A week later Sir Gilbert and Mr. Page set out for Italy.
It had never been the baronet’s practice to take his wife into his confidence about matters which, from his point of view, did not concern her, consequently he had kept his own counsel as far as Alec’s letter and its contents were concerned. It would be time enough to tell her after the all-important document should have been signed by which Alec renounced his birthright. He began to regard young Randolph, the present Lady Clare’s eldest son, with very different eyes from those with which he had hitherto looked upon the boy. A few more days and he would be the heir of Withington. The pity of it was that the title could not descend to him as well as the estates. That was a point as to which the law was manifestly to blame.
Lady Clare betrayed not the slightest interest as to the nature of the business which was taking her husband and Mr. Page all the way to Italy. So well did she play her part that no faintest suspicion entered Sir Gilbert’s mind that she had any knowledge of the existence of Alec’s letter, much less of the nature of its contents. She judged, and rightly, that her husband would not have been at the trouble to go to Italy and take his lawyer with him, unless he had agreed to accept the terms proposed by his eldest son. After all, then, the one great grievance of her life would cease to exist, and her darling Randolph would become his father’s heir, as he ought to have been all along! Only herself knew with what eager anxiety she awaited her husband’s return. Surely, surely, he would not be so cruel as to keep the good news from her an hour after it should be his to tell! He could not fail to know how happy it would make her.
The theory propounded by Mr. Page as to the motive which lay at the foundation of Alec’s letter to his father, was not very wide of the mark. Had it not been for a certain pair of brilliant black eyes, in all probability it would never have been written.
About six months before, in the course of his aimless wanderings Alec had found himself and his very limited luggage at Catanzaro, a small but romantically situated Calabrian town, a few miles inland from the Gulf of Squillace.
The place had pleased him and he had made up his mind to stay there awhile.
He had accordingly taken up his quarters at the principal osteria, kept by one Giuseppe Rispani. Alec lived very simply, and, of late, had learnt to confine his wants within narrow limits, so that his father’s allowance, conjointly with his own income of one hundred and eighty pounds a year, amply sufficed for all his needs.
Rispani was a widower with one son, who had lately left home for England in the hope of bettering his fortunes, and one daughter, Giovanna by name, at that time a beautiful girl of nineteen.
Rispani’s wife had been an Englishwoman, whom he had married for the sake of her little fortune of five hundred pounds, while she had married him for his beaux yeaux; for in early life the Italian had been a very handsome man, with a soft tongue and a persuasive manner which poor Miss Verinder had found it impossible to resist.
The Signora Rispani, who at one time had been a governess, and, later on, companion to a lady of rank, was a woman of considerable education and refinement. She took great pains with the tuition and bringing up of her daughter, and to her mother Giovanna owed it that she was almost as familiar with the English tongue as the Italian.