CHAPTER 5
At the time of Lilia's death Philip Herriton was just twenty-four years of
age--indeed the news reached Sawston on his birthday. He was a tall,
weakly-built young man, whose clothes had to be judiciously padded on the
shoulders in order to make him pass muster. His face was plain rather than
not, and there was a curious mixture in it of good and bad. He had a fine
forehead and a good large nose, and both observation and sympathy were in his
eyes. But below the nose and eyes all was confusion, and those people who
believe that destiny resides in the mouth and chin shook their heads when they
looked at him.
Philip himself, as a boy, had been
keenly conscious of these defects. Sometimes when he had been bullied or
hustled about at school he would retire to his cubicle and examine his features
in a looking-glass, and he would sigh and say, "It is a weak face. I shall
never carve a place for myself in the world." But as years went on he
became either less self-conscious or more self-satisfied. The world, he
found, made a niche for him as it did for every one. Decision of character
might come later--or he might have it without knowing. At all events he
had got a sense of beauty and a sense of humour, two most desirable gifts.
The sense of beauty developed first. It caused him at the age of twenty to
wear parti-coloured ties and a squashy hat, to be late for dinner on account of
the sunset, and to catch art from Burne-Jones to Praxiteles. At twenty-two
he went to Italy with some cousins, and there he absorbed into one æsthetic
whole olive-trees, blue sky, frescoes, country inns, saints, peasants, mosaics,
statues, beggars. He came back with the air of a prophet who would either
remodel Sawston or reject it. All the energies and enthusiasms of a rather
friendless life had passed into the championship of
beauty.
In a short time it was over. Nothing
had happened either in Sawston or within himself. He had shocked
half-a-dozen people, squabbled with his sister, and bickered with his
mother. He concluded that nothing could happen, not knowing that human
love and love of truth sometimes conquer where love of beauty
fails.
A little disenchanted, a little tired, but
æsthetically intact, he resumed his placid life, relying more and more on his
second gift, the gift of humour. If he could not reform the world, he
could at all events laugh at it, thus attaining at least an intellectual
superiority. Laughter, he read and believed, was a sign of good moral
health, and he laughed on contentedly, till Lilia's marriage toppled contentment
down for ever. Italy, the land of beauty, was ruined for him. She
had no power to change men and things who dwelt in her. She, too, could
produce avarice, brutality, stupidity--and, what was worse, vulgarity. It
was on her soil and through her influence that a silly woman had married a
cad. He hated Gino, the betrayer of his life's ideal, and now that the
sordid tragedy had come, it filled him with pangs, not of sympathy, but of final
disillusion.
The disillusion was convenient for Mrs.
Herriton, who saw a trying little period ahead of her, and was glad to have her
family united.
"Are we to go into mourning, do you
think?" She always asked her children's advice where
possible.
Harriet thought that they should. She
had been detestable to Lilia while she lived, but she always felt that the dead
deserve attention and sympathy. "After all she has suffered. That
letter kept me awake for nights. The whole thing is like one of those
horrible modern plays where no one is in 'the right.' But if we have
mourning, it will mean telling Irma."
"Of course we
must tell Irma!" said Philip.
"Of course," said his
mother. "But I think we can still not tell her about Lilia's
marriage."
"I don't think that. And she must
have suspected something by now."
"So one would have
supposed. But she never cared for her mother, and little girls of nine
don't reason clearly. She looks on it as a long visit. And it is
important, most important, that she should not receive a shock. All a
child's life depends on the ideal it has of its parents. Destroy that and
everything goes--morals, behaviour, everything. Absolute trust in some one
else is the essence of education. That is why I have been so careful about
talking of poor Lilia before her."
"But you forget
this wretched baby. Waters and Adamson write that there is a
baby."
"Mrs. Theobald must be told. But she
doesn't count. She is breaking up very quickly. She doesn't even see
Mr. Kingcroft now. He, thank goodness, I hear, has at last consoled
himself with someone else."
"The child must know some
time," persisted Philip, who felt a little displeased, though he could not tell
with what.
"The later the better. Every moment
she is developing."
"I must say it seems rather hard
luck, doesn't it?"
