One day, two days, passed. Mrs Brodrick and Teresa felt like
conspirators watching for a sign. As they did not get one, the telling
Sylvia on the appointed day grew more disquieting in prospect.
Evidently she was not quick enough to read faces, or she must have
discovered for herself that something was wrong, that Wilbraham was
gloomy, Teresa angry, and her grandmother uneasy. On Tuesday they were
to go to Syracuse.
"And we shall see him depart in another direction," said Teresa with
decision.
"If," said her grandmother--"if all this had never happened, do you
believe you might some day have liked him?"
The question had been on her lips more than once. The young marchesa
hesitated.
"Perhaps," she answered frankly. "Perhaps--I don't know. I liked him
better at Assisi."
"He has been a fool," thought Mrs Brodrick, turning away.
At this moment Sylvia came hurriedly into the room.
"Is Mary here?" she asked.
"No; she is watching Peppina pack. Where are you going?"
Teresa with a heavy heart tried to speak playfully, and failed.
"Past the cemetery, and down towards the sea."
"Ah, I never get you to myself nowadays."
"But you know I love you, don't you, Teresa?" said the girl anxiously.
"My dear!" cried the marchesa, still with a poor pretence at gaiety.
She looked at her grandmother.
"Must you go? Or can you first come to my room for half an hour?" asked
Mrs Brodrick in a voice a little tremulous, and with lines showing
suddenly in her face.
"Oh, I can't, granny, I can't now," Sylvia returned; "Walter is waiting
for me. When I come back I shall have plenty of time. Oh, please!"
"Well, go then," said Mrs Brodrick with a sigh.
Sylvia went down the long room, putting one or two things in tidy order
as she passed. Wilbraham was waiting for her in the little look-out
place behind the hotel. The ground, dotted with great prickly-pear
clumps, fell very steeply towards the water, and folds of blue hills
stretched from Monte Venere towards Messina. Across a radiant sea, snow
gleamed on Aspromonte. Two fishermen were coming up a narrow pathway.
"Where are we going? By the cemetery?" asked Sylvia.
Wilbraham roused himself with a start.
"That's as good a way as any--and the end of all things," he muttered
under his breath, so that she did not hear. "But if she had heard," he
reflected bitterly, "she would not have understood." He scarcely now
took the trouble to conceal things from her, always feeling secure that
she would not understand.
They went away together down stony tracks. The gate of the little
burying-place was open; they could see its great bushes of scarlet
geranium, and yellow daisies, and ugly staring tombs lying in sunshine.
Sylvia wondered a great deal, as usual, whether people lived a long time
at Taormina, whether there was a doctor, whether the children went to
school. To all, Wilbraham answered impatiently that he did not know.
Every now and then, however, she was silent, which was unusual, but
struck him as a relief.
They skirted the wall, fennel towering high on the other side, and
turned into a small steep path running down through flowery banks and
fields, sheeted with red and blue vetches.
"How funny it is to have fields like these!"
Sylvia's remarks were above all things wanting in suggestiveness.
Answers did not spring from them, but had to begin an altogether
separate existence.
"Are you tired?" asked Wilbraham, "or shall we go down to the shore? I
think you wanted to see the caves?"
"I wanted so much to see a flying-fish. I think it must look so odd,
don't you? But then, of course, if we went, we might not see one.
Shall we sit on this bank?"
"If you like."
"And talk?"
"That too--if you like."
"I wanted to say something."
He bit his lip, used to Sylvia's utterances.
"Well, my dear child, I'm listening."
He was not thinking of her. His mind had shot away to Teresa, Teresa
with an angry light in her eyes, for which he loved her the more.
Hopeless, he would not have had her different; but different--to him--
what might she not have been! Suddenly, unexpectedly, a word of
Sylvia's caught his attention.
"I don't think that people ought to marry unless they love each other.
Every one always says they ought not," she was remarking in a nervously
excited voice. "I think we had better give it up."
"Give it up? Do you mean break off our engagement?" he faltered.
"Sylvia!"
She was twisting a few blades of grass into a plait, and looking down at
that. But his words evidently distressed her.
"Oh, don't you think we had better?" she exclaimed, with the appeal of a
child.
He had been conscious of so exquisite a relief that his honour took
alarm.
"Why?" he said, leaning forward. "What is your reason?"
She looked up at him, evidently troubled; the prettiness of her face
pathetically touched with the quite new struggle to explain a feeling.
"Don't you know what I mean? I can't say it exactly, Walter. I thought
you would be sure to understand. Don't you know? People must be _very_
fond of each other, mustn't they?"
All the better part of him was quickened by a perception of her
sweetness and humility. But the devil set him answering with conscious
untruth, and almost roughness--
"So, Sylvia, you've never cared for me!"
Her distress shamed him.
"I did, I did, you know I did, Walter! Of course I did. And I have
been so happy! Oh, please, don't say you don't think so. What can I
say, what can I do, to make you know? _Do_ know, _do_ understand."
All her body was working with quick excited movements, all her heart was
in her eyes. Wilbraham covered his own.
"God forgive me, you poor little girl!" he groaned brokenly.
"Ah! then you do know," she said in a voice that was almost pleased. A
little pride in her rose up, because she had been able to convince him,
for generally she never attempted to argue, accepting dutifully whatever
view of the situation he or Teresa took. This time it was she herself
who had made the impression. She put her hand into his.
"Oh, don't be sorry," she said consolingly.
"But if you--if you love me?"
