XXI
When Colville came to himself his first sensation was delight in thesoftness and smoothness of the turf on which he lay. Then the strangecolour of the grass commended itself to his notice, and presently heperceived that the thing under his head was a pillow, and that he was inbed. He was supported in this conclusion by the opinion of the young manwho sat watching him a little way off, and who now smiled cheerfully atthe expression in the eyes which Colville turned inquiringly upon him.
"Where am I?" he asked, with what appeared to him very unnecessaryfeebleness of voice.
The young man begged his pardon in Italian, and when Colville repeatedhis question in that tongue, he told him that he was in Palazzo Pinti,whither he had been brought from the scene of his accident. He addedthat Colville must not talk till the doctor had seen him and given himleave, and he explained that he was himself a nurse from the hospital,who had been taking care of him.
Colville moved his head and felt the bandage upon it; he desisted in hisattempt to lift his right arm to it before the attendant could interferein behalf of the broken limb. He recalled dimly and fragmentarily longhistories that he had dreamed, but he forbore to ask how long he hadbeen in his present case, and he accepted patiently the apparition ofthe doctor and other persons who came and went, and were at his bedsideor not there, as it seemed to him, between the opening and closing of aneye. As the days passed they acquired greater permanence and maintaineda more uninterrupted identity. He was able to make quite sure of Mr.Morton and of Mr. Waters; Mrs. Bowen came in, leading Effie, and thisgave him a great pleasure. Mrs. Bowen seemed to have grown younger andbetter. Imogene was not among the phantoms who visited him; and heaccepted her absence as quiescently as he accepted the presence of theothers. There was a cheerfulness in those who came that permitted him noanxiety, and he was too weak to invite it by any conjecture. Heconsented to be spared and to spare himself; and there were some thingsabout the affair which gave him a singular and perhaps not wholly sanecontent. One of these was the man nurse who had evidently taken care ofhim throughout. He celebrated, whenever he looked at this capableperson, his escape from being, in the odious helplessness of sickness, aburden upon the strength and sympathy of the two women for whom he hadotherwise made so much trouble. His satisfaction in this had much to dowith his recovery, which, when it once began, progressed rapidly to apoint where he was told that Imogene and her mother were at a hotel inFlorence, waiting till he should be strong enough to see them. It wasMrs. Bowen who told him this with an air which she visibly strove torender non-committal and impersonal, but which betrayed, nevertheless, afaint apprehension for the effect upon him. The attitude of Imogene andher mother was certainly not one to have been expected of people holdingtheir nominal relation to him, but Colville had been revising hisimpressions of events on the day of his accident; Imogene's last lookcame back to him, and he could not think the situation altogetherunaccountable.
"Have I been here a long time?" he asked, as if he had not heeded whatshe told him.
"About a fortnight," answered Mrs. Bowen.
"And Imogene--how long has she been away?"
"Since they knew you would get well."
"I will see them any time," he said quietly.
"Do you think you are strong enough?"
"I shall never be stronger till I have seen them," he returned, with aglance at her. "Yes; I want them to come to-day. I shall not be excited;don't be troubled--if you were going to be," he added. "Please send tothem at once."
Mrs. Bowen hesitated, but after a moment left the room. She returned inhalf an hour with a lady who revealed even to Colville's languid regardevidences of the character which Mrs. Bowen had attributed to Imogene'smother. She was a large, robust person, laced to sufficient shapeliness,and she was well and simply dressed. She entered the room with a waft ofsome clean, wholesome perfume, and a quiet temperament and perfecthealth looked out of her clear, honest eyes--the eyes of Imogene Graham,though the girl's were dark and the woman's were blue. When Mrs. Bowenhad named them to each other, in withdrawing, Mrs. Graham tookColville's weak left hand in her fresh, strong, right, and then liftedherself a chair to his bedside, and sat down.
"How do you do to-day, sir?" she said, with a touch of old-fashionedrespectfulness in the last word. "Do you think you are quite strongenough to talk with me?"
"I think so," said Colville, with a faint smile. "At least I can listenwith fortitude."
Mrs. Graham was not apparently a person adapted to joking. "I don't knowwhether it will require much fortitude to hear what I have to say ornot," she said, with her keen gaze fixed upon him. "It's simply this: Iam going to take Imogene home."
She seemed to expect that Colville would make some reply to this, and hesaid blankly, "Yes?"
"I came out prepared to consent to what she wished, after I had seenyou, and satisfied myself that she was not mistaken; for I had alwayspromised myself that her choice should be perfectly untrammelled, and Ihave tried to bring her up with principles and ideas that would enableher to make a good choice."
"Yes," said Colville again. "I'm afraid you didn't take her temperamentand her youth into account, and that she disappointed you."
"No; I can't say that she did. It isn't that at all. I see no reason toblame her for her choice. Her mistake was of another kind."
It appeared to Colville that this very sensible and judicial lady foundan intellectual pleasure in the analysis of the case, which modified theintensity of her maternal feeling in regard to it, and that, like manypeople who talk well, she liked to hear herself talk in the presence ofanother appreciative listener. He did not offer to interrupt her, andshe went on. "No, sir, I am not disappointed in her choice. I think herchances of happiness would have been greater, in the abstract, with onenearer her own age; but that is a difference which other things affectso much that it did not alarm me greatly. Some people are younger atyour age than at hers. No, sir, that is not the point." Mrs. Grahamfetched a sigh, as if she found it easier to say what was not the pointthan to say what was, and her clear gaze grew troubled. But sheapparently girded herself for the struggle. "As far as you areconcerned, Mr. Colville, I have not a word to say. Your conductthroughout has been most high-minded and considerate and delicate."
