--"<br> + "My dear sister, you can't run on like that. You don't buy a +pair of gloves in two hours, much less a baby."<br> + "Three hours, then, or four; or make him learn English ways. +At Florence we get a nurse--"<br> + "But, Harriet," said Miss Abbott, "what if at first he was to +refuse?"<br> + "I don't know the meaning of the word," said Harriet +impressively. "I've told the landlady that Philip and I only +want our rooms one night, and we shall keep to it."<br> + "I dare say it will be all right. But, as I told you, I +thought the man I met on the Rocca a strange, difficult man."<br> + "He's insolent to ladies, we know. But my brother can be +trusted to bring him to his senses. That woman, Philip, whom you +saw will carry the baby to the hotel. Of course you must tip her +for it. And try, if you can, to get poor Lilia's silver +bangles. They were nice quiet things, and will do for Irma. And +there is an inlaid box I lent her--lent, not gave--to keep her +handkerchiefs in. It's of no real value; but this is our only +chance. Don't ask for it; but if you see it lying about, just +say--"<br> + "No, Harriet; I'll try for the baby, but for nothing else. I +promise to do that tomorrow, and to do it in the way you wish. +But tonight, as we're all tired, we want a change of topic. We +want relaxation. We want to go to the theatre."<br> + "Theatres here? And at such a moment?"<br> + "We should hardly enjoy it, with the great interview +impending," said Miss Abbott, with an anxious glance at +Philip.<br> + He did not betray her, but said, "Don't you think it's better +than sitting in all the evening and getting nervous?"<br> + His sister shook her head. "Mother wouldn't like it. It +would be most unsuitable--almost irreverent. Besides all that, +foreign theatres are notorious. Don't you remember those letters +in the 'Church Family Newspaper'?"<br> + "But this is an opera--'Lucia di Lammermoor'--Sir Walter +Scott--classical, you know."<br> + Harriet's face grew resigned. "Certainly one has so few +opportunities of hearing music. It is sure to be very bad. But +it might be better than sitting idle all the evening. We have no +book, and I lost my crochet at Florence."<br> + "Good. Miss Abbott, you are coming too?"<br> + "It is very kind of you, Mr. Herriton. In some ways I should +enjoy it; but--excuse the suggestion--I don't think we ought to +go to cheap seats."<br> + "Good gracious me!" cried Harriet, "I should never have +thought of that. As likely as not, we should have tried to save +money and sat among the most awful people. One keeps on +forgetting this is Italy."<br> + "Unfortunately I have no evening dress; and if the +seats--"<br> + "Oh, that'll be all right," said Philip, smiling at his +timorous, scrupulous women-kind. "We'll go as we are, and buy +the best we can get. Monteriano is not formal."<br> + So this strenuous day of resolutions, plans, alarms, battles, +victories, defeats, truces, ended at the opera. Miss Abbott and +Harriet were both a little shame-faced. They thought of their +friends at Sawston, who were supposing them to be now tilting +against the powers of evil. What would Mrs. Herriton, or Irma, +or the curates at the Back Kitchen say if they could see the +rescue party at a place of amusement on the very first day of its +mission? Philip, too, marvelled at his wish to go. He began to +see that he was enjoying his time in Monteriano, in spite of the +tiresomeness of his companions and the occasional contrariness of +himself.<br> + He had been to this theatre many years before, on the +occasion of a performance of "La Zia di Carlo." Since then it +had been thoroughly done up, in the tints of the beet-root and +the tomato, and was in many other ways a credit to the little +town. The orchestra had been enlarged, some of the boxes had +terra-cotta draperies, and over each box was now suspended an +enormous tablet, neatly framed, bearing upon it the number of +that box. There was also a drop-scene, representing a pink and +purple landscape, wherein sported many a lady lightly clad, and +two more ladies lay along the top of the proscenium to steady a +large and pallid clock. So rich and so appalling was the effect, +that Philip could scarcely suppress a cry. There is something +majestic in the bad taste of Italy; it is not the bad taste of a +country which knows no better; it has not the nervous vulgarity +of England, or the blinded vulgarity of Germany. It observes +beauty, and chooses to pass it by. But it attains to beauty's +confidence. This tiny theatre of Monteriano spraddled and +swaggered with the best of them, and these ladies with their +clock would have nodded to the young men on the ceiling of the +Sistine.<br> + Philip had tried for a box, but all the best were taken: it +was rather a grand performance, and he had to be content with +stalls. Harriet was fretful and insular. Miss Abbott was +pleasant, and insisted on praising everything: her only regret +was that she had no pretty clothes with her.<br> + "We do all right," said Philip, amused at her unwonted +vanity.<br> + "Yes, I know; but pretty things pack as easily as ugly ones. +We had no need to come to Italy like guys."<br> + This time he did not reply, "But we're here to rescue a +baby." For he saw a charming picture, as charming a picture as +he had seen for years--the hot red theatre; outside the theatre, +towers and dark gates and mediaeval walls; beyond the walls +olive-trees in the starlight and white winding roads and +fireflies and untroubled dust; and here in the middle of it all, +Miss Abbott, wishing she had not come looking like a guy. She +had made the right remark. Most undoubtedly she had made the +right remark. This stiff suburban woman was unbending before the +shrine.<br> + "Don't you like it at all?" he asked her.<br> + "Most awfully." And by this bald interchange they convinced +each other that Romance was here.<br> + Harriet, meanwhile, had been coughing ominously at the +drop-scene, which presently rose on the grounds of Ravenswood, +and the chorus of Scotch retainers burst into cry. The audience +accompanied with tappings and drummings, swaying in the melody +like corn in the wind. Harriet, though she did not care for +music, knew how to listen to it. She uttered an acid +"Shish!"<br> + "Shut it," whispered her brother.<br> + "We must make a stand from the beginning. They're +talking."<br> + "It is tiresome," murmured Miss Abbott; "but perhaps it isn't +for us to interfere."<br> + Harriet shook her head and shished again. The people were +quiet, not because it is wrong to talk during a chorus, but +because it is natural to be civil to a visitor. For a little +time she kept the whole house in order, and could smile at her +brother complacently.<br> + Her success annoyed him. He had grasped the principle of +opera in Italy--it aims not at illusion but at entertainment--and +he did not want this great evening-party to turn into a +prayer-meeting. But soon the boxes began to fill, and Harriet's +power was over. Families greeted each other across the +auditorium. People in the pit hailed their brothers and sons in +the chorus, and told them how well they were singing. When Lucia +appeared by the fountain there was loud applause, and cries of +"Welcome to Monteriano!"<br> + "Ridiculous babies!" said Harriet, settling down in her +stall.<br> + "Why, it is the famous hot lady of the Apennines," cried +Philip; "the one who had never, never before--"<br> + "Ugh! Don't. She will be very vulgar. And I'm sure it's +even worse here than in the tunnel. I wish we'd never--"<br> + Lucia began to sing, and there was a moment's silence. She +was stout and ugly; but her voice was still beautiful, and as she +sang the theatre murmured like a hive of happy bees. All through +the coloratura she was accompanied by sighs, and its top note was +drowned in a shout of universal joy.<br> + So the opera proceeded. The singers drew inspiration from +the audience, and the two great sextettes were rendered not +unworthily. Miss Abbott fell into the spirit of the thing. She, +too, chatted and laughed and applauded and encored, and rejoiced +in the existence of beauty. As for Philip, he forgot himself as +well as his mission. He was not even an enthusiastic visitor. +For he had been in this place always. It was his home.<br> + Harriet, like M. Bovary on a more famous occasion, was trying +to follow the plot. Occasionally she nudged her companions, and +asked them what had become of Walter Scott. She looked round +grimly. The audience sounded drunk, and even Caroline, who never +took a drop, was swaying oddly. Violent waves of excitement, all +arising from very little, went sweeping round the theatre. The +climax was reached in the mad scene. Lucia, clad in white, as +befitted her malady, suddenly gathered up her streaming hair and +bowed her acknowledgment to the audience. Then from the back of +the stage--she feigned not to see it--there advanced a kind of +bamboo clothes-horse, stuck all over with bouquets. It was very +ugly, and most of the flowers in it were false. Lucia knew this, +and so did the audience; and they all knew that the clothes-horse +was a piece of stage property, brought in to make the performance +go year after year. None the less did it unloose the great +deeps. With a scream of amazement and joy she embraced the +animal, pulled out one or two practicable blossoms, pressed them +to her lips, and flung them into her admirers. They flung them +back, with loud melodious cries, and a little boy in one of the +stageboxes snatched up his sister's carnations and offered them. +"Che carino!" exclaimed the singer. She darted at the little boy +and kissed him. Now the noise became tremendous. "Silence! +silence!" shouted many old gentlemen behind. "Let the divine +creature continue!" But the young men in the adjacent box were +imploring Lucia to extend her civility to them. She refused, +with a humorous, expressive gesture. One of them hurled a +bouquet at her. She spurned it with her foot. Then, encouraged +by the roars of the audience, she picked it up and tossed it to +them. Harriet was always unfortunate. The bouquet struck her +full in the chest, and a little billet-doux fell out of it into +her lap.<br> + "Call this classical!" she cried, rising from her seat. +"It's not even respectable! Philip! take me out at once."<br> + "Whose is it?" shouted her brother, holding up the bouquet in +one hand and the billet-doux in the other. "Whose is it?"<br> + The house exploded, and one of the boxes was violently +agitated, as if some one was being hauled to the front. Harriet +moved down the gangway, and compelled Miss Abbott to follow her. +Philip, still laughing and calling "Whose is it?" brought up the +rear. He was drunk with excitement. The heat, the fatigue, and +the enjoyment had mounted into his head.<br> + "To the left!" the people cried. "The innamorato is to the +left."<br> + He deserted his ladies and plunged towards the box. A young +man was flung stomach downwards across the balustrade. Philip +handed him up the bouquet and the note. Then his own hands were +seized affectionately. It all seemed quite natural.<br> + "Why have you not written?" cried the young man. "Why do you +take me by surprise?"<br> + "Oh, I've written," said Philip hilariously. "I left a note +this afternoon."<br> + "Silence! silence!" cried the audience, who were beginning +to have enough. "Let the divine creature continue." Miss Abbott +and Harriet had disappeared.<br> + "No! no!" cried the young man. "You don't escape me now." +For Philip was trying feebly to disengage his hands. Amiable +youths bent out of the box and invited him to enter it.<br> + "Gino's friends are ours--"<br> + "Friends?" cried Gino. "A relative! A brother! Fra +Filippo, who has come all the way from England and never +written."<br> + "I left a message."<br> + The audience began to hiss.<br> + "Come in to us."<br> + "Thank you--ladies--there is not time--"<br> + The next moment he was swinging by his arms. The moment +after he shot over the balustrade into the box. Then the +conductor, seeing that the incident was over, raised his baton. +The house was hushed, and Lucia di Lammermoor resumed her song of +madness and death.<br> + Philip had whispered introductions to the pleasant people who +had pulled him in--tradesmen's sons perhaps they were, or medical +students, or solicitors' clerks, or sons of other dentists. +There is no knowing who is who in Italy. The guest of the +evening was a private soldier. He shared the honour now with +Philip. The two had to stand side by side in the front, and +exchange compliments, whilst Gino presided, courteous, but +delightfully familiar. Philip would have a spasm of horror at +the muddle he had made. But the spasm would pass, and again he +would be enchanted by the kind, cheerful voices, the laughter +that was never vapid, and the light caress of the arm across his +back.<br> + He could not get away till the play was nearly finished, and +Edgardo was singing amongst the tombs of ancestors. His new +friends hoped to see him at the Garibaldi tomorrow evening. He +promised; then he remembered that if they kept to Harriet's plan +he would have left Monteriano. "At ten o'clock, then," he said +to Gino. "I want to speak to you alone. At ten."<br> + "Certainly!" laughed the other.<br> + Miss Abbott was sitting up for him when he got back. +Harriet, it seemed, had gone straight to bed.<br> + "That was he, wasn't it?" she asked.<br> + "Yes, rather."