"Still, we've both got to do it, haven't we?" she said, and looked at
him doubtfully. Was she perhaps mistaken after all? Walter had
believed her when she reassured him, and so--if he were to say the same
to her, well, then certainly she must believe him, too. And how glad
she would be! How very very glad! She looked at him again. He was
sorry, not pleased.
"Walter?" She hesitated.
"Yes, Sylvia?"
"Will you tell me?"
"What?"
"If I am right. I want to do what's right, but it's so funny, it
doesn't seem to be quite easy. I thought one always knew."
She sighed--an odd disjointed little sigh, and any sigh was so unlike
Sylvia, that Wilbraham cursed himself again. But what a question she
was putting.
"How can I help you? Ask your own heart."
Always literal, she tried to obey him, but in a few minutes turned a
puzzled face.
"I don't think I know how to do it. My heart doesn't say anything
different--at least, _I_ don't say anything, if that's the same thing?
It is, isn't it? It's you that must tell me."
"I'll make you happy. I swear I will!"
And he meant it.
"Yes," said the girl, speaking more slowly than was usual with her.
"Oh, I should be happy, of course."
"Well, then?"
"But that isn't it, is it? It isn't my being happy--I wish you could
help me," she added, twisting her fingers nervously, and frowning--"I
wish you could tell me."
He started up, then flung himself down by her side, burying his face.
"For God's sake, Sylvia, what do you want me to say?"
"Why, what you would like, of course," she returned simply. "We ought
both of us to love each other, oughtn't we?"
He made a slight movement of his head.
"One--isn't enough?"
Silence. But Sylvia must always have an answer.
"Is it, Walter?"
He twisted himself.
"Oh, I don't know."
"Why, you know everything," she said proudly. "Of course you know. And
please tell me, because I get so puzzled when I have to settle things
for myself--"
Suddenly he caught her hands.
"You told no one what you were going to say to me?"
"There was no one I could quite ask," she replied drearily. "I thought
granny would be too old."
Teresa's name she did not mention. Why not? he wondered guiltily.
"And so it is you who must tell me. Have you forgotten what it is?"
"No, I haven't forgotten," he stammered, hot with shame. "If I don't
love you as much as I should, Sylvia, I--I think we should get along all
right. I'd do my best."
"Oh! of course you would." She looked away. "I suppose people can't
always help making those mistakes, can they? How funny it is they
should!"
She sighed, trying to smile.
"And there is something else to ask you."
He felt as if another of these problems would drive him mad.
"What shall I call you now?" said Sylvia, staring at him. "I suppose I
mustn't say Walter, and Mr Wilbraham sounds so odd!"
The pathos and the pettiness of it! The little mind casting about for
props, and following so faithfully where those she had guided her!
"Sylvia," he blurted out, "I've been a brute--try me once more, dear.
I'll do better, I swear it."
She shook her head, smiling sadly.
"You see, I'm not clever like Teresa; but I am quite sure no two people
ought to marry unless they love each other very much. I thought you
meant you did, and so I don't suppose I asked you questions enough.
Then we might have found out, of course; but I didn't. We needn't say
any more about it, need we?"
"I'll rid you of my company to-morrow."
"Won't you come to Syracuse? Oh, but you wanted to see something there,
didn't you? It seems such a pity you should not see it! If you come, I
shan't tease you, indeed. Granny will be very glad to have me to walk
with her. And if once or twice I do forget and call you Walter, I hope
you won't mind much?"
"My God, Sylvia," he cried, "you punish me!"
"Punish you! Oh!" she exclaimed in distress--"but haven't I explained
rightly? I thought we should all be just as we were before Assisi. You
used to walk about with us then, don't you know, and I don't see why
this should make any difference." She stood up. "Shall we go back, or
did you want to go on farther?"
Go on! He had a revulsion of feeling which swept remorse into the
background. If she could say all this--if there was no more than a bare
surface an inch deep to be stirred, he need not scourge himself with
having troubled it for a few weeks. She could suggest his remaining
with them, could bear to see him day by day, could ask at this moment
whether he would not like to walk farther! This was not love. To lose
this could cost nothing. She was a little pale--that was all.
"I think we had better go back," he said in a cold voice.
As they clambered up the steep flowery path--Sylvia in her pretty pale
green frock, chosen carefully by Teresa, looking the very creature to be
moving through this flower-laden earth--he was already feeling a breezy
exultation, a sense of freedom, which sent the blood coursing joyfully.
And gradually, as this possessed him, other possibilities rushed into
his vision. Surely Teresa would see for herself, would understand, that
he was not so much to blame? She, if any one, must be aware of Sylvia's
shallowness, must recognise that a man could not be content to pass
through life with no other companion, would excuse, forgive--ah, if he
could but make her love him, how much would not she forgive?
And poor Sylvia--already forgotten, because she had not the power of
impressing her little individuality--stumbled in front, while he walked
on air behind. She was so unhappy that now and then she could not see
the path for tears which blurred her eyes; but her only fear was lest
Wilbraham might find them out and blame himself. There was something
heroic--or, if you will, true womanly--about the simple, unaffected
manner in which she had done what she had determined ought to be done.
She threw no thought at her own wrongs; cast no reproach at Wilbraham;
did not look forward or shudder at the picture of dull grey days, such
as have been known to drive women to despair; did not exaggerate her
sorrows.
And so, perhaps, even in hearing her story, there are few who will pity
her.
They had met no one, and had only noticed a few peasants working in the
fields; yet, as they again passed the cemetery gate, a man was walking
not far behind. A labourer, gnawing a root of fennel, paused as he saw
him, and made a movement of his head.
"That way," he said significantly.
"I know," returned the man, without quickening his steps.