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_ 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.
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.
"It upsets one's plans terribly," she remarked, as she
squeezed out her sponges, "but obviously it is my duty."
"Did mother explain it all to you?" asked Philip.
"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."
Philip assented.
"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."
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.
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.
"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?"
"Did you hear, though, they are remarking on the cold?"
said Harriet nervously. "I should never have thought it cold."
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 FESTA, 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.
"Singles or returns?" said he.
"A single for me," said Harriet peevishly; "I shall
never get back alive."
"Sweet creature!" said her brother, suddenly breaking
down. "How helpful you will be when we come to Signor Carella!"
"Do you suppose," said Harriet, standing still among a
whirl of porters--"do you suppose I am going to enter that
man's house?"
"Then what have you come for, pray? For ornament?"
"To see that you do your duty."
"Oh, thanks!"
"So mother told me. For goodness sake get the tickets;
here comes that hot woman again! She has the impudence to bow."
"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.
"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."
"What do they do there?" continued Harriet, with a frown.
"There is a caffe. A prison. A theatre. A church.
Walls. A view."
"Not for me, thank you," said Harriet, after a weighty pause.
"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?"
"Nothing at all. It's frightful."
"I know it is. But it's old--awfully old."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
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."
"Meaning--?"
"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?"
"Harriet, I am hot. To whom do you refer?"
"He. Her. If you don't look out he'll murder you. I
wish he would."
"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."
"He has murdered her. The things he did--things one
can't even mention--"
"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.
"It's the supreme test. The man who is unchivalrous to
a woman--"
"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."
"I condemn the whole lot."
"And the French as well?"
"And the French as well."
"Things aren't so jolly easy," said Philip, more to
himself than to her.
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."
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.
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.
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 facade 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.
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.
Then Harriet pronounced the monosyllable "Go!"
"Go where?" asked Philip, bowing to the landlady, who
was swimming down the stairs.
"To the Italian. Go."
"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--"
"Go. This instant. Now. I'll stand it no longer. Go!"
"I'm damned if I'll go. I want my tea."
"Swear if you like!" she cried. "Blaspheme! Abuse me!
But understand, I'm in earnest."
"Harriet, don't act. Or act better."
"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 THEM?"
"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."
"I shan't."
"Harriet, are you mad?"
"If you like. But you will not come up till you have
seen the Italian."
"La signorina si sente male," said Philip, "C' e il sole."
"Poveretta!" cried the landlady and the cabman.
"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."
"La prego-piano-piano-c e un' altra signorina che dorme--"
"We shall probably be arrested for brawling, Harriet.
Have you the very slightest sense of the ludicrous?"
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.
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.
"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.
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."
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.
"Tear each other's eyes out!" he cried, gesticulating at
the facade 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!"
Such people as observed him were interested, but did not
conclude that he was mad. This aftermath of conversation is
not unknown in Italy.
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.
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.
"I'll show you," said a little girl, springing out of
the ground as Italian children will.
"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
daughter."
cousin."
sister."
Philip knew these relatives well: they ramify, if need
be, all over the peninsula.
"Do you chance to know whether Signor Carella is in?" he
asked her.
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.
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.
For an impressive interval there was no reply. Then the
figure of a woman appeared high up on the loggia.
"That is Perfetta," said the girl.
"I want to see Signor Carella," cried Philip.
"Out!"
"Out," echoed the girl complacently.
"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.
She did not know. He was away on business. He might be
back this evening, he might not. He had gone to Poggibonsi.
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--
Poggibonizzi, fatti in la,
Che Monteriano si fa citta!
Then she asked Philip for a halfpenny. A German lady,
friendly to the Past, had given her one that very spring.
"I shall have to leave a message," he called.
"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--"
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.
"Beautiful as an angel!" bellowed Perfetta, holding out
something which must be Lilia's baby. "But who am I addressing?"
"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?"
Perfetta begged his pardon: she was a little deaf.
"A young lady--pale, large, tall."
She did not quite catch.
"A YOUNG LADY!"
"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.
"I was going to make myself some tea," he said, with his
hand still on the banisters.
"I should be grateful--"
So he followed her into the dining-room and shut the door.
"You see," she began, "Harriet knows nothing."
"No more do I. He was out."
"But what's that to do with it?"
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."
"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."
"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?"
"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."
"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."
She nodded carelessly. She did not mind what he said.
All she wanted was to get the baby out of Monteriano.
"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?"
She nodded again.
"Might I ask for details of your interview with him?