<br> + "I suppose you didn't settle anything?"<br> + "Why, no; how could I? The fact is--well, I got taken by +surprise, but after all, what does it matter? There's no earthly +reason why we shouldn't do the business pleasantly. He's a +perfectly charming person, and so are his friends. I'm his +friend now--his long-lost brother. What's the harm? I tell you, +Miss Abbott, it's one thing for England and another for Italy. +There we plan and get on high moral horses. Here we find what +asses we are, for things go off quite easily, all by themselves. +My hat, what a night! Did you ever see a really purple sky and +really silver stars before? Well, as I was saying, it's absurd +to worry; he's not a porky father. He wants that baby as little +as I do. He's been ragging my dear mother--just as he ragged me +eighteen months ago, and I've forgiven him. Oh, but he has a +sense of humour!"<br> + Miss Abbott, too, had a wonderful evening, nor did she ever +remember such stars or such a sky. Her head, too, was full of +music, and that night when she opened the window her room was +filled with warm, sweet air. She was bathed in beauty within and +without; she could not go to bed for happiness. Had she ever +been so happy before? Yes, once before, and here, a night in +March, the night Gino and Lilia had told her of their love--the +night whose evil she had come now to undo.<br> + She gave a sudden cry of shame. "This time--the same +place--the same thing"--and she began to beat down her happiness, +knowing it to be sinful. She was here to fight against this +place, to rescue a little soul--who was innocent as yet. She was +here to champion morality and purity, and the holy life of an +English home. In the spring she had sinned through ignorance; +she was not ignorant now. "Help me!" she cried, and shut the +window as if there was magic in the encircling air. But the +tunes would not go out of her head, and all night long she was +troubled by torrents of music, and by applause and laughter, and +angry young men who shouted the distich out of Baedeker:--</p> + +<blockquote><em>Poggibonizzi fatti in là,<br> +Che Monteriano si fa città!</em></blockquote> + +<p> Poggibonsi was revealed to her as they sang--a joyless, +straggling place, full of people who pretended. When she woke up +she knew that it had been Sawston.</p> + +<hr size="0"> +<br> +<br> + + +<h3 align="CENTER">Chapter 7</h3> + +<p>At about nine o'clock next morning Perfetta went out on to the +loggia, not to look at the view, but to throw some dirty water at +it. "Scusi tanto!" she wailed, for the water spattered a tall +young lady who had for some time been tapping at the lower +door.<br> + "Is Signor Carella in?" the young lady asked. It was no +business of Perfetta's to be shocked, and the style of the +visitor seemed to demand the reception-room. Accordingly she +opened its shutters, dusted a round patch on one of the horsehair +chairs, and bade the lady do herself the inconvenience of sitting +down. Then she ran into Monteriano and shouted up and down its +streets until such time as her young master should hear her.<br> + The reception-room was sacred to the dead wife. Her shiny +portrait hung upon the wall--similar, doubtless, in all respects +to the one which would be pasted on her tombstone. A little +piece of black drapery had been tacked above the frame to lend a +dignity to woe. But two of the tacks had fallen out, and the +effect was now rakish, as of a drunkard's bonnet. A coon song +lay open on the piano, and of the two tables one supported +Baedeker's "Central Italy," the other Harriet's inlaid box. And +over everything there lay a deposit of heavy white dust, which +was only blown off one moment to thicken on another. It is well +to be remembered with love. It is not so very dreadful to be +forgotten entirely. But if we shall resent anything on earth at +all, we shall resent the consecration of a deserted room.<br> + Miss Abbott did not sit down, partly because the +antimacassars might harbour fleas, partly because she had +suddenly felt faint, and was glad to cling on to the funnel of +the stove. She struggled with herself, for she had need to be +very calm; only if she was very calm might her behaviour be +justified. She had broken faith with Philip and Harriet: she was +going to try for the baby before they did. If she failed she +could scarcely look them in the face again.<br> + "Harriet and her brother," she reasoned, "don't realize what +is before them. She would bluster and be rude; he would be +pleasant and take it as a joke. Both of them--even if they +offered money--would fail. But I begin to understand the man's +nature; he does not love the child, but he will be touchy about +it--and that is quite as bad for us. He's charming, but he's no +fool; he conquered me last year; he conquered Mr. Herriton +yesterday, and if I am not careful he will conquer us all today, +and the baby will grow up in Monteriano. He is terribly strong; +Lilia found that out, but only I remember it now."<br> + This attempt, and this justification of it, were the results +of the long and restless night. Miss Abbott had come to believe +that she alone could do battle with Gino, because she alone +understood him; and she had put this, as nicely as she could, in +a note which she had left for Philip. It distressed her to write +such a note, partly because her education inclined her to +reverence the male, partly because she had got to like Philip a +good deal after their last strange interview. His pettiness +would be dispersed, and as for his "unconventionality," which was +so much gossiped about at Sawston, she began to see that it did +not differ greatly from certain familiar notions of her own. If +only he would forgive her for what she was doing now, there might +perhaps be before them a long and profitable friendship. But she +must succeed. No one would forgive her if she did not succeed. +She prepared to do battle with the powers of evil.<br> + The voice of her adversary was heard at last, singing +fearlessly from his expanded lungs, like a professional. Herein +he differed from Englishmen, who always have a little feeling +against music, and sing only from the throat, apologetically. He +padded upstairs, and looked in at the open door of the +reception-room without seeing her. Her heart leapt and her +throat was dry when he turned away and passed, still singing, +into the room opposite. It is alarming not to be seen.<br> + He had left the door of this room open, and she could see +into it, right across the landing. It was in a shocking mess. +Food, bedclothes, patent-leather boots, dirty plates, and knives +lay strewn over a large table and on the floor. But it was the +mess that comes of life, not of desolation. It was preferable to +the charnel-chamber in which she was standing now, and the light +in it was soft and large, as from some gracious, noble +opening.<br> + He stopped singing, and cried "Where is Perfetta?"<br> + His back was turned, and he was lighting a cigar. He was not +speaking to Miss Abbott. He could not even be expecting her. +The vista of the landing and the two open doors made him both +remote and significant, like an actor on the stage, intimate and +unapproachable at the same time. She could no more call out to +him than if he was Hamlet.<br> + "You know!" he continued, "but you will not tell me. Exactly +like you." He reclined on the table and blew a fat smoke-ring. +"And why won't you tell me the numbers? I have dreamt of a red +hen--that is two hundred and five, and a friend unexpected--he +means eighty-two. But I try for the Terno this week. So tell me +another number."<br> + Miss Abbott did not know of the Tombola. His speech +terrified her. She felt those subtle restrictions which come +upon us in fatigue. Had she slept well she would have greeted +him as soon as she saw him. Now it was impossible. He had got +into another world.<br> + She watched his smoke-ring. The air had carried it slowly +away from him, and brought it out intact upon the landing.<br> + "Two hundred and five--eighty-two. In any case I shall put +them on Bari, not on Florence. I cannot tell you why; I have a +feeling this week for Bari." Again she tried to speak. But the +ring mesmerized her. It had become vast and elliptical, and +floated in at the reception-room door.<br> + "Ah! you don't care if you get the profits. You won't even +say 'Thank you, Gino.' Say it, or I'll drop hot, red-hot ashes on +you. 'Thank you, Gino--'"<br> + The ring had extended its pale blue coils towards her. She +lost self-control. It enveloped her. As if it was a breath from +the pit, she screamed.<br> + There he was, wanting to know what had frightened her, how +she had got here, why she had never spoken. He made her sit +down. He brought her wine, which she refused. She had not one +word to say to him.<br> + "What is it?" he repeated. "What has frightened you?"<br> + He, too, was frightened, and perspiration came starting +through the tan. For it is a serious thing to have been +watched. We all radiate something curiously intimate when we +believe ourselves to be alone.<br> + "Business--" she said at last.<br> + "Business with me?"<br> + "Most important business." She was lying, white and limp, in +the dusty chair.<br> + "Before business you must get well; this is the best +wine."<br> + She refused it feebly. He poured out a glass. She drank +it. As she did so she became self-conscious. However important +the business, it was not proper of her to have called on him, or +to accept his hospitality.<br> + "Perhaps you are engaged," she said. "And as I am not very +well--"<br> + "You are not well enough to go back. And I am not +engaged."<br> + She looked nervously at the other room.<br> + "Ah, now I understand," he exclaimed. "Now I see what +frightened you. But why did you never speak?" And taking her +into the room where he lived, he pointed to--the baby.<br> + She had thought so much about this baby, of its welfare, its +soul, its morals, its probable defects. But, like most unmarried +people, she had only thought of it as a word--just as the healthy +man only thinks of the word death, not of death itself. The real +thing, lying asleep on a dirty rug, disconcerted her. It did not +stand for a principle any longer. It was so much flesh and +blood, so many inches and ounces of life--a glorious, +unquestionable fact, which a man and another woman had given to +the world. You could talk to it; in time it would answer you; in +time it would not answer you unless it chose, but would secrete, +within the compass of its body, thoughts and wonderful passions +of its own. And this was the machine on which she and Mrs. +Herriton and Philip and Harriet had for the last month been +exercising their various ideals--had determined that in time it +should move this way or that way, should accomplish this and not +that. It was to be Low Church, it was to be high-principled, it +was to be tactful, gentlemanly, artistic--excellent things all. +Yet now that she saw this baby, lying asleep on a dirty rug, she +had a great disposition not to dictate one of them, and to exert +no more influence than there may be in a kiss or in the vaguest +of the heartfelt prayers.<br> + But she had practised self-discipline, and her thoughts and +actions were not yet to correspond. To recover her self-esteem +she tried to imagine that she was in her district, and to behave +accordingly.<br> + "What a fine child, Signor Carella. And how nice of you to +talk to it. Though I see that the ungrateful little fellow is +asleep! Seven months? No, eight; of course eight. Still, he is +a remarkably fine child for his age."<br> + Italian is a bad medium for condescension. The patronizing +words came out gracious and sincere, and he smiled with +pleasure.<br> + "You must not stand. Let us sit on the loggia, where it is +cool. I am afraid the room is very untidy," he added, with the +air of a hostess who apologizes for a stray thread on the +drawing-room carpet. Miss Abbott picked her way to the chair. +He sat near her, astride the parapet, with one foot in the loggia +and the other dangling into the view. His face was in profile, +and its beautiful contours drove artfully against the misty green +of the opposing hills. "Posing!" said Miss Abbott to herself. +"A born artist's model."<br> + "Mr. Herriton called yesterday," she began, "but you were +out."<br> + He started an elaborate and graceful explanation. He had +gone for the day to Poggibonsi. Why had the Herritons not +written to him, so that he could have received them properly? +Poggibonsi would have done any day; not but what his business +there was fairly important. What did she suppose that it +was?<br> + Naturally she was not greatly interested. She had not come +from Sawston to guess why he had been to Poggibonsi. She +answered politely that she had no idea, and returned to her +mission.<br> + "But guess!" he persisted, clapping the balustrade between +his hands.<br> + She suggested, with gentle sarcasm, that perhaps he had gone +to Poggibonsi to find something to do.<br> + He intimated that it was not as important as all that. +Something to do--an almost hopeless quest! "E manca questo!" He +rubbed his thumb and forefinger together, to indicate that he had +no money. Then he sighed, and blew another smoke-ring. Miss +Abbott took heart and turned diplomatic.<br> + "This house," she said, "is a large house."