________________________________________________
_ 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.
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
aesthetic 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.
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.
A little disenchanted, a little tired, but aesthetically
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.
The disillusion was convenient for Mrs. Herriton, who
saw a trying little period ahead of her, and was glad to
have her family united.
"Are we to go into mourning, do you think?" She always
asked her children's advice where possible.
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."
"Of course we must tell Irma!" said Philip.
"Of course," said his mother. "But I think we can still
not tell her about Lilia's marriage."
"I don't think that. And she must have suspected
something by now."
"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."
"But you forget this wretched baby. Waters and Adamson
write that there is a baby."
"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."
"The child must know some time," persisted Philip, who
felt a little displeased, though he could not tell with what.
"The later the better. Every moment she is developing."
"I must say it seems rather hard luck, doesn't it?"
"On Irma? Why?"
"On us, perhaps. We have morals and behaviour also, and
I don't think this continual secrecy improves them."
"There's no need to twist the thing round to that," said
Harriet, rather disturbed.
"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."
"It will make a difference in the money, surely," said he.
"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."
"Good. Does the Italian get anything?"
"He will get all hers. But you know what that is."
"Good. So those are our tactics--to tell no one about
the baby, not even Miss Abbott."
"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?"
"She was so mixed up in the affair."
"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."
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.?"
"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."
"That is quite true," he said sadly. And as the tactics
were now settled, he went out and took an aimless and
solitary walk.
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.
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.
"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."
"Did she ask no questions--as to the nature of Lilia's
death, I mean?"
"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."
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.
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.
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."
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."
"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."
"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.
"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.
"Yes; we counted on you," said Philip, with sudden
sharpness. After all, if she would reveal her thoughts, she
must take the consequences.
"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?' "
"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!"
"Had you ever let her choose?" she flashed out. "I'm
afraid that's rude," she added, trying to calm herself.
"Let us rather say unhappily expressed," said Philip,
who always adopted a dry satirical manner when he was puzzled.
"I want to finish. Next morning I found Signor Carella
and said the same to him. He--well, he was willing. That's all."
"And the telegram?" He looked scornfully out of the window.
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."
"Did you really mean to stop?"
"For a time, at all events."
"Would that have suited a newly married pair?"
"It would have suited them. Lilia needed me. And as
for him--I can't help feeling I might have got influence over
him."
"I am ignorant of these matters," said Philip; "but I
should have thought that would have increased the difficulty
of the situation."
The crisp remark was wasted on her. She looked
hopelessly at the raw over-built country, and said, "Well, I
have explained."
"But pardon me, Miss Abbott; of most of your conduct you
have given a description rather than an explanation."
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."
"Oh, never mind."
"I hated Sawston, you see."
He was delighted. "So did and do I. That's splendid.
Go on."
"I hated the idleness, the stupidity, the
respectability, the petty unselfishness."
"Petty selfishness," he corrected. Sawston psychology
had long been his specialty.
"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."
"Why, Miss Abbott," he cried, "you should have told me
this before! Think it still! I agree with lots of it.
Magnificent!"
"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."
"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?"
"We were mad--drunk with rebellion. We had no
common-sense. As soon as you came, you saw and foresaw everything."
"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.
"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."
"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."
"I have never had that experience yet. Surely I and my
life must be where I live."
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."
She made a suitable reply. The train reached Charing
Cross, and they parted,--he to go to a matinee, 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.
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.
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.
"How dare you!" screamed her aunt. "You wicked girl!
Give it here!"
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."
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--"
Mrs. Herriton swept into the room, saying, "Come with
me, dear, and I will tell you. Now it is time for you to know."
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?
"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."
The last remark always made Harriet look grave.
"Really," exclaimed Mrs. Herriton, "Irma is getting too
tiresome. She forgot poor Lilia soon enough."
"A living brother is more to her than a dead mother,"
said Philip dreamily. "She can knit him socks."
"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."
"What did you say?"
"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."
"And what happened this morning?"
"She asked if she could pray for her 'new father'--for
the Italian!"
"Did you let her?"
"I got up without saying anything."
"You must have felt just as you did when I wanted to
pray for the devil."