"On Irma?
Why?"
"On us, perhaps. We have morals and
behaviour also, and I don't think this continual secrecy improves
them."
"There's no need to twist the thing round to
that," said Harriet, rather disturbed.
"Of course
there isn't," said her mother. "Let's keep to the main issue. This
baby's quite beside the point. Mrs. Theobald will do nothing, and it's no
concern of ours."
"It will make a difference in the
money, surely," said he.
"No, dear; very
little. Poor Charles provided for every kind of contingency in his
will. The money will come to you and Harriet, as Irma's
guardians."
"Good. Does the Italian get
anything?"
"He will get all hers. But you know
what that is."
"Good. So those are our
tactics--to tell no one about the baby, not even Miss
Abbott."
"Most certainly this is the proper course,"
said Mrs. Herriton, preferring "course" to "tactics" for Harriet's sake.
"And why ever should we tell Caroline?"
"She was so
mixed up in the affair."
"Poor silly creature.
The less she hears about it the better she will be pleased. I have come to
be very sorry for Caroline. She, if any one, has suffered and been
penitent. She burst into tears when I told her a little, only a little, of
that terrible letter. I never saw such genuine remorse. We must
forgive her and forget. Let the dead bury their dead. We will not
trouble her with them."
Philip saw that his mother
was scarcely logical. But there was no advantage in saying so. "Here
beginneth the New Life, then. Do you remember, mother, that was what we
said when we saw Lilia off?"
"Yes, dear; but now it
is really a New Life, because we are all at accord. Then you were still
infatuated with Italy. It may be full of beautiful pictures and churches,
but we cannot judge a country by anything but its
men."
"That is quite true," he said sadly. And
as the tactics were now settled, he went out and took an aimless and solitary
walk.
By the time he came back two important things
had happened. Irma had been told of her mother's death, and Miss Abbott,
who had called for a subscription, had been told
also.
Irma had wept loudly, had asked a few sensible
questions and a good many silly ones, and had been content with evasive
answers. Fortunately the school prize-giving was at hand, and that,
together with the prospect of new black clothes, kept her from meditating on the
fact that Lilia, who had been absent so long, would now be absent for
ever.
"As for Caroline," said Mrs. Herriton, "I was
almost frightened. She broke down utterly. She cried even when she
left the house. I comforted her as best I could, and I kissed her.
It is something that the breach between her and ourselves is now entirely
healed."
"Did she ask no questions--as to the nature
of Lilia's death, I mean?"
"She did. But she
has a mind of extraordinary delicacy. She saw that I was reticent, and she
did not press me. You see, Philip, I can say to you what I could not say
before Harriet. Her ideas are so crude. Really we do not want it
known in Sawston that there is a baby. All peace and comfort would be lost
if people came inquiring after it."
His mother knew
how to manage him. He agreed enthusiastically. And a few days later,
when he chanced to travel up to London with Miss Abbott, he had all the time the
pleasant thrill of one who is better informed. Their last journey together
had been from Monteriano back across Europe. It had been a ghastly
journey, and Philip, from the force of association, rather expected something
ghastly now.
He was surprised. Miss Abbott,
between Sawston and Charing Cross, revealed qualities which he had never guessed
her to possess. Without being exactly original, she did show a commendable
intelligence, and though at times she was gauche and even uncourtly, he felt
that here was a person whom it might be well to
cultivate.
At first she annoyed him. They were
talking, of course, about Lilia, when she broke the thread of vague
commiseration and said abruptly, "It is all so strange as well as so
tragic. And what I did was as strange as
anything."
It was the first reference she had ever
made to her contemptible behaviour. "Never mind," he said. "It's all
over now. Let the dead bury their dead. It's fallen out of our
lives."
"But that's why I can talk about it and tell
you everything I have always wanted to. You thought me stupid and
sentimental and wicked and mad, but you never really knew how much I was to
blame."
"Indeed I never think about it now," said
Philip gently. He knew that her nature was in the main generous and
upright: it was unnecessary for her to reveal her
thoughts.