<br> + "Exactly," was his gloomy reply. "And when my poor wife +died--" He got up, went in, and walked across the landing to the +reception-room door, which he closed reverently. Then he shut +the door of the living-room with his foot, returned briskly to +his seat, and continued his sentence. "When my poor wife died I +thought of having my relatives to live here. My father wished to +give up his practice at Empoli; my mother and sisters and two +aunts were also willing. But it was impossible. They have their +ways of doing things, and when I was younger I was content with +them. But now I am a man. I have my own ways. Do you +understand?"<br> + "Yes, I do," said Miss Abbott, thinking of her own dear +father, whose tricks and habits, after twenty-five years spent in +their company, were beginning to get on her nerves. She +remembered, though, that she was not here to sympathize with +Gino--at all events, not to show that she sympathized. She also +reminded herself that he was not worthy of sympathy. "It is a +large house," she repeated.<br> + "Immense; and the taxes! But it will be better when--Ah! +but you have never guessed why I went to Poggibonsi--why it was +that I was out when he called."<br> + "I cannot guess, Signor Carella. I am here on business."<br> + "But try."<br> + "I cannot; I hardly know you."<br> + "But we are old friends," he said, "and your approval will be +grateful to me. You gave it me once before. Will you give it +now?"<br> + "I have not come as a friend this time," she answered +stiffly. "I am not likely, Signor Carella, to approve of +anything you do."<br> + "Oh, Signorina!" He laughed, as if he found her piquant and +amusing. "Surely you approve of marriage?"<br> + "Where there is love," said Miss Abbott, looking at him +hard. His face had altered in the last year, but not for the +worse, which was baffling.<br> + "Where there is love," said he, politely echoing the English +view. Then he smiled on her, expecting congratulations.<br> + "Do I understand that you are proposing to marry again?"<br> + He nodded.<br> + "I forbid you, then!"<br> + He looked puzzled, but took it for some foreign banter, and +laughed.<br> + "I forbid you!" repeated Miss Abbott, and all the indignation +of her sex and her nationality went thrilling through the +words.<br> + "But why?" He jumped up, frowning. His voice was squeaky +and petulant, like that of a child who is suddenly forbidden a +toy.<br> + "You have ruined one woman; I forbid you to ruin another. It +is not a year since Lilia died. You pretended to me the other +day that you loved her. It is a lie. You wanted her money. Has +this woman money too?"<br> + "Why, yes!" he said irritably. "A little."<br> + "And I suppose you will say that you love her."<br> + "I shall not say it. It will be untrue. Now my poor +wife--" He stopped, seeing that the comparison would involve him +in difficulties. And indeed he had often found Lilia as +agreeable as any one else.<br> + Miss Abbott was furious at this final insult to her dead +acquaintance. She was glad that after all she could be so angry +with the boy. She glowed and throbbed; her tongue moved nimbly. +At the finish, if the real business of the day had been +completed, she could have swept majestically from the house. But +the baby still remained, asleep on a dirty rug.<br> + Gino was thoughtful, and stood scratching his head. He +respected Miss Abbott. He wished that she would respect him. +"So you do not advise me?" he said dolefully. "But why should it +be a failure?"<br> + Miss Abbott tried to remember that he was really a child +still--a child with the strength and the passions of a +disreputable man. "How can it succeed," she said solemnly, +"where there is no love?"<br> + "But she does love me! I forgot to tell you that."<br> + "Indeed."<br> + "Passionately." He laid his hand upon his own heart.<br> + "Then God help her!"<br> + He stamped impatiently. "Whatever I say displeases you, +Signorina. God help you, for you are most unfair. You say that +I ill-treated my dear wife. It is not so. I have never +ill-treated any one. You complain that there is no love in this +marriage. I prove that there is, and you become still more +angry. What do you want? Do you suppose she will not be +contented? Glad enough she is to get me, and she will do her +duty well."<br> + "Her duty!" cried Miss Abbott, with all the bitterness of +which she was capable.<br> + "Why, of course. She knows why I am marrying her."<br> + "To succeed where Lilia failed! To be your housekeeper, your +slave, you--" The words she would like to have said were too +violent for her.<br> + "To look after the baby, certainly," said he.<br> + "The baby--?" She had forgotten it.<br> + "It is an English marriage," he said proudly. "I do not care +about the money. I am having her for my son. Did you not +understand that?"<br> + "No," said Miss Abbott, utterly bewildered. Then, for a +moment, she saw light. "It is not necessary, Signor Carella. +Since you are tired of the baby--"<br> + Ever after she remembered it to her credit that she saw her +mistake at once. "I don't mean that," she added quickly.<br> + "I know," was his courteous response. "Ah, in a foreign +language (and how perfectly you speak Italian) one is certain to +make slips."<br> + She looked at his face. It was apparently innocent of +satire.<br> + "You meant that we could not always be together yet, he and +I. You are right. What is to be done? I cannot afford a nurse, +and Perfetta is too rough. When he was ill I dare not let her +touch him. When he has to be washed, which happens now and then, +who does it? I. I feed him, or settle what he shall have. I +sleep with him and comfort him when he is unhappy in the night. +No one talks, no one may sing to him but I. Do not be unfair this +time; I like to do these things. But nevertheless (his voice +became pathetic) they take up a great deal of time, and are not +all suitable for a young man."<br> + "Not at all suitable," said Miss Abbott, and closed her eyes +wearily. Each moment her difficulties were increasing. She +wished that she was not so tired, so open to contradictory +impressions. She longed for Harriet's burly obtuseness or for +the soulless diplomacy of Mrs. Herriton.<br> + "A little more wine?" asked Gino kindly.<br> + "Oh, no, thank you! But marriage, Signor Carella, is a very +serious step. Could you not manage more simply? Your relative, +for example--"<br> + "Empoli! I would as soon have him in England!"<br> + "England, then--"<br> + He laughed.<br> + "He has a grandmother there, you know--Mrs. Theobald."<br> + "He has a grandmother here. No, he is troublesome, but I +must have him with me. I will not even have my father and mother +too. For they would separate us," he added.<br> + "How?"<br> + "They would separate our thoughts."<br> + She was silent. This cruel, vicious fellow knew of strange +refinements. The horrible truth, that wicked people are capable +of love, stood naked before her, and her moral being was +abashed. It was her duty to rescue the baby, to save it from +contagion, and she still meant to do her duty. But the +comfortable sense of virtue left her. She was in the presence of +something greater than right or wrong.<br> + Forgetting that this was an interview, he had strolled back +into the room, driven by the instinct she had aroused in him. +"Wake up!" he cried to his baby, as if it was some grown-up +friend. Then he lifted his foot and trod lightly on its +stomach.<br> + Miss Abbott cried, "Oh, take care!" She was unaccustomed to +this method of awakening the young.<br> + "He is not much longer than my boot, is he? Can you believe +that in time his own boots will be as large? And that he +also--"<br> + "But ought you to treat him like that?"<br> + He stood with one foot resting on the little body, suddenly +musing, filled with the desire that his son should be like him, +and should have sons like him, to people the earth. It is the +strongest desire that can come to a man--if it comes to him at +all--stronger even than love or the desire for personal +immortality. All men vaunt it, and declare that it is theirs; +but the hearts of most are set elsewhere. It is the exception +who comprehends that physical and spiritual life may stream out +of him for ever. Miss Abbott, for all her goodness, could not +comprehend it, though such a thing is more within the +comprehension of women. And when Gino pointed first to himself +and then to his baby and said "father-son," she still took it as +a piece of nursery prattle, and smiled mechanically.<br> + The child, the first fruits, woke up and glared at her. Gino +did not greet it, but continued the exposition of his policy.<br> + "This woman will do exactly what I tell her. She is fond of +children. She is clean; she has a pleasant voice. She is not +beautiful; I cannot pretend that to you for a moment. But she is +what I require."<br> + The baby gave a piercing yell.<br> + "Oh, do take care!" begged Miss Abbott. "You are squeezing +it."<br> + "It is nothing. If he cries silently then you may be +frightened. He thinks I am going to wash him, and he is quite +right."<br> + "Wash him!" she cried. "You? Here?" The homely piece of +news seemed to shatter all her plans. She had spent a long +half-hour in elaborate approaches, in high moral attacks; she had +neither frightened her enemy nor made him angry, nor interfered +with the least detail of his domestic life.<br> + "I had gone to the Farmacia," he continued, "and was sitting +there comfortably, when suddenly I remembered that Perfetta had +heated water an hour ago--over there, look, covered with a +cushion. I came away at once, for really he must be washed. You +must excuse me. I can put it off no longer."<br> + "I have wasted your time," she said feebly.<br> + He walked sternly to the loggia and drew from it a large +earthenware bowl. It was dirty inside; he dusted it with a +tablecloth. Then he fetched the hot water, which was in a copper +pot. He poured it out. He added cold. He felt in his pocket +and brought out a piece of soap. Then he took up the baby, and, +holding his cigar between his teeth, began to unwrap it. Miss +Abbott turned to go.<br> + "But why are you going? Excuse me if I wash him while we +talk."<br> + "I have nothing more to say," said Miss Abbott. All she +could do now was to find Philip, confess her miserable defeat, +and bid him go in her stead and prosper better. She cursed her +feebleness; she longed to expose it, without apologies or +tears.<br> + "Oh, but stop a moment!" he cried. "You have not seen him +yet."<br> + "I have seen as much as I want, thank you."<br> + The last wrapping slid off. He held out to her in his two +hands a little kicking image of bronze.<br> + "Take him!"<br> + She would not touch the child.<br> + "I must go at once," she cried; for the tears--the wrong +tears--were hurrying to her eyes.<br> + "Who would have believed his mother was blonde? For he is +brown all over--brown every inch of him. Ah, but how beautiful +he is! And he is mine; mine for ever. Even if he hates me he +will be mine. He cannot help it; he is made out of me; I am his +father."<br> + It was too late to go. She could not tell why, but it was +too late. She turned away her head when Gino lifted his son to +his lips. This was something too remote from the prettiness of +the nursery. The man was majestic; he was a part of Nature; in +no ordinary love scene could he ever be so great. For a +wonderful physical tie binds the parents to the children; and--by +some sad, strange irony--it does not bind us children to our +parents. For if it did, if we could answer their love not with +gratitude but with equal love, life would lose much of its pathos +and much of its squalor, and we might be wonderfully happy. Gino +passionately embracing, Miss Abbott reverently averting her +eyes--both of them had parents whom they did not love so very +much.<br> + "May I help you to wash him?" she asked humbly.<br> + He gave her his son without speaking, and they knelt side by +side, tucking up their sleeves. The child had stopped crying, +and his arms and legs were agitated by some overpowering joy. +Miss Abbott had a woman's pleasure in cleaning anything--more +especially when the thing was human. She understood little +babies from long experience in a district, and Gino soon ceased +to give her directions, and only gave her thanks.<br> + "It is very kind of you," he murmured, "especially in your +beautiful dress. He is nearly clean already. Why, I take the +whole morning! There is so much more of a baby than one +expects. And Perfetta washes him just as she washes clothes. +Then he screams for hours. My wife is to have a light hand. Ah, +how he kicks! Has he splashed you? I am very sorry."<br> + "I am ready for a soft towel now," said Miss Abbott, who was +strangely exalted by the service.<br> + "Certainly! certainly!" He strode in a knowing way to a +cupboard. But he had no idea where the soft towel was. +Generally he dabbed the baby on the first dry thing he +found.<br> + "And if you had any powder."<br> + He struck his forehead despairingly. Apparently the stock of +powder was just exhausted.<br> + She sacrificed her own clean handkerchief. He put a chair +for her on the loggia, which faced westward, and was still +pleasant and cool. There she sat, with twenty miles of view +behind her, and he placed the dripping baby on her knee. It +shone now with health and beauty: it seemed to reflect light, +like a copper vessel. Just such a baby Bellini sets languid on +his mother's lap, or Signorelli flings wriggling on pavements of +marble, or Lorenzo di Credi, more reverent but less divine, lays +carefully among flowers, with his head upon a wisp of golden +straw. For a time Gino contemplated them standing. Then, to get +a better view, he knelt by the side of the chair, with his hands +clasped before him.