Frances Mary Peard

“ As for any danger to Phillis’s happiness, the idea never crossed her simple and loyal mind.
Nor, after all, was there much danger as yet Jack was struck, interested, touched, but the feelings kept themselves where they started, not having run on into any thrill of love. Whether if he had been free when he saw Beatrice matters might not have been different, one cannot say. Perhaps. But he, too, was loyal. To him his engagement was a fact, and his word a bond; and bonds and facts do exert an influence over an honourable man, let passion say what it will against them. ”

“ It was she who had brought Mrs Masters and Kitty. She was eager, interested, wanting to know everything, only Phillis could answer half her questions. Mrs Masters went back before long and sat in the carriage, the others climbed hither and thither, under the great arches, tier above tier. It is like climbing centuries and ages to mount those great steps, worn by many feet. The sun beats down upon them all, untempered now by the silken awning which used to stretch across the vast expanse. ”

“ Phillis, who had been annoyed at her own agitation and at the incredulous manner of the other girl, felt her pity, her sympathy growing up again as warm as ever. If Bice and Jack loved each other, as was surely the case, then she would not shrink. She smiled in her turn, but looked steadily out of the window.
“There are many sorts of unhappiness,” she said gently. “Some come so quietly that we have time to prepare and almost change their nature. And others are like sharp and sudden storms which seem to sweep us away, but are soon over, and then the skies are as smiling again as ever.” ”

“ Trent, who had fancied he had stopped it, was furious.
Along the slopes of those hills of Florence there are lovely delicate colours and sweet pastoral pictures meeting you at every turn. Looking upwards you see Pan leaning against a tree, his goats browsing round him, over his head a vine is flinging itself from bough to bough. Grey olives clothe the slopes; a sombre cypress rises like a sharp blot against the blue; an ox-cart comes rumbling down the road; far away in the plain the river shines till the mountains rise up beyond. ”

“ Nobody’s fault, only a man’s kindness and a girl’s mistake—a common story enough; something which a day had brought and long years must carry as bravely as they could, and without a word. She thought of Phillis without any bitterness of jealousy. He had been hers all the time, nothing to any one else—that was all. She walked on and on, up the steep hill, through the pleasant grassy paths between the vines. Chiara toiled after, chattering, exclaiming, every now and then when she stumbled or grew hot, saying, Florentine fashion, naughty things of the Madonna or the saints. ”

“ Why should they not marry at once?
As for Bice, she was not angry, as he had hoped, or even hurt, her dream having been too short and vague for any hopes to have actually shaped themselves in her heart. She was conscious that during the last few days some sweet atmosphere had seemed to have surrounded her, and that suddenly, after Trent’s words to Kitty the evening before, a dull weight had fallen which told her what it all meant. Her heart ached with the burden of this weight, but the poor child did not cry out against any other for having brought it on her. She was humble with all her pride. ”

“ Phillis lingered there a little, lingered looking at the gates of the Baptistery, at Giotto’s sculptures, at the little oratory of the Bigallo on the other side.
“There is so much, and it is all so close together!” she said, drawing a deep breath.
But, indeed, the wonder of Florence lies in her perpetual youth. She is old, and yet no touch of age seems to have passed over her. All around are the memories of past ages, but they are alive and present, and time scarcely seems to separate you from them. ”

“ Rome lies before you, clothed in purple and regal shadows; the Campagna stretches away towards surrounding hills; black cypresses point; all about you the solemn arches frame some picture which belongs to the world’s history; all about you the lights float, golden, rose, flashing into dark corners, and marked out by keen shadows.
Phillis stole away by herself, but she found that Bice soon followed her, and as if she were seeking occasion for saying something. ”

“ No one noticed the indignant glances which Jack threw at him. Phillis would have been the last to conceive that he could be annoyed at another engrossing her, and perhaps he himself would have scarcely allowed that Bice’s beautiful face could have less attraction for him than Phillis’s brown eyes. As it was, he was thoroughly angry at what he liked to think of as Phillis’s fickleness, and by way of retaliation devoted himself with all his might to Bice. It seems sometimes as if the world was made up of cross-purposes, when we see the mistakes, the unintentional wounds that are inflicted. ”

