Speaking thus, he crossed to a side table where were pen and ink, and having extracted his cheque book from his breast pocket, he proceeded with the deliberation of old age to fill up a cheque for thirty guineas. Giovanna rose as he recrossed the room. She understood that the interview was at an end.
“Here is something towards defraying the expenses of your journey,” he said as he pressed the cheque into her hand. “I trust that you will find your aged relative much improved by the time you reach her and that she may be spared to you for several years to come. Should you wish to see Lewis before setting out, as I presume you will, you will find him at the vicarage, which you will drive past on your way home. We shall miss you greatly and shall hope to see you again as speedily as may be. And, by the way, will you inform Mrs. Tew, with my compliments, that during your unavoidable absence we shall expect her at the Chase as usual.”
Sir Gilbert escorted Giovanna to the door, where her brougham was waiting. As they shook hands and bade each other adieu no slightest prevision was in the mind of either that, as far as this world was concerned, it was their final farewell. For, like so many of us, they were the slaves of events, already in process of evolution, of which they had no cognisance and in the bringing about of which they had no share. They never met again.
Giovanna did not fail to deliver Sir Gilbert’s message to Mrs. Tew, adding, “And of course the brougham will be wholly at your disposal while I am away.”
Tears came into the little lady’s eyes. “Both you and Sir Gilbert are most kind,” she said, “and I am at a loss how to thank you sufficiently.”
There had been no thought or intention on Giovanna’s part of taking either Mrs. Tew or Lucille with her to Italy, and although, the moment her oversight was made patent to her, she hastened to assure Sir Gilbert that she had all along meant her maid to accompany her, the statement had merely emanated from her on the spur of the moment as being the only way in which she could extricate herself from the difficulty. Putting aside the additional expense to which she would have been put, which she felt she could ill afford, there existed other and more cogent reasons why neither Lucille nor anyone else who knew her as Sir Gilbert Clare’s daughter-in-law should accompany her to Catanzaro. For one thing, certain of her relatives on her father’s side were little removed above the rank of peasants, while none of them were of a kind that would have reflected credit on her new position. Further, to none of them, for certain prudential reasons, had the secret of that position been divulged. Nobody at Catanzaro, when she should reappear among them, would know her as other than the daughter of the late Giuseppe Rispani, landlord of the Golden Fig, who, because she had the misfortune to have an Englishwoman for her mother, had chosen to take up her abode in that mother’s native country. It was plainly imperative that on no account must Lucille be allowed to keep her company on her journey; but, for all that, after what she had told Sir Gilbert, it would not do to leave the girl behind at Maylings.
The letter from Catanzaro had, in the first instance, been addressed to Captain Verinder’s lodgings, and had been reposted by him to Vanna, who now telegraphed to her uncle that she should leave Mapleford by a certain train, and requested him to meet her at the London terminus, which he accordingly did. Taking him out of earshot of her maid, Vanna in very few words put him in possession of the facts of the case. He quite agreed with her that her journey must be undertaken alone. So presently the girl was given half-a-sovereign and told that she could go back to her parents; in other words, take a holiday till she should hear from Captain Verinder, and that meanwhile her wages would go on as usual. It was an arrangement which suited Lucille to a nicety. Then Captain Verinder escorted his niece from one terminus to the other, and a little later saw her off by the Continental night mail.
But there were certain features in connection with Giovanna’s proposed visit to Catanzaro which she had not deemed it advisable to reveal to anyone. The fact was that old Signora Rispani was quite a wealthy person for one in her station of life, and Vanna, who had always been her favourite granddaughter, was drawn to her death-bed more by the hope of inheriting, if not the whole, then a very considerable portion of her money, than by any real affection which she entertained for the old lady. In telling Sir Gilbert that her grandmother had expressed a strong desire to see her she had stated more than she was warranted in doing. In reality it was the signora’s medical attendant who, in accordance with an arrangement Giovanna had made with him before coming to England, had informed her by letter of her grandmother’s critical condition. It will be enough to state here that the signora held out for several weeks after her granddaughter’s arrival, so that it was not till towards the middle of October that Mrs. Clare, richer by some hundreds of pounds than she had been on her arrival, once more set her face Englandwards, with a devout hope in her heart that she should never be under the necessity of setting eyes on Catanzaro or any of its inhabitants again.
But many strange things had happened while she had been away.