<br> + So they were when Philip entered, and saw, to all intents and +purposes, the Virgin and Child, with Donor.<br> + "Hullo!" he exclaimed; for he was glad to find things in such +cheerful trim.<br> + She did not greet him, but rose up unsteadily and handed the +baby to his father.<br> + "No, do stop!" whispered Philip. "I got your note. I'm not +offended; you're quite right. I really want you; I could never +have done it alone."<br> + No words came from her, but she raised her hands to her +mouth, like one who is in sudden agony.<br> + "Signorina, do stop a little--after all your kindness."<br> + She burst into tears.<br> + "What is it?" said Philip kindly.<br> + She tried to speak, and then went away weeping bitterly.<br> + The two men stared at each other. By a common impulse they +ran on to the loggia. They were just in time to see Miss Abbott +disappear among the trees.<br> + "What is it?" asked Philip again. There was no answer, and +somehow he did not want an answer. Some strange thing had +happened which he could not presume to understand. He would find +out from Miss Abbott, if ever he found out at all.<br> + "Well, your business," said Gino, after a puzzled sigh.<br> + "Our business--Miss Abbott has told you of that."<br> + "No."<br> + "But surely--"<br> + "She came for business. But she forgot about it; so did +I."<br> + Perfetta, who had a genius for missing people, now returned, +loudly complaining of the size of Monteriano and the intricacies +of its streets. Gino told her to watch the baby. Then he +offered Philip a cigar, and they proceeded to the business.</p> + +<hr size="0"> +<br> +<br> + + +<h3 align="CENTER">Chapter 8</h3> + +<p>"Mad!" screamed Harriet,--"absolutely stark, staring, raving +mad!"<br> + Philip judged it better not to contradict her.<br> + "What's she here for? Answer me that. What's she doing in +Monteriano in August? Why isn't she in Normandy? Answer that. +She won't. I can: she's come to thwart us; she's betrayed +us--got hold of mother's plans. Oh, goodness, my head!"<br> + He was unwise enough to reply, "You mustn't accuse her of +that. Though she is exasperating, she hasn't come here to betray +us."<br> + "Then why has she come here? Answer me that."<br> + He made no answer. But fortunately his sister was too much +agitated to wait for one. "Bursting in on me--crying and looking +a disgusting sight--and says she has been to see the Italian. +Couldn't even talk properly; pretended she had changed her +opinions. What are her opinions to us? I was very calm. I +said: 'Miss Abbott, I think there is a little misapprehension in +this matter. My mother, Mrs. Herriton--' Oh, goodness, my head! +Of course you've failed--don't trouble to answer--I know you've +failed. Where's the baby, pray? Of course you haven't got it. +Dear sweet Caroline won't let you. Oh, yes, and we're to go away +at once and trouble the father no more. Those are her commands. +Commands! COMMANDS!" And Harriet also burst into tears.<br> + Philip governed his temper. His sister was annoying, but +quite reasonable in her indignation. Moreover, Miss Abbott had +behaved even worse than she supposed.<br> + "I've not got the baby, Harriet, but at the same time I +haven't exactly failed. I and Signor Carella are to have another +interview this afternoon, at the Caffè Garibaldi. He is +perfectly reasonable and pleasant. Should you be disposed to +come with me, you would find him quite willing to discuss +things. He is desperately in want of money, and has no prospect +of getting any. I discovered that. At the same time, he has a +certain affection for the child." For Philip's insight, or +perhaps his opportunities, had not been equal to Miss +Abbott's.<br> + Harriet would only sob, and accuse her brother of insulting +her; how could a lady speak to such a horrible man? That, and +nothing else, was enough to stamp Caroline. Oh, poor Lilia!<br> + Philip drummed on the bedroom window-sill. He saw no escape +from the deadlock. For though he spoke cheerfully about his +second interview with Gino, he felt at the bottom of his heart +that it would fail. Gino was too courteous: he would not break +off negotiations by sharp denial; he loved this civil, +half-humorous bargaining. And he loved fooling his opponent, and +did it so nicely that his opponent did not mind being fooled.<br> + "Miss Abbott has behaved extraordinarily," he said at last; +"but at the same time--"<br> + His sister would not hear him. She burst forth again on the +madness, the interference, the intolerable duplicity of +Caroline.<br> + "Harriet, you must listen. My dear, you must stop crying. I +have something quite important to say."<br> + "I shall not stop crying," said she. But in time, finding +that he would not speak to her, she did stop.<br> + "Remember that Miss Abbott has done us no harm. She said +nothing to him about the matter. He assumes that she is working +with us: I gathered that."<br> + "Well, she isn't."<br> + "Yes; but if you're careful she may be. I interpret her +behaviour thus: She went to see him, honestly intending to get +the child away. In the note she left me she says so, and I don't +believe she'd lie."<br> + "I do."<br> + "When she got there, there was some pretty domestic scene +between him and the baby, and she has got swept off in a gush of +sentimentalism. Before very long, if I know anything about +psychology, there will be a reaction. She'll be swept back."<br> + "I don't understand your long words. Say plainly--"<br> + "When she's swept back, she'll be invaluable. For she has +made quite an impression on him. He thinks her so nice with the +baby. You know, she washed it for him."<br> + "Disgusting!"<br> + Harriet's ejaculations were more aggravating than the rest of +her. But Philip was averse to losing his temper. The access of +joy that had come to him yesterday in the theatre promised to be +permanent. He was more anxious than heretofore to be charitable +towards the world.<br> + "If you want to carry off the baby, keep your peace with Miss +Abbott. For if she chooses, she can help you better than I +can."<br> + "There can be no peace between me and her," said Harriet +gloomily.<br> + "Did you--"<br> + "Oh, not all I wanted. She went away before I had finished +speaking--just like those cowardly people! --into the +church."<br> + "Into Santa Deodata's?"<br> + "Yes; I'm sure she needs it. Anything more +unchristian--"<br> + In time Philip went to the church also, leaving his sister a +little calmer and a little disposed to think over his advice. +What had come over Miss Abbott? He had always thought her both +stable and sincere. That conversation he had had with her last +Christmas in the train to Charing Cross--that alone furnished him +with a parallel. For the second time, Monteriano must have +turned her head. He was not angry with her, for he was quite +indifferent to the outcome of their expedition. He was only +extremely interested.<br> + It was now nearly midday, and the streets were clearing. But +the intense heat had broken, and there was a pleasant suggestion +of rain. The Piazza, with its three great attractions--the +Palazzo Pubblico, the Collegiate Church, and the Caffè +Garibaldi: the intellect, the soul, and the body--had never +looked more charming. For a moment Philip stood in its centre, +much inclined to be dreamy, and thinking how wonderful it must +feel to belong to a city, however mean. He was here, however, as +an emissary of civilization and as a student of character, and, +after a sigh, he entered Santa Deodata's to continue his +mission.<br> + There had been a <em>festa</em> two days before, and the +church still smelt of incense and of garlic. The little son of +the sacristan was sweeping the nave, more for amusement than for +cleanliness, sending great clouds of dust over the frescoes and +the scattered worshippers. The sacristan himself had propped a +ladder in the centre of the Deluge--which fills one of the nave +spandrels--and was freeing a column from its wealth of scarlet +calico. Much scarlet calico also lay upon the floor--for the +church can look as fine as any theatre--and the sacristan's +little daughter was trying to fold it up. She was wearing a +tinsel crown. The crown really belonged to St. Augustine. But +it had been cut too big: it fell down over his cheeks like a +collar: you never saw anything so absurd. One of the canons had +unhooked it just before the <em>fiesta</em> began, and had given +it to the sacristan's daughter.<br> + "Please," cried Philip, "is there an English lady here?"<br> + The man's mouth was full of tin-tacks, but he nodded +cheerfully towards a kneeling figure. In the midst of this +confusion Miss Abbott was praying.<br> + He was not much surprised: a spiritual breakdown was quite to +be expected. For though he was growing more charitable towards +mankind, he was still a little jaunty, and too apt to stake out +beforehand the course that will be pursued by the wounded soul. +It did not surprise him, however, that she should greet him +naturally, with none of the sour self-consciousness of a person +who had just risen from her knees. This was indeed the spirit of +Santa Deodata's, where a prayer to God is thought none the worse +of because it comes next to a pleasant word to a neighbour. "I +am sure that I need it," said she; and he, who had expected her +to be ashamed, became confused, and knew not what to reply.<br> + "I've nothing to tell you," she continued. "I have simply +changed straight round. If I had planned the whole thing out, I +could not have treated you worse. I can talk it over now; but +please believe that I have been crying."<br> + "And please believe that I have not come to scold you," said +Philip. "I know what has happened."<br> + "What?" asked Miss Abbott. Instinctively she led the way to +the famous chapel, the fifth chapel on the right, wherein +Giovanni da Empoli has painted the death and burial of the +saint. Here they could sit out of the dust and the noise, and +proceed with a discussion which promised to be important.<br> + "What might have happened to me--he had made you believe that +he loved the child."<br> + "Oh, yes; he has. He will never give it up."<br> + "At present it is still unsettled."<br> + "It will never be settled."<br> + "Perhaps not. Well, as I said, I know what has happened, and +I am not here to scold you. But I must ask you to withdraw from +the thing for the present. Harriet is furious. But she will +calm down when she realizes that you have done us no harm, and +will do none."<br> + "I can do no more," she said. "But I tell you plainly I have +changed sides."<br> + "If you do no more, that is all we want. You promise not to +prejudice our cause by speaking to Signor Carella?"<br> + "Oh, certainly. I don't want to speak to him again; I shan't +ever see him again."<br> + "Quite nice, wasn't he?"<br> + "Quite."<br> + "Well, that's all I wanted to know. I'll go and tell Harriet +of your promise, and I think things'll quiet down now."<br> + But he did not move, for it was an increasing pleasure to him +to be near her, and her charm was at its strongest today. He +thought less of psychology and feminine reaction. The gush of +sentimentalism which had carried her away had only made her more +alluring. He was content to observe her beauty and to profit by +the tenderness and the wisdom that dwelt within her.<br> + "Why aren't you angry with me?" she asked, after a pause.<br> + "Because I understand you--all sides, I think,--Harriet, +Signor Carella, even my mother."<br> + "You do understand wonderfully. You are the only one of us +who has a general view of the muddle."<br> + He smiled with pleasure. It was the first time she had ever +praised him. His eyes rested agreeably on Santa Deodata, who was +dying in full sanctity, upon her back. There was a window open +behind her, revealing just such a view as he had seen that +morning, and on her widowed mother's dresser there stood just +such another copper pot. The saint looked neither at the view +nor at the pot, and at her widowed mother still less. For lo! +she had a vision: the head and shoulders of St. Augustine were +sliding like some miraculous enamel along the rough-cast wall. +It is a gentle saint who is content with half another saint to +see her die. In her death, as in her life, Santa Deodata did not +accomplish much.<br> + "So what are you going to do?" said Miss Abbott.<br> + Philip started, not so much at the words as at the sudden +change in the voice. "Do?" he echoed, rather dismayed. "This +afternoon I have another interview."<br> + "It will come to nothing. Well?"<br> + "Then another. If that fails I shall wire home for +instructions. I dare say we may fail altogether, but we shall +fail honourably."<br> + She had often been decided. But now behind her decision +there was a note of passion. She struck him not as different, +but as more important, and he minded it very much when she +said--<br> + "That's not doing anything! You would be doing something if +you kidnapped the baby, or if you went straight away. But that! +To fail honourably! To come out of the thing as well as you +can! Is that all you are after?"