"The first evening we got to Monteriano,"
she persisted, "Lilia went out for a walk alone, saw that Italian in a
picturesque position on a wall, and fell in love. He was shabbily dressed,
and she did not even know he was the son of a dentist. I must tell you I
was used to this sort of thing. Once or twice before I had had to send
people about their business."
"Yes; we counted on
you," said Philip, with sudden sharpness. After all, if she would reveal
her thoughts, she must take the consequences.
"I know
you did," she retorted with equal sharpness. "Lilia saw him several times
again, and I knew I ought to interfere. I called her to my bedroom one
night. She was very frightened, for she knew what it was about and how
severe I could be. 'Do you love this man?' I asked. 'Yes or no?' She
said 'Yes.' And I said, 'Why don't you marry him if you think you'll be happy?'
"
"Really--really," exploded Philip, as exasperated
as if the thing had happened yesterday. "You knew Lilia all your
life. Apart from everything else--as if she could choose what could make
her happy!"
"Had you ever let her choose?" she
flashed out. "I'm afraid that's rude," she added, trying to calm
herself.
"Let us rather say unhappily expressed,"
said Philip, who always adopted a dry satirical manner when he was
puzzled.
"I want to finish. Next morning I
found Signor Carella and said the same to him. He--well, he was
willing. That's all."
"And the telegram?"
He looked scornfully out of the window.
Hitherto her
voice had been hard, possibly in self-accusation, possibly in defiance.
Now it became unmistakably sad. "Ah, the telegram! That was
wrong. Lilia there was more cowardly than I was. We should have told
the truth. It lost me my nerve, at all events. I came to the station
meaning to tell you everything then. But we had started with a lie, and I
got frightened. And at the end, when you left, I got frightened again and
came with you."
"Did you really mean to
stop?"
"For a time, at all
events."
"Would that have suited a newly married
pair?"
"It would have suited them. Lilia needed
me. And as for him--I can't help feeling I might have got influence over
him."
"I am ignorant of these matters," said Philip;
"but I should have thought that would have increased the difficulty of the
situation."
The crisp remark was wasted on her.
She looked hopelessly at the raw over-built country, and said, "Well, I have
explained."
"But pardon me, Miss Abbott; of most of
your conduct you have given a description rather than an
explanation."
He had fairly caught her, and expected
that she would gape and collapse. To his surprise she answered with some
spirit, "An explanation may bore you, Mr. Herriton: it drags in other
topics."
"Oh, never
mind."
"I hated Sawston, you
see."
He was delighted. "So did and do I.
That's splendid. Go on."
"I hated the idleness,
the stupidity, the respectability, the petty
unselfishness."
"Petty selfishness," he
corrected. Sawston psychology had long been his
specialty.
"Petty unselfishness," she repeated.
"I had got an idea that every one here spent their lives in making little
sacrifices for objects they didn't care for, to please people they didn't love;
that they never learnt to be sincere--and, what's as bad, never learnt how to
enjoy themselves. That's what I thought--what I thought at
Monteriano."
"Why, Miss Abbott," he cried, "you
should have told me this before! Think it still! I agree with lots
of it. Magnificent!"
"Now Lilia," she went on,
"though there were things about her I didn't like, had somehow kept the power of
enjoying herself with sincerity. And Gino, I thought, was splendid, and
young, and strong not only in body, and sincere as the day. If they wanted
to marry, why shouldn't they do so? Why shouldn't she break with the
deadening life where she had got into a groove, and would go on in it, getting
more and more--worse than unhappy--apathetic till she died? Of course I
was wrong. She only changed one groove for another--a worse groove.
And as for him--well, you know more about him than I do. I can never trust
myself to judge characters again. But I still feel he cannot have been
quite bad when we first met him. Lilia--that I should dare to say
it! --must have been cowardly. He was only a boy--just going to turn
into something fine, I thought--and she must have mismanaged him. So that
is the one time I have gone against what is proper, and there are the
results. You have an explanation now."
"And
much of it has been most interesting, though I don't understand
everything. Did you never think of the disparity of their social
position?"
"We were mad--drunk with rebellion.
We had no common-sense. As soon as you came, you saw and foresaw
everything."