"He is the devil," cried Harriet.
"No, Harriet; he is too vulgar."
"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!"
"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--"
"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."
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.
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.
"I cannot think," said Mrs. Herriton, "what his motive
is in sending them."
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.
"Do you suppose that he guesses the situation--how
anxious we are to hush the scandal up?"
"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."
"Hopeful indeed."
"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.
"She might do it too!"
"I told her not to; but we must watch her carefully,
without, of course, appearing to be suspicious."
Philip was getting to enjoy his mother's diplomacy. He
did not think of his own morals and behaviour any more.
"Who's to watch her at school, though? She may bubble
out any moment."
"We can but trust to our influence," said Mrs. Herriton.
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!
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.
"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."
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.
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.
"I dare say you have heard," said Mrs. Herriton, well
knowing what the matter was.
"Yes, I have. I came to ask you; have any steps been taken?"
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.
"About the baby?" asked Mrs. Herriton pleasantly.
"Yes."
"As far as I know, no steps. Mrs. Theobald may have
decided on something, but I have not heard of it."
"I was meaning, had you decided on anything?"
"The child is no relation of ours," said Philip. "It is
therefore scarcely for us to interfere."
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."
"But does not Mrs. Theobald always take any initiative
from you?" asked Miss Abbott.
Mrs. Herriton could not help colouring. "I sometimes
have given her advice in the past. I should not presume to
do so now."
"Then is nothing to be done for the child at all?"
"It is extraordinarily good of you to take this
unexpected interest," said Philip.
"The child came into the world through my negligence,"
replied Miss Abbott. "It is natural I should take an
interest in it."
"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."
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."
"Please would you let me know if she decides on
anything. I should like to join as well."
"My dear, how you throw about your money! We would
never allow it."
"And if she decides on nothing, please also let me
know. Let me know in any case."
Mrs. Herriton made a point of kissing her.
"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."
His mother said nothing.
"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."
She still said nothing.
"Shall I go round at once and give it her well? I'd
really enjoy it."
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?"
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.
"Let us admit frankly," she continued, "that after all
we may have responsibilities."
"I don't understand you, Mother. You are turning
absolutely round. What are you up to?"
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.
His remark offended her. "Up to? I am wondering
whether I ought not to adopt the child. Is that
sufficiently plain?"
"And this is the result of half-a-dozen idiocies of Miss
Abbott?"
"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."
"You talk like Harriet."
"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."
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.
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.
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.
"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."
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.
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.
"What do you think of it?" she asked her son. "It would
not do to let him know that we are anxious for it."
"Certainly he will never suppose that."
"But what effect will the letter have on him?"
"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."
"Dear, you're shockingly cynical." After a pause she
added, "How would the sum work out?"
"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 HIM. 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."
He smiled as he spoke, for the sake of not appearing
serious. When he had left her she began to smile also.
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.
"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."
"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?"
"It depends," she replied, with equal caution.
"From what you saw of him, should you conclude that he
would make an affectionate parent?"
"I don't go by what I saw of him, but by what I know of him."
"Well, what do you conclude from that?"
"That he is a thoroughly wicked man."
"Yet thoroughly wicked men have loved their children.
Look at Rodrigo Borgia, for example."
"I have also seen examples of that in my district."
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.
"She fences well," he said to his mother afterwards.
"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.
And when, next week, the reply came from Italy, she
showed him no face of triumph. "Read the letters," she
said. "We have failed."
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 Caffe 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.
"Isn't it disheartening?" said his mother.
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?
"The sum works out against us," said Philip. "Or
perhaps he is putting up the price."
"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."
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.
"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."
"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.
"She won't accept--won't accept the letter as final. You
must go to Monteriano!"
"I won't!" he shouted back. "I've been and I've
failed. I'll never see the place again. I hate Italy."
"If you don't go, she will."
"Abbott?"
"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."
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--"
"Stop that nonsense, Philip. I will not be disgraced by
her. I WILL have the child. Pay all we've got for it. I
will have it."
"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."
"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. _
Read next: CHAPTER 6
Read previous: CHAPTER 4
Table of content of Where Angels Fear to Tread
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
