Chapter Nine.
Bice Writes.
Oliver Trent had been too much enraged by Ibbetson’s monopolisation of Bice to be as prudent as was his wont; indeed, he began to feel as if he had been over cautious already, and that it would have been wiser to have checked matters more decidedly. She avoided him, but he was determined to give his warning, and when Jack went to seek Phillis he caught at the opportunity to say—
“New friends for old—is that your last motto, Bice?”
“What do you mean?” she said, faltering.
“I mean that I could envy you your powers of forgetfulness if I did not unfortunately happen to be one of the sufferers. Clive and I—have we really altogether dropped out of your mind?”
“You take care to prevent such a possibility, even for a moment,” she said angrily.
“Oh, I will not offend you again, if that is your feeling. I will leave Florence to-morrow morning, and nothing shall remind you of my existence. As for Clive, I am afraid I cannot make so large a promise.”
She was so changed and shaken, that for the first time in her life he frightened her. She felt as if she were powerless in a strong grasp. Where could she turn?
“Why do you say this to me, Oliver?” she said slowly. “What have I done? I have not forgotten your goodness about Clive, or—what you said. Why should I? There is no one else to whom I can turn. But you—you should not oblige me to speak of it here, with all these people as our guests.”
She said the words very softly and gently, but she did not look at him as she spoke.
“When will you speak, then?” he said moodily. “To-night?”
“Not to-night, not to-night, please! To-morrow.”
“I am tired of to-morrows. Why should it always be to-morrow? No. This evening in the garden.”
She did not contradict him any further. After all, it was hardly worth while.
Ibbetson could not get any more conversation with Bice on their way back to the villa, for Oliver quietly baffled his attempts, and Miss Preston was pouring out to every one her own views as to possible improvements in the vintage—the grapes should be trained differently, there should be a revolving wheel in the tubs, someone should read to the contadine.
“Still I own to one improvement, for I am pleased to have had ocular demonstration that the barbarous fashion of treading out the grapes is no longer in practice. It gives one a certain hope.”
“But that is another stage,” exclaimed Kitty innocently; “don’t you know? They put the grapes into huge shallow tubs and jump on them till the juice is extracted. All the boys and girls help. After our share has been weighed in the cellar we shall make it at home.”
The little party were playing at cross-purposes all the way back. Perhaps no one was content, not even Captain Leyton, who gazed moodily at a blot of green, purple, and golden, which was all he had got out of the vineyard. Bice looked pale and depressed, and said nothing to Oliver, who marched by her side all down the hill. Mrs Leyton tried to draw a little amusement out of the others by talking of them to Phillis, but Phillis, too, was silent.
After luncheon they went different ways. Bice took Miss Preston, who was anxious, as she said, to make the round of the premises; Captain Leyton became supremely happy over a promising sketch; the others strolled or sat about, eating figs and peaches, Mr Trent keeping near Jack, though with little pretence at cordiality. Phillis, who wanted time for herself, slipped away at last with Cartouche for a companion, and wandered about in the quiet alleys, of which there were so many. Suddenly she turned a corner and came upon Bice alone.
Something—stronger than circumstances—had all along attracted these two to each other. They were different, but each had a certain nobility of soul which may have had something to do with the attraction. Each had grown up out of the world, and though Bice had had sharp experience of evil, it was not the evil of petty spites and jealousies. Then for Phillis beauty alone had that intense charm and interest which it often has for those who themselves lack its power, and she felt a strong pity for the girl who had looked sad all the day, and now had evidently been crying; a pity no less real because she believed that she herself must take up the burden of pain if she were to relieve it. She could not pass by, or pretend not to see.
“I am afraid you are unhappy,” she said gently. “Mr Ibbetson said that you were very anxious about your brother, but he told us no particulars. Is he ill, or is he in trouble? Can we help you in any way? I should be very glad if you would try not to look upon me as a stranger, although I know it is difficult.”
Bice, whose heart was in a tumult, who did not know what to think, who believed she hated Oliver, Jack, Phillis, and herself most of all, was touched in a moment, not so much perhaps by the words, as by the kind, steadfast eyes which interpreted them.
“I don’t think it is difficult,” she said, and with a sudden impulse she caught Phillis’s hand and kissed her. “Ever since I saw you I have felt somehow as if you would do us good.”
For the moment she had forgotten Jack. Phillis, who read more in the words than the girl meant, felt her heart swell.
“Perhaps I can,” she said steadily. “Things often come about in the manner we least expect. Who knows whether you and I, if we put our heads together, may not find a way out of some of your troubles? Can you trust me with them?”
“Yes,” said Bice after a moment’s pause. “Oliver forbade me to speak, but I don’t see that he knows best. I don’t know who to consult. I asked Mr Ibbetson, and he seemed to think it all very bad indeed.” She went on hurriedly. “There were some things I could not tell him—but you! Oh, I am very, very miserable. Do you think it will be very ungrateful of me if Mr Trent saves Clive and yet I do not marry him?”
“Is that what he wishes?”
