Chapter 9

“But there were other things to be taken into account,” he said.

The Duchessa raised her eyes. “What other things?” they gravely questioned.

“Would n't his telling her have been equivalent to a declaration of love?” questioned he, looking at the signet-ring on the little finger of his left hand.

“A declaration of love?” She considered for a moment. “Yes, I suppose in a way it would,” she acknowledged. “But even so?” she asked, after another moment of consideration. “Why should he not have made her a declaration of love? He was in love with her, wasn't he?”

The point of frank interrogation in her eyes showed clearly, showed cruelly, how detached, how impersonal, her interest was.

“Frantically,” said Peter. For caution's sake, he kept HIS eyes on the golden-hazy peaks of Monte Sfionto. “He had been in love with her, in a fashion, of course, from the beginning. But after he met her, he fell in love with her anew. His mind, his imagination, had been in love with its conception of her. But now he, the man, loved her, the woman herself, frantically, with just a downright common human love. There were circumstances, however, which made it impossible for him to tell her so.”

“What circumstances?” There was the same frank look of interrogation. “Do you mean that she was married?”

“No, not that. By the mercy of heaven,” he pronounced, with energy, “she was a widow.”

The Duchessa broke into an amused laugh.

“Permit me to admire your piety,” she said.

And Peter, as his somewhat outrageous ejaculation came back to him, laughed vaguely too.

“But then--?” she went on. “What else? By the mercy of heaven, she was a widow. What other circumstance could have tied his tongue?”

“Oh,” he answered, a trifle uneasily, “a multitude of circumstances. Pretty nearly every conventional barrier the world has invented, existed between him and her. She was a frightful swell, for one thing.”

“A frightful swell--?” The Duchessa raised her eyebrows.

“Yes,” said Peter, “at a vertiginous height above him--horribly 'aloft and lone' in the social hierarchy.” He tried to smile.

“What could that matter?” the Duchessa objected simply. “Mr. Wildmay is a gentleman.”

“How do you know he is?” Peter asked, thinking to create a diversion.

“Of course, he is. He must be. No one but a gentleman could have had such an experience, could have written such a book. And besides, he's a friend of yours. Of course he's a gentleman,” returned the adroit Duchessa.

“But there are degrees of gentleness, I believe,” said Peter. “She was at the topmost top. He--well, at all events, he knew his place. He had too much humour, too just a sense of proportion, to contemplate offering her his hand.”

“A gentleman can offer his hand to any woman--under royalty,” said the Duchessa.

“He can, to be sure--and he can also see it declined with thanks,” Peter answered. “But it wasn't merely her rank. She was horribly rich, besides. And then--and then--! There were ten thousand other impediments. But the chief of them all, I daresay, was Wildmay's fear lest an avowal of his attachment should lead to his exile from her presence--and he naturally did not wish to be exiled.”

“Faint heart!” the Duchessa said. “He ought to have told her. The case was peculiar, was unique. Ordinary rules could n't apply to it. And how could he be sure, after all, that she would n't have despised the conventional barriers, as you call them? Every man gets the wife he deserves--and certainly he had gone a long way towards deserving her. She could n't have felt quite indifferent to him--if he had told her; quite indifferent to the man who had drawn that magnificent Pauline from his vision of her. No woman could be entirely proof against a compliment like that. And I insist that it was her right to know. He should simply have told her the story of his book and of her part in it. She would have inferred the rest. He needn't have mentioned love--the word.”

“Well,” said Peter, “it is not always too late to mend. He may tell her some fine day yet.”

And in his soul two voices were contending.

“Tell her--tell her--tell her! Tell her now, at once, and abide your chances,” urged one. “No--no--no--do nothing of the kind,” protested the second. “She is arguing the point for its abstract interest. She is a hundred miles from dreaming that you are the man--hundreds of miles from dreaming that she is the woman. If she had the least suspicion of that, she would sing a song as different as may be. Caution, caution.”

