“If I'm to be made the arbiter of other destinies when my own are
more than I can manage” (they were dallying over figs and apricots at
breakfast)--“pray, you two good people tell me, kindly, when shall we
begin to throw our bonnets over the mill? In other words, on what day
and in what month do we start in search of Winter in the North?” Ruth
enquired, to a feint of cheerfulness and little dreaming.
“Oh, to-morrow--To-morrow, if you like,” jerked Pontycroft. “Wait not
upon the order of your going, but start at once.”
“Start to-morrow!” Lucilla cried, “start to-morrow? Impossible.”
“Why impossible? Nothing is impossible. Ruth wants to go. She said
so last night, she more than hints it, to-day. What woman wants, God
wants.” Oblivious to the truth that a woman, his sister, panted to
remain, Pontycroft glanced at the newspaper at his elbow. “A steamer
sails from Genoa tomorrow afternoon, the _Princess Irene_. I'll go down
to Humbert's this moment as ever is,” he added, “and have them wire for
a deck cabin.”
“No, no,” protested Lucilla. “Why leave all this loveliness at once?
Impossible! Besides, we have people coming to dinner tomorrow,” she
remembered hopefully. “Thursday. The Newburys and young Worthington. We
can't put them off.”
“We can, and we shall,” asseverated Ponty. “There's nothing so dreadful,
Lucilla, as these long superfluous drawn-out farewells, these impending
good-byes. Send Pietro, if you like, to say we've all responded to a
call of duty. Tell your friends in all charity, that when duty calls the
wise youth replies: 'I _won't_.' Why?... Because he knows that nine times
out of ten duty is only what somebody else thinks he ought to be doing.
But tell them duty's only skin deep, by way of advice. Tell them one's
response to duty is generally the mere weak living up to somebody else's
good opinion of one. Say to them: 'Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.' But
say that in this case it's otherwise--we're not wise, and we've
answered with one accord: '_I will_.' Say to them that therein lies our
folly.--We're exceedingly sorry--sorry, but we must be off. It shall be
a seven days' wonder, Florence shall have something to talk about. She
needs brisking up. Ruth, I'm off to engage your passage. The sooner
you go, the sooner you'll come back to tell us all about it,--tell us
whether the play was worth the candle.”
Ponty rang for his stick and his hat, lighted the inevitable cigarette.
“Paolina will pack you up, Ruth, if she has to keep busy until
midnight,” he directed, between two puffs. “Lucilla, Pietro can help
Maria with your paraphernalia; when I'm back here with our tickets he'll
be half through the packing. Lazy duffer though he be, once he begins,
he's rapid as radium.” Ponty was gone before either Lucilla or Ruth
could protest.
They looked at one another.... What ludicrous extravagance of sudden
breaking up! This high-handed method of bringing matters summarily to a
climax struck them both. Lucilla and Ruth broke into peals of laughter.
The irresponsible sun glared--into their eyes--played, flamboyant among
the glass and silverware of the breakfast table; it winked in prismatic
rays from crystal angles of honey pots and threw its splashes of
blinding light over the damask table cloth, borrowing rosy tints from a
mass of pink geranium in a bowl of Nagasaki ware. It glanced at all
the polished surfaces of the old carved oak furniture; the room was
one flagrant and joyous outburst of morning sunlight, the garden an
invitation to come out, come out and play, and enjoy life from its
inception! Elusive, dewy, odorous lovelinesses rested upon it, mounted
from it, entreated you to step under the trees, wander among growing
tender things, bathed all in a dew and glister. And called to you to
come and loiter,--and mark the passage of Aurora and her maidens, hours
ago.
“It's just a trifle odd to be swept off one's feet in this
whoop-and-begone-with-you manner,” Ruth, with half a laugh, half a sob,
commented. “Maugre the thing's to be sooner rather than later, Lucilla,
I can't see though why _my_ going should mean yours, too!”
“Dear infant,” Lucilla answered, tenderly, “don't worry.... Whatever
should Ponty and myself do here alone? We'd get on one another's nerves
in a week and part in a temper. Since things have happened as they
have, things are better as they are; leave them to hammer out their own
salvation. Things, _I_ find, are very like the little sheep in Mother
Goose. You let them alone and they come home, wagging their tails behind
them.... But oh, oh, oh,” sighed Lucilla, “how I adore this! How I would
stay here forever! It is a blow,” her voice was vibrant of regret....
“But, of course, Harry's right, he's always right. Shall we obey
orders?”
“Y--es,” said Ruth. She felt a tightening at her heart, a sudden lump
in her throat. The glory of the October morning had all at once
departed.... A decided glamour enveloped the project of a visit to her
uncle. Moreover, her heart drew her to him. The fine sense of an
affront she must fly from had, too, gathered strength in the night; the
indignity put upon her by Bertram's letter she must resent. Her pride
protested fiercely, she must retaliate even though Ponty should express
to Bertram her thanks with refusal of the honour conferred upon her.
But now these emotions were quelled by an unspeakable depression, a
loneliness, a sense of isolation, of dread, a dread of the Unknown....
The dread swept her off her feet. Dread of something more, too.... How
was she,--how was she, Ruth Adgate,--to live away from these two people?
To-morrow would mark the beginning of an ocean rolled up between her
old life and the new one she would be journeying towards. To-morrow!
to-morrow! To-morrow would see the end, for how many, many dreary
months, of this beauty laden, gracious existence; the camaraderie of
these two people whom she had reason to love best in the world, at
whose side she had grown up,--Lucilla and Henry Pontycroft, whom she
understood, who understood her! Instinctively, she felt she was electing
for herself a grimmer fate, a sterner life and land, than any she had
known, could dimly divine....
Yes, the glory of the April morning had departed into chill and
nothingness. It might have already been December though it was only
October, and Pontycroft had gone to buy her ticket. The first, the
irremediable step was taken. She must put the best face she could upon
this adventure of her choice.
Lucilla, to whom Ruth and her thoughts were transparent as flies in
amber, put her arms about her neck.
“Ruth,” she whispered, “it's because he can't bear the parting, the
thought of it. It's going to be a horrible break for him. What we'll
either of us do when you're no longer within reach, when you are no
longer part of our daily life, I can't imagine. I can't imagine any of
it without you, and neither of us will want this, without you.”
Ruth's eyes glowed. Bending forward she kissed Lucilla, and they marched
away, arm-inarm, to do their packing.