“ He felt a sort of attraction, a pitying tenderness, a conviction that to marry her was the best way of bringing a skein or two out of their tangle, but this was not love. And, meanwhile, the white villa set on the hillside, with its flowers, its sweets, its Italian charm; the girl with her beauty, her passionate nature, and yet her revolt against that very nature, interested him. Who was this man, this Oliver Trent, who had so suddenly appeared among them? A red-faced, hard-featured man, the cousin, as, they said, of Kitty. ”

“ People observe things which never existed, and shut their eyes to what lies plain before them, and long afterwards, perhaps, look back with a sigh at their own work. What should we do, all of us, if we were left with nothing better than to make the best we could of our tangles!
Poor Bice! All sorts of fancies went rushing through her heart that afternoon, as Jack strolled along by her side as he had done in the first days of their acquaintance—passionate longings and regrets, wonder and impatience. How had Phillis and he been separated, how had Oliver and she come together? ”

“ Bice was walking by his side to console him for a little part of the road by encouraging words. She did not see Oliver Trent, nor hear his exclamation of rage, but she looked like a creature who had escaped to freedom, and had thrown off a burden. He was half disposed to follow her, but something seemed to warn him that the spell was broken, and must be re-woven before he could succeed.
Perhaps people do not very often—except, indeed, in books—lay those elaborate schemes, those widely-spread toils of villainy, which are supposed to belong to a bad man’s career. ”

“ Clive’s shyness and depression made it no easy matter to get at the facts, even when he had begun to tell them. He was cast down by this failure of what he had set his heart upon, slow to believe that he was trusted, and on his side suspicious of the other man’s intentions, until Jack grew angry. It is difficult for those who all their life long have been accustomed to have unhesitating credit given to their word, to understand the doubts, the fears of those less fortunate in trust, though perhaps not less deserving of it. ”

“ They have, too, their moments of revulsion, such a moment as had come to Bice. She had believed that she had the strength to do anything which could shield her mother or Kitty—whom she loved with all her heart—from trouble, and the trouble was there like a threatening cloud. Clive Masters, Kitty’s brother, had gone to England, and the lad, never very wise, had fallen into some scrape such as the women out at the Florentine villa did not understand and could but tremble over, when Oliver Trent hinted darkly at its consequences. ”

“ They were in the garden again when four more people arrived—Captain Leyton, his wife, Phillis Grey, and Mr Trent. When Bice saw Oliver, a sudden sickness seemed to overpower her, but she was still bent upon defying fate; and when he made his way to her side as if to claim her, she turned away with something more like a movement of dislike than she had ever yet shown to him. That he saw it was evident, for he drew back at once, but it was with a smile on his lips which a close observer might have called triumphant.
“The world is so small,” some one was proclaiming. ”

“ Sometimes it is Italy—the gloom of the Pontine marshes, the light of Paestum. Sometimes you lose yourself in a sea-mist were a boat floats between sky and earth; sometimes meet with Egypt’s dusky radiance, or the sweep of the sand on the desert...
Mrs Leyton was in her element, she went on from room to room, dragging her husband and the Peningtons after her. She wished Phillis to marry Mr Penington, but it would have annoyed her very much if she had absorbed him, which was quite another thing. And Phillis preferred to linger behind with Bice, who wandered restlessly from picture to picture. ”

“ Jack was struck dumb, not at the command, but at the face which was turned towards him. He had never in his life seen so beautiful a creature. The large brown eyes flashed reproachfully through their tears, the rounded and glowing cheek might have belonged to a Hebe, the indignant curl of the short upper lip only showed more strongly the beauty of its curves. She stood facing him, one hand holding the dead bird, the other pointing inexorably at Cartouche, who, aware of his misdeeds, skilfully avoided a blow aimed by one of the gardeners, and fled behind his master. ”

“ The cleverest men make mistakes, and Oliver Trent had made a second. He had not told Bice his news about Ibbetson cruelly, or in such a manner as to force her to feel that either by start or word she had revealed to another the secret of which she had not actually been conscious until that moment. He had only mentioned it in her hearing, when the dusk of evening was there to hide any sign of emotion, treating it as a trivial matter with which Kitty was at least as much concerned as she, and he had talked on so as to give her time to recover her composure. ”

“ And all the time, joined with this revolt, some strong new hope seemed to have leapt into her heart, uncalled for and inexplicable. “There are kind people in the world,” she had said to Kitty, but what had brought her the sudden conviction? Is it not pathetic sometimes to see how little will win a heart, and yet how much fails to touch it? We take some trifling trouble, and, lo, an affection is laid at our feet which years cannot change or parting cool. ”