"Oh, I don't think that." He was
vaguely displeased at being credited with common-sense. For a moment Miss
Abbott had seemed to him more unconventional than
himself.
"I hope you see," she concluded, "why I have
troubled you with this long story. Women--I heard you say the other
day--are never at ease till they tell their faults out loud. Lilia is dead
and her husband gone to the bad--all through me. You see, Mr. Herriton, it
makes me specially unhappy; it's the only time I've ever gone into what my
father calls 'real life'--and look what I've made of it! All that winter I
seemed to be waking up to beauty and splendour and I don't know what; and when
the spring came, I wanted to fight against the things I hated--mediocrity and
dulness and spitefulness and society. I actually hated society for a day
or two at Monteriano. I didn't see that all these things are invincible,
and that if we go against them they will break us to pieces. Thank you for
listening to so much nonsense."
"Oh, I quite
sympathize with what you say," said Philip encouragingly; "it isn't nonsense,
and a year or two ago I should have been saying it too. But I feel
differently now, and I hope that you also will change. Society is
invincible--to a certain degree. But your real life is your own, and
nothing can touch it. There is no power on earth that can prevent your
criticizing and despising mediocrity--nothing that can stop you retreating into
splendour and beauty--into the thoughts and beliefs that make the real life--the
real you."
"I have never had that experience
yet. Surely I and my life must be where I
live."
Evidently she had the usual feminine
incapacity for grasping philosophy. But she had developed quite a
personality, and he must see more of her. "There is another great
consolation against invincible mediocrity," he said--"the meeting a
fellow-victim. I hope that this is only the first of many discussions that
we shall have together."
She made a suitable
reply. The train reached Charing Cross, and they parted,--he to go to a
matinée, she to buy petticoats for the corpulent poor. Her thoughts
wandered as she bought them: the gulf between herself and Mr. Herriton, which
she had always known to be great, now seemed to her
immeasurable.
These events and conversations took
place at Christmas-time. The New Life initiated by them lasted some seven
months. Then a little incident--a mere little vexatious incident--brought
it to its close.
Irma collected picture post-cards,
and Mrs. Herriton or Harriet always glanced first at all that came, lest the
child should get hold of something vulgar. On this occasion the subject
seemed perfectly inoffensive--a lot of ruined factory chimneys--and Harriet was
about to hand it to her niece when her eye was caught by the words on the
margin. She gave a shriek and flung the card into the grate. Of
course no fire was alight in July, and Irma only had to run and pick it out
again.
"How dare you!" screamed her aunt. "You
wicked girl! Give it here!"
Unfortunately Mrs.
Herriton was out of the room. Irma, who was not in awe of Harriet, danced
round the table, reading as she did so, "View of the superb city of
Monteriano--from your lital brother."
Stupid Harriet
caught her, boxed her ears, and tore the post-card into fragments. Irma
howled with pain, and began shouting indignantly, "Who is my little
brother? Why have I never heard of him before? Grandmamma!
Grandmamma! Who is my little brother? Who is
my--"
Mrs. Herriton swept into the room, saying,
"Come with me, dear, and I will tell you. Now it is time for you to
know."
Irma returned from the interview sobbing,
though, as a matter of fact, she had learnt very little. But that little
took hold of her imagination. She had promised secrecy--she knew not
why. But what harm in talking of the little brother to those who had heard
of him already?
"Aunt Harriet!" she would say.
"Uncle Phil! Grandmamma! What do you suppose my little brother is
doing now? Has he begun to play? Do Italian babies talk sooner than
us, or would he be an English baby born abroad? Oh, I do long to see him,
and be the first to teach him the Ten Commandments and the
Catechism."
The last remark always made Harriet look
grave.
"Really," exclaimed Mrs. Herriton, "Irma is
getting too tiresome. She forgot poor Lilia soon
enough."
"A living brother is more to her than a dead
mother," said Philip dreamily. "She can knit him
socks."
"I stopped that. She is bringing him in
everywhere. It is most vexatious. The other night she asked if she
might include him in the people she mentions specially in her
prayers."
"What did you
say?"
"Of course I allowed her," she replied
coldly. "She has a right to mention any one she chooses. But I was
annoyed with her this morning, and I fear that I showed
it."