“Yes. He says he risks everything—that it is only for me.”
“And you don’t love him?”
“Oh, no, no, no!”
The girl shivered as she spoke. There was a little pause, then Phillis said—
“How long has he been asking you to do this?”
“I don’t know,” Bice said, letting her hands drop wearily. “Ever since he brought us the bad news of Clive, I suppose. But it is in the last few days that he has said the most, and every day it seems to grow worse and worse. To-night I must tell him.”
Phillis took her hands in hers and looked into her face.
“You must tell him you will not marry him,” she said quietly.
The girl’s face flushed with sudden joy, then the colour faded quite away.
“Ah! you don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “So much I do know. Nothing that you can tell me can make wrong right. But perhaps you will let me hear more.”
“Wrong?” repeated Bice, looking at her. To her, poor child, it seemed that she was only shrinking from a duty, from the stern call to self-sacrifice. That there could be any higher principle, that no aim, whether we call it self-sacrifice, or self-surrender, or anything else, can sanctify one step taken out of the right road, she did not realise. All her life she had been brought up to think of right and wrong as having somewhat hazy outlines. As she told Clive’s story over again, perhaps she dwelt more on the fear of disgrace than on his sin. But she could not help noticing the look of pain which gathered in Phillis’s brown eyes. She stopped and sighed.
“Now you are shocked,” she said. “So was Mr Ibbetson. You think it is hopeless.”
“Wait a moment,” said Phillis, “let me think.”
They walked on silently beneath the trees; the grass near them was lilac with autumnal crocuses, a great crimson rose swung itself down from a pole.
“I wonder if I am right,” Phillis said, hesitatingly. “It seems to me there might be some mistake. Mr Trent may not know, and you have no right to think hard things of your brother without proof. Surely you will ask him, ask him directly.”
“But Oliver said—”
“Oh, never mind,” said Phillis, with a touch of impatience. “Tell him that you can’t follow his advice in that respect. Suppose it is not so bad as he imagines, I don’t see how you can expect Mr Masters to forgive your want of confidence. No, be open and write. Perhaps he can clear himself. At any rate do not marry without love. If Mr Trent is an honourable man, he will not attempt to take advantage of your anxiety.”
Phillis had not meant to say so much, but feeling strongly as to Mr Trent’s conduct, she could not abstain. An instinctive aversion had risen in her mind when she first saw him at Bologna, and this story of Bice’s awoke more doubts, not to use the harsher word suspicions, than she liked to acknowledge even to herself. At the best his conduct was both ungenerous and unmanly.
Bice caught at her advice, which seemed to lift off some of her perplexities. She was very grave and quiet all the rest of the afternoon, keeping away as much as she could from both Jack and Oliver, and looking every now and then wistfully at Phillis. If she had known what Phillis, too, was thinking, what other resolutions had been made on that day, when doubts and fears seemed to be flying about in the air!
They dined at the marble table on the terrace, and the picture, with the piled-up fruits, the dancing shadows, was as pretty as when Jack first saw it, though he had a dissatisfied feeling of change. Cartouche sat on a balustrade, and caught grapes when anyone threw them to him. Captain Leyton was full of glee at having got one of the gardeners to stand as a foreground for his sketch. Trent looked uneasily at Bice; she was quieter, and did not shrink from his glance as she had done in the morning, and he was not sure that it was a good sign.
She did not shrink either when they had watched the others drive away; on the contrary, she told Kitty she had something to say to Oliver, and herself led the way to a seat under the banksia trellis close to the pond, where yellow and white water lilies were still flowering. He watched her very closely. Her mood puzzled him, and he wanted her to be the first to speak. She did speak at last, without looking at him. “You had something to say?”
“No,” he said quietly, “nothing. You mistook my meaning, Bice. I have said my say, and that perhaps was more than was wise or prudent. But I do not regret it. I said it, and already have taken steps to carry out what I promised. I have nothing either to add or to retract. But you!—have you not tried me enough? Do you ever think of the hours of torture you are inflicting?—such hours as to-day for instance, when I have been driven mad with doubts and fears? Is it not you who have something to say?”
She was silent. A month ago it would have been impossible for her to have listened unmoved to such an appeal, but a month ago she had never loved, and love—unreturned—hardens the heart strangely against another lover. His words seemed to her unreal and almost absurd. He put out his hand and took hers, and she caught it away angrily.
“Let me go, Oliver!” she exclaimed.
“Why do you turn from me, why do you hesitate?” he went on, in a voice which shook with his efforts at control. “You cannot doubt my love, for I could hardly give you a greater proof than I am giving. Danger, risk of ruin, all would seem to me as absolutely nothing compared with one word from you; and though all I do I do for your sake, you will not speak that word, Bice. Is this generous?”
“I don’t wish you to run those risks.”
“Do you forget what you said? ‘At all risks.’ That was your request.”
“Then I was wrong, and you were wrong,” said the girl, more faintly.
“Perhaps. But the alternative?”
