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Page 11
"I will do all I can," said Philip in a low voice. It
was the first time he had had anything to do. He kissed his
mother and sister and puzzled Irma. The hall was warm and
attractive as he looked back into it from the cold March
night, and he departed for Italy reluctantly, as for
something commonplace and dull.
Before Mrs. Herriton went to bed she wrote to Mrs.
Theobald, using plain language about Lilia's conduct, and
hinting that it was a question on which every one must
definitely choose sides. She added, as if it was an
afterthought, that Mrs. Theobald's letter had arrived that
morning.
Just as she was going upstairs she remembered that she
never covered up those peas. It upset her more than
anything, and again and again she struck the banisters with
vexation. Late as it was, she got a lantern from the
tool-shed and went down the garden to rake the earth over
them. The sparrows had taken every one. But countless
fragments of the letter remained, disfiguring the tidy
ground.
Chapter 2
When the bewildered tourist alights at the station of
Monteriano, he finds himself in the middle of the country.
There are a few houses round the railway, and many more
dotted over the plain and the slopes of the hills, but of a
town, mediaeval or otherwise, not the slightest sign. He
must take what is suitably termed a "legno"--a piece of
wood--and drive up eight miles of excellent road into the
middle ages. For it is impossible, as well as sacrilegious,
to be as quick as Baedeker.
It was three in the afternoon when Philip left the
realms of commonsense. He was so weary with travelling that
he had fallen asleep in the train. His fellow-passengers
had the usual Italian gift of divination, and when
Monteriano came they knew he wanted to go there, and dropped
him out. His feet sank into the hot asphalt of the
platform, and in a dream he watched the train depart, while
the porter who ought to have been carrying his bag, ran up
the line playing touch-you-last with the guard. Alas! he
was in no humour for Italy. Bargaining for a legno bored
him unutterably. The man asked six lire; and though Philip
knew that for eight miles it should scarcely be more than
four, yet he was about to give what he was asked, and so
make the man discontented and unhappy for the rest of the
day. He was saved from this social blunder by loud shouts,
and looking up the road saw one cracking his whip and waving
his reins and driving two horses furiously, and behind him
there appeared the swaying figure of a woman, holding
star-fish fashion on to anything she could touch. It was
Miss Abbott, who had just received his letter from Milan
announcing the time of his arrival, and had hurried down to
meet him.
He had known Miss Abbott for years, and had never had
much opinion about her one way or the other. She was good,
quiet, dull, and amiable, and young only because she was
twenty-three: there was nothing in her appearance or manner
to suggest the fire of youth. All her life had been spent
at Sawston with a dull and amiable father, and her pleasant,
pallid face, bent on some respectable charity, was a
familiar object of the Sawston streets. Why she had ever
wished to leave them was surprising; but as she truly said,
"I am John Bull to the backbone, yet I do want to see Italy,
just once. Everybody says it is marvellous, and that one
gets no idea of it from books at all." The curate suggested
that a year was a long time; and Miss Abbott, with decorous
playfulness, answered him, "Oh, but you must let me have my
fling! I promise to have it once, and once only. It will
give me things to think about and talk about for the rest of
my life." The curate had consented; so had Mr. Abbott. And
here she was in a legno, solitary, dusty, frightened, with
as much to answer and to answer for as the most dashing
adventuress could desire.
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