"And what happened this
morning?"
"She asked if she could pray for her 'new
father'--for the Italian!"
"Did you let
her?"
"I got up without saying
anything."
"You must have felt just as you did when I
wanted to pray for the devil."
"He is the devil,"
cried Harriet.
"No, Harriet; he is too
vulgar."
"I will thank you not to scoff against
religion!" was Harriet's retort. "Think of that poor baby. Irma is
right to pray for him. What an entrance into life for an English
child!"
"My dear sister, I can reassure you.
Firstly, the beastly baby is Italian. Secondly, it was promptly christened
at Santa Deodata's, and a powerful combination of saints watch
over--"
"Don't, dear. And, Harriet, don't be so
serious--I mean not so serious when you are with Irma. She will be worse
than ever if she thinks we have something to
hide."
Harriet's conscience could be quite as
tiresome as Philip's unconventionality. Mrs. Herriton soon made it easy
for her daughter to go for six weeks to the Tirol. Then she and Philip
began to grapple with Irma alone.
Just as they had
got things a little quiet the beastly baby sent another picture post-card--a
comic one, not particularly proper. Irma received it while they were out,
and all the trouble began again.
"I cannot think,"
said Mrs. Herriton, "what his motive is in sending
them."
Two years before, Philip would have said that
the motive was to give pleasure. Now he, like his mother, tried to think
of something sinister and subtle.
"Do you suppose
that he guesses the situation--how anxious we are to hush the scandal
up?"
"That is quite possible. He knows that
Irma will worry us about the baby. Perhaps he hopes that we shall adopt it
to quiet her."
"Hopeful
indeed."
"At the same time he has the chance of
corrupting the child's morals." She unlocked a drawer, took out the
post-card, and regarded it gravely. "He entreats her to send the baby
one," was her next remark.
"She might do it
too!"
"I told her not to; but we must watch her
carefully, without, of course, appearing to be
suspicious."
Philip was getting to enjoy his mother's
diplomacy. He did not think of his own morals and behaviour any
more.
"Who's to watch her at school, though?
She may bubble out any moment."
"We can but trust to
our influence," said Mrs. Herriton.
Irma did bubble
out, that very day. She was proof against a single post-card, not against
two. A new little brother is a valuable sentimental asset to a
school-girl, and her school was then passing through an acute phase of
baby-worship. Happy the girl who had her quiver full of them, who kissed
them when she left home in the morning, who had the right to extricate them from
mail-carts in the interval, who dangled them at tea ere they retired to
rest! That one might sing the unwritten song of Miriam, blessed above all
school-girls, who was allowed to hide her baby brother in a squashy place, where
none but herself could find him!
How could Irma keep
silent when pretentious girls spoke of baby cousins and baby visitors--she who
had a baby brother, who wrote her post-cards through his dear papa? She
had promised not to tell about him--she knew not why--and she told. And
one girl told another, and one girl told her mother, and the thing was
out.
"Yes, it is all very sad," Mrs. Herriton kept
saying. "My daughter-in-law made a very unhappy marriage, as I dare say
you know. I suppose that the child will be educated in Italy.
Possibly his grandmother may be doing something, but I have not heard of
it. I do not expect that she will have him over. She disapproves of
the father. It is altogether a painful business for
her."
She was careful only to scold Irma for
disobedience--that eighth deadly sin, so convenient to parents and
guardians. Harriet would have plunged into needless explanations and
abuse. The child was ashamed, and talked about the baby less. The
end of the school year was at hand, and she hoped to get another prize.
But she also had put her hand to the wheel.
It was
several days before they saw Miss Abbott. Mrs. Herriton had not come
across her much since the kiss of reconciliation, nor Philip since the journey
to London. She had, indeed, been rather a disappointment to him. Her
creditable display of originality had never been repeated: he feared she was
slipping back. Now she came about the Cottage Hospital--her life was
devoted to dull acts of charity--and though she got money out of him and out of
his mother, she still sat tight in her chair, looking graver and more wooden
than ever.
"I dare say you have heard," said Mrs.