He looked at her--warm and fragrant and radiant, in her soft, white gown, in her low lounging-chair, so near, so near to him--he looked at her glowing eyes, her red lips, her rich brown hair, at the white-and-rose of her skin, at the delicate blue veins in her forehead, at her fine white hands, clasped loosely together in her lap, at the flowing lines of her figure, with its supple grace and strength; and behind her, surrounding her, accessory to her, he was conscious of the golden August world, in the golden August weather--of the green park, and the pure sunshine, and the sweet, still air, of the blue lake, and the blue sky, and the mountains with their dark-blue shadows, of the long marble terrace, and the gleaming marble facade of the house, and the marble balustrade, with the jessamine twining round its columns. The picture was very beautiful--but something was wanting to perfect its beauty; and the name of the something that was wanting sang itself in poignant iteration to the beating of his pulses. And he longed and longed to tell her; and he dared not; and he hesitated....

And while he was hesitating, the pounding of hoofs and the grinding of carriage-wheels on gravel reached his ears--and so the situation was saved, or the opportunity lost, as you choose to think it. For next minute a servant appeared on the terrace, and announced Mrs. O'Donovan Florence.

And shortly after that lady's arrival, Peter took his leave.

XXI

“Well, Trixie, and is one to congratulate you?” asked Mrs. O'Donovan Florence.

“Congratulate me--? On what?” asked Beatrice.

“On what, indeed!” cried the vivacious Irishwoman. “Don't try to pull the wool over the eyes of an old campaigner like me.”

Beatrice looked blank.

“I can't in the least think what you mean,” she said.

“Get along with you,” cried Mrs. O'Donovan Florence; and she brandished her sunshade threateningly. “On your engagement to Mr.--what's this his name is?--to be sure.”

She glanced indicatively down the lawn, in the direction of Peter's retreating tweeds.

Beatrice had looked blank. But now she looked--first, perhaps, for a tiny fraction of a second, startled--then gently, compassionately ironical.

“My poor Kate! Are you out of your senses?” she enquired, in accents of concern, nodding her head, with a feint of pensive pity.

“Not I,” returned Mrs. O'Donovan Florence, cheerfully confident. “But I 'm thinking I could lay my finger on a long-limbed young Englishman less than a mile from here, who very nearly is. Hasn't he asked you yet?”

“Es-to bete?” Beatrice murmured, pitifully nodding again.

“Ah, well, if he has n't, it's merely a question of time when he will,” said Mrs. O'Donovan Florence. “You've only to notice the famished gaze with which he devours you, to see his condition. But don't try to hoodwink me. Don't pretend that this is news to you.”

“News!” scoffed Beatrice. “It's news and nonsense--the product of your irrepressible imagination. Mr. What's-this-his-name-is, as you call him, and I are the barest acquaintances. He's our temporary neighbour--the tenant for the season of Villa Floriano--the house you can catch a glimpse of, below there, through the trees, on the other side of the river.”

“Is he, now, really? And that's very interesting too. But I wasn't denying it.” Mrs. O'Donovan Florence smiled, with derisive sweetness. “The fact of his being the tenant of the house I can catch a glimpse of, through the trees, on the other side of the river, though a valuable acquisition to my stores of knowledge, does n't explain away his famished glance unless, indeed, he's behind with the rent: but even then, it's not famished he'd look, but merely anxious and persuasive. I'm a landlord myself. No, Trixie, dear, you've made roast meat of the poor fellow's heart, as the poetical Persians express it; and if he has n't told you so yet with his tongue, he tells the whole world so with his eyes as often as he allows them to rest on their loadstone, your face. You can see the sparks and the smoke escaping from them, as though they were chimneys. If you've not observed that for yourself, it can only be that excessive modesty has rendered you blind. The man is head over ears in love with you. Nonsense or bonsense, that is the sober truth.”

Beatrice laughed.

“I 'm sorry to destroy a romance, Kate,” she said; “but alas for the pretty one you 've woven, I happen to know that, so far from being in love with me, Mr. Marchdale is quite desperately in love with another woman. He was talking to me about her the moment before you arrived.”

“Was he, indeed?--and you the barest acquaintances!” quizzed Mrs. O'Donovan Florence, pulling a face. “Well, well,” she went on thoughtfully, “if he's in love with another woman, that settles my last remaining doubt. It can only be that the other woman's yourself.”

Beatrice shook her head, and laughed again.

“Is that what they call an Irishism?” she asked, with polite curiosity.

