XXII
Colville got himself out of the comfort and quiet of Mrs. Bowen's houseas soon as he could. He made the more haste because he felt that if hecould have remained with the smallest trace of self-respect, he wouldhave been glad to stay there for ever.
Even as it was, the spring had advanced to early summer, and the sun waslying hot and bright in the piazzas, and the shade dense and cool in thenarrow streets, before he left Palazzo Pinti; the Lung' Arno was a glareof light that struck back from the curving line of the buff houses; theriver had shrivelled to a rill in its bed; the black cypresses were dimin the tremor of the distant air on the hill-slopes beyond; the olivesseemed to swelter in the sun, and the villa walls to burn whiter andwhiter. At evening the mosquito began to wind his tiny horn. It was theend of May, and nearly everybody but the Florentines had gone out ofFlorence, dispersing to Via Reggio by the sea, to the hills ofPistoja, and to the high, cool air of Siena. More than once Colville hadsaid that he was keeping Mrs. Bowen after she ought to have got away,and she had answered that she liked hot weather, and that this was notcomparable to the heat of Washington in June. She was looking very well,and younger and prettier than she had since the first days of theirrenewed acquaintance in the winter. Her southern complexion enricheditself in the sun; sometimes when she came into his room from outdoorsthe straying brown hair curled into loose rings on her temples, and hercheeks glowed a deep red.
She said those polite things to appease him as long as he was not wellenough to go away, but she did not try to detain him after his strengthsufficiently returned. It was the blow on the head that kept himlongest. After his broken arm and his other bruises were quite healed,he was aware of physical limits to thinking of the future or regrettingthe past, and this sense of his powerlessness went far to reconcile himto a life of present inaction and oblivion. Theoretically he ought tohave been devoured by remorse and chagrin, but as a matter of fact hesuffered very little from either. Even in people who are in fullpossession of their capacity for mental anguish one observes that afterthey have undergone a certain amount of pain they cease to feel.
Colville amused himself a good deal with Effie's endeavours to entertainhim and take care of him. The child was with him every moment that shecould steal from her tasks, and her mother no longer attempted to stemthe tide of her devotion. It was understood that Effie should joke andlaugh with Mr. Colville as much as she chose; that she should fan him aslong as he could stand it; that she should read to him when he woke, andwatch him when he slept. She brought him his breakfast, she petted himand caressed him, and wished to make him a monster of dependence andself-indulgence. It seemed to grieve her that he got well so fast.
The last night before he left the house she sat on his knee by thewindow looking out beyond the firefly twinkle of Oltrarno, to thesilence and solid dark of the solemn company of hills beyond. They hadnot lighted the lamps because of the mosquitoes, and they had talkedtill her head dropped against his shoulder.
Mrs. Bowen came in to get her. "Why, is she asleep?"
"Yes. Don't take her yet," said Colville.
Mrs. Bowen rustled softly into the chair which Effie had left to getinto Colville's lap. Neither of them spoke, and he was so richly contentwith the peace, the tacit sweetness of the little moment, that he wouldhave been glad to have it silently endure forever. If any troublesomequestion of his right to such a moment of bliss obtruded itself uponhim, he did not concern himself with it.
"We shall have another hot day to-morrow," said Mrs. Bowen at length. "Ihope you will find your room comfortable."
"Yes: it's at the back of the hotel, mighty high, and wide, and no sunever comes into it except when they show it to foreigners in winter.Then they get a few rays to enter as a matter of business, on conditionthat they won't detain them. I dare say I shall stay there some time. Isuppose you will be getting away from Florence very soon.
"Yes. But I haven't decided where to go yet."
"Should you like some general expression of my gratitude for all you'vedone for me, Mrs. Bowen?"
"No; I would rather not. It has been a great pleasure--to Effie."
"Oh, a luxury beyond the dreams of avarice." They spoke in low tones,and there was something in the hush that suggested to Colville thefeasibility of taking into his unoccupied hand one of the pretty handswhich the pale night-light showed him lying in Mrs. Bowen's lap. But heforbore, and only sighed. "Well, then, I will say nothing. But I shallkeep on thinking all my life."
She made no answer.
"When you are gone, I shall have to make the most of Mr. Waters," hesaid.
"He is going to stop all summer, I believe."
"Oh yes. When I suggested to him the other day that he might find it toohot, he said that he had seventy New England winters to thaw out of hisblood, and that all the summers he had left would not be more than heneeded. One of his friends told him that he could cook eggs in hispiazza in August, and he said that he should like nothing better than tocook eggs there. He's the most delightfully expatriated compatriot I'veever seen."
"Do you like it?"
"It's well enough for him. Life has no claims on him any more. I thinkit's very pleasant over here, now that everybody's gone," addedColville, from a confused resentfulness of collectively remembered Daysand Afternoons and Evenings. "How still the night is!"
A few feet clapping by on the pavement below alone broke the hush.