It is hard for any man to deny merits attributed to him, especially ifhe has been ascribing to himself the opposite demerits. But Colvillesummoned his dispersed forces to protest against this.
"Oh, no, no," he cried. "Anything but that. My conduct has been selfishand shameful. If you could understand all--"
"I think I do understand all--at least far more, I regret to say, thanmy daughter has been willing to tell me. And I am more than satisfiedwith you. I thank you and honour you."
"Oh no; don't say that," pleaded Colville. "I really can't stand it."
"And when I came here it was with the full intention of approving andconfirming Imogene's decision. But I was met at once by a painful andsurprising state of things. You are aware that you have been very sick?"
"Dimly," said Colville.
"I found you very sick, and I found my daughter frantic at the errorwhich she had discovered in herself--discovered too late, as she felt."Mrs. Graham hesitated, and then added abruptly, "She had found out thatshe did not love you."
"Didn't love me?" repeated Colville feebly.
"She had been conscious of the truth before, but she had stifled hermisgivings insanely, and, as I feel, almost wickedly, pushing on, andsaying to herself that when you were married, then there would be noescape, and she _must_ love you."
"Poor girl! poor child! I see, I see."
"But the accident that was almost your death saved her from thatmiserable folly and iniquity. Yes," she continued, in answer to theprotest in his face, "folly and iniquity. I found her half crazed atyour bedside. She was fully aware of your danger, but while she wasfeeling all the remorse that she ought to feel--that any one couldfeel--she was more and more convinced that she never had loved you andne
ver should. I can give you no idea of her state of mind."
"Oh, you needn't! you needn't! Poor, poor child!"
"Yes, a child indeed. If it had not been for the pity I felt forher--But no matter about that. She saw at last that if your heroicdevotion to her"--Colville did his best to hang his pillowed head forshame--"if your present danger did not awaken her to some such feelingfor you as she had once imagined she had; if they both only increasedher despair and self-abhorrence, then the case was indeed hopeless. Shewas simply distracted. I had to tear her away almost by force. She hashad a narrow escape from brain-fever. And now I have come to implore, to_demand_"--Mrs. Graham, with all her poise and calm, was rising to thehysterical key--"her release from a fate that would be worse than deathfor such a girl. I mean marrying without the love of her whole soul. Sheesteems you, she respects you, she admires you, she likes you; but--"Mrs. Graham pressed her lips together, and her eyes shone.
"She is free," said Colville, and with the words a mighty load rolledfrom his heart. "There is no need to demand anything."
"I know."
"There hasn't been an hour, an instant, during--since I--we--spoketogether that I wouldn't have released her if I could have known whatyou tell me now."
"Of course!--of course!"
"I have had my fears--my doubts; but whenever I approached the point Ifound no avenue by which we could reach a clearer understanding. I couldnot say much without seeming to seek for myself the release I wasoffering her."
"Naturally. And what added to her wretchedness was the suspicion atthe bottom of all that she had somehow forced herself uponyou--misunderstood you, and made you say and do things to spare her thatyou would not have done voluntarily." This was advanced tentatively. Inthe midst of his sophistications Colville had, as most of his sex have,a native, fatal, helpless truthfulness, which betrayed him at the mostunexpected moments, and this must now have appeared in his countenance.The lady rose haughtily. She had apparently been considering him, but,after all, she must have been really considering her daughter. "Ifanything of the kind was the case," she said, "I will ask you to spareher the killing knowledge. It's quite enough for _me_ to know it. Andallow me to say, Mr. Colville, that it would have been far kinder inyou--"
"Ah, _think,_ my dear madam!" he exclaimed. "How _could_ I?"
She did think, evidently, and when she spoke it was with a generousemotion, in which there was no trace of pique.
"You couldn't. You have done right; I feel that, and I will trust you tosay anything you will to my daughter."
"To your daughter? Shall I see her?"
"She came with me. She wished to beg your forgiveness."
Colville lay silent. "There is no forgiveness to be asked or granted,"he said, at length. "Why should she suffer the pain of seeing me?--forit would be nothing else. What do you think? Will it do her any goodhereafter? I don't care for myself."
"I don't know what to think," said Mrs. Graham. "She is a strange child.She may have some idea of reparation."
"Oh, beseech her from me not to imagine that any reparation is due!Where there has been an error there must be blame; but wherever it liesin ours, I am sure it isn't at her door. Tell her I say this; tell herthat I acquit her with all my heart of every shadow of wrong; that I amnot unhappy, but glad for her sake and my own that this has ended as ithas." He stretched his left hand across the coverlet to her, and said,with the feebleness of exhaustion, "Good-bye. Bid her good-bye for me."
Mrs. Graham pressed his hand and went out. A moment after the door wasflung open, and Imogene burst into the room. She threw herself on herknees beside his bed. "I will _pray_ to you!" she said, her face intensewith the passions working in her soul. She seemed choking with wordswhich would not come; then, with an inarticulate cry that must stand forall, she caught up the hand that lay limp on the coverlet; she crushedit against her lips, and ran out of the room.
He sank into a deathly torpor, the physical refusal of his brain to takeaccount of what had passed. When he woke from it, little Effie Bowen wasairily tiptoeing about the room, fondly retouching its perfect order. Heclosed his eyes, and felt her come to him and smooth the sheet softlyunder his chin. Then he knew she must be standing with clasped handsadmiring the effect. Some one called her in whisper from the door. Itclosed, and all was still again.