“And an Irishism is a very good thing, too--when employed with intention,” retorted her friend. “Did he just chance, now, in a casual way, to mention the other woman's name, I wonder?”

“Oh, you perverse and stiff-necked generation!” Beatrice laughed. “What can his mentioning or not mentioning her name signify? For since he's in love with her, it's hardly likely that he's in love with you or me at the same time, is it?”

“That's as may be. But I'll wager I could make a shrewd guess at her name myself. And what else did he tell you about her? He's told me nothing; but I'll warrant I could paint her portrait. She's a fine figure of a young Englishwoman, brown-haired, grey-eyed, and she stands about five-feet-eight in her shoes. There's an expression of great malice and humour in her physiognomy, and a kind of devil-may-care haughtiness in the poise of her head. She's a bit of a grande dame, into the bargain--something like an Anglo-Italian duchess, for example; she's monstrously rich; and she adds, you'll be surprised to learn, to her other fascinations that of being a widow. Faith, the men are so fond of widows, it's a marvel to me that we're ever married at all until we reach that condition;--and there, if you like, is another Irishism for you. But what's this? Methinks a rosy blush mantles my lady's brow. Have I touched the heel of Achilles? She IS a widow? He TOLD you she was a widow?... But--bless us and save us!--what's come to you now? You're as white as a sheet. What is it?”

“Good heavens!” gasped Beatrice. She lay back in her chair, and stared with horrified eyes into space. “Good--good heavens!”

Mrs. O' Donovan Florence leaned forward and took her hand.

“What is it, my dear? What's come to you?” she asked, in alarm.

Beatrice gave a kind of groan.

“It's absurd--it's impossible,” she said; “and yet, if by any ridiculous chance you should be right, it's too horribly horrible.” She repeated her groan. “If by any ridiculous chance you are right, the man will think that I have been leading him on!”

“LEADING HIM ON!” Mrs. O'Donovan Florence suppressed a shriek of ecstatic mirth. “There's no question about my being right,” she averred soberly. “He wears his heart behind his eyeglass; and whoso runs may read it.”

“Well, then--” began Beatrice, with an air of desperation... “But no,” she broke off. “YOU CAN'T be right. It's impossible, impossible. Wait. I'll tell you the whole story. You shall see for yourself.”

“Go on,” said Mrs. O'Donovan Florence, assuming an attitude of devout attention, which she retained while Beatrice (not without certain starts and hesitations) recounted the fond tale of Peter's novel, and of the woman who had suggested the character of Pauline.

“But OF COURSE!” cried the Irishwoman, when the tale was finished; and this time her shriek of mirth, of glee, was not suppressed. “Of course--you miracle of unsuspecting innocence! The man would never have breathed a whisper of the affair to any soul alive, save to his heroine herself--let alone to you, if you and she were not the same. Couple that with the eyes he makes at you, and you've got assurance twice assured. You ought to have guessed it from the first syllable he uttered. And when he went on about her exalted station and her fabulous wealth! Oh, my ingenue! Oh, my guileless lambkin! And you Trixie Belfont! Where's your famous wit? Where are your famous intuitions?”

“BUT DON'T YOU SEE,” wailed Beatrice, “don't you see the utterly odious position this leaves me in? I've been urging him with all my might to tell her! I said... oh, the things I said!” She shuddered visibly. “I said that differences of rank and fortune could n't matter.” She gave a melancholy laugh. “I said that very likely she'd accept him. I said she couldn't help being... Oh, my dear, my dear! He'll think--of course, he can't help thinking--that I was encouraging him--that I was coming halfway to meet him.”

“Hush, hush! It's not so bad as that,” said Mrs. O'Donovan Florence, soothingly. “For surely, as I understand it, the man doesn't dream that you knew it was about himself he was speaking. He always talked of the book as by a friend of his; and you never let him suspect that you had pierced his subterfuge.”

Beatrice frowned for an instant, putting this consideration in its place, in her troubled mind. Then suddenly a light of intense, of immense relief broke in her face.

“Thank goodness!” she sighed. “I had forgotten. No, he does n't dream that. But oh, the fright I had!”

“He'll tell you, all the same,” said Mrs. O'Donovan Florence.

“No, he'll never tell me now. I am forewarned, forearmed. I 'll give him no chance,” Beatrice answered.