Herriton, well knowing what the matter was.
"Yes, I
have. I came to ask you; have any steps been
taken?"
Philip was astonished. The question was
impertinent in the extreme. He had a regard for Miss Abbott, and regretted
that she had been guilty of it.
"About the baby?"
asked Mrs. Herriton
pleasantly.
"Yes."
"As far
as I know, no steps. Mrs. Theobald may have decided on something, but I
have not heard of it."
"I was meaning, had you
decided on anything?"
"The child is no relation of
ours," said Philip. "It is therefore scarcely for us to
interfere."
His mother glanced at him
nervously. "Poor Lilia was almost a daughter to me once. I know what
Miss Abbott means. But now things have altered. Any initiative would
naturally come from Mrs. Theobald."
"But does not
Mrs. Theobald always take any initiative from you?" asked Miss
Abbott.
Mrs. Herriton could not help colouring.
"I sometimes have given her advice in the past. I should not presume to do
so now."
"Then is nothing to be done for the child at
all?"
"It is extraordinarily good of you to take this
unexpected interest," said Philip.
"The child came
into the world through my negligence," replied Miss Abbott. "It is natural
I should take an interest in it."
"My dear Caroline,"
said Mrs. Herriton, "you must not brood over the thing. Let bygones be
bygones. The child should worry you even less than it worries us. We
never even mention it. It belongs to another
world."
Miss Abbott got up without replying and
turned to go. Her extreme gravity made Mrs. Herriton uneasy. "Of
course," she added, "if Mrs. Theobald decides on any plan that seems at all
practicable--I must say I don't see any such--I shall ask if I may join her in
it, for Irma's sake, and share in any possible
expenses."
"Please would you let me know if she
decides on anything. I should like to join as
well."
"My dear, how you throw about your
money! We would never allow it."
"And if she
decides on nothing, please also let me know. Let me know in any
case."
Mrs. Herriton made a point of kissing
her.
"Is the young person mad?" burst out Philip as
soon as she had departed. "Never in my life have I seen such colossal
impertinence. She ought to be well smacked, and sent back to
Sunday-school."
His mother said
nothing.
"But don't you see--she is practically
threatening us? You can't put her off with Mrs. Theobald; she knows as
well as we do that she is a nonentity. If we don't do anything she's going
to raise a scandal--that we neglect our relatives, &c., which is, of course,
a lie. Still she'll say it. Oh, dear, sweet, sober Caroline Abbott
has a screw loose! We knew it at Monteriano. I had my suspicions
last year one day in the train; and here it is again. The young person is
mad."
She still said
nothing.
"Shall I go round at once and give it her
well? I'd really enjoy it."
In a low, serious
voice--such a voice as she had not used to him for months--Mrs. Herriton said,
"Caroline has been extremely impertinent. Yet there may be something in
what she says after all. Ought the child to grow up in that place--and
with that father?"
Philip started and
shuddered. He saw that his mother was not sincere. Her insincerity
to others had amused him, but it was disheartening when used against
himself.
"Let us admit frankly," she continued, "that
after all we may have responsibilities."
"I don't
understand you, Mother. You are turning absolutely round. What are
you up to?"
In one moment an impenetrable barrier had
been erected between them. They were no longer in smiling
confidence. Mrs. Herriton was off on tactics of her own--tactics which
might be beyond or beneath him.
His remark offended
her. "Up to? I am wondering whether I ought not to adopt the
child. Is that sufficiently plain?"
"And this
is the result of half-a-dozen idiocies of Miss
Abbott?"
"It is. I repeat, she has been
extremely impertinent. None the less she is showing me my duty. If I
can rescue poor Lilia's baby from that horrible man, who will bring it up either
as Papist or infidel--who will certainly bring it up to be vicious--I shall do
it."
"You talk like
Harriet."
"And why not?" said she, flushing at what
she knew to be an insult. "Say, if you choose, that I talk like
Irma. That child has seen the thing more clearly than any of us. She
longs for her little brother. She shall have him. I don't care if I
am impulsive."
He was sure that she was not
impulsive, but did not dare to say so. Her ability frightened him.
