|In the gardens of the Villa Panormi, Gwen Howard-Russell was walking
up and down by herself one morning, a few days later, among the winter
flowers (for it was now January), when she saw a figure she fancied she
could recognise entering cautiously at the main gate by the high road
to the Ponte Molle. Why, yes, she couldn't be mistaken. It was certainly
the woman Cecca, the beautiful model down at Mr. Colin Churchill's
studio! How very extraordinary and mysterious! What on earth could she
be coming here for?
Gwen walked quickly down to meet the girl, who stood half hesitating in
the big central avenue, and asked her curiously what she wanted.
'Signorina,' Cecca answered, not unrespectfully, 'I wish to speak with
you a few minutes in private.'
Gwen was surprised and amused at this proposal, but not in the least
disconcerted. How deliciously Italian and romantic! Mr. Churchill had
sent her a letter, no doubt--perhaps a declaration--and he had employed
the beautiful model to be the naturally appropriate bearer of it.
There's something in the very air of Rome that somehow lends itself
spontaneously to these delightful mystifications. In London, now, his
letter would have been delivered in the ordinary course of business by
the common postman! How much more poetical, and antique, and romantic,
to send it round by the veritable hands of his own beautiful imaginary
Wood Nymph!
'Come this way,' she said, in her imperious English fashion; 41 will
speak with you down here in the bower.'
Cecca followed her to the bower in silence, for she resented our brusque
insular manners: and somewhat to Gwen's surprise when she reached the
bower, she seated herself like an equal upon the bench beside her. These
Italians have no idea of the natural distinctions between the various
social classes.
'Well,' Gwen asked, after a moment's pause. 'What do you want to say to
me? Have you brought me any message or letter?'
'No, signorina,' the girl answered somewhat maliciously. 'Nothing:
nothing. I come to speak to you of my own accord solely.'
There was another short pause, as though Cecca expected the English
lady to make some further inquiry: but as Gwen said nothing, Cecca began
again: 'I want to tell you something, signorina. You know the little
English governess, the master's cousin?'
'Yes, I know her. That is to say, I have met her.'
'Well, I have come to tell you something about her. She is a fisherman's
daughter, as I am, and she was brought up, far away, in a village in
England, together with the master.'
'I know all about her,' Gwen answered somewhat coldly. 'She was a
servant afterwards at a house in London, and then she became a teacher
in a school, and finally a governess. I have heard all that before, from
a friend of mine in England.'
'But I have something else to tell you about her,' Cecca continued
with unusual self-restraint for an Italian woman. 'Something else that
concerns you personally. She was brought up with the master, and she
used to play with him in the meadows, when she was a child, where he
made her little images of the Madonna in clay; and that was how he first
of all began to be a sculptor. Then she followed him from her village
to a city: and there he learned to be more of a sculptor. By-and-by, he
came to Rome: but still, the little signorina loved him and wished to
follow him. And at last she did follow him, because she loved him. And
the master loves her, too, and is very fond of her. That is all that I
have to tell you.'
She kept her eye fixed steadily on Gwen while she spoke, and watched in
her cat-like fashion to see whether the simple story was telling home,
as she meant it to do, to Gwen's intelligence. As she uttered the words
she saw Gwen's face grow suddenly scarlet, and she knew she had rightly
effected her intended purpose. She had struck the right chord in Gwen's
pride, and Minna now would have nothing more to fear from the
tall Englishwoman. 'Safer than the poison,' she thought to herself
reflectively, 'and as it happens, every bit as useful and effectual,
without half the trouble or danger.'
Gwen looked at her steadily and without flinching. 'Why do you say all
this to _me?_' she asked haughtily.
'Because I knew it closely concerned you,' Cecca replied, in her coolest
tone: 'and I see from your face, too, signorina, whatever you choose to
say, that I was not mistaken.'
And indeed, in that one moment, the whole truth about Minna and Colin,
never before even suspected by her, had flashed suddenly across Gwen's
mind with the most startling vividness. She saw it all now, as clear as
daylight. How could she ever have been foolish enough for a moment not
to have understood it? Colin Churchill didn't make love to her for the
very best of all possible reasons, because he was already in love with
another person: and that other person was nobody else but the little
governess with the old-fashioned bonnet. She reeled a little at the
suddenness of the revelation, but she managed somehow or other to master
her confusion and even to assume externally a careless demeanour.
'But what interest have _you_ in telling me this?' she asked again of
Cecca haughtily.
'Because I like the little signorina,' Cecca answered quite truthfully,
'and I was anxious to do anything on earth I could to serve her.'
