“Are there any grapes in particular the signorina would like for her friends?” he asked. “The biggest of all this year is Il Bordone.”
And then at a sign one of the men in the trees cut a branch or two with his sickle. Miss Preston began to demand particulars.
“The signora will see,” said the contadino, rather perplexed. “The women carry the grapes to the tubs; there is one close by which is just full.”
He was right. A girl had just brought the last load of long festooning branches to a tall wooden tub. She was cutting off the bunches with her sickle, and letting them drop among the others already piled high, a mass of beautiful colours. Then a man, standing by and leaning on a thick stick, began to thump and beat them down into a pulpy mass. Miss Preston was very much interested; Phillis turned away, she could not bear to look at all the beauty beaten out of shape. She strolled into a little grassy side path from which, out of the way, she could see the gay and busy scene. Two men passed her presently carrying the tub, suspended from a stick, to the ox-carts which stood, brilliant bits of colour, in the shade. Phillis was left quite to herself; every now and then she caught a glimpse of one of the party crossing an alley, moving here and there among the vines and the sweet changeful lights. She saw Jack and Bice together; he was bending down and speaking. The beauty of everything seemed to add to the pain in Phillis’s heart. If we want to describe pain we are inclined to throw its gloom upon all the surroundings, to paint the outward signs of sadness in greys and dim cheerless tones. But who knows whether to an aching heart the glow of sunshine and the fairness of nature do not bring the keenest sting of all?
Phillis’s pain was full of perplexity. She wanted to be sure what was right, what was best for Jack, and for all. Her nature was altogether true, simple, and free from the snare of self-torment, so that she was spared many doubts in her life; only at this time they seemed to gather about her like a mist. She knew little of the world. Mrs Thornton was her aunt, she had lived at Hetherton since she had been a child, and Mr Thornton was fond of her in his rough way, and had made out this plan of his with a good deal of satisfaction.
“Two disinterested young fools,” he had said to himself, chuckling, “or at any rate they think themselves so. Play them off against one another. See if that don’t bring them together.”
As it did.
Only it gave Jack the unjust impression that Phillis was swayed by the desire to keep her position, and left him quite unconscious that to her the threat of disinheriting him had been used. But, indeed, for her no threat was needed. Jack had been her hero from the time when she looked shyly at the big, fair-haired boy from the school-room window. It amazed her when he asked her to marry him, but she took his words with the simple trust which belonged to her character, and was quite content to be happy. Should she have done otherwise? she thought—looking back with a vague uneasiness. For, alas, she had begun to doubt, to wonder. In the long days of travelling together, in the letters he had written, something had forced itself upon her. Perhaps he had hardly cared it should be otherwise, hardly wished to profess more than the quiet liking he unquestionably felt, had no misgivings that she herself would desire more. At any rate she had reached Florence in some perplexity of mind, and by this time imagined that she had found the solution of her riddle.
It was curious how little Ibbetson knew of her true character. He believed her to be easily influenced by stronger wills, and, indeed, to require some such support. In reality her judgment was clear, and, once formed, no pain would turn her from what she felt to be the right course. There, sitting between the vines, she set herself to consider it. If Ibbetson did not love her, whether he loved another or not, it would be wrong for them to marry. No dreams of his or her inheritance must affect the question. No visions of self-sacrifice would be safe guides. She went to work honestly, asking—how earnestly!—for the “right judgment,” and she would not shrink though the answer came heavy with pain.
Phillis sat on, forgetting what was round her. The peasant girls looked with some wonder at the signorina who stayed there away from all her party. Presently Jack, who had missed her, came to search for her, a little vexed with her and with himself. But Phillis showed no displeasure, she only rose with a smile and told him that she had been resting, but that she would not be unsociable any longer.