Sylvia left money for the funeral; there was nothing more to be done. In the morning twilight she went down the foul stairs and back to the carriage that seemed now to smell of death.
When she arrived at the station a great commotion was taking place on the platform, and Mrs. Gainsborough appeared, surrounded by a gesticulating crowd of porters, officials, and passengers.
“Sylvia! Well, I’m glad you’ve got here at last. She’s gone. He’s whisked her away. And can I explain what I want to these Spanish idiots? No. I’ve shouted as hard as I could, and they won’t understand. They won’t understand me. They don’t want to understand, that’s my opinion.”
With which Mrs. Gainsborough sailed off again along the platform, followed by the crowd, which, in addition to arguing with her occasionally, detached from itself small groups to argue furiously with one another about her incomprehensible desire. Sylvia extricated their luggage from the compartment, for the train to go to Algeciras without them; then she extricated Mrs. Gainsborough from the general noise and confusion that was now being added to by loud whistles from the impatient train.
“I was sitting in one corner and Concertina was sitting in the other,” Mrs. Gainsborough explained to Sylvia. “I’d just bobbed down to pick up me glasses when I saw that Shoushou beckoning to her, though for the moment I thought it was the porter. Concertina went as white as paper. ‘Here,’ I hollered, ‘what are you doing?’ and with that I got up from me place and tripped over your luggage and came down bump on the foot-warmer. When I got up she was gone. Depend upon it, he’d been watching out for her at the station. As soon as I could get out of the carriage I started hollering, and every one in the station came running round to see what was the matter. I tried to tell them about Shoushou, and they pretended—for don’t you tell me I can’t make myself understood if people want to understand—they pretended they thought I was asking whether I was in the right train. When I hollered ‘Shoushou,’ they all started to holler ‘Shoushou’ as well and nod their heads and point to the train. I got that aggravated, I could have killed them. And then what do you think they did? Insulting I call it. Why, they all began to laugh and beckon to me, and I, thinking that at last they’d found out me meaning, went and followed them like a silly juggins, and where do you think they took me? To the moojeries! what we call the ladies’ cloak-room. Well, that did make me annoyed, and I started in to tell them what I thought of such behavior. ‘I don’t want the moojeries,’ I shouted. Then I tried to explain by illustrating my meaning. I took hold of some young fellow and said ‘Shoushou,’ and then I caught hold of a hussy that was laughing, intending to make her Concertina, but the silly little bitch—really it’s enough to make any one a bit unrefined—she thought I was going to hit her and started in to scream the station-roof down. After that you came along, but of course it was too late.”
Sylvia was very much upset by the death of Rodrigo and the loss of Concetta, but she could not help laughing over Mrs. Gainsborough’s woes.
“It’s all very well for you to sit there and laugh, you great tomboy, but it’s your own fault. If you’d have let me bring Mr. Linthicum, this wouldn’t have happened. What could I do? I felt like a missionary among a lot of cannibals.”
In the end Sylvia was glad to avail herself of the widower’s help, but after two days even he had to admit himself beaten.
“And if he says they can’t be found,” said Mrs. Gainsborough, “depend upon it they can’t be found—not by anybody. That man’s as persistent as a beggar. When he came up to me this morning and cleared his throat and shook his head, well, then I knew we might as well give up hope.”
Sylvia stayed on for a while in Granada because she did not like to admit defeat, but the sadness of Rodrigo’s death and the disappointment over Concetta had spoiled the place for her. Here was another of these incomplete achievements that made life so bitter. She had thought for a brief space that the solitary and frightened child would provide the aim that she had so ardently desired. Concetta had responded so sweetly to her protection, had chattered with such delight of going to England and of becoming English; now she had been dragged back. El destino! Rodrigo’s death did not affect her so much as the loss of that fair, slim child. His short life had been complete; he was spared forever from disillusionment, and by existing in her memory eternally young and joyous and wise he had spared his Señorita also the pain of disillusionment, just as when he was alive he had always assumed the little bothers upon his shoulders, the little bothers of every-day existence. His was a perfect episode, but Concetta disturbed her with vain regrets and speculations. Yet in a way Concetta had helped her, for she knew now that she held in her heart an inviolate treasure of love. Never again could anything happen like those three months after she left Philip; never again could she treat any one with the scorn she had treated Michael; never again could she take such a cynical attitude toward any one as that she had taken toward Lily. All these disappointments added a little gold tried by fire to the treasure in her heart, and firmly she must believe that it was being stored to some purpose soon to be showered prodigally, ah, how prodigally, upon somebody.