Rhoda Broughton - Alas! A Novel

"And you say that they never held up their heads again afterwards?" pursues Mr. Greenock in a tone of good-natured compassion, that is yet largely tinged with gratified curiosity.

"They left the neighbourhood at once," returns the clergyman. "Dear me, how time flies! it must be ten years ago now, and I never saw them again until I met the unhappy girl and her mother yesterday, driving in the Via Tornabuoni; but" – lowering his voice a little more – "you will understand that this is strictly entre nous ; that it must not go any further."

"What do you think I am made of?" cries Mr. Greenock in a burst of generous indignation; "but" – stepping a pace or two nearer to his interlocutor – "I am not quite sure that I have got the details of the story right; would you mind just running it over to me again?"

Jim has been sitting in such a stunned stillness that it is perhaps no wonder that they have forgotten his neighbourhood. At all events, the clergyman is evidently about to comply with his companion's request and recapitulate the tale. If Jim preserves his motionless attitude but five minutes longer, he will be put into possession of that story whose existence he has already heavily conjectured, and the imagining of which has made him often, within the last week or two, turn with nausea from his food, and toss restlessly upon his bed. Without any trouble on his part, without any possible blame attaching to him, he will learn the poor soul's secret. Never! If the devil wish to tempt him with a prospect of success, it must be with a less unhandsome bait. Almost before the two startled scandalmongers have recalled the fact of his existence by the abrupt noise of his departure, he is half-way back to the terrace, that mist still before his eyes, and a singing in his ears.

"A merry going out bringeth often a mournful return home; and a joyful evening makes many times a sad morning."

The return drive, as it is quicker, being all downhill, so is it a more silent one than that to the villa had been. Byng, indeed, is as gaily willing to be fondled by Cecilia as he was on his way up; but there is a mixture of maidenly reserve and sub-tender reproach in her manner which makes their relations somewhat strained. The afternoon's pleasuring has had a jading effect upon Amelia's spirits, as, after having been sucked dry on the subject of Sybilla's maladies, and afterwards at once shaken off, by her female acquaintance, she has not been fortunate enough to meet with anyone else to exchange talk with, and has sat in disconsolate yet patient loneliness on a stone bench, afraid to stir from the spot where he had left her, lest she might miss her lover, of whom, however, she has unaccountably seen nothing, until when the Angelus is ringing, and the shadows spreading, he has come to give her curt notice, with half-averted face, that the fiacre is at the door. In point of fact, he has been too conscious of the disorder of his features to dare to expose them sooner than he can help to her fond scrutiny. He would give anything to be able to sit beside, instead of opposite to her during their drive home, as a profile is a much less tell-tale and more governable thing than a full face; and he is painfully conscious that as often as she imagines she can do it without being detected by him, she is stealing looks of inquiring anxiety at him. He tries to put her off the scent by spasmodic comments upon the entertainment that they have just quitted; and she does her best to keep up the ball of conversation, since she sees that it is his wish. But in vain. Each forced remark falls still-born, leading to nothing. It is Cecilia who at last succeeds in giving a fillip to the languid talk.

"I did not know that Mrs. Roche was a cousin of your beauty, Miss Le Marchant," she says suddenly, growing tired of her pensive attitude, and addressing herself to Jim.

He starts guiltily. "Did not you?"

He must look odd; for even Cecilia's large and preoccupied cow eyes rest upon him with an expression of surprise.

"I wonder why she was not there to-day."

It is not exactly a question, yet her great shallow orbs do not seem to be going to leave his face until he makes some response. He forces himself to do so.

"I understood Miss Le Marchant to say that they are not going out just now."

"And why are not they, pray?" inquires Cecilia, in an injured voice, as if the retirement from the world of the two ladies in question were a personal injury to herself; "they are not in mourning, all their gowns are coloured ones, and they do not look as if they had bad health – perhaps, however" (after a moment's thoughtful attempt to find a solution) – "perhaps, however, they may have something – one never knows – people have such unexpected diseases nowadays – hysteria, perhaps, or fits."

At this ingenious suggestion Jim is conscious of a writhing motion passing over the stalwart form of Byng beside him. In his own brain, if there is room for anything but the desire to evade Amelia's eyes, is a dim sense of relief at a suggestion so grotesquely wide of the mark as that made by the younger Miss Wilson. In perfect innocence of the effect produced upon her companions by her bright hypothesis, Cecilia goes on to remind her sister of the parallel case of a very handsome girl whom they had once reckoned among their acquaintance, and who was periodically being found by her family with her head under the fender. But Amelia rises but faintly to the reminiscence, and the remainder of the drive is accomplished in a general silence.

The next day is the one which had been fixed upon for the expedition to Certosa. It was only with a very large admixture of wormwood in his prospective pleasure that Jim had ever looked forward to this party, but now he anticipates it with absolute dread. How can he face Elizabeth and her mother, with that ominous phrase of the "screw loose" still ringing in his ears? He feels a traitor towards them, in that he has, however unwillingly, overheard it. To add to his mental uneasiness is the fact of his having as yet not broken to Amelia his intentions with regard to the disposal of his afternoon. Amelia's eyes have for years had the habit of covertly watching him to read his wishes almost before they rose; but in their gaze yesterday he had, unless misled by his guilty conscience, detected a new quality, a quality of alarm and enlightenment. He will get over the communication of his piece of news as early in the day as may be; so, having finished breakfast before Byng has put in his, as usual, tardy appearance, he takes his hasty way to the Anglo-Américain. He finds the family there in a more placid frame of mind than that which they had presented on one or two of his recent visits. Sybilla is expecting her doctor, on which occasions she always likes to have a more lacy coverlet than usual thrown over her languid feet; a greater efflorescence of pink ribbons about her thin throat, and a disposition of pots of lilies about her wan head. Amelia, active and long-suffering as usual, is moving about in patient execution of her vain and tiresome whimsies. Cecilia sits tranquilly in the window, knitting an elaborate pair of men's woollen gloves, not indeed – to do her justice – for anyone in particular, but with a wise forethought for the accidents and possibilities of life. Since, on this occasion, his sweetheart shows no inclination to draw him away into the dining-room for a tête-à-tête , Jim has to take the bull by the horns, and rush into his subject in a more public manner than he had intended. But the one desire to get it over outbalances all minor considerations.

"Amelia," he begins suddenly, and even to himself his voice sounds discourteous and abrupt, "shall you want me this afternoon?"

The moment that the words are out of his mouth it strikes him that the form into which he has thrown his question is more than necessarily untender. She stops in the patting of Sybilla's smart pillows, and perhaps there is something a little abrupt too in her monosyllabic "Why?"