“Yes; and what's more, you'll marry him,” said her friend.

“Kate! Don't descend to imbecilities,” cried Beatrice.

“You'll marry him,” reiterated Mrs. O'Donovan Florence, calmly. “You'll end by marrying him--if you're human; and I've seldom known a human being who was more so. It's not in flesh and blood to remain unmoved by a tribute such as that man has paid you. The first thing you'll do will be to re-read the novel. Otherwise, I'd request the loan of it myself, for I 'm naturally curious to compare the wrought ring with the virgin gold--but I know it's the wrought ring the virgin gold will itself be wanting, directly it's alone. And then the poison will work. And you'll end by marrying him.”

“In the first place,” replied Beatrice, firmly, “I shall never marry any one. That is absolutely certain. In the next place, I shall not re-read the novel; and to prove that I shan't, I shall insist on your taking it with you when you leave to-day. And finally, I'm nowhere near convinced that you're right about my being... well, you might as well say the raw material, the rough ore, as the virgin gold. It's only a bare possibility. But even the possibility had not occurred to me before. Now that it has, I shall be on my guard. I shall know how to prevent any possible developments.”

“In the first place,” said Mrs. O'Donovan Florence, with equal firmness, “wild horses couldn't induce me to take the novel. Wait till you're alone. A hundred questions about it will come flocking to your mind; you'd be miserable if you had n't it to refer to. In the next place, the poison will work and work. Say what you will, it's flattery that wins us. In the third place, he'll tell you. Finally, you'll make a good Catholic of him, and marry him. It's absurd, it's iniquitous, anyhow, for a young and beautiful woman like you to remain a widow. And your future husband is a man of talent and distinction, and he's not bad-looking, either. Will you stick to your title, now, I wonder? Or will you step down, and be plain Mrs. Marchdale? No--the Honourable Mrs.--excuse me--'Mr. and the Honourable Mrs. Marchdale.' I see you in the 'Morning Post' already. And will you continue to live in Italy? Or will you come back to England?”

“Oh, my good Kate, my sweet Kate, my incorrigible Kate, what an extravagantly silly Kate you can be when the mood takes you,” Beatrice laughed.

“Kate me as many Kates as you like, the man is really not bad-looking. He has a nice lithe springy figure, and a clean complexion, and an open brow. And if there's a suggestion of superciliousness in the tilt of his nose, of scepticism in the twirl of his moustaches, and of obstinacy in the squareness of his chin--ma foi, you must take the bitter with the sweet. Besides, he has decent hair, and plenty of it--he'll not go bald. And he dresses well, and wears his clothes with an air. In short, you'll make a very handsome couple. Anyhow, when your family are gathered round the evening lamp to-night, I 'll stake my fortune on it, but I can foretell the name of the book they'll find Trixie Belfont reading,” laughed Mrs. O'Donovan Florence.

For a few minutes, after her friend had left her, Beatrice sat still, her head resting on her hand, and gazed with fixed eyes at Monte Sfiorito. Then she rose, and walked briskly backwards and forwards, for a while, up and down the terrace. Presently she came to a standstill, and leaning on the balustrade, while one of her feet kept lightly tapping the pavement, looked off again towards the mountain.

The prospect was well worth her attention, with its blue and green and gold, its wood and water, its misty-blushing snows, its spaciousness and its atmosphere. In the sky a million fluffy little cloudlets floated like a flock of fantastic birds, with mother-of-pearl tinted plumage. The shadows were lengthening now. The sunshine glanced from the smooth surface of the lake as from burnished metal, and falling on the coloured sails of the fishing-boats, made them gleam like sails of crimson silk. But I wonder how much of this Beatrice really saw.

She plucked an oleander from one of the tall marble urns set along the balustrade, and pressed the pink blossom against her face, and, closing her eyes, breathed in its perfume; then, absent-minded, she let it drop, over the terrace, upon the path below.

“It's impossible,” she said suddenly, aloud. At last she went into the house, and up to her rose-and-white retiring-room. There she took a book from the table, and sank into a deep easy-chair, and began to turn the pages.

But when, by and by, approaching footsteps became audible in the stone-floored corridor without, Beatrice hastily shut the book, thrust it back upon the table, and caught up another so that Emilia Manfredi, entering, found her reading Monsieur Anatole France's “Etui de nacre.”