They might be helpful to me."
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.
"My interview--how do you know of it?"
"From Perfetta, if it interests you."
"Who ever is Perfetta?"
"The woman who must have let you in."
"In where?"
"Into Signor Carella's house."
"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."
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?
"I suppose I misunderstood Perfetta. Where did you have
your interview, then?"
"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?"
"Yes, yes. I know the Rocca; I told you of it."
"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."
"And you talked."
"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."
"And of what did you talk?"
"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!"
"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."
"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."
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.
"Harriet would say he has no sense of sin."
"Harriet may be right, I am afraid."
"If so, perhaps he isn't sinful!"
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."
Philip smiled at her crudity. "I should like to hear,
though, what he said about me. Is he preparing a warm reception?"
"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."
"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.
She would not let this pass. "You did not think it a
little thing at the time. You told me he had assaulted you."
"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?"
"He said he was sorry--pleasantly, as Italians do say
such things. But he never mentioned the baby once."
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.
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.
"The view from the Rocca (small gratuity) is finest at
sunset," he murmured, more to himself than to her.
"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.
"The view from the Rocca--wasn't it fine?"
"What isn't fine here?" she answered gently, and then
added, "I wish I was Harriet," throwing an extraordinary
meaning into the words.
"Because Harriet--?"
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!"
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.
"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?"
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.
Citizens came out for a little stroll before dinner.
Some of them stood and gazed at the advertisements on the tower.
"Surely that isn't an opera-bill?" said Miss Abbott.
Philip put on his pince-nez. " 'Lucia di Lammermoor.
By the Master Donizetti. Unique representation. This evening.'
"But is there an opera? Right up here?"
"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.
"Can't we go?"
He turned on her, but not unkindly. "But we're here to
rescue a child!"
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.
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.
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.
"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--"
"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."
"Three hours, then, or four; or make him learn English
ways. At Florence we get a nurse--"
"But, Harriet," said Miss Abbott, "what if at first he
was to refuse?"
"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."
"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."
"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--"
"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."
"Theatres here? And at such a moment?"
"We should hardly enjoy it, with the great interview
impending," said Miss Abbott, with an anxious glance at Philip.
He did not betray her, but said, "Don't you think it's
better than sitting in all the evening and getting nervous?"
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'?"
"But this is an opera--'Lucia di Lammermoor'--Sir Walter
Scott--classical, you know."
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."
"Good. Miss Abbott, you are coming too?"
"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."
"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."
"Unfortunately I have no evening dress; and if the seats--"
"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."
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.
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.
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.
"We do all right," said Philip, amused at her unwonted vanity.
"Yes, I know; but pretty things pack as easily as ugly
ones. We had no need to come to Italy like guys."
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.
"Don't you like it at all?" he asked her.
"Most awfully." And by this bald interchange they
convinced each other that Romance was here.
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!"
"Shut it," whispered her brother.
"We must make a stand from the beginning. They're talking."
"It is tiresome," murmured Miss Abbott; "but perhaps it
isn't for us to interfere."
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.
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!"
"Ridiculous babies!" said Harriet, settling down in her stall.
"Why, it is the famous hot lady of the Apennines," cried
Philip; "the one who had never, never before--"
"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--"
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.
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.
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.
"Call this classical!" she cried, rising from her seat.
"It's not even respectable! Philip! take me out at once."
"Whose is it?" shouted her brother, holding up the
bouquet in one hand and the billet-doux in the other.
"Whose is it?"
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.
"To the left!" the people cried. "The innamorato is to
the left."
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.
"Why have you not written?" cried the young man. "Why
do you take me by surprise?"
"Oh, I've written," said Philip hilariously. "I left a
note this afternoon."
"Silence! silence!" cried the audience, who were
beginning to have enough. "Let the divine creature
continue." Miss Abbott and Harriet had disappeared.
"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.
"Gino's friends are ours--"
"Friends?" cried Gino. "A relative! A brother! Fra
Filippo, who has come all the way from England and never written."
"I left a message."
The audience began to hiss.
"Come in to us."
"Thank you--ladies--there is not time--"
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.
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.
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."
"Certainly!" laughed the other.
Miss Abbott was sitting up for him when he got back.
Harriet, it seemed, had gone straight to bed.
"That was he, wasn't it?" she asked.
"Yes, rather."
"I suppose you didn't settle anything?"
"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!"
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.
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:--
Poggibonizzi fatti in la,
Che Monteriano si fa citta!
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. _
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