Alas! Part 17

"Why, there's w.i.l.l.y! Do not you see? There! leaning out of that window, and who--who is the lady whom he has with him?"

Jim looks quickly in the direction indicated, and at once recognises a slender gray figure which to-day has not a.s.sumed its white holiday gown.

Elizabeth, whom he had been pitifully picturing lying heart-struck on a sofa in the seclusion of her own little _entresol_, probably with lowered blinds and tear-smarting eyes, is leaning on the window-ledge with her back to the pictures--she whom he had always credited with so delicate a sensibility for Art, with her back to the pictures, as if the live picture which Byng's eager face presents to her pleases her better.

A sense of indignation at having been tricked out of his compa.s.sion--who had ever seemed to need it less than the suave little figure about whose blonde head a Tuscan sunbeam, stolen through the eas.e.m.e.nt, is amorously playing?--makes him forget to answer the question addressed to him, until it is repeated in a still more urgent key.

"Who _is_ she? Who _can_ she be? Have not you an idea? He has not seen us! Had not we better creep quietly away? Most likely he would rather not meet me; I could not bear to make him look foolis.h.!.+"

The suggestion that there can be anything calculated to put w.i.l.l.y to the blush in being discovered in conversation with Miss Le Marchant has the effect of giving Burgoyne rapidly back his power of speech.

"What nonsense!" he cries almost rudely; "I wish you would not let your imagination run away with you so, and of course I know who she is; she is an--an acquaintance of mine. I--I presented w.i.l.l.y to her; she is Miss Le Marchant."

"Miss Le Who?" repeats the mother eagerly, catching the name imperfectly, as we usually do a name that is unfamiliar to us, proving how much of imagination and memory must go to eke out all our hearing--"an acquaintance of yours, is she? Oh, then, of course"

(drawing a long breath of relief), "she is all right."

"All right!" echoes Jim, with an unconscious snappishness of tone, greater than he would have employed in defence of the reputation of any other lady of his acquaintance, probably because, ever since the day when he stood an unwilling eaves-dropper by that well on Bellosguardo, a hideous low voice has been whispering to his own sick heart that perhaps she is not "all right!" "All right! of course she is all right."

"But she is lovely!" cries Mrs. Byng, not paying much heed to the testy emphasis of her companion's a.s.severation, and continuing to stare at the unwitting girl; "what a dear little face! but," the alarm returning again into her voice, "is it possible that she is here alone with him?

If so, of course she is American. Oh! do not say that she is American."

"Of course she is not," answers Burgoyne, half laughing at the plaintive intensity of this last appeal; "of course she is all that there is of most English, and there is her mother, as large as life, within a yard and a half of her; there, do not you see? looking at the Ghirlandajo."

Mrs. Byng removes her eyes from the daughter, and fixes them with a scarcely less degree of interest upon the then indicated parent.

"So that is the mother, is it? a very nice-looking woman, and what beautiful white hair! Mrs. Le----what did you say their name was? Ah!

w.i.l.l.y has seen us, poor boy!"--laughing--"how guilty he looks! here he comes!"

And in point of fact the young man, having given a very indubitable start and said something hurried to his companion, is seen advancing quasi-carelessly to meet the two persons, the object of whose observation he has for some minutes so unconsciously been.

"Is not this a coincidence?" cries Mrs. Byng, with a rather nervously-playful accent; "it _is_ a coincidence, though it may not look like one! But do not be afraid; we know our places, we are not going to offer to join you!"

"What should I be afraid of?" replies the young man, the colour--always as ready as a school miss's to put him to shame--mantling in his handsome smooth cheeks. "I am like the Spanish hidalgo, who never knew what fear was till he snuffed a candle with his fingers. So you and Jim are having a happy day among the pictures. Do not you like 'Spring'? I love her, though I am sure she was a real baggage!"

But this ingenious attempt to divert the current of his parents' ideas into another channel is scarcely so successful as it deserves.

"Will not you introduce me to her?" she asks eagerly, and not heeding, evidently not even hearing, the empty question contained in the last half of his speech; "does she know that I am your mother? Will not you introduce me to her?"

It seems a simple and natural request enough, and yet the young man perceptibly hesitates. He even tries to turn it off by a clumsy and entirely pointless jest.

"Introduce you to her? to whom? to 'Spring'? I am really afraid that my acquaintance with her scarcely justifies such a liberty!"