After all, except for her casual little provincial leaning towards the
use of poison (quite pardonable in a pretty Calabrian), Cecca was really
not a bad sort of girl at bottom, as girls go in this strange and oddly
blended universe of ours.
'Is that all you have to say to me?' Gwen enquired after another short
pause, with ill-affected languor, of the beautiful model.
'That is all, signorina. I see you understand me. Good morning.'
'Stop!' Gwen said, taking out her purse uneasily. 'You have done me,
too, a service, my girl. Take that for your trouble in coming here.'
Cecca drew herself up proudly to her full height. She was an Italian
peasant woman, and yet she could resist an offer of money. 'No, no,
signorina,' she answered as haughtily as Gwen herself. 'I want no
reward: I am rich, I am the queen of the models. I did it for love of
the little lady.' And she walked with a stately salute out of the bower
and down the solid marble steps of the great garden.
When she was gone, Gwen buried her face in her hands for a moment, and
cried bitterly. It was not so much the disappointment that she felt,
though she had really been very much in love with Colin Churchill, as
the humiliation of knowing that Cecca had discovered both her secret
and her disappointment. And indeed, Cecca's short disclosure had given a
sudden death-blow to all Gwen's dearest and most deeply-rooted projects.
In the inmost depths of her proud heart, Gwen Howard-Russell felt with
instinctive unquestioning resolution that it would be impossible now
under any circumstances for her to marry Colin Churchill. If it had been
any other woman in the world save only little simple Minna, Gwen might
have taken a sort of keen delight of battle in winning her sweetheart's
love cleverly away from her. She might have fought her for her lover all
along the line with feminine strategy, and enjoyed the victory all
the better in the end because she had had to struggle hard for it. For
though our hypocritical varnished civilisation is loth to confess it, in
Europe at least it is always the women who are competing covertly among
themselves for the small possible stock of husbands. How can it be
otherwise when for every 'eligible' man in our society there are usually
about half a dozen marriageable women? But the moment Gwen knew and
realised that Colin was in love with Minna, or even that Minna was in
love with Colin, she felt immediately that the game was now rendered
absolutely impossible; for Minna had once been a servant, a common
servant, a London parlour-maid, and Gwen Howard-Bussell could not
for one moment bring down her proud head to treat a servant as even a
conceivable rival. Oh, no, as soon as she thought it possible that Minna
might even in her own heart aspire to marry Colin Churchill, there was
nothing on earth left for her but to retire immediately from the utterly
untenable position.
She could have married Colin himself, of course, in spite of all his
past, as humble even as Minna's, for he had genius; and in a man genius
is universally allowed to atone for everything. A woman may stoop to
marry a man below her own position in the social scale by birth, if it
is generally understood that she does it as a graceful and appreciative
tribute to literary, scientific, or artistic greatness. But to put
herself in rivalry as it were with a woman, not even a genius, and born
beneath her, in a struggle for the hand of such a man, who ought rather
of course to receive hers gratefully, as a distinguished favour--why,
the whole thing is obviously an absolute impossibility. So Gwen dried
her eyes as well as she was able, with her little dainty cambric
pocket-handkerchief, and settled with herself at once and finally that
the Colin Churchill day-dream was now at last dispelled for ever.
He was in love with the little governess--the little governess with the
old-fashioned bonnet! And the little governess had been a parlour-maid
in London! And she herself, Gwen Howard-Russell, had been on the very
verge of putting herself in unworthy rivalry with her! She shuddered to
think of it, actually shuddered even to think of it. The very idea
was so horribly repugnant to her. And how many women of her own social
status are there in this realm of England who would not have sympathised
therein with Gwen Howard-Russell? Our pride is so much stronger than
our Christianity, and in this case, oddly enough, the one power brought
about pretty much the same practical result in the long run as the
other.
As Gwen rose with red eyes and flushed cheeks, to make her way back to
her own bedroom, she saw, as she passed along the shrubby orache hedge
that separated the garden from the high-road, a wistful face looking
anxiously and eagerly from outside, in the direction of the great villa.
She knew in a moment whose it was: it was Hiram Winthrop's. He had
stolen away from his studio and the Capture of Babylon, to come out that
morning to the dusty roads of the suburbs, and see if he could catch a
passing glimpse anywhere of Gwen Howard-Russell. His face was pale and
anxious, and Gwen saw for herself in a second that he was wasted with
his eagerness in waiting for her deferred answer. Her heart went forth
for the moment to that sad devoted expression. 'Poor fellow,' she
muttered to herself compassionately, 4 he's very much in love with me,
very much in love with me. I wish to goodness I could only have given
him a favourable answer.'