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Page 26
Lilia was delighted to see them, and became more
animated than Gino had known her for a long time. The tea
tasted of chopped hay, and they asked to be allowed to drink
it out of a wine-glass, and refused milk; but, as she
repeatedly observed, this was something like. Spiridione's
manners were very agreeable. He kissed her hand on
introduction, and as his profession had taught him a little
English, conversation did not flag.
"Do you like music?" she asked.
"Passionately," he replied. "I have not studied
scientific music, but the music of the heart, yes."
So she played on the humming piano very badly, and he
sang, not so badly. Gino got out a guitar and sang too,
sitting out on the loggia. It was a most agreeable visit.
Gino said he would just walk his friend back to his
lodgings. As they went he said, without the least trace of
malice or satire in his voice, "I think you are quite
right. I shall not bring people to the house any more. I
do not see why an English wife should be treated
differently. This is Italy."
"You are very wise," exclaimed the other; "very wise
indeed. The more precious a possession the more carefully
it should be guarded."
They had reached the lodging, but went on as far as the
Caffe Garibaldi, where they spent a long and most delightful
evening.
Chapter 4
The advance of regret can be so gradual that it is
impossible to say "yesterday I was happy, today I am not."
At no one moment did Lilia realize that her marriage was a
failure; yet during the summer and autumn she became as
unhappy as it was possible for her nature to be. She had no
unkind treatment, and few unkind words, from her husband.
He simply left her alone. In the morning he went out to do
"business," which, as far as she could discover, meant
sitting in the Farmacia. He usually returned to lunch,
after which he retired to another room and slept. In the
evening he grew vigorous again, and took the air on the
ramparts, often having his dinner out, and seldom returning
till midnight or later. There were, of course, the times
when he was away altogether--at Empoli, Siena, Florence,
Bologna--for he delighted in travel, and seemed to pick up
friends all over the country. Lilia often heard what a
favorite he was.
She began to see that she must assert herself, but she
could not see how. Her self-confidence, which had
overthrown Philip, had gradually oozed away. If she left
the strange house there was the strange little town. If she
were to disobey her husband and walk in the country, that
would be stranger still--vast slopes of olives and vineyards,
with chalk-white farms, and in the distance other slopes,
with more olives and more farms, and more little towns
outlined against the cloudless sky. "I don't call this
country," she would say. "Why, it's not as wild as Sawston
Park!" And, indeed, there was scarcely a touch of wildness
in it--some of those slopes had been under cultivation for
two thousand years. But it was terrible and mysterious all
the same, and its continued presence made Lilia so
uncomfortable that she forgot her nature and began to reflect.
She reflected chiefly about her marriage. The ceremony
had been hasty and expensive, and the rites, whatever they
were, were not those of the Church of England. Lilia had no
religion in her; but for hours at a time she would be seized
with a vulgar fear that she was not "married properly," and
that her social position in the next world might be as
obscure as it was in this. It might be safer to do the
thing thoroughly, and one day she took the advice of
Spiridione and joined the Roman Catholic Church, or as she
called it, "Santa Deodata's." Gino approved; he, too,
thought it safer, and it was fun confessing, though the
priest was a stupid old man, and the whole thing was a good
slap in the face for the people at home.
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