<br> + "Why, yes," he stammered. "Since we talk openly, that is all +I am after just now. What else is there? If I can persuade +Signor Carella to give in, so much the better. If he won't, I +must report the failure to my mother and then go home. Why, Miss +Abbott, you can't expect me to follow you through all these +turns--"<br> + "I don't! But I do expect you to settle what is right and to +follow that. Do you want the child to stop with his father, who +loves him and will bring him up badly, or do you want him to come +to Sawston, where no one loves him, but where he will be brought +up well? There is the question put dispassionately enough even +for you. Settle it. Settle which side you'll fight on. But +don't go talking about an 'honourable failure,' which means +simply not thinking and not acting at all."<br> + "Because I understand the position of Signor Carella and of +you, it's no reason that--"<br> + "None at all. Fight as if you think us wrong. Oh, what's +the use of your fair-mindedness if you never decide for +yourself? Any one gets hold of you and makes you do what they +want. And you see through them and laugh at them--and do it. +It's not enough to see clearly; I'm muddle-headed and stupid, and +not worth a quarter of you, but I have tried to do what seemed +right at the time. And you--your brain and your insight are +splendid. But when you see what's right you're too idle to do +it. You told me once that we shall be judged by our intentions, +not by our accomplishments. I thought it a grand remark. But we +must intend to accomplish--not sit intending on a chair."<br> + "You are wonderful!" he said gravely.<br> + "Oh, you appreciate me!" she burst out again. "I wish you +didn't. You appreciate us all--see good in all of us. And all +the time you are dead--dead--dead. Look, why aren't you angry?" +She came up to him, and then her mood suddenly changed, and she +took hold of both his hands. "You are so splendid, Mr. Herriton, +that I can't bear to see you wasted. I can't bear--she has not +been good to you--your mother."<br> + "Miss Abbott, don't worry over me. Some people are born not +to do things. I'm one of them; I never did anything at school or +at the Bar. I came out to stop Lilia's marriage, and it was too +late. I came out intending to get the baby, and I shall return +an 'honourable failure.' I never expect anything to happen now, +and so I am never disappointed. You would be surprised to know +what my great events are. Going to the theatre yesterday, +talking to you now--I don't suppose I shall ever meet anything +greater. I seem fated to pass through the world without +colliding with it or moving it--and I'm sure I can't tell you +whether the fate's good or evil. I don't die--I don't fall in +love. And if other people die or fall in love they always do it +when I'm just not there. You are quite right; life to me is just +a spectacle, which--thank God, and thank Italy, and thank you--is +now more beautiful and heartening than it has ever been +before."<br> + She said solemnly, "I wish something would happen to you, my +dear friend; I wish something would happen to you."<br> + "But why?" he asked, smiling. "Prove to me why I don't do as +I am."<br> + She also smiled, very gravely. She could not prove it. No +argument existed. Their discourse, splendid as it had been, +resulted in nothing, and their respective opinions and policies +were exactly the same when they left the church as when they had +entered it.<br> + Harriet was rude at lunch. She called Miss Abbott a turncoat +and a coward to her face. Miss Abbott resented neither epithet, +feeling that one was justified and the other not unreasonable. +She tried to avoid even the suspicion of satire in her replies. +But Harriet was sure that she was satirical because she was so +calm. She got more and more violent, and Philip at one time +feared that she would come to blows.<br> + "Look here!" he cried, with something of the old manner, +"it's too hot for this. We've been talking and interviewing each +other all the morning, and I have another interview this +afternoon. I do stipulate for silence. Let each lady retire to +her bedroom with a book."<br> + "I retire to pack," said Harriet. "Please remind Signor +Carella, Philip, that the baby is to be here by half-past eight +this evening."<br> + "Oh, certainly, Harriet. I shall make a point of reminding +him."<br> + "And order a carriage to take us to the evening train."<br> + "And please," said Miss Abbott, "would you order a carriage +for me too?"<br> + "You going?" he exclaimed.<br> + "Of course," she replied, suddenly flushing. "Why not?"<br> + "Why, of course you would be going. Two carriages, then. +Two carriages for the evening train." He looked at his sister +hopelessly. "Harriet, whatever are you up to? We shall never be +ready."<br> + "Order my carriage for the evening train," said Harriet, and +departed.<br> + "Well, I suppose I shall. And I shall also have my interview +with Signor Carella."<br> + Miss Abbott gave a little sigh.<br> + "But why should you mind? Do you suppose that I shall have +the slightest influence over him?"<br> + "No. But--I can't repeat all that I said in the church. You +ought never to see him again. You ought to bundle Harriet into a +carriage, not this evening, but now, and drive her straight +away."<br> + "Perhaps I ought. But it isn't a very big 'ought.' Whatever +Harriet and I do the issue is the same. Why, I can see the +splendour of it--even the humour. Gino sitting up here on the +mountain-top with his cub. We come and ask for it. He welcomes +us. We ask for it again. He is equally pleasant. I'm agreeable +to spend the whole week bargaining with him. But I know that at +the end of it I shall descend empty-handed to the plains. It +might be finer of me to make up my mind. But I'm not a fine +character. And nothing hangs on it."<br> + "Perhaps I am extreme," she said humbly. "I've been trying +to run you, just like your mother. I feel you ought to fight it +out with Harriet. Every little trifle, for some reason, does +seem incalculably important today, and when you say of a thing +that 'nothing hangs on it,' it sounds like blasphemy. There's +never any knowing--(how am I to put it?)--which of our actions, +which of our idlenesses won't have things hanging on it for +ever."<br> + He assented, but her remark had only an æsthetic +value. He was not prepared to take it to his heart. All the +afternoon he rested--worried, but not exactly despondent. The +thing would jog out somehow. Probably Miss Abbott was right. +The baby had better stop where it was loved. And that, probably, +was what the fates had decreed. He felt little interest in the +matter, and he was sure that he had no influence.<br> + It was not surprising, therefore, that the interview at the +Caffè Garibaldi came to nothing. Neither of them took it +very seriously. And before long Gino had discovered how things +lay, and was ragging his companion hopelessly. Philip tried to +look offended, but in the end he had to laugh. "Well, you are +right," he said. "This affair is being managed by the +ladies."<br> + "Ah, the ladies--the ladies!" cried the other, and then he +roared like a millionaire for two cups of black coffee, and +insisted on treating his friend, as a sign that their strife was +over.<br> + "Well, I have done my best," said Philip, dipping a long +slice of sugar into his cup, and watching the brown liquid ascend +into it. "I shall face my mother with a good conscience. Will +you bear me witness that I've done my best?"<br> + "My poor fellow, I will!" He laid a sympathetic hand on +Philip's knee.<br> + "And that I have--" The sugar was now impregnated with +coffee, and he bent forward to swallow it. As he did so his eyes +swept the opposite of the Piazza, and he saw there, watching +them, Harriet. "Mia sorella!" he exclaimed. Gino, much amused, +laid his hand upon the little table, and beat the marble +humorously with his fists. Harriet turned away and began +gloomily to inspect the Palazzo Pubblico.<br> + "Poor Harriet!" said Philip, swallowing the sugar. "One more +wrench and it will all be over for her; we are leaving this +evening."<br> + Gino was sorry for this. "Then you will not be here this +evening as you promised us. All three leaving?"<br> + "All three," said Philip, who had not revealed the secession +of Miss Abbott; "by the night train; at least, that is my +sister's plan. So I'm afraid I shan't be here."<br> + They watched the departing figure of Harriet, and then +entered upon the final civilities. They shook each other warmly +by both hands. Philip was to come again next year, and to write +beforehand. He was to be introduced to Gino's wife, for he was +told of the marriage now. He was to be godfather to his next +baby. As for Gino, he would remember some time that Philip liked +vermouth. He begged him to give his love to Irma. Mrs. +Herriton--should he send her his sympathetic regards? No; +perhaps that would hardly do.<br> + So the two young men parted with a good deal of genuine +affection. For the barrier of language is sometimes a blessed +barrier, which only lets pass what is good. Or--to put the thing +less cynically--we may be better in new clean words, which have +never been tainted by our pettiness or vice. Philip, at all +events, lived more graciously in Italian, the very phrases of +which entice one to be happy and kind. It was horrible to think +of the English of Harriet, whose every word would be as hard, as +distinct, and as unfinished as a lump of coal.<br> + Harriet, however, talked little. She had seen enough to know +that her brother had failed again, and with unwonted dignity she +accepted the situation. She did her packing, she wrote up her +diary, she made a brown paper cover for the new Baedeker. +Philip, finding her so amenable, tried to discuss their future +plans. But she only said that they would sleep in Florence, and +told him to telegraph for rooms. They had supper alone. Miss +Abbott did not come down. The landlady told them that Signor +Carella had called on Miss Abbott to say good-bye, but she, +though in, had not been able to see him. She also told them that +it had begun to rain. Harriet sighed, but indicated to her +brother that he was not responsible.<br> + The carriages came round at a quarter past eight. It was not +raining much, but the night was extraordinarily dark, and one of +the drivers wanted to go slowly to the station. Miss Abbott came +down and said that she was ready, and would start at once.<br> + "Yes, do," said Philip, who was standing in the hall. "Now +that we have quarrelled we scarcely want to travel in procession +all the way down the hill. Well, good-bye; it's all over at +last; another scene in my pageant has shifted."<br> + "Good-bye; it's been a great pleasure to see you. I hope +that won't shift, at all events." She gripped his hand.<br> + "You sound despondent," he said, laughing. "Don't forget +that you return victorious."<br> + "I suppose I do," she replied, more despondently than ever, +and got into the carriage. He concluded that she was thinking of +her reception at Sawston, whither her fame would doubtless +precede her. Whatever would Mrs. Herriton do? She could make +things quite unpleasant when she thought it right. She might +think it right to be silent, but then there was Harriet. Who +would bridle Harriet's tongue? Between the two of them Miss +Abbott was bound to have a bad time. Her reputation, both for +consistency and for moral enthusiasm, would be lost for ever.<br> + "It's hard luck on her," he thought. "She is a good person. +I must do for her anything I can." Their intimacy had been very +rapid, but he too hoped that it would not shift. He believed +that he understood her, and that she, by now, had seen the worst +of him. What if after a long time--if after all--he flushed like +a boy as he looked after her carriage.<br> + He went into the dining-room to look for Harriet. Harriet +was not to be found. Her bedroom, too, was empty. All that was +left of her was the purple prayer-book which lay open on the +bed. Philip took it up aimlessly, and saw--"Blessed be the Lord +my God who teacheth my hands to war and my fingers to fight." He +put the book in his pocket, and began to brood over more +profitable themes.<br> + Santa Deodata gave out half past eight. All the luggage was +on, and still Harriet had not appeared. "Depend upon it," said +the landlady, "she has gone to Signor Carella's to say good-bye +to her little nephew." Philip did not think it likely. They +shouted all over the house and still there was no Harriet. He +began to be uneasy. He was helpless without Miss Abbott; her +grave, kind face had cheered him wonderfully, even when it looked +displeased. Monteriano was sad without her; the rain was +thickening; the scraps of Donizetti floated tunelessly out of the +wineshops, and of the great tower opposite he could only see the +base, fresh papered with the advertisements of quacks.<br> + A man came up the street with a note. Philip read, "Start at +once. Pick me up outside the gate. Pay the bearer. H. H."<br> + "Did the lady give you this note?" he cried.<br> + The man was unintelligible.<br> + "Speak up!" exclaimed Philip. "Who gave it you--and +where?"<br> + Nothing but horrible sighings and bubblings came out of the +man.<br> + "Be patient with him," said the driver, turning round on the +box. "It is the poor idiot." And the landlady came out of the +hotel and echoed "The poor idiot. He cannot speak. He takes +messages for us all."