All his life he had been her puppet. She let him worship Italy, and reform
Sawston--just as she had let Harriet be Low Church. She had let him talk
as much as he liked. But when she wanted a thing she always got
it.
And though she was frightening him, she did not
inspire him with reverence. Her life, he saw, was without meaning.
To what purpose was her diplomacy, her insincerity, her continued repression of
vigour? Did they make any one better or happier? Did they even bring
happiness to herself? Harriet with her gloomy peevish creed, Lilia with
her clutches after pleasure, were after all more divine than this well-ordered,
active, useless machine.
Now that his mother had
wounded his vanity he could criticize her thus. But he could not
rebel. To the end of his days he could probably go on doing what she
wanted. He watched with a cold interest the duel between her and Miss
Abbott. Mrs. Herriton's policy only appeared gradually. It was to
prevent Miss Abbott interfering with the child at all costs, and if possible to
prevent her at a small cost. Pride was the only solid element in her
disposition. She could not bear to seem less charitable than
others.
"I am planning what can be done," she would
tell people, "and that kind Caroline Abbott is helping me. It is no
business of either of us, but we are getting to feel that the baby must not be
left entirely to that horrible man. It would be unfair to little Irma;
after all, he is her half-brother. No, we have come to nothing
definite."
Miss Abbott was equally civil, but not to
be appeased by good intentions. The child's welfare was a sacred duty to
her, not a matter of pride or even of sentiment. By it alone, she felt,
could she undo a little of the evil that she had permitted to come into the
world. To her imagination Monteriano had become a magic city of vice,
beneath whose towers no person could grow up happy or pure. Sawston, with
its semi-detached houses and snobby schools, its book teas and bazaars, was
certainly petty and dull; at times she found it even contemptible. But it
was not a place of sin, and at Sawston, either with the Herritons or with
herself, the baby should grow up.
As soon as it was
inevitable, Mrs. Herriton wrote a letter for Waters and Adamson to send to
Gino--the oddest letter; Philip saw a copy of it afterwards. Its
ostensible purpose was to complain of the picture postcards. Right at the
end, in a few nonchalant sentences, she offered to adopt the child, provided
that Gino would undertake never to come near it, and would surrender some of
Lilia's money for its education.
"What do you think
of it?" she asked her son. "It would not do to let him know that we are
anxious for it."
"Certainly he will never suppose
that."
"But what effect will the letter have on
him?"
"When he gets it he will do a sum. If it
is less expensive in the long run to part with a little money and to be clear of
the baby, he will part with it. If he would lose, he will adopt the tone
of the loving father."
"Dear, you're shockingly
cynical." After a pause she added, "How would the sum work
out?"
"I don't know, I'm sure. But if you
wanted to ensure the baby being posted by return, you should have sent a little
sum to him. Oh, I'm not cynical--at least I only go by what I
know of him. But I am weary of the whole show. Weary of Italy.
Weary, weary, weary. Sawston's a kind, pitiful place, isn't it? I
will go walk in it and seek comfort."
He smiled as he
spoke, for the sake of not appearing serious. When he had left her she
began to smile also.
It was to the Abbotts' that he
walked. Mr. Abbott offered him tea, and Caroline, who was keeping up her
Italian in the next room, came in to pour it out. He told them that his
mother had written to Signor Carella, and they both uttered fervent wishes for
her success.
"Very fine of Mrs. Herriton, very fine
indeed," said Mr. Abbott, who, like every one else, knew nothing of his
daughter's exasperating behaviour. "I'm afraid it will mean a lot of
expense. She will get nothing out of Italy without
paying."
"There are sure to be incidental expenses,"
said Philip cautiously. Then he turned to Miss Abbott and said, "Do you
suppose we shall have difficulty with the man?"
"It
depends," she replied, with equal caution.
"From what
you saw of him, should you conclude that he would make an affectionate
parent?"
"I don't go by what I saw of him, but by
what I know of him."
"Well, what do you conclude from
that?"
"That he is a thoroughly wicked
man."
"Yet thoroughly wicked men have loved their
children. Look at Rodrigo Borgia, for
example."
"I have also seen examples of that in my
district."
