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 matinee, 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.