So he was coming—to-morrow. The awful sense of desolation lifted slightly from her. A human being was travelling to her, was wanting to see her. To see her! She shuddered. Then fiercely she asked herself why she was afraid. She would not be afraid. She would trust in Robin. He was unlike other men. There had always been in him something that set him apart, a strangeness, a romance, a love of hidden things, a subtlety. If only he would still care for her, still feel towards her as he had felt, she could face the future, she thought. They might be apart. That did not matter. She had no thought of a close connection, of frequent intercourse even. She only wanted desperately, frantically, to know that someone who had loved her could love her still in spite of what had happened. If she could retain one deep affection she felt that she could live.
The morrow would convince her.
That night she did not sleep. She lay in bed and heard the water falling in the gorge, and when the dawn began to break she did a thing she had not done for a long time.
She got out of bed, knelt down and prayed—prayed to Him who had dealt terribly with her that He would be merciful when Robin came.
When it was daylight and the Italian maid knocked at her door she told her to get out a plain, dark dress. She did her hair herself with the utmost simplicity. That at least was still beautiful. Then she went down and walked in the high garden above the lake. The greyness had lifted and the sky was blue. The mellowness rather than the sadness of autumn was apparent, throned on the tall mountains whose woods were bathed in sunshine. All along the great old wall, that soared forty feet from the water, roses were climbing. Scarlet and white geraniums bloomed in discoloured ancient vases. Clumps of oleanders showed pink showers of blossoms. Tall bamboos reared their thin heads towards the tufted summits of palms that suggested Africa. Monstrous cypresses aspired, with a sort of haughty resignation, above their brother trees. The bees went to and fro. Flies circled and settled. Lizards glided across the warm stones and rustled into hiding among the ruddy fallen leaves. And always the white water sang in the gorge as it rushed towards the piazza of Casa Felice.
And Lady Holme tried to hope.
Yet, as she walked slowly to and fro amid the almost rank luxuriance of the garden, she was gnawed by a terrible anxiety. The dreadful humbleness, the shrinking cowardice of the unsightly human being invaded her. She strove to put them from her. She strove to call Robin’s own arguments and assertions to her aid. What she had been she still was in all essentials. Her self was unharmed, existed, could love, hate, be tender, be passionate as before. Viola was there still within her, the living spirit to which a name had been given when she was a little child. The talent was there which had spoken, which could still speak, through her voice. The beating heart was there which could still speak through her actions. The mysteries of the soul still pursued their secret courses within her, like far-off subterranean streams. The essential part of her remained as it had been. Only a little outside bit of a framework had been twisted awry. Could that matter very much? Had she not perhaps been morbid in her despair?
She determined to take courage. She told herself that if she allowed this dreadful, invading humbleness way in her she would lose all power to dominate another by showing that she had ceased to dominate herself. If she met Robin in fear and trembling she would actually teach him to despise her. If she showed that she thought herself changed, horrible, he would inevitably catch her thought and turn it to her own destruction. Men despise those who despise themselves. She knew that, and she argued with herself, fought with herself. If Robin loved the angel; surely he could still love. For if there were an angel within her it had not been harmed. And she leaned on the stone wall and prayed again while the roses touched her altered face.
It seemed to her then that courage was sent to her. She felt less terrified of what was before her, as if something had risen up within her upon which she could lean, as if her soul began to support the trembling, craven thing that would betray her, began to teach it how to be still.
She did not feel happy, but she felt less desperately miserable than she had felt since the accident.