With this remark the admirable young woman
rose, and returned to keep up her Italian. She puzzled Philip
extremely. He could understand enthusiasm, but she did not seem the least
enthusiastic. He could understand pure cussedness, but it did not seem to
be that either. Apparently she was deriving neither amusement nor profit
from the struggle. Why, then, had she undertaken it? Perhaps she was
not sincere. Perhaps, on the whole, that was most likely. She must
be professing one thing and aiming at another. What the other thing could
be he did not stop to consider. Insincerity was becoming his stock
explanation for anything unfamiliar, whether that thing was a kindly action or a
high ideal.
"She fences well," he said to his mother
afterwards.
"What had you to fence about?" she said
suavely. Her son might know her tactics, but she refused to admit that he
knew. She still pretended to him that the baby was the one thing she
wanted, and had always wanted, and that Miss Abbott was her valued
ally.
And when, next week, the reply came from Italy,
she showed him no face of triumph. "Read the letters," she said. "We
have failed."
Gino wrote in his own language, but the
solicitors had sent a laborious English translation, where "Preghiatissima
Signora" was rendered as "Most Praiseworthy Madam," and every delicate
compliment and superlative--superlatives are delicate in Italian--would have
felled an ox. For a moment Philip forgot the matter in the manner; this
grotesque memorial of the land he had loved moved him almost to tears. He
knew the originals of these lumbering phrases; he also had sent "sincere
auguries"; he also had addressed letters--who writes at home? --from the
Caffè Garibaldi. "I didn't know I was still such an ass," he
thought. "Why can't I realize that it's merely tricks of expression?
A bounder's a bounder, whether he lives in Sawston or
Monteriano."
"Isn't it disheartening?" said his
mother.
He then read that Gino could not accept the
generous offer. His paternal heart would not permit him to abandon this
symbol of his deplored spouse. As for the picture post-cards, it
displeased him greatly that they had been obnoxious. He would send no
more. Would Mrs. Herriton, with her notorious kindness, explain this to
Irma, and thank her for those which Irma (courteous Miss!) had sent to
him?
"The sum works out against us," said
Philip. "Or perhaps he is putting up the
price."
"No," said Mrs. Herriton decidedly. "It
is not that. For some perverse reason he will not part with the
child. I must go and tell poor Caroline. She will be equally
distressed."
She returned from the visit in the most
extraordinary condition. Her face was red, she panted for breath, there
were dark circles round her eyes.
"The impudence!"
she shouted. "The cursed impudence! Oh, I'm swearing. I don't
care. That beastly woman--how dare she interfere--I'll--Philip, dear, I'm
sorry. It's no good. You must go."
"Go
where? Do sit down. What's happened?" This outburst of
violence from his elegant ladylike mother pained him dreadfully. He had
not known that it was in her.
"She won't
accept--won't accept the letter as final. You must go to
Monteriano!"
"I won't!" he shouted back. "I've
been and I've failed. I'll never see the place again. I hate
Italy."
"If you don't go, she
will."
"Abbott?"
"Yes.
Going alone; would start this evening. I offered to write; she said it was
'too late!' Too late! The child, if you please--Irma's brother--to live
with her, to be brought up by her and her father at our very gates, to go to
school like a gentleman, she paying. Oh, you're a man! It doesn't
matter for you. You can laugh. But I know what people say; and that
woman goes to Italy this evening."
He seemed to be
inspired. "Then let her go! Let her mess with Italy by
herself. She'll come to grief somehow. Italy's too dangerous,
too--"
"Stop that nonsense, Philip. I will not
be disgraced by her. I will have the child. Pay all we've
got for it. I will have it."
"Let her go to
Italy!" he cried. "Let her meddle with what she doesn't understand!
Look at this letter! The man who wrote it will marry her, or murder her,
or do for her somehow. He's a bounder, but he's not an English
bounder. He's mysterious and terrible. He's got a country behind him
that's upset people from the beginning of the
world."
"Harriet!" exclaimed his mother.
"Harriet shall go too. Harriet, now, will be invaluable!" And before
Philip had stopped talking nonsense, she had planned the whole thing and was
looking out the trains.