“Mad!” screamed Harriet,--“absolutely stark, staring, raving mad!”
Philip judged it better not to contradict her.
“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!”
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.”
“Then why has she come here? Answer me that.”
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.
Philip governed his temper. His sister was annoying, but quite
reasonable in her indignation. Moreover, Miss Abbott had behaved even
worse than she supposed.
“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 Caffe 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.
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!
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.
“Miss Abbott has behaved extraordinarily,” he said at last; “but at the
same time--”
His sister would not hear him. She burst forth again on the madness, the
interference, the intolerable duplicity of Caroline.
“Harriet, you must listen. My dear, you must stop crying. I have
something quite important to say.”
“I shall not stop crying,” said she. But in time, finding that he would
not speak to her, she did stop.
“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.”
“Well, she isn’t.”
“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.”
“I do.”
“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.”
“I don’t understand your long words. Say plainly--”
“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.”
“Disgusting!”
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.
“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.”
“There can be no peace between me and her,” said Harriet gloomily.
“Did you--”
“Oh, not all I wanted. She went away before I had finished
speaking--just like those cowardly people!--into the church.”
“Into Santa Deodata’s?”
“Yes; I’m sure she needs it. Anything more unchristian--”
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.
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 Caffe 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.
There had been a FESTA 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 FIESTA began,
and had given it to the sacristan’s daughter.
“Please,” cried Philip, “is there an English lady here?”
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.
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.
“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.”
“And please believe that I have not come to scold you,” said Philip. “I
know what has happened.”
“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.
“What might have happened to me--he had made you believe that he loved
the child.”
“Oh, yes; he has. He will never give it up.”
“At present it is still unsettled.”
“It will never be settled.”
“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.”
“I can do no more,” she said. “But I tell you plainly I have changed
sides.”
“If you do no more, that is all we want. You promise not to prejudice
our cause by speaking to Signor Carella?”
“Oh, certainly. I don’t want to speak to him again; I shan’t ever see
him again.”
“Quite nice, wasn’t he?”
“Quite.”
“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.”
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.
“Why aren’t you angry with me?” she asked, after a pause.
“Because I understand you--all sides, I think,--Harriet, Signor Carella,
even my mother.”
“You do understand wonderfully. You are the only one of us who has a
general view of the muddle.”
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.
“So what are you going to do?” said Miss Abbott.
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.”
“It will come to nothing. Well?”
“Then another. If that fails I shall wire home for instructions. I dare
say we may fail altogether, but we shall fail honourably.”
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--
“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?”
“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--”
“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.”
“Because I understand the position of Signor Carella and of you, it’s no
reason that--”
“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.”
“You are wonderful!” he said gravely.
“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.”
“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.”
She said solemnly, “I wish something would happen to you, my dear
friend; I wish something would happen to you.”
“But why?” he asked, smiling. “Prove to me why I don’t do as I am.”
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.
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.
“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.”
“I retire to pack,” said Harriet. “Please remind Signor Carella, Philip,
that the baby is to be here by half-past eight this evening.”
“Oh, certainly, Harriet. I shall make a point of reminding him.”
“And order a carriage to take us to the evening train.”
“And please,” said Miss Abbott, “would you order a carriage for me too?”
“You going?” he exclaimed.
“Of course,” she replied, suddenly flushing. “Why not?”
“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.”
“Order my carriage for the evening train,” said Harriet, and departed.
“Well, I suppose I shall. And I shall also have my interview with Signor
Carella.”
Miss Abbott gave a little sigh.
“But why should you mind? Do you suppose that I shall have the slightest
influence over him?”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
He assented, but her remark had only an aesthetic 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.
It was not surprising, therefore, that the interview at the Caffe
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.”
“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.
“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?”
“My poor fellow, I will!” He laid a sympathetic hand on Philip’s knee.
“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.
“Poor Harriet!” said Philip, swallowing the sugar. “One more wrench and
it will all be over for her; we are leaving this evening.”
Gino was sorry for this. “Then you will not be here this evening as you
promised us. All three leaving?”
“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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.”
“Good-bye; it’s been a great pleasure to see you. I hope that won’t
shift, at all events.” She gripped his hand.
“You sound despondent,” he said, laughing. “Don’t forget that you return
victorious.”
“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.
“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.
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.
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.
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.”
“Did the lady give you this note?” he cried.
The man was unintelligible.
“Speak up!” exclaimed Philip. “Who gave it you--and where?”
Nothing but horrible sighings and bubblings came out of the man.
“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.”
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.
“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?”
“It is no good,” said the landlady. “He understands everything but he
can explain nothing.”
“He has visions of the saints,” said the man who drove the cab.
“But my sister--where has she gone? How has she met him?”
“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.”
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.
“Go on,” cried Philip. “I have paid him plenty.”
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.
“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.
“What am I to do?” he cried; “it is not like the lady to be late. We
shall miss the train.”
“Let us drive slowly,” said the driver, “and you shall call her by name
as we go.”
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.
“Harriet, why don’t you answer?”
“I heard you coming,” said she, and got quickly in. Not till then did he
see that she carried a bundle.
“What’s that?”
“Hush--”
“Whatever is that?”
“Hush--sleeping.”
Harriet had succeeded where Miss Abbott and Philip had failed. It was
the baby.
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.”
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.
“You have been pretty secret,” he said; “you might tell me a little now.
What do we pay for him? All we’ve got?”
“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.
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.
“Look here, Harriet,” he said at last, “I feel bad; I want to see the
baby.”
“Hush!”
“I don’t mind if I do wake him up. I want to see him. I’ve as much right
in him as you.”
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.
“Good ickle quiet boysey, then.”
Philip winced. “His face, do you know, struck me as all wrong.”
“All wrong?”
“All puckered queerly.”
“Of course--with the shadows--you couldn’t see him.”
“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.
“Nonsense,” said Harriet sharply. “We should hear him if he cried.”
“No, he’s crying hard; I thought so before, and I’m certain now.”
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.”
“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.”
“Oh, he understands.” And he could feel her shudder. “He tried to carry
the baby--”
“But why not Gino or Perfetta?”
“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.
“I suppose he breathes, and all that sort of thing?” he said.
“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.”
“I’m nervous too. I wish he’d scream. It’s too uncanny. Poor Gino! I’m
terribly sorry for Gino.”
“Are you?”
“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.”
Naturally enough she made no answer.
“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?”
“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.”
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.
“Oh, I don’t want all that bother. Try again.”
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.
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.
“Are you all right?” he managed to say. Harriet was screaming, the horse
was kicking, the driver was cursing some other man.
Harriet’s screams became coherent. “The baby--the baby--it slipped--it’s
gone from my arms--I stole it!”
“God help me!” said Philip. A cold circle came round his mouth, and, he
fainted.
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!”
“Keep still!” he commanded the driver. “Let no one move. We may tread on
it. Keep still.”
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.
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.
“I stole it! I and the idiot--no one was there.” She burst out laughing.
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.
“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.
“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.
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.