Where Angels Fear to Tread

They were all at Charing Cross to see Lilia off⁠—Philip, Harriet, Irma, Mrs. Herriton herself. Even Mrs. Theobald, squired by Mr. Kingcroft, had braved the journey from Yorkshire to bid her only daughter goodbye. Miss Abbott was likewise attended by numerous relatives, and the sight of so many people talking at once and saying such different things caused Lilia to break into ungovernable peals of laughter.

“Quite an ovation,” she cried, sprawling out of her first-class carriage. “They’ll take us for royalty. Oh, Mr. Kingcroft, get us foot warmers.”

The good-natured young man hurried away, and Philip, taking his place, flooded her with a final stream of advice and injunctions⁠—where to stop, how to learn Italian, when to use mosquito nets, what pictures to look at. “Remember,” he concluded, “that it is only by going off the track that you get to know the country. See the little towns⁠—Gubbio, Pienza, Cortona, San Gemignano, Monteriano. And don’t, let me beg you, go with that awful tourist idea that Italy’s only a museum of antiquities and art. Love and understand the Italians, for the people are more marvellous than the land.”

“Actually old Mrs. Theobald!” said Harriet, returning.

“Read me the letter. My hands are dirty. How intolerable the crested paper is.”

Harriet opened the envelope.

“I don’t understand,” she said; “it doesn’t make sense.”

“Her letters never did.”

“But it must be sillier than usual,” said Harriet, and her voice began to quaver. “Look here, read it, Mother; I can’t make head or tail.”

Mrs. Herriton took the letter indulgently. “What is the difficulty?” she said after a long pause. “What is it that puzzles you in this letter?”

“The meaning⁠—” faltered Harriet. The sparrows hopped nearer and began to eye the peas.

“The meaning is quite clear⁠—Lilia is engaged to be married. Don’t cry, dear; please me by not crying⁠—don’t talk at all. It’s more than I could bear. She is going to marry someone she has met in a hotel. Take the letter and read for yourself.” Suddenly she broke down over what might seem a small point. “How dare she not tell me direct! How dare she write first to Yorkshire! Pray, am I to hear through Mrs. Theobald⁠—a patronizing, insolent letter like this? Have I no claim at all? Bear witness, dear”⁠—she choked with passion⁠—“bear witness that for this I’ll never forgive her!”

He was stunned and knew not what to do. At the hotel he received no ordinary reception. The landlady wrung him by the hand; one person snatched his umbrella, another his bag; people pushed each other out of his way. The entrance seemed blocked with a crowd. Dogs were barking, bladder whistles being blown, women waving their handkerchiefs, excited children screaming on the stairs, and at the top of the stairs was Lilia herself, very radiant, with her best blouse on.

“Welcome!” she cried. “Welcome to Monteriano!” He greeted her, for he did not know what else to do, and a sympathetic murmur rose from the crowd below.

“You told me to come here,” she continued, “and I don’t forget it. Let me introduce Signor Carella!”

Philip discerned in the corner behind her a young man who might eventually prove handsome and well made, but certainly did not seem so then. He was half-enveloped in the drapery of a cold dirty curtain, and nervously stuck out a hand, which Philip took and found thick and damp. There were more murmurs of approval from the stairs.

“Well, din-din’s nearly ready,” said Lilia. “Your room’s down the passage, Philip. You needn’t go changing.”

He stumbled away to wash his hands, utterly crushed by her effrontery.

“Dear Caroline!” whispered Lilia as soon as he had gone. “What an angel you’ve been to tell him! He takes it so well. But you must have had a mauvais quart d’heure.”

Miss Abbott’s long terror suddenly turned into acidity. “I’ve told nothing,” she snapped. “It’s all for you⁠—and if it only takes a quarter of an hour you’ll be lucky!”

It was easy walking, for a little path ran all outside the ramparts. The few people she met wished her a civil good night, taking her, in her hatless condition, for a peasant. The walls trended round towards the moon; and presently she came into its light, and saw all the rough towers turn into pillars of silver and black, and the ramparts into cliffs of pearl. She had no great sense of beauty, but she was sentimental, and she began to cry; for here, where a great cypress interrupted the monotony of the girdle of olives, she had sat with Gino one afternoon in March, her head upon his shoulder, while Caroline was looking at the view and sketching. Round the corner was the Siena gate, from which the road to England started, and she could hear the rumble of the diligence which was going down to catch the night train to Empoli. The next moment it was upon her, for the high road came towards her a little before it began its long zigzag down the hill.

The driver slackened, and called to her to get in. He did not know who she was. He hoped she might be coming to the station.

“Non vengo!” she cried.

He wished her good night, and turned his horses down the corner. As the diligence came round she saw that it was empty.

“Vengo⁠ ⁠…”

Her voice was tremulous, and did not carry. The horses swung off.

“That’s not doing anything! You would be doing something if you kidnapped the baby, or if you went straight away. But that! To fail honourably! To come out of the thing as well as you can! Is that all you are after?”

“Why, yes,” he stammered. “Since we talk openly, that is all I am after just now. What else is there? If I can persuade Signor Carella to give in, so much the better. If he won’t, I must report the failure to my mother and then go home. Why, Miss Abbott, you can’t expect me to follow you through all these turns⁠—”

“I don’t! But I do expect you to settle what is right and to follow that. Do you want the child to stop with his father, who loves him and will bring him up badly, or do you want him to come to Sawston, where no one loves him, but where he will be brought up well? There is the question put dispassionately enough even for you. Settle it. Settle which side you’ll fight on. But don’t go talking about an ‘honourable failure,’ which means simply not thinking and not acting at all.”