CHAPTER XXII
AFTER wandering for two or three months abroad, Cecily and Diana discovered that all roads lead to Rome. In Rome, therefore, they had been established for a week, when Cecily strolled one day alone, towards the garden of the Villa Medici.
It was Rose Summers, with whom, after the night of the dinner-party, Cecily had spent some weeks, who had urged upon Cecily this plan of travel. For some time previous to the break between Cecily and her husband, Diana had not been strong; she was made the excuse for the closing of the Westminster flat in the following autumn. Rose arranged the explanation. For the sake of her sister’s health, Cecily must at once take her abroad, while her husband, who, for business reasons connected with his work, could not go so far afield, had decided to divide the period of her absence between the country and a stay in Paris.
It was thus that Mrs. Summers strove toput a screen between an inquisitive public and the ruins of one more domestic hearth.
“They’ll talk, of course,” she observed, “and try to look through the chinks in the boarding; but as long as they don’t see too plainly, their talk doesn’t matter much.”
Cecily had acquiesced indifferently. “Just as you please,” she said. “All I want is to get away—and I shall not come back. But I quite agree that there’s no need to provide entertainment for literary tea-parties by saying so.”
“All I ask,” returned Rose, “is that you shall give yourself time; that you shall take no irrevocable step.” To which Cecily had responded by a smile and a shrug of the shoulders.
She had Mayne’s letter. He had seen Mrs. Summers. He intended to be ostensibly busied in getting together funds and volunteers for a new exploring expedition, the progress of which was to be extensively paragraphed. In the meantime, he told her, he simply waited. He was in her hands. At any moment a summons would bring him to her. It was a characteristic letter—terse, restrained, almost laconic in tone. The letterof a man who would not plead, because, under the circumstances, pleading seemed unfair; yet, after reading it, Cecily had never so fully realized the strength and abidingness of his love for her. She took the letter with her on her journeyings, and carried it about with her. It was never absent from her thoughts. It was in the background of her consciousness on the quay at Genoa, while she watched the teams of white horses in their scarlet coats pulling lumbering wagons. In thought she considered it, while with Diana she admired the picturesqueness of the shuttered houses, festooned with fluttering washing, or stooped to look inside the cave-like, fourteenth-century shops, or climbed the many steep flights of steps to the upper town, whence they looked upon an enchanting sea of roofs; roofs the color of faded carnations, of orange lichen, of mushroom brown, each with its tiny pergola of vines, its tub of oleander, or its orange tree. It was with her in Florence, when she stood before the great pictures in gallery or palace, when, at the sunset hour, the cathedral and the exquisite campanile were suddenly turned to mother-of-pearl and roses against the violet sky. It was with her here in Rome. Tothink of it, to ponder over all that it implied, to force herself to come to some decision, she had wandered to-day into the garden of the villa, glad to be alone.
Diana, who had made friends with a lively party of American girls at the hotel, had joined one of their excursions to Tivoli, and would not be back till the evening. Cecily crossed the Piazza di Spagna, and paused to look at the banks of flowers which, piled up at the foot of the stately sweep of steps, make an exquisite foreground to one of the most charming pictures in Rome. Like bees, the flower-sellers instantly surrounded her, offering seashell-tinted and scarlet anemones, branches of deep orange-colored roses, sprays of feathery mimosa, violets, and quaint, flat little bouquets of pink rosebuds. She bought a bunch of the latter, and freeing herself from the buzzing crowd, began to mount the shallow, moss-grown steps, shaking her head smilingly at the littlecontadinimodels, with their elaborately picturesque rags, and their proffered nosegays. At the top, she paused as usual to glance over the beautiful ribbed roofs of the city, roofs which always made her think of brown shells cast up by the sea of time; shells that had suffered a sea-change.
Overhead in its blueness, was spread wide the “unattainable flower of the sky,” that Roman sky which blossoms like a flower of Paradise; and away to the right, as though floating in a blue ocean, stone pines lifted their islands of green, soft as velvet, into the clear air.
Cecily was aware of all the beauty; she missed none of the thousand appeals to the senses; the warmth, the fragrance of growing flowers, the color, the richness. But her response was on the surface only. Beneath it, her whole mind was a prey to doubt and indecision; that state of consciousness which, out of the hundreds that can make of life a hell for damned souls, is as capable as any of inflicting torture. As Cecily passed through the iron gate leading into the garden of the villa, and mounted the upward sloping path between the ilexes, she would gladly have exchanged their mysterious darkness, the blue of the sky, the pathetic beauty of the moss-grown statue at the end of the path, the delicious sound of falling water, the flecks of sunshine on the gravelled walk, for a back street in Clapham—and peace of mind.
At the top of the sharply zigzag path shepaused by the barricade of monthly roses on the brow of the hill to take breath and gaze once more over the city at her feet.
It was all inexpressibly beautiful, but she turned away, blinded with tears. She crossed the sunny square of garden in front of the villa and sat down on a marble seat, behind which a rose tree clambered. There were very few people about. One or two appeared from time to time behind the parapet of the terrace leading to the upper garden, and she could hear the voices of children in the ilex thickets below. But practically she was alone in the sunshine, and her thoughts were, as ever, busy with Mayne’s letter.
What should she do? For the thousandth weary time she asked herself the same question. Did she, or did she not, love him? Passion for him she had none. Not for the first time she found herself wishing ardently that she had. At least it would simplify things; it would bring her to a decision. Then, she told herself, she would not hesitate. She reviewed the possible outcome of the situation. A legal separation—and Dick banished to Africa? She had seen enough of the life of a young woman living apart from her husband to make her view this consummationwith disfavor. And in her case there was the added disadvantage of being to some extent a celebrity. She knew the sort of man she would constantly be obliged to repel, and the necessity for such a task sickened her. And life without Dick? Without his advice? Without the comforting sense of his protection and care? An empty life, childless, loveless, with none but intellectual needs to work for and gratify?
Her whole nature shrank from this. She had come to realize intensely how to a woman the needs of the heart must ever stand first; how success, fame, intellectual achievements are mere stop-gaps, anæsthetics from which she is ever in danger of waking to a horrible, dreary reality—a sense that she is indispensable to no one, that no human being views her existence as the one supremely important fact in life.
“Oh, we’re handicapped!—how we’re handicapped!” she cried to herself, as she sat motionless in the sunshine. “Physically, through our emotions—every way.... Wouldn’t it be better, saner, to spend the rest of my life with Dick, even though Idon’tfeel for him anything of what I felt for Robert? At least he feels it for me.That’s something. At least I could make one creature happy.” Some one had come along the gravelled walk in front of the seat. She had not noticed his approach till she became conscious of a shadow between her and the sun, and saw with a vague astonishment its cause. A man was standing quite close in front of her, looking down upon her. Raising her eyes, she met Mayne’s.
She struggled to her feet, feeling curiously as though lead weights were dragging her back.
He held out his hand. “I didn’t know you were in Rome,” he said, briefly.
“But you? I thought you were in town?”...
“Yes. My old godfather is here. He’s dying, poor old chap, and he thought I was going to Africa. He begged me to come and say good-bye. He practically brought me up, you know, so I couldn’t——” He did not finish the sentence; his eyes were straying hungrily over her face. “Come! Let’s go up there,” he said, abruptly, nodding towards the upper terrace.
Mechanically Cecily turned and walked at his side. They passed through the gate and up the steps, to that terrace which gives uponthe beautiful avenue of ilexes leading to a further flight of moss-grown steps.
The avenue was deserted. The rays of sunshine that pierced its roof fell in tiny flecks upon the path. But for these specks of brightness, the alley was a tunnel of cool green gloom. They entered it in silence.
“Mrs. Summers said you were in Florence,” began Mayne, at last.
“Yes, we’ve only been here a week. I haven’t written to Rose since we left.”
He looked down at her. She was in white, as he liked best to see her. All the long months she had been away, he remembered, he had always pictured her in white. Her arm brushed his sleeve as they walked, and he trembled from head to foot.
“Cecily,” he said, suddenly, and his voice trembled also, “what are you going to do?”
She was silent, and he saw the color go from her face. They had reached the foot of the crumbling steps by this time. Cecily noticed minutely the ferns—hart’s-tongue and maiden-hair—that sprang in chink and crevice, and, as she passed it, looked curiously at the pattern of spotted white lichen with which each broken step was adorned. Now they had emerged from the gloom of the roof of trees, into theblinding sunshine in which the little sham-classic temple at the top was bathed. There was no one in the walled-in enclosure. Cecily moved to the side overlooking the Borghese Gardens, and sat down on the rough, sun-warmed wall.
Mayne stood behind her. “Cecily,” he urged once more, “you mustn’t keep me in suspense much longer.” There was a dangerous note in his voice.
She turned to him. “Oh, Dick!” she said in a voice that was almost a cry; “I am so worried. If only I knew what to do!”
He stooped swiftly, and gathering her up in his arms, held her close, while he kissed first her lips, then her throat, with an intensity of passion which thrilled and communicated itself to her. When at last he let her go, she too was trembling. After all, it was sweet to be loved like this. She felt awakening in her the woman’s pride and triumph in her power to rouse strong emotion in a man. And Dick loved her in all the other ways, too. She could rely on him. He would never fail her.
Her lips moved. She meant to yield at once—to give him his answer now, irrevocably.
Instead, she said, faintly, “I’ll write—to-night. Where are you staying?”
He looked at her entreatingly a moment; then, feeling in his pocket for a note-book, he scribbled an address on a leaf torn from it.
“Cecily!” he whispered as he gave it to her. “Cecily!”
Mechanically, as though urged by some force outside herself, Cecily got up, and began to descend the steps. He followed her. They walked back through the gloomy avenue in silence. Just before they reached the terrace, he took her ungloved hand and put it to his lips.
“Will you let me go back alone?” she asked, under her breath.
“You wish it?”
“Yes, dear.”
He stepped back to let her pass, and as she did so, she looked up at him with appealing eyes.
“I will write to-night, Dick,” she said, very gently.
She left him standing on the terrace, and found her way back through the lower garden, down the Scala di Spagna, across the Piazza to the hotel. Everything stood bathed insunshine as in a dream. She had a sense that all the people she passed were dream-figures. Everything had become all at once unsubstantial, unreal, shadows of something else.
When she reached the hotel the hall porter put a packet of letters into her hand. Most of them had been forwarded from Florence, as she noticed in turning them over on her way up to her room. One of them was from Rose.
Her bedroom, which looked south, was flooded with sunshine when she entered. She lifted a basket-chair into the balcony, and sinking into it, sat for some time with the letters in her lap. She felt no inclination to open them. She did not want to break the sensation of dreaming which lulled her senses, and banished all the care and worry of the past months. It would be pleasant to sit like this in the sunshine all the rest of her life; never to think, just to know that she was being cared for, that her presence made the joy of another’s life. And why not? Why not an easy, dreamy life in sunny lands, with Dick?
Opposite to her, the old walls and roof of a monastery cut with its irregular lines the brilliant sky. The gay, striped awning above a vine-wreathed terrace at a lower level flapped gently in the breeze. Beneath, the littlecourtyard garden was a tangle of oleanders in tubs, of orange and lemon trees. And over all lay the sunshine. Cecily, stretching her body lazily in the long wicker chair, instinctively raised her arms towards the sky, as though to clasp its warmth, its deliciousness. It was a long time before she thought of her letters, and then she began to open the envelopes with indifference. None of them were of any importance. She had left Rose’s till the last.
It began with news of the children, of herself, and went on to information about various acquaintances. Then all at once, and quite abruptly, it spoke of Robert. Cecily started when she read his name. She had agreed with Rose that it should not be mentioned in their correspondence. “Robert is back,” the letter ran. “He wrote to me a day or two ago from the flat, and asked if he might come down for the day. He came, and he looked shockingly ill and hopelessly miserable. He came for news of you. I didn’t mention your name at first, till I couldn’t stand it any longer. He followed me about with his eyes like a dog, begging. Then at last we spoke of you. I don’t know what you said before you went, but evidently he has no hope. He looked like my Jim when he’s been naughty and thinksI’m not going to say good-night to him. He was back at the flat, but I persuaded him to go away again for a few days at least. He says he hates the sight of London. I hope you still like Florence. How does Diana enjoy everything?...” Cecily dropped the letter, leaving the latter pages unread.
Mechanically she turned her eyes towards the garden. All the dream-feeling was gone. She was Robert’s wife. She knew the look that Rose meant; she could see his face before her. Everything but that was blotted out. Bending her head down upon her knees, she broke into a passion of tears.
For hours she sat in her room, forgetting the time, forgetting everything but the urgent need of getting home,—home to comfort some one who had need of her.
Presently she rose, and, fetching her writing case, wrote two letters. It was strange to feel no uncertainty, to be no longer racked with doubt, to have no more vacillations. Her course now was plain; she felt no more hesitation than a mother feels when she hears her child is ill.
Hours afterwards, when Diana came in, eager to recount the affairs of the day, Cecily was still in her room.
The girl started as she opened the door, and her sister rose to meet her.
“Diana,” Cecily began, “I’m going home to-morrow. If you like to stay I think the Armstrongs would look after you——”
Diana sprang towards her as she staggered a little against the table. “I suppose you’ve had nothing to eat!” she exclaimed practically. She pushed her sister back into the chair, and rang the bell violently.
“We’ll have dinner up here,” she announced, taking the lead with characteristic determination, “and then you can tell me all about it. If you go to-morrow, I shall go too. Auntie says that wretched Brown girl is making a dead set at Archie—she began directly he came home. I shall go and stop it.”