“I have an alternative. I shall write to Clive.” Oliver grew pale.
“You have, then, no more wish to save him?”
“He may not have done it, he may be able to explain, and it is shameful of us to condemn him unheard.”
“I warn you, Bice, that you will put it out of my power to save him.”
“We must run the risk,” she answered, in a low, resolute voice.
Oliver could scarcely restrain his passion. He was certain that Ibbetson was at the bottom of her determination, and it seemed as if all his plots, his hopes, were to be baffled by this man. He longed to charge her with it, to taunt her with Jack’s engagement, but he did not dare, for Bice’s was not a nature which could be safely goaded into resentment, and he feared the flash of her eyes and what it might tell him. He controlled himself.
“Write, then,” he said, “write at once. Clive will not acknowledge that anything is wrong.”
“We shall see.”
“And am I still to be your shuttlecock?” he said hoarsely. “Have pity, Bice, have pity! Such love as mine deserves some return—”
She interrupted him.
“It deserves to find love, I know, and that is what I have not got to give. I am very sorry, Oliver, only I must be true with you, at all costs.”
“You are rather late in your resolves,” he said, biting his lip until the blood sprang.
“I have thought and hoped,” she said, looking down, “that one day I might feel differently, and be able to give you what you wanted, if only out of gratitude to you for your kindness. I thought, perhaps, it was that you had taken me by surprise, that I was ignorant and inexperienced, and that my feelings would change.”
“You were right!” he cried vehemently. “Think so still, Bice, my darling, my own! You do not know, how should you? Marry me, and I will teach you to love me. I have no fear, no doubt.”
“But now I know,” she said, going on as if he had not spoken, “and it is all different. I can’t marry you, even to save Clive. I could not even if I had promised. Do not be sorry, Oliver, I am not worth it.”
“It is easy to say ‘Do not.’ Do you suppose our feelings are so under control that we can master them at pleasure?” he retorted with bitterness. “You let me hope, you hold the cup almost to my lips, and then tell me not to be sorry when it is dashed away. Who has been teaching you to play fast and loose, Bice? Who has shaken your faith in your friends? When will one of them do what I have done, what I am ready to do? Has your mother told you that she has borrowed money from me to pay her debts, because she did not doubt—”
He stopped. Bice had sprung up, pale, with flashing eyes.
“That is not true!” she cried.
“Is it not? Ask her.”
She looked at him as if she would pierce his soul. Alas, it is not always the most innocent souls which bear such looks without faltering! Her own eyes fell. “I will pay it,” she said in a low voice.
“That is folly.”
“I will pay it,” she repeated, this time angrily.
“Do so,” he said after a moment’s pause. And then he added, “but remember this. If your mother had had from me a hundred times as much she would not have done me as much harm as you will do me if you throw me over.”
Was it true? Had she indeed worked all this evil? Would it not be easier to yield as she had meant to do that morning? He was so persistent, he would not give her up. She hesitated, and then, strong and clear, Phillis’s words came back—“Do not marry him if you do not love him.” She looked him full in the face. “Let me pass,” she said, “I can give you no other answer.” He had read something of the struggle, and was bitterly disappointed, though his determined will gave up nothing of his intention.
“If you write to Clive, it had better be without delay,” he said.
“I’ll write to-morrow morning.” And then she turned and put out her hand. “Thank you for letting me write, Oliver.”
“I dare not advise you to build upon it, but you can try,” he said. “Yes, by all means try.”
The next morning, as Bice was passing through the hall, she met Trent.
“If you have any letters for the early post,” he said, “I will take them, I am going into Florence.”
“Oh, thank you very much. I had meant to send little ’Tista.”
“’Tista is wanted for the vintage, and is not an over-safe messenger. Is this all?”
“All. Thank you again. That letter is a weight off my mind. I am sure he will answer it.”
“I fancy not, but, as I said, one can but try. Nothing more? Rest in the garden, Bice, and do not go again to the vineyards. You look tired and pale. Such walks as yesterday do you no good.”
“Rest!” she repeated impatiently. “You talk as if one could turn all the thoughts out of one’s head whenever one liked. That might be rest.”
“I wish you would let me do your thinking for you.”
He spoke tenderly, and she turned suddenly and looked at him. He could not understand her look, which was at once inquiring and reproachful, and, indeed, at this time all her thoughts were in a tangle. Doubts, suspicions, generous impulses, womanly pride, womanly fears, seemed to shake her very soul, and drive it on one side and the other. Sometimes she felt as if she had not a friend in the world, as if the only haven open to her was one she loathed. Even with Phillis it was all a strange inexplicable problem. Phillis had brought her sharpest pangs, yet attracted her irresistibly. Phillis, too, was unhappy, of that she was certain; yet something about her, something which Bice felt without being able to explain, gave her a sense of rest and confidence. It was as if she had an anchor which must keep her from the tossing of such storms as were driving poor Bice here and there. Vague thoughts came floating about her, half prayers, half resolutions, feeble and fluttering, yet real and therefore not in vain.