“Emilia,” she said, “I wish you would translate the I Jongleur de Notre Dame' into Italian.”

XXII

Peter, we may suppose, returned to Villa Floriano that afternoon in a state of some excitement.

“He ought to have told her--”

“It was her right to be told--”

“What could her rank matter--”

“A gentleman can offer his hand to any woman--”

“She would have despised the conventional barriers--”

“No woman could be proof against such a compliment--”

“The case was peculiar--ordinary rules could not apply to it--”

“Every man gets the wife he deserves--and he had certainly gone a long way towards deserving her--”

“He should simply have told her the story of his book and of her part in it--he need n't have mentioned love--she would have understood--”

The Duchessa's voice, clear and cool and crisp-cut, sounded perpetually in his ears; the words she had spoken, the arguments she had urged, repeated and repeated themselves, danced round and round, in his memory.

“Ought I to have told her--then and there? Shall I go to her and tell her to-morrow?”

He tried to think; but he could not think. His faculties were in a whirl--he could by no means command them. He could only wait, inert, while the dance went on. It was an extremely riotous dance. The Duchessa's conversation was reproduced without sequence, without coherence--scattered fragments of it were flashed before him fitfully, in swift disorder. If he would attempt to seize upon one of those fragments, to detain and fix it, for consideration--a speech of hers, a look, an inflection--then the whole experience suddenly lost its outlines, his recollection of it became a jumble, and he was left, as it were, intellectually gasping.

He walked about his garden, he went into the house, he came out, he walked about again, he went in and dressed for dinner, he sat on his rustic bench, he smoked cigarette after cigarette.

“Ought I to have told her? Ought I to tell her to-morrow?”

At moments there would come a lull in the turmoil, an interval of quiet, of apparent clearness; and the answer would seem perfectly plain.

“Of course, you ought to tell her. Tell her--and all will be well. She has put herself in the supposititious woman's place, and she says, 'He ought to tell her.' She says it earnestly, vehemently. That means that if she were the woman, she would wish to be told. She will despise the conventional barriers--she will be touched, she will be moved. 'No woman could be proof against such a compliment.' Go to her to-morrow, and tell her--and all will be well.”

At these moments he would look up towards the castle, and picture the morrow's consummation; and his heart would have a convulsion. Imagination flew on the wings of his desire. She stood before him in all her sumptuous womanhood, tender and strong and glowing. As he spoke, her eyes lightened, her eyes burned, the blood came and went in her cheeks; her lips parted. Then she whispered something; and his heart leapt terribly; and he called her name--“Beatrice! Beatrice!” Her name expressed the inexpressible--the adoring passion, the wild hunger and wild triumph of his soul. But now she was moving towards him--she was holding out her hands. He caught her in his arms--he held her yielding body in his arms. And his heart leapt terribly, terribly. And he wondered how he could endure, how he could live through, the hateful hours that must elapse before tomorrow would be to-day.

But “hearts, after leaps, ache.” Presently the whirl would begin again; and then, by and by, in another lull, a contrary answer would seem equally plain.

“Tell her, indeed? My dear man, are you mad? She would simply be amazed, struck dumb, by your presumption. I can see from here her incredulity--I can see the scorn with which she would wither you. It has never dimly occurred to her as conceivable that you would venture to be in love with her, that you would dare to lift your eyes to her--you who are nothing, to her who is all. Yes--nothing, nobody. In her view, you are just a harmless nobody, whose society she tolerates for kindness' sake--and faute de mieux. It is precisely because she deems you a nobody--because she is profoundly conscious of the gulf that separates you from her--that she can condescend to be amiably familiar. If you were of a rank even remotely approximating to her own, she would be a thousand times more circumspect. Remember--she does not dream that you are Felix Wildmay. He is a mere name to her; and his story is an amusing little romance, perfectly external to herself, which she discusses with entirely impersonal interest. Tell her by all means, if you like Say, 'I am Wildmay--you are Pauline.' And see how amazed she will be, and how incensed, and how indignant.”

Then he would look up at the castle stonily, in a mood of desperate renunciation, and vaguely meditate packing his belongings, and going home to England.