“For you both. Promise.”
“I promise.”
The Sant’ Angelo gun boomed out, and all the church bells began to clang. Peppina stood still.
“I must go,” she said, “A rividerti.” She wanted to say that the Cianchetti could not have done so well for him, but she was afraid, and hurried away down the Venti Settembre. She swung along, her heart full of Cesare, and hot tears in her eyes. “He has so many enemies, this Englishman and all,” she cried vehemently, “and only me on his side. A pan of charcoal! Oh, it would kill me! What should I have done if the signora had not given me that money for the washing? Madonna santissima, I will carry a candle to thee at Sant’ Agostino this very day.” So she went on with her thoughts, a medley of passionate love, jealousy, and fear, until she reached the hotel and went upstairs. At the door of the Maxwell’s sala she paused. “I shall say I lost it,” she remarked cheerfully. “Madonna santissima, two candles!”
Chapter Eleven.
A couple of months passed without apparent change. To Wilbraham they had seemed to drag like lead, yet, looking back, their swiftness appalled him. The wedding would be after Easter, and now that the new year had come, it brought a date which had been remote, measurably nearer. He had gone through a bad fierce time of repulsion, of anger with his own amazing folly, with fate, with everything and everybody, with Sylvia worst of all. Then pride had come to his aid, and he determined resolutely to make the best of the situation. The strong pride of a very self-controlled man was able to do this more thoroughly than he had even hoped. He set his teeth now and then to avoid showing irritation at Sylvia’s futile remarks, but he always had succeeded in keeping under outward signs of impatience, and devoutly trusted that the power would never fail him. He was helped along by the girl’s own contentment. She asked so little! On the other hand this very trait sometimes annoyed him, for in the moments when the desire to break his bonds grew all but overpowering, he felt that the little he gave could not for a day have satisfied another woman.
What was really a sign of danger, if only he had recognised it, was, that in spite of his increasing dread of his marriage, he did not dislike his hours in the Porta Pinciana. Teresa, in her fear for the wreck of Sylvia’s happiness, told herself that she must take care he did not dislike them. She was not a vain woman. The failure of her marriage had knocked any belief in her own charms out of her, and left only an exaggerated conviction of the immense power of beauty. It never entered her head that a constant contrast between her quick, clever, and sympathetic talk and poor Sylvia’s platitudes might be perilous. She did not think of Wilbraham on her own account at all, only and entirely as affecting Sylvia, although she had liked him better since the day at Assisi. Once or twice she had looked critically at him, and said to herself that his face had gained something in losing an expression of cool superiority, which used to annoy her. He was not handsome—his chin was too square, his nose too thick, his hair too straight; but there was strength in every movement, and she was sure he might be trusted. She dwelt much on that quality, at times, when she looked anxiously at Sylvia. For she had her anxieties, sometimes trying to set them at rest for ever, by questioning the girl in a roundabout way.
“There’s nothing you want, Sylvia?”