“What is the matter?” he asked, astonