Where Angels Fear to Tread Part 15

Miss Abbott uttered some noise of greeting or alarm. He did not reply to it or approach nearer to her. Without even paying the cabman, he escaped into the street.

"Tear each other's eyes out!" he cried, gesticulating at the facade of the hotel. "Give it to her, Harriet! Teach her to leave us alone. Give it to her, Caroline! Teach her to be grateful to you. Go it, ladies; go it!"

Such people as observed him were interested, but did not conclude that he was mad. This aftermath of conversation is not unknown in Italy.

He tried to think how amusing it was; but it would not do--Miss Abbott's presence affected him too personally. Either she suspected him of dishonesty, or else she was being dishonest herself. He preferred to suppose the latter. Perhaps she had seen Gino, and they had prepared some elaborate mortification for the Herritons. Perhaps Gino had sold the baby cheap to her for a joke: it was just the kind of joke that would appeal to him. Philip still remembered the laughter that had greeted his fruitless journey, and the uncouth push that had toppled him on to the bed. And whatever it might mean, Miss Abbott's presence spoilt the comedy: she would do nothing funny.

During this short meditation he had walked through the city, and was out on the other side. "Where does Signor Carella live?" he asked the men at the Dogana.

"I'll show you," said a little girl, springing out of the ground as Italian children will.

"She will show you," said the Dogana men, nodding rea.s.suringly. "Follow her always, always, and you will come to no harm. She is a trustworthy guide. She is my

daughter."

cousin."

sister."

Philip knew these relatives well: they ramify, if need be, all over the peninsula.

"Do you chance to know whether Signor Carella is in?" he asked her.

She had just seen him go in. Philip nodded. He was looking forward to the interview this time: it would be an intellectual duet with a man of no great intellect. What was Miss Abbott up to? That was one of the things he was going to discover. While she had it out with Harriet, he would have it out with Gino. He followed the Dogana's relative softly, like a diplomatist.

He did not follow her long, for this was the Volterra gate, and the house was exactly opposite to it. In half a minute they had scrambled down the mule-track and reached the only practicable entrance. Philip laughed, partly at the thought of Lilia in such a building, partly in the confidence of victory. Meanwhile the Dogana's relative lifted up her voice and gave a shout.

For an impressive interval there was no reply. Then the figure of a woman appeared high up on the loggia.

"That is Perfetta," said the girl.

"I want to see Signor Carella," cried Philip.

"Out!"

"Out," echoed the girl complacently.

"Why on earth did you say he was in?" He could have strangled her for temper. He had been just ripe for an interview--just the right combination of indignation and acuteness: blood hot, brain cool. But nothing ever did go right in Monteriano. "When will he be back?" he called to Perfetta. It really was too bad.

She did not know. He was away on business. He might be back this evening, he might not. He had gone to Poggibonsi.

At the sound of this word the little girl put her fingers to her nose and swept them at the plain. She sang as she did so, even as her foremothers had sung seven hundred years back--

Poggibonizzi, fatti in la, Che Monteriano si fa citta!

Then she asked Philip for a halfpenny. A German lady, friendly to the Past, had given her one that very spring.

"I shall have to leave a message," he called.

"Now Perfetta has gone for her basket," said the little girl. "When she returns she will lower it--so. Then you will put your card into it. Then she will raise it--thus. By this means--"

When Perfetta returned, Philip remembered to ask after the baby. It took longer to find than the basket, and he stood perspiring in the evening sun, trying to avoid the smell of the drains and to prevent the little girl from singing against Poggibonsi. The olive-trees beside him were draped with the weekly--or more probably the monthly--wash. What a frightful spotty blouse! He could not think where he had seen it. Then he remembered that it was Lilia's. She had brought it "to hack about in"

at Sawston, and had taken it to Italy because "in Italy anything does."

He had rebuked her for the sentiment.

"Beautiful as an angel!" bellowed Perfetta, holding out something which must be Lilia's baby. "But who am I addressing?"

"Thank you--here is my card." He had written on it a civil request to Gino for an interview next morning. But before he placed it in the basket and revealed his ident.i.ty, he wished to find something out. "Has a young lady happened to call here lately--a young English lady?"

Perfetta begged his pardon: she was a little deaf.

"A young lady--pale, large, tall."

She did not quite catch.

"A YOUNG LADY!"

"Perfetta is deaf when she chooses," said the Dogana's relative. At last Philip admitted the peculiarity and strode away. He paid off the detestable child at the Volterra gate. She got two nickel pieces and was not pleased, partly because it was too much, partly because he did not look pleased when he gave it to her. He caught her fathers and cousins winking at each other as he walked past them. Monteriano seemed in one conspiracy to make him look a fool. He felt tired and anxious and muddled, and not sure of anything except that his temper was lost.

In this mood he returned to the Stella d'Italia, and there, as he was ascending the stairs, Miss Abbott popped out of the dining-room on the first floor and beckoned to him mysteriously.

"I was going to make myself some tea," he said, with his hand still on the banisters.

"I should be grateful--"

So he followed her into the dining-room and shut the door.

"You see," she began, "Harriet knows nothing."

"No more do I. He was out."

"But what's that to do with it?"

He presented her with an unpleasant smile. She fenced well, as he had noticed before. "He was out. You find me as ignorant as you have left Harriet."

"What do you mean? Please, please Mr. Herriton, don't be mysterious: there isn't the time. Any moment Harriet may be down, and we shan't have decided how to behave to her. Sawston was different: we had to keep up appearances. But here we must speak out, and I think I can trust you to do it. Otherwise we'll never start clear."

"Pray let us start clear," said Philip, pacing up and down the room.

"Permit me to begin by asking you a question. In which capacity have you come to Monteriano--spy or traitor?"

"Spy!" she answered, without a moment's hesitation. She was standing by the little Gothic window as she spoke--the hotel had been a palace once--and with her finger she was following the curves of the moulding as if they might feel beautiful and strange. "Spy," she repeated, for Philip was bewildered at learning her guilt so easily, and could not answer a word. "Your mother has behaved dishonourably all through. She never wanted the child; no harm in that; but she is too proud to let it come to me. She has done all she could to wreck things; she did not tell you everything; she has told Harriet nothing at all; she has lied or acted lies everywhere. I cannot trust your mother. So I have come here alone--all across Europe; no one knows it; my father thinks I am in Normandy--to spy on Mrs. Herriton. Don't let's argue!" for he had begun, almost mechanically, to rebuke her for impertinence. "If you are here to get the child, I will help you; if you are here to fail, I shall get it instead of you."

"It is hopeless to expect you to believe me," he stammered. "But I can a.s.sert that we are here to get the child, even if it costs us all we've got. My mother has fixed no money limit whatever. I am here to carry out her instructions. I think that you will approve of them, as you have practically dictated them. I do not approve of them. They are absurd."

She nodded carelessly. She did not mind what he said. All she wanted was to get the baby out of Monteriano.

"Harriet also carries out your instructions," he continued. "She, however, approves of them, and does not know that they proceed from you.

I think, Miss Abbott, you had better take entire charge of the rescue party. I have asked for an interview with Signor Carella tomorrow morning. Do you acquiesce?"

She nodded again.

"Might I ask for details of your interview with him? They might be helpful to me."