A look of surprise and of natural annoyance clouds the cheerful eagerness of Mrs. Byng's face.

"Is that a joke, dear?" she asks, with a rather vexed smile; "it is not a very good one, is it? Well, Jim, I must apply to you then; _you_ can have no objection to presenting me to your friends?"

"Of course not, of course not," replies he, with a stammering unreadiness, which contrasts somewhat ludicrously with the acquiescence conveyed by his words, "I shall be delighted, only----"

"Only what? Ah, here they come! they save us the trouble of going after them."

As she speaks, indeed, Mrs. Le Marchant and Elizabeth are seen nearing the little group; but it is soon apparent that this movement on their part is by no means owing to any wish or even willingness to make Mrs.

Byng's acquaintance. It is indeed solely due to there being no egress from the room at that end of it where they have been standing, so that, if they wish to leave it, they must necessarily retrace their steps and pa.s.s the three persons who are so busily discussing them. They do this so quickly and with so resolute an air of not wis.h.i.+ng to be delayed in their exit, bestowing a couple of such smileless and formal bows upon the two men, that it would have needed a much more determined obstruction than either of those gentlemen is prepared to offer to arrest their progress. In a moment they are through the doorway and out of sight. Mrs. Byng looks after them, with her mouth open.

"They--they--are obliged to go home, they--they are in a great hurry!"

says the younger man, observing the displeased astonishment expressed by his mother's countenance, and with a lame effort at explanation.

"So they seemed when first we caught sight of them," retorts she dryly.

"They--they are not going out at all at present, they--they do not wish to make any fresh acquaintance: oh, by-the-bye, I forgot something I had to say to--I will be back in a moment!"

So saying, he shoots off in pursuit of the retreated figures, and Mrs.

Byng and her escort are again left _tete-a-tete_.

"Are you quite sure that she is all right?" asks the lady, looking at Jim with a penetrating glance that he does not enjoy; "because, if so, why was she so determined not to know me?"

"How can I tell?" answers he testily. "Perhaps--who knows?"--laughing unmirthfully--"perhaps she was not sure that _you_ were all right!"

CHAPTER XVI.

"Tous les hommes se ha.s.sent naturellement. Je mets en fait que s'ils savaient exactement ce qu'ils disent, les uns des autres, il n'y aurait pas quatre amis dans le monde."

Although Mrs. Byng always speaks of Miss Wilson as "Amelia," and is acquainted with every detail of that young lady's uneventful history--thanks to a long series of direct and interested questions, addressed through a considerable number of years, to her friend Jim, as to his betrothed--she has no personal acquaintance with the latter. She is so determined, however, to repair this omission, now that so highly favourable an opportunity is presented as their common stay in the same small city, that Jim is powerless to hinder her from arranging a joint expedition of the two parties--herself and her son on the one side, and Jim with his future wife and sister-in-law on the other, to Careggi, on the afternoon of the same day as he had witnessed her abortive attempt to add Elizabeth Le Marchant and her mother to the list of her acquaintances.

Amelia, is, for a wonder, free from home claims, Sybilla being more than usually bright, a kind friend having lately provided her with a number of the _Lancet_, containing a detailed account of an operation, which it seems not over-sanguine to expect she may herself be able to undergo. We all have our Blue Roses, and to "undergo operation," as she technically phrases it, is Sybilla Wilson's Blue Rose. Cecilia is likewise disengaged. The latter circ.u.mstance is matter for not unmixed rejoicing to Jim, Cecilia's future connection with himself being too close for him to relish the thought of her somewhat p.r.o.nounced wooing of Byng being exposed in all its _navete_ to the clear if good-humoured eyes of Byng's mother. But in this he wrongs Cecilia. The garden-party at the villa on Bellosguardo had proved to her that the fruit is hung too high for her fingers to reach, and that philosophy, which had enabled her genuinely to relish the wedding-cake of the man who had jilted her, now teaches her to lay to heart the sarcastic advice offered her by Jim, to look at the young man as poor women look at diamonds. Beyond one or two trifling gallantries, for which no one can judge her harshly, she leaves him alone, even though out of good-nature, and from inveterate force of habit, he gives her several openings to make love to him.