“ If Florence has not forgotten her past, Rome has kept hers yet more faithfully, or rather has had a mightier one to keep. It is no longer the life of a few centuries back in which you move, Guelf and Ghibelline flaunting their battlements in your face; artist, sculptor, poet, working their lives out for the beautiful and ungrateful city—but an older age. The stones of the Republic are before your eyes, the road of triumph is under your feet. There, in the Forum, the great twin brethren watered their horses after the battle; hard by the martyrs were given to the lions. ”

“ What is that you are taking out of his mouth?”
“I’m afraid it’s a tassel,” said Jack gravely. “Shall I flog him?”
Miss Cartwright was one of those kind gentle people whose conscience and soft-heartedness are always falling foul of each other.
“Perhaps it does not so much matter,” she said hurriedly; “it is only the same tassel which he has torn off so often before, that I daresay he fancies he has a sort of right to it.”
“I’m very much afraid he is giving you no end of trouble,” said Jack remorsefully. ”

“ But in these days it is almost hopeless.”
“Bice is most lovable,” said Phillis eagerly. “I don’t think it has spoilt her one bit. Besides, what can be more simple than their life?”
“Oh, simple, I dare say!” Miss Preston said darkly. “You have had very little experience of the world, my dear.”
“I suppose so,” said Phillis smiling. “When people say that, one never knows what to answer. When does the experience come, I wonder; and what makes the world? Is it anything very different from what one lives in every day?”
Miss Preston found it difficult to define, and looked shocked. ”

“ But she seemed to have a little difficulty in joining the gay-spirited chat which flowed with unbroken ease from Mrs Leyton, and if Jack addressed her, she showed a greater hesitation. Here was no secure and haughty rival to sting poor Bice by contempt; the girl, who would have had the worst side of her nature roused by such treatment, felt for Phillis a strange thrill of pitying sympathy. Yet pitying is hardly the right word. There was something about her which Bice envied, a kind of sweet dignity, of self-possession, in spite of shyness. ”

“ In those sunny countries it takes little to make a picture; here the business is elaborate, but there sun and sky do so much that you want little more—a scarlet flower in a pot, a clambering vine, and the effect is given. Jack lay back idly wondering at the beauty of an old house wall opposite on which the sun poured in golden splendour, and the rich shadows of the eaves marked bold outlines against the sky, when Miss Preston’s voice behind made him start. ”

“ Mrs Masters buried herself in an arm-chair at the top, the others sat about on the cushions. The glow of the setting sun still lingered in the clear sky; there were faint sounds of rustling leaves, of dropping water, the cry of grilli, the soft patter of naked feet as the gardeners ran about, watering.
“We should have no flowers otherwise,” explained Kitty; “the lemon trees alone require it every night. They will go on until ten o’clock.”
“I am looking out for fire-flies,” said Jack. ”

“ Oliver could scarcely restrain his passion. He was certain that Ibbetson was at the bottom of her determination, and it seemed as if all his plots, his hopes, were to be baffled by this man. He longed to charge her with it, to taunt her with Jack’s engagement, but he did not dare, for Bice’s was not a nature which could be safely goaded into resentment, and he feared the flash of her eyes and what it might tell him. He controlled himself.
“Write, then,” he said, “write at once. Clive will not acknowledge that anything is wrong.” ”

“ The podere lay some way up the hill which they were climbing. At last they reached it; a picturesque building well baked by the sun, with a low tower, tiled, a round arch or two, and deep eaves. Outside stood beautiful great oxen with wide-spreading horns, and two or three children were watching and ran eagerly to fetch the contadino. When he had come out and had spoken a few words to his padrone, young Moroni, the latter led the way to a door in the wall, within which was a kind of rough garden, full of fig-trees laden with fruit. ”

“ The girl’s eyes flashed, she sprang up angry and impatient.
“Are we going to stay here all our lives?” she cried with a sharpness which cut poor Giovanni to the heart. If he had heard what had just passed he might have been better satisfied, but he had been looking another way, choosing some of the best figs for the beautiful Eve who had praised his little Paradise, and he heard nothing until there came this sharp, scornful speech, which made a desert of it all. ”