<br> + Philip then saw that the messenger was a ghastly creature, +quite bald, with trickling eyes and grey twitching nose. In +another country he would have been shut up; here he was accepted +as a public institution, and part of Nature's scheme.<br> + "Ugh!" shuddered the Englishman. "Signora padrona, find out +from him; this note is from my sister. What does it mean? Where +did he see her?"<br> + "It is no good," said the landlady. "He understands +everything but he can explain nothing."<br> + "He has visions of the saints," said the man who drove the +cab.<br> + "But my sister--where has she gone? How has she met +him?"<br> + "She has gone for a walk," asserted the landlady. It was a +nasty evening, but she was beginning to understand the English. +"She has gone for a walk--perhaps to wish good-bye to her little +nephew. Preferring to come back another way, she has sent you +this note by the poor idiot and is waiting for you outside the +Siena gate. Many of my guests do this."<br> + There was nothing to do but to obey the message. He shook +hands with the landlady, gave the messenger a nickel piece, and +drove away. After a dozen yards the carriage stopped. The poor +idiot was running and whimpering behind.<br> + "Go on," cried Philip. "I have paid him plenty."<br> + A horrible hand pushed three soldi into his lap. It was part +of the idiot's malady only to receive what was just for his +services. This was the change out of the nickel piece.<br> + "Go on!" shouted Philip, and flung the money into the road. +He was frightened at the episode; the whole of life had become +unreal. It was a relief to be out of the Siena gate. They drew +up for a moment on the terrace. But there was no sign of +Harriet. The driver called to the Dogana men. But they had seen +no English lady pass.<br> + "What am I to do?" he cried; "it is not like the lady to be +late. We shall miss the train."<br> + "Let us drive slowly," said the driver, "and you shall call +her by name as we go."<br> + So they started down into the night, Philip calling +"Harriet! Harriet! Harriet!" And there she was, waiting for +them in the wet, at the first turn of the zigzag.<br> + "Harriet, why don't you answer?"<br> + "I heard you coming," said she, and got quickly in. Not till +then did he see that she carried a bundle.<br> + "What's that?"<br> + "Hush--"<br> + "Whatever is that?"<br> + "Hush--sleeping."<br> + Harriet had succeeded where Miss Abbott and Philip had +failed. It was the baby.<br> + She would not let him talk. The baby, she repeated, was +asleep, and she put up an umbrella to shield it and her from the +rain. He should hear all later, so he had to conjecture the +course of the wonderful interview--an interview between the South +pole and the North. It was quite easy to conjecture: Gino +crumpling up suddenly before the intense conviction of Harriet; +being told, perhaps, to his face that he was a villain; yielding +his only son perhaps for money, perhaps for nothing. "Poor +Gino," he thought. "He's no greater than I am, after all."<br> + Then he thought of Miss Abbott, whose carriage must be +descending the darkness some mile or two below them, and his easy +self-accusation failed. She, too, had conviction; he had felt +its force; he would feel it again when she knew this day's sombre +and unexpected close.<br> + "You have been pretty secret," he said; "you might tell me a +little now. What do we pay for him? All we've got?"<br> + "Hush!" answered Harriet, and dandled the bundle laboriously, +like some bony prophetess--Judith, or Deborah, or Jael. He had +last seen the baby sprawling on the knees of Miss Abbott, shining +and naked, with twenty miles of view behind him, and his father +kneeling by his feet. And that remembrance, together with +Harriet, and the darkness, and the poor idiot, and the silent +rain, filled him with sorrow and with the expectation of sorrow +to come.<br> + Monteriano had long disappeared, and he could see nothing but +the occasional wet stem of an olive, which their lamp illumined +as they passed it. They travelled quickly, for this driver did +not care how fast he went to the station, and would dash down +each incline and scuttle perilously round the curves.<br> + "Look here, Harriet," he said at last, "I feel bad; I want to +see the baby."<br> + "Hush!"<br> + "I don't mind if I do wake him up. I want to see him. I've +as much right in him as you."<br> + Harriet gave in. But it was too dark for him to see the +child's face. "Wait a minute," he whispered, and before she +could stop him he had lit a match under the shelter of her +umbrella. "But he's awake!" he exclaimed. The match went +out.<br> + "Good ickle quiet boysey, then."<br> + Philip winced. "His face, do you know, struck me as all +wrong."<br> + "All wrong?"<br> + "All puckered queerly."<br> + "Of course--with the shadows--you couldn't see him."<br> + "Well, hold him up again." She did so. He lit another +match. It went out quickly, but not before he had seen that the +baby was crying.<br> + "Nonsense," said Harriet sharply. "We should hear him if he +cried."<br> + "No, he's crying hard; I thought so before, and I'm certain +now."<br> + Harriet touched the child's face. It was bathed in tears. +"Oh, the night air, I suppose," she said, "or perhaps the wet of +the rain."<br> + "I say, you haven't hurt it, or held it the wrong way, or +anything; it is too uncanny--crying and no noise. Why didn't you +get Perfetta to carry it to the hotel instead of muddling with +the messenger? It's a marvel he understood about the note."<br> + "Oh, he understands." And he could feel her shudder. "He +tried to carry the baby--"<br> + "But why not Gino or Perfetta?"<br> + "Philip, don't talk. Must I say it again? Don't talk. The +baby wants to sleep." She crooned harshly as they descended, and +now and then she wiped up the tears which welled inexhaustibly +from the little eyes. Philip looked away, winking at times +himself. It was as if they were travelling with the whole +world's sorrow, as if all the mystery, all the persistency of woe +were gathered to a single fount. The roads were now coated with +mud, and the carriage went more quietly but not less swiftly, +sliding by long zigzags into the night. He knew the landmarks +pretty well: here was the crossroad to Poggibonsi; and the last +view of Monteriano, if they had light, would be from here. Soon +they ought to come to that little wood where violets were so +plentiful in spring. He wished the weather had not changed; it +was not cold, but the air was extraordinarily damp. It could not +be good for the child.<br> + "I suppose he breathes, and all that sort of thing?" he +said.<br> + "Of course," said Harriet, in an angry whisper. "You've +started him again. I'm certain he was asleep. I do wish you +wouldn't talk; it makes me so nervous."<br> + "I'm nervous too. I wish he'd scream. It's too uncanny. +Poor Gino! I'm terribly sorry for Gino."<br> + "Are you?"<br> + "Because he's weak--like most of us. He doesn't know what he +wants. He doesn't grip on to life. But I like that man, and I'm +sorry for him."<br> + Naturally enough she made no answer.<br> + "You despise him, Harriet, and you despise me. But you do us +no good by it. We fools want some one to set us on our feet. +Suppose a really decent woman had set up Gino--I believe Caroline +Abbott might have done it--mightn't he have been another +man?"<br> + "Philip," she interrupted, with an attempt at nonchalance, +"do you happen to have those matches handy? We might as well +look at the baby again if you have."<br> + The first match blew out immediately. So did the second. He +suggested that they should stop the carriage and borrow the lamp +from the driver.<br> + "Oh, I don't want all that bother. Try again."<br> + They entered the little wood as he tried to strike the third +match. At last it caught. Harriet poised the umbrella rightly, +and for a full quarter minute they contemplated the face that +trembled in the light of the trembling flame. Then there was a +shout and a crash. They were lying in the mud in darkness. The +carriage had overturned.<br> + Philip was a good deal hurt. He sat up and rocked himself to +and fro, holding his arm. He could just make out the outline of +the carriage above him, and the outlines of the carriage cushions +and of their luggage upon the grey road. The accident had taken +place in the wood, where it was even darker than in the open.<br> + "Are you all right?" he managed to say. Harriet was +screaming, the horse was kicking, the driver was cursing some +other man.<br> + Harriet's screams became coherent. "The baby--the baby--it +slipped--it's gone from my arms--I stole it!"<br> + "God help me!" said Philip. A cold circle came round his +mouth, and, he fainted.<br> + When he recovered it was still the same confusion. The horse +was kicking, the baby had not been found, and Harriet still +screamed like a maniac, "I stole it! I stole it! I stole it! +It slipped out of my arms!"<br> + "Keep still!" he commanded the driver. "Let no one move. We +may tread on it. Keep still."<br> + For a moment they all obeyed him. He began to crawl through +the mud, touching first this, then that, grasping the cushions by +mistake, listening for the faintest whisper that might guide +him. He tried to light a match, holding the box in his teeth and +striking at it with the uninjured hand. At last he succeeded, +and the light fell upon the bundle which he was seeking.<br> + It had rolled off the road into the wood a little way, and +had fallen across a great rut. So tiny it was that had it fallen +lengthways it would have disappeared, and he might never have +found it.<br> + "I stole it! I and the idiot--no one was there." She burst +out laughing.<br> + He sat down and laid it on his knee. Then he tried to +cleanse the face from the mud and the rain and the tears. His +arm, he supposed, was broken, but he could still move it a +little, and for the moment he forgot all pain. He was +listening--not for a cry, but for the tick of a heart or the +slightest tremor of breath.<br> + "Where are you?" called a voice. It was Miss Abbott, against +whose carriage they had collided. She had relit one of the +lamps, and was picking her way towards him.<br> + "Silence!" he called again, and again they obeyed. He shook +the bundle; he breathed into it; he opened his coat and pressed +it against him. Then he listened, and heard nothing but the rain +and the panting horses, and Harriet, who was somewhere chuckling +to herself in the dark.<br> + Miss Abbott approached, and took it gently from him. The +face was already chilly, but thanks to Philip it was no longer +wet. Nor would it again be wetted by any tear.</p> + +<hr size="0"> +<br> +<br> + + +<h3 align="CENTER">Chapter 9</h3> + +<p>The details of Harriet's crime were never known. In her +illness she spoke more of the inlaid box that she lent to +Lilia--lent, not given--than of recent troubles. It was clear +that she had gone prepared for an interview with Gino, and +finding him out, she had yielded to a grotesque temptation. But +how far this was the result of ill-temper, to what extent she had +been fortified by her religion, when and how she had met the poor +idiot--these questions were never answered, nor did they interest +Philip greatly. Detection was certain: they would have been +arrested by the police of Florence or Milan, or at the frontier. +As it was, they had been stopped in a simpler manner a few miles +out of the town.<br> + As yet he could scarcely survey the thing. It was too +great. Round the Italian baby who had died in the mud there +centred deep passions and high hopes. People had been wicked or +wrong in the matter; no one save himself had been trivial. Now +the baby had gone, but there remained this vast apparatus of +pride and pity and love. For the dead, who seemed to take away +so much, really take with them nothing that is ours. The passion +they have aroused lives after them, easy to transmute or to +transfer, but well-nigh impossible to destroy. And Philip knew +that he was still voyaging on the same magnificent, perilous sea, +with the sun or the clouds above him, and the tides below.<br> + The course of the moment--that, at all events, was certain. +He and no one else must take the news to Gino. It was easy to +talk of Harriet's crime--easy also to blame the negligent +Perfetta or Mrs. Herriton at home. Every one had +contributed--even Miss Abbott and Irma. If one chose, one might +consider the catastrophe composite or the work of fate. But +Philip did not so choose. It was his own fault, due to +acknowledged weakness in his own character. Therefore he, and no +one else, must take the news of it to Gino.<br> + Nothing prevented him. Miss Abbott was engaged with Harriet, +and people had sprung out of the darkness and were conducting +them towards some cottage. Philip had only to get into the +uninjured carriage and order the driver to return. He was back +at Monteriano after a two hours' absence. Perfetta was in the +house now, and greeted him cheerfully. Pain, physical and +mental, had made him stupid. It was some time before he realized +that she had never missed the child.<br> + Gino was still out. The woman took him to the +reception-room, just as she had taken Miss Abbott in the morning, +and dusted a circle for him on one of the horsehair chairs. But +it was dark now, so she left the guest a little lamp.<br> + "I will be as quick as I can," she told him. "But there are +many streets in Monteriano; he is sometimes difficult to find. I +could not find him this morning."