"Sometimes I feel very tired of it all, and want to get home," sighedMrs. Bowen.
"Well, so do I."
"I can't believe it's right staying away from the country so long."People often say such things in Europe.
"No, I don't either, if you've got anything to do there."
"You can always make something to do there."
"Oh yes." Some young young men, breaking from a street near by, began tosing. "We shouldn't have that sort of thing at home."
"No," said Mrs. Bowen pensively.
"I heard just such singing before I fell asleep the night after thatparty at Madame Uccelli's, and it filled me with fury."
"Why should it do that?"
"I don't know. It seemed like voices from our youth--Lina."
She had no resentment of his use of her name in the tone with which sheasked: "Did you hate that so much?"
"No; the loss of it."
They both fetched a deep breath.
"The Uccellis have a villa near the baths of Lucca," said Mrs. Bowen."They have asked me to go."
"Do you think of going?" inquired Colville. "I've always fancied it mustbe pleasant there."
"No; I declined. Sometimes I think I will just stay on in Florence."
"I dare say you'd find it perfectly comfortable. There's nothing likehaving the range of one's own house in summer." He looked out of thewindow on the blue-black sky.
"'And deepening through their silent spheres, Heaven over heaven rose the night,'"
he quoted. "It's wonderful! Do you remember how I used to read _Marianain the South_ to you and poor Jenny? How it must have bored her! What anass I was!"
"Yes," said Mrs. Bowen breathlessly, in sympathy with his reminiscencerather than in agreement with his self-denunciation.
Colville broke into a laugh, and then she began to laugh to; but notquite willingly as it seemed.
Effie started from her sleep. "What--what is it?" she asked, stretchingand shivering as half-wakened children do.
"Bed-time," said her mother promptly, taking her hand to lead her away."Say good-night to Mr. Colville."
The child turned and kissed him. "Good night," she murmured.
"Good night, you sleepy little soul!" It seemed to Colville that he mustbe a pretty good man, after all, if this little thing loved him so.
"Do you always kiss Mr. Colville good-night?" asked her mother when shebegan to undo her hair for her in her room.
"Sometimes. Don't you think it's nice?"
"Oh yes; nice enough."
Colville sat by the window a lon
g time thinking Mrs. Bowen might comeback; but she did not return.
Mr. Waters came to see him the next afternoon at his hotel.
"Are you pretty comfortable here?" he asked.
"Well, it's a change," said Colville. "I miss the little one awfully."
"She's a winning child," admitted the old man. "That combination ofconventionality and _naivete_ is very captivating. I notice it in themother."
"Yes, the mother has it too. Have you seen them to-day?"
"Yes; Mrs. Bowen was sorry to be out when you came."
"I had the misfortune to miss them. I had a great mind to go againto-night."
The old man said nothing to this. "The fact is," Colville went on, "I'mso habituated to being there that I'm rather spoiled."
"Ah, it's a nice place," Mr. Waters admitted.
"Of course I made all the haste I could to get away, and I have thereward of a good conscience. But I don't find that the reward is verygreat."
The old gentleman smiled. "The difficulty is to know conscience fromself-interest."
"Oh, there's no doubt of it in my case," said Colville. "If I'dconsulted my own comfort and advantage, I should still be at PalazzoPinti."
"I dare say they would have been glad to keep you."
"Do you really think so?" asked Colville, with sudden seriousness. "Iwish you would tell me why. Have you any reason--grounds? Pshaw! I'mabsurd!" He sank back into the easy-chair from whose depths he hadpulled himself in the eagerness of his demand, and wiped his foreheadwith his handkerchief. "Mr. Waters, you remember my telling you of myengagement to Miss Graham?"
"Yes."
"That is broken off--if it were ever really on. It was a great mistakefor both of us--a tragical one for her, poor child, a ridiculous one forme. My only consolation is that it was a mistake and no more; but Idon't conceal from myself that I might have prevented it altogether if Ihad behaved with greater wisdom and dignity at the outset. But I'mafraid I was flattered by an illusion of hers that ought to have painedand alarmed me, and the rest followed inevitably, though I was alwaysjust on the point of escaping the consequences of my weakness--mywickedness."
"Ah, there is something extremely interesting in all that," said the oldminister thoughtfully. "The situation used to be figured under the oldidea of a compact with the devil. His debtor was always on the point ofescaping, as you say, but I recollect no instance in which he did notpay at last. The myth must have arisen from man's recognition of theinexorable sequence of cause from effect, in the moral world, which evenrepentance cannot avert. Goethe tries to imagine an atonement forFaust's trespass against one human soul in his benefactions to the raceat large; but it is a very cloudy business."
"It isn't quite a parallel case," said Colville, rather sulkily. He had,in fact, suffered more under Mr. Waters's generalisation than he couldfrom a more personal philosophy of the affair.
"Oh no; I didn't think that," consented the old man.