The day is one of even Italy's best, an air as soft as feathers, and full of April odours--a bright gay sun. The vines are rus.h.i.+ng into leaf; they that ten days ago looked such hopeless sticks; little juicy leaves uncurling and spreading on each, and the mulberry trees, round which they twine, are rus.h.i.+ng out too, at the triumphant call of the spring.

The party being of the unmanageable number five, has to be divided between two fiacres, whereof Mrs. Byng, in pursuance of her determination to know Amelia, insists upon occupying the first in _tete-a-tete_ with Miss Wilson, while Cecilia and the two men fill the other. The latter makes but a silent load. Byng is, for him, out of spirits, and finding that Cecilia has virtually abandoned her suit, is glad to lapse into his own reflections. His example is followed by Jim, whose temper is ruffled by being again obliged to defer the quest he is still feverishly anxious to pursue, despite the shock of the morning's meeting at the Accademia.

They reach the villa, and leave their vehicles, glad to think that two of the perennially tired Florentine cab-horses will have a pause of rest, and, having shaken off a tiresome would-be _laquais de place_, desirous to embitter for them the sweet day and place, they stray at will through the garden among the clipped laurels, the cypresses, the gorgeous red rhododendrons, while beds of mignonette send forth such a steady wave of poignant sweetness as makes the sense ache with ecstasy of pleasure; and over the conservatory hangs a wistaria so old, so magnificent, with such a Niagara of giant flower bunches, as takes an English breath away. They go over the villa itself, pa.s.s through the room, and by the bed where Lorenzo, with the grotesque grim face, Lorenzo the Magnificent, gave his last sigh. It would make Death even more difficult to face than he is already, if one thought one should have to meet him under such a catafalque.

As they issue out again from the house's shadow into the sun-drenched garden, Mrs. Byng joins Burgoyne, who is walking a little apart.

"I like Amelia," she says confidentially, "such a nice _pillowy_ sort of woman; not too clever, and oh, Jim, poor soul, how fond she is of you!"

It must always be pleasant to hear that the one absolutely good thing which this life has to offer is lavishly heaped upon us by the person with whom we are to pa.s.s that life; and perhaps pleasure is the emotion evidenced by the silent writhe with which Jim receives this piece of information.

"Not, of course, that she told me so in so many words," continues his friend, perceiving that her speech is received in a silence that may mean disapproval of any intrusion into the sanctuary of his affections; "but one can see with half an eye: poor Amelia, she beamed all over when I said one or two little civil things about you! She wors.h.i.+ps the very ground you tread on!"

He writhes again. "I hope that that is one of your figures of speech,"

he answers constrainedly.

The not unnatural result of the tone in which he utters this sentence, no less than the words themselves, is to quench the fire of Mrs. Byng's benevolent eulogies; and, as she cannot at once hit upon another topic, and is by no means sure that her countenance does not betray the rather snubbed dismay produced by the reception of her amenities, she is not sorry when Jim presently leaves her. Being, however, of a very sanguine disposition, and seeing him a little later sitting peacefully on a garden-seat beside his _fiancee_, she hopes that her words, though not very handsomely received at the time, may bear fruit later for Amelia's benefit. "And he always was very undemonstrative," she adds to herself consolatorily. "n.o.body would have guessed that he was delighted to see me this morning; and yet, of course, he was."

The sun is growing visibly lower, and the Ave Maria comes ringing solemnly from the city. The seat to which Jim has somewhat remorsefully led his lady-love is a stone bench, shaded by a honeysuckle bower, close to a fountain. The fountain is not playing now; but round about it first a marten wheels, dipping in the water the end of her fleet wings; then a little bat prematurely flits, for it is still broad daylight. Broad indeed and bounteous is the daylight of Italy. Around them is the lush unmown gra.s.s; full of homely field-flowers, b.u.t.tercups, catch-flies, daisies, ragged robins, while from some bush near by a nightingale is pouring out all the infinite variety of her ravis.h.i.+ng song. She says so many different things that one never can feel sure that one has heard all that she has to say. Jim leans back listening, with his hands behind his head, steeped in a half-voluptuous sadness. He is oppressed by the thought of Amelia's great love. Is the nightingale's splendid eloquence really the voice of the poor dumb pa.s.sion beside him, lent to Amelia to plead her cause? The high-flown poetry of the idea fills his heart with an imaginative yearning kindness towards her. He is in the act of turning to face her, with a more lover-like speech on his lips than has hovered there for years, when Amelia herself antic.i.p.ates him.