<br> + "Go first to the Caffè Garibaldi," said Philip, +remembering that this was the hour appointed by his friends of +yesterday.<br> + He occupied the time he was left alone not in thinking--there +was nothing to think about; he simply had to tell a few +facts--but in trying to make a sling for his broken arm. The +trouble was in the elbow-joint, and as long as he kept this +motionless he could go on as usual. But inflammation was +beginning, and the slightest jar gave him agony. The sling was +not fitted before Gino leapt up the stairs, crying--<br> + "So you are back! How glad I am! We are all waiting--"<br> + Philip had seen too much to be nervous. In low, even tones +he told what had happened; and the other, also perfectly calm, +heard him to the end. In the silence Perfetta called up that she +had forgotten the baby's evening milk; she must fetch it. When +she had gone Gino took up the lamp without a word, and they went +into the other room.<br> + "My sister is ill," said Philip, "and Miss Abbott is +guiltless. I should be glad if you did not have to trouble +them."<br> + Gino had stooped down by the way, and was feeling the place +where his son had lain. Now and then he frowned a little and +glanced at Philip.<br> + "It is through me," he continued. "It happened because I was +cowardly and idle. I have come to know what you will do."<br> + Gino had left the rug, and began to pat the table from the +end, as if he was blind. The action was so uncanny that Philip +was driven to intervene.<br> + "Gently, man, gently; he is not here."<br> + He went up and touched him on the shoulder.<br> + He twitched away, and began to pass his hands over things +more rapidly--over the table, the chairs, the entire floor, the +walls as high as he could reach them. Philip had not presumed to +comfort him. But now the tension was too great--he tried.<br> + "Break down, Gino; you must break down. Scream and curse and +give in for a little; you must break down."<br> + There was no reply, and no cessation of the sweeping +hands.<br> + "It is time to be unhappy. Break down or you will be ill +like my sister. You will go--"<br> + The tour of the room was over. He had touched everything in +it except Philip. Now he approached him. He face was that of a +man who has lost his old reason for life and seeks a new one.<br> + "Gino!"<br> + He stopped for a moment; then he came nearer. Philip stood +his ground.<br> + "You are to do what you like with me, Gino. Your son is +dead, Gino. He died in my arms, remember. It does not excuse +me; but he did die in my arms."<br> + The left hand came forward, slowly this time. It hovered +before Philip like an insect. Then it descended and gripped him +by his broken elbow.<br> + Philip struck out with all the strength of his other arm. +Gino fell to the blow without a cry or a word.<br> + "You brute!" exclaimed the Englishman. "Kill me if you +like! But just you leave my broken arm alone."<br> + Then he was seized with remorse, and knelt beside his +adversary and tried to revive him. He managed to raise him up, +and propped his body against his own. He passed his arm round +him. Again he was filled with pity and tenderness. He awaited +the revival without fear, sure that both of them were safe at +last.<br> + Gino recovered suddenly. His lips moved. For one blessed +moment it seemed that he was going to speak. But he scrambled up +in silence, remembering everything, and he made not towards +Philip, but towards the lamp.<br> + "Do what you like; but think first--"<br> + The lamp was tossed across the room, out through the loggia. +It broke against one of the trees below. Philip began to cry out +in the dark.<br> + Gino approached from behind and gave him a sharp pinch. +Philip spun round with a yell. He had only been pinched on the +back, but he knew what was in store for him. He struck out, +exhorting the devil to fight him, to kill him, to do anything but +this. Then he stumbled to the door. It was open. He lost his +head, and, instead of turning down the stairs, he ran across the +landing into the room opposite. There he lay down on the floor +between the stove and the skirting-board.<br> + His senses grew sharper. He could hear Gino coming in on +tiptoe. He even knew what was passing in his mind, how now he +was at fault, now he was hopeful, now he was wondering whether +after all the victim had not escaped down the stairs. There was +a quick swoop above him, and then a low growl like a dog's. Gino +had broken his finger-nails against the stove.<br> + Physical pain is almost too terrible to bear. We can just +bear it when it comes by accident or for our good--as it +generally does in modern life--except at school. But when it is +caused by the malignity of a man, full grown, fashioned like +ourselves, all our control disappears. Philip's one thought was +to get away from that room at whatever sacrifice of nobility or +pride.<br> + Gino was now at the further end of the room, groping by the +little tables. Suddenly the instinct came to him. He crawled +quickly to where Philip lay and had him clean by the elbow.<br> + The whole arm seemed red-hot, and the broken bone grated in +the joint, sending out shoots of the essence of pain. His other +arm was pinioned against the wall, and Gino had trampled in +behind the stove and was kneeling on his legs. For the space of +a minute he yelled and yelled with all the force of his lungs. +Then this solace was denied him. The other hand, moist and +strong, began to close round his throat.<br> + At first he was glad, for here, he thought, was death at +last. But it was only a new torture; perhaps Gino inherited the +skill of his ancestors--and childlike ruffians who flung each +other from the towers. Just as the windpipe closed, the hand +fell off, and Philip was revived by the motion of his arm. And +just as he was about to faint and gain at last one moment of +oblivion, the motion stopped, and he would struggle instead +against the pressure on his throat.<br> + Vivid pictures were dancing through the pain--Lilia dying +some months back in this very house, Miss Abbott bending over the +baby, his mother at home, now reading evening prayers to the +servants. He felt that he was growing weaker; his brain +wandered; the agony did not seem so great. Not all Gino's care +could indefinitely postpone the end. His yells and gurgles +became mechanical--functions of the tortured flesh rather than +true notes of indignation and despair. He was conscious of a +horrid tumbling. Then his arm was pulled a little too roughly, +and everything was quiet at last.<br> + "But your son is dead, Gino. Your son is dead, dear Gino. +Your son is dead."<br> + The room was full of light, and Miss Abbott had Gino by the +shoulders, holding him down in a chair. She was exhausted with +the struggle, and her arms were trembling.<br> + "What is the good of another death? What is the good of more +pain?"<br> + He too began to tremble. Then he turned and looked curiously +at Philip, whose face, covered with dust and foam, was visible by +the stove. Miss Abbott allowed him to get up, though she still +held him firmly. He gave a loud and curious cry--a cry of +interrogation it might be called. Below there was the noise of +Perfetta returning with the baby's milk.<br> + "Go to him," said Miss Abbott, indicating Philip. "Pick him +up. Treat him kindly."<br> + She released him, and he approached Philip slowly. His eyes +were filling with trouble. He bent down, as if he would gently +raise him up.<br> + "Help! help!" moaned Philip. His body had suffered too much +from Gino. It could not bear to be touched by him.<br> + Gino seemed to understand. He stopped, crouched above him. +Miss Abbott herself came forward and lifted her friend in her +arms.<br> + "Oh, the foul devil!" he murmured. "Kill him! Kill him for +me."<br> + Miss Abbott laid him tenderly on the couch and wiped his +face. Then she said gravely to them both, "This thing stops +here."<br> + "Latte! latte!" cried Perfetta, hilariously ascending the +stairs.<br> + "Remember," she continued, "there is to be no revenge. I +will have no more intentional evil. We are not to fight with +each other any more."<br> + "I shall never forgive him," sighed Philip.<br> + "Latte! latte freschissima! bianca come neve!" Perfetta +came in with another lamp and a little jug.<br> + Gino spoke for the first time. "Put the milk on the table," +he said. "It will not be wanted in the other room." The peril +was over at last. A great sob shook the whole body, another +followed, and then he gave a piercing cry of woe, and stumbled +towards Miss Abbott like a child and clung to her.<br> + All through the day Miss Abbott had seemed to Philip like a +goddess, and more than ever did she seem so now. Many people +look younger and more intimate during great emotion. But some +there are who look older, and remote, and he could not think that +there was little difference in years, and none in composition, +between her and the man whose head was laid upon her breast. Her +eyes were open, full of infinite pity and full of majesty, as if +they discerned the boundaries of sorrow, and saw unimaginable +tracts beyond. Such eyes he had seen in great pictures but never +in a mortal. Her hands were folded round the sufferer, stroking +him lightly, for even a goddess can do no more than that. And it +seemed fitting, too, that she should bend her head and touch his +forehead with her lips.<br> + Philip looked away, as he sometimes looked away from the +great pictures where visible forms suddenly become inadequate for +the things they have shown to us. He was happy; he was assured +that there was greatness in the world. There came to him an +earnest desire to be good through the example of this good +woman. He would try henceforward to be worthy of the things she +had revealed. Quietly, without hysterical prayers or banging of +drums, he underwent conversion. He was saved.<br> + "That milk," said she, "need not be wasted. Take it, Signor +Carella, and persuade Mr. Herriton to drink."<br> + Gino obeyed her, and carried the child's milk to Philip. And +Philip obeyed also and drank.<br> + "Is there any left?"<br> + "A little," answered Gino.<br> + "Then finish it." For she was determined to use such +remnants as lie about the world.<br> + "Will you not have some?"<br> + "I do not care for milk; finish it all."<br> + "Philip, have you had enough milk?"<br> + "Yes, thank you, Gino; finish it all."<br> + He drank the milk, and then, either by accident or in some +spasm of pain, broke the jug to pieces. Perfetta exclaimed in +bewilderment. "It does not matter," he told her. "It does not +matter. It will never be wanted any more."</p> + +<hr size="0"> +<br> +<br> + + +<h3 align="CENTER">Chapter 10</h3> + +<p>"He will have to marry her," said Philip. "I heard from him +this morning, just as we left Milan. He finds he has gone too +far to back out. It would be expensive. I don't know how much +he minds--not as much as we suppose, I think. At all events +there's not a word of blame in the letter. I don't believe he +even feels angry. I never was so completely forgiven. Ever +since you stopped him killing me, it has been a vision of perfect +friendship. He nursed me, he lied for me at the inquest, and at +the funeral, though he was crying, you would have thought it was +my son who had died. Certainly I was the only person he had to +be kind to; he was so distressed not to make Harriet's +acquaintance, and that he scarcely saw anything of you. In his +letter he says so again."<br> + "Thank him, please, when you write," said Miss Abbott, "and +give him my kindest regards."<br> + "Indeed I will." He was surprised that she could slide away +from the man so easily. For his own part, he was bound by ties +of almost alarming intimacy. Gino had the southern knack of +friendship. In the intervals of business he would pull out +Philip's life, turn it inside out, remodel it, and advise him how +to use it for the best. The sensation was pleasant, for he was a +kind as well as a skilful operator. But Philip came away feeling +that he had not a secret corner left. In that very letter Gino +had again implored him, as a refuge from domestic difficulties, +"to marry Miss Abbott, even if her dowry is small." And how Miss +Abbott herself, after such tragic intercourse, could resume the +conventions and send calm messages of esteem, was more than he +could understand.<br> + "When will you see him again?" she asked. They were standing +together in the corridor of the train, slowly ascending out of +Italy towards the San Gothard tunnel.<br> + "I hope next spring. Perhaps we shall paint Siena red for a +day or two with some of the new wife's money. It was one of the +arguments for marrying her."<br> + "He has no heart," she said severely. "He does not really +mind about the child at all."<br> + "No; you're wrong. He does. He is unhappy, like the rest of +us. But he doesn't try to keep up appearances as we do. He +knows that the things that have made him happy once will probably +make him happy again--"<br> + "He said he would never be happy again."<br> + "In his passion. Not when he was calm. We English say it +when we are calm--when we do not really believe it any longer. +Gino is not ashamed of inconsistency. It is one of the many +things I like him for."<br> + "Yes; I was wrong. That is so."<br> + "He's much more honest with himself than I am," continued +Philip, "and he is honest without an effort and without pride. +But you, Miss Abbott, what about you? Will you be in Italy next +spring?"<br> + "No."<br> + "I'm sorry. When will you come back, do you think?"<br> + "I think never."<br> + "For whatever reason?" He stared at her as if she were some +monstrosity.<br> + "Because I understand the place. There is no need."<br> + "Understand Italy!" he exclaimed.<br> + "Perfectly."<br> + "Well, I don't. And I don't understand you," he murmured to +himself, as he paced away from her up the corridor. By this time +he loved her very much, and he could not bear to be puzzled. He +had reached love by the spiritual path: her thoughts and her +goodness and her nobility had moved him first, and now her whole +body and all its gestures had become transfigured by them. The +beauties that are called obvious--the beauties of her hair and +her voice and her limbs--he had noticed these last; Gino, who +never traversed any path at all, had commended them +dispassionately to his friend.<br> + Why was he so puzzling? He had known so much about her +once--what she thought, how she felt, the reasons for her +actions. And now he only knew that he loved her, and all the +other knowledge seemed passing from him just as he needed it +most. Why would she never come to Italy again? Why had she +avoided himself and Gino ever since the evening that she had +saved their lives? The train was nearly empty. Harriet +slumbered in a compartment by herself. He must ask her these +questions now, and he returned quickly to her down the +corridor.<br> + She greeted him with a question of her own. "Are your plans +decided?"<br> + "Yes. I can't live at Sawston."<br> + "Have you told Mrs. Herriton?"<br> + "I wrote from Monteriano. I tried to explain things; but she +will never understand me. Her view will be that the affair is +settled--sadly settled since the baby is dead. Still it's over; +our family circle need be vexed no more. She won't even be angry +with you. You see, you have done us no harm in the long run. +Unless, of course, you talk about Harriet and make a scandal. So +that is my plan--London and work. What is yours?"<br> + "Poor Harriet!" said Miss Abbott. "As if I dare judge +Harriet! Or anybody." And without replying to Philip's question +she left him to visit the other invalid.<br> + Philip gazed after her mournfully, and then he looked +mournfully out of the window at the decreasing streams. All the +excitement was over--the inquest, Harriet's short illness, his +own visit to the surgeon. He was convalescent, both in body and +spirit, but convalescence brought no joy. In the looking-glass +at the end of the corridor he saw his face haggard, and his +shoulders pulled forward by the weight of the sling. Life was +greater than he had supposed, but it was even less complete. He +had seen the need for strenuous work and for righteousness. And +now he saw what a very little way those things would go.<br> + "Is Harriet going to be all right?" he asked. Miss Abbott +had come back to him.<br> + "She will soon be her old self," was the reply. For Harriet, +after a short paroxysm of illness and remorse, was quickly +returning to her normal state. She had been "thoroughly upset" +as she phrased it, but she soon ceased to realize that anything +was wrong beyond the death of a poor little child. Already she +spoke of "this unlucky accident," and "the mysterious frustration +of one's attempts to make things better." Miss Abbott had seen +that she was comfortable, and had given her a kind kiss. But she +returned feeling that Harriet, like her mother, considered the +affair as settled.<br> + "I'm clear enough about Harriet's future, and about parts of +my own. But I ask again, What about yours?"<br> + "Sawston and work," said Miss Abbott.<br> + "No."<br> + "Why not?" she asked, smiling.<br> + "You've seen too much. You've seen as much and done more +than I have."<br> + "But it's so different. Of course I shall go to Sawston. +You forget my father; and even if he wasn't there, I've a hundred +ties: my district--I'm neglecting it shamefully--my evening +classes, the St. James'--"<br> + "Silly nonsense!" he exploded, suddenly moved to have the +whole thing out with her. "You're too good--about a thousand +times better than I am. You can't live in that hole; you must go +among people who can hope to understand you. I mind for myself. +I want to see you often--again and again."<br> + "Of course we shall meet whenever you come down; and I hope +that it will mean often."<br> + "It's not enough; it'll only be in the old horrible way, each +with a dozen relatives round us. No, Miss Abbott; it's not good +enough."<br> + "We can write at all events."<br> + "You will write?" he cried, with a flush of pleasure. At +times his hopes seemed so solid.<br> + "I will indeed."<br> + "But I say it's not enough--you can't go back to the old life +if you wanted to. Too much has happened."<br> + "I know that," she said sadly.<br> + "Not only pain and sorrow, but wonderful things: that tower +in the sunlight--do you remember it, and all you said to me? The +theatre, even. And the next day--in the church; and our times +with Gino."<br> + "All the wonderful things are over," she said. "That is just +where it is."<br> + "I don't believe it. At all events not for me. The most +wonderful things may be to come--"<br> + "The wonderful things are over," she repeated, and looked at +him so mournfully that he dare not contradict her. The train was +crawling up the last ascent towards the Campanile of Airolo and +the entrance of the tunnel.<br> + "Miss Abbott," he murmured, speaking quickly, as if their +free intercourse might soon be ended, "what is the matter with +you? I thought I understood you, and I don't. All those two +great first days at Monteriano I read you as clearly as you read +me still. I saw why you had come, and why you changed sides, and +afterwards I saw your wonderful courage and pity. And now you're +frank with me one moment, as you used to be, and the next moment +you shut me up. You see I owe too much to you--my life, and I +don't know what besides. I won't stand it. You've gone too far +to turn mysterious. I'll quote what you said to me: 'Don't be +mysterious; there isn't the time.' I'll quote something else: 'I +and my life must be where I live.' You can't live at +Sawston."<br> + He had moved her at last. She whispered to herself +hurriedly. "It is tempting--" And those three words threw him +into a tumult of joy. What was tempting to her? After all was +the greatest of things possible? Perhaps, after long +estrangement, after much tragedy, the South had brought them +together in the end. That laughter in the theatre, those silver +stars in the purple sky, even the violets of a departed spring, +all had helped, and sorrow had helped also, and so had tenderness +to others.<br> + "It is tempting," she repeated, "not to be mysterious. I've +wanted often to tell you, and then been afraid. I could never +tell any one else, certainly no woman, and I think you're the one +man who might understand and not be disgusted."<br> + "Are you lonely?" he whispered. "Is it anything like +that?"<br> + "Yes." The train seemed to shake him towards her. He was +resolved that though a dozen people were looking, he would yet +take her in his arms. "I'm terribly lonely, or I wouldn't +speak. I think you must know already." Their faces were +crimson, as if the same thought was surging through them +both.<br> + "Perhaps I do." He came close to her. "Perhaps I could +speak instead. But if you will say the word plainly you'll never +be sorry; I will thank you for it all my life."<br> + She said plainly, "That I love him." Then she broke down. +Her body was shaken with sobs, and lest there should be any doubt +she cried between the sobs for Gino! Gino! Gino!<br> + He heard himself remark "Rather! I love him too! When I can +forget how he hurt me that evening. Though whenever we shake +hands--" One of them must have moved a step or two, for when she +spoke again she was already a little way apart.<br> + "You've upset me." She stifled something that was perilously +near hysterics. "I thought I was past all this. You're taking +it wrongly. I'm in love with Gino--don't pass it off--I mean it +crudely--you know what I mean. So laugh at me."<br> + "Laugh at love?" asked Philip.<br> + "Yes. Pull it to pieces. Tell me I'm a fool or worse--that +he's a cad. Say all you said when Lilia fell in love with him. +That's the help I want. I dare tell you this because I like +you--and because you're without passion; you look on life as a +spectacle; you don't enter it; you only find it funny or +beautiful. So I can trust you to cure me. Mr. Herriton, isn't +it funny?" She tried to laugh herself, but became frightened and +had to stop. "He's not a gentleman, nor a Christian, nor good in +any way. He's never flattered me nor honoured me. But because +he's handsome, that's been enough. The son of an Italian +dentist, with a pretty face." She repeated the phrase as if it +was a charm against passion. "Oh, Mr. Herriton, isn't it +funny!" Then, to his relief, she began to cry. "I love him, and +I'm not ashamed of it. I love him, and I'm going to Sawston, and +if I mayn't speak about him to you sometimes, I shall die."<br> + In that terrible discovery Philip managed to think not of +himself but of her. He did not lament. He did not even speak to +her kindly, for he saw that she could not stand it. A flippant +reply was what she asked and needed--something flippant and a +little cynical. And indeed it was the only reply he could trust +himself to make.<br> + "Perhaps it is what the books call 'a passing fancy'?"<br> + She shook her head. Even this question was too pathetic. +For as far as she knew anything about herself, she knew that her +passions, once aroused, were sure. "If I saw him often," she +said, "I might remember what he is like. Or he might grow old. +But I dare not risk it, so nothing can alter me now."<br> + "Well, if the fancy does pass, let me know." After all, he +could say what he wanted.<br> + "Oh, you shall know quick enough--"<br> + "But before you retire to Sawston--are you so mighty +sure?"<br> + "What of?" She had stopped crying. He was treating her +exactly as she had hoped.<br> + "That you and he--" He smiled bitterly at the thought of +them together. Here was the cruel antique malice of the gods, +such as they once sent forth against Pasiphae. Centuries of +aspiration and culture--and the world could not escape it. "I +was going to say--whatever have you got in common?"<br> + "Nothing except the times we have seen each other." Again +her face was crimson. He turned his own face away.<br> + "Which--which times?"<br> + "The time I thought you weak and heedless, and went instead +of you to get the baby. That began it, as far as I know the +beginning. Or it may have begun when you took us to the theatre, +and I saw him mixed up with music and light. But didn't +understand till the morning. Then you opened the door--and I +knew why I had been so happy. Afterwards, in the church, I +prayed for us all; not for anything new, but that we might just +be as we were--he with the child he loved, you and I and Harriet +safe out of the place--and that I might never see him or speak to +him again. I could have pulled through then--the thing was only +coming near, like a wreath of smoke; it hadn't wrapped me +round."<br> + "But through my fault," said Philip solemnly, "he is parted +from the child he loves. And because my life was in danger you +came and saw him and spoke to him again." For the thing was even +greater than she imagined. Nobody but himself would ever see +round it now. And to see round it he was standing at an immense +distance. He could even be glad that she had once held the +beloved in her arms.<br> + "Don't talk of 'faults.' You're my friend for ever, Mr. +Herriton, I think. Only don't be charitable and shift or take +the blame. Get over supposing I'm refined. That's what puzzles +you. Get over that."<br> + As he spoke she seemed to be transfigured, and to have indeed +no part with refinement or unrefinement any longer. Out of this +wreck there was revealed to him something +indestructible--something which she, who had given it, could +never take away.<br> + "I say again, don't be charitable. If he had asked me, I +might have given myself body and soul. That would have been the +end of my rescue party. But all through he took me for a +superior being--a goddess. I who was worshipping every inch of +him, and every word he spoke. And that saved me."<br> + Philip's eyes were fixed on the Campanile of Airolo. But he +saw instead the fair myth of Endymion. This woman was a goddess +to the end. For her no love could be degrading: she stood +outside all degradation. This episode, which she thought so +sordid, and which was so tragic for him, remained supremely +beautiful. To such a height was he lifted, that without regret +he could now have told her that he was her worshipper too. But +what was the use of telling her? For all the wonderful things +had happened.<br> + "Thank you," was all that he permitted himself. "Thank you +for everything."<br> + She looked at him with great friendliness, for he had made +her life endurable. At that moment the train entered the San +Gothard tunnel. They hurried back to the carriage to close the +windows lest the smuts should get into Harriet's eyes.</p> + +<hr> +<br> +<br> + End of the Project Gutenbergn Etext of Where Angels Fear to +Tread +</body> +</html> + + |