"And I don't think I shall undertake any extended scheme of drainage orsubsoiling in atonement for my little dream," Colville continued,resenting the parity of outline that grew upon him in spite of hisprotest. They were both silent for a while, and then Colville cried out,"Yes, yes; they are alike. _I_ dreamed, too, of recovering and restoringmy own lost and broken past in the love of a young soul, and it was inessence the same cruelly egotistic dream; and it's nothing in my defencethat it was all formless and undirected at first, and that as soon as Irecognised it I abhorred it."
"Oh yes, it is," replied the old man, with perfect equanimity. "Yourassertion is the hysterical excess of Puritanism in all times andplaces. In the moral world we are responsible only for the wrong that weintend. It can't be otherwise."
"And the evil that's suffered from the wrong we didn't intend?"
"Ah, perhaps that isn't evil."
"It's pain!"
"It's pain, yes."
"And to have wrung a young and innocent heart with the anguish ofself-doubt, with the fear of wrong to another, with the shame of anerror such as I allowed, perhaps encouraged her to make--"
"Yes," said the old man. "The young suffer terribly. But they recover.Afterward we don't suffer so much, but we don't recover. I wouldn'tdefend you against yourself if I thought you seriously in the wrong. Ifyou know yourself to be, you shouldn't let me."
Thus put upon his honour, Colville was a long time thoughtful. "How canI tell?" he asked. "You know the facts; you can judge."
"If I were to judge at all, I should say you were likely to do a greaterwrong than any you have committed."
"I don't understand you."
"Miss Graham is a young girl, and I have no doubt that the youngclergyman--what was his name?"
"Morton. Do you think--do you suppose there was anything in that?"demanded Colville, with eagerness, that a more humorous observer thanMr. Waters might have found ludicrous. "He was an admirable youngfellow, with an excellent head and a noble heart. I underrated him atone time, though I recognised his good qualities afterward; but I wasafraid she did not appreciate him."
"I'm not so sure of that," said the old man, with an astuteness ofmanner which Colville thought authorised by some sort of definiteknowledge.
"I would give the world if it were so!" he cried fervently.
"But you are really very much more concerned in something else."
"In what else?"
"Can't you imagine?"
"No," said Colville; but he felt himself growing very red in the face.
"Then I have no more to say."
"Yes, speak!" And after an interval Colville added, "Is it anythingabout--you hinted at something long ago--Mrs. Bowen?"
"Yes;" the old man nodded his head. "Do you owe her nothing?"
"Owe her nothing? Everything! My life! What self-respect is left me!Immeasurable gratitude! The homage of a man saved from himself as far ashis stupidity and selfishness would permit! Why, I--I love her!" Thewords gave him courage. "In every breath and pulse! She is the mostbeautiful and gracious and wisest and best woman in the world! I haveloved her ever since I met her here in Florence last winter. Goodheavens! I must have always loved her! But," he added, falling from therapture of this confession, "she simply loathes _me_!"
"It was certainly not to your credit that you were willing at the sametime to marry some one else."
"Willing! I wasn't willing! I was bound hand and foot! Yes--I don't carewhat you think of my weakness--I was not a free agent. It's very well tocondemn one's-self, but it may be carried too far; injustice to othersis not the only injustice, or the worst. What I was willing to do was tokeep my word--to prevent that poor child, if possible, from ever findingout her mistake."
If Colville expected this heroic confession to impress his listener hewas disappointed. Mr. Waters made him no reply, and he was obliged toask, with a degree of sarcastic impatience, "I suppose you scarcelyblame me for that?"
"Oh, I don't know that I blame people for things. There are times whenit seems as if we were all puppets, pulled this way or that, withoutcontrol of our own movements. Hamlet was able to browbeat Rosencrantzand Guildenstern with his business of the pipe; but if they had been ina position to answer they might have told him that it required far lessskill to play upon a man than any other instrument. Most of us, in fact,go sounding on without any special application of breath or fingers,repeating the tunes that were played originally upon other men. Itappears to me that you suffered yourself to do something of the kind inthis affair. We are a long time learning to act with common-sense oreven common sanity in what are called matters of the affections. Abroken engagement may be a bad thing in some cases, but I am inclined tothink that it is the very best thing that could happen in most caseswhere it happens. The evil is done long before; the broken engagement ismerely sanative, and so far beneficent."
The old gentleman rose, and Colville, dazed by the recognition of hisown cowardice and absurdity, did not try to detain him. But he followedhim down to the outer gate of the hotel. The aft
ernoon sun was pouringinto the piazza a sea of glimmering heat, into which Mr. Waters plungedwith the security of a salamander. He wore a broad-brimmed Panama hat, asack coat of black alpaca, and loose trousers of the same material, andColville fancied him doubly defended against the torrid waves not onlyby the stored cold of half a century of winters at Haddam East Village,but by an inner coolness of spirit, which appeared to diffuse itself inan appreciable atmosphere about him. It was not till he was gone thatColville found himself steeped in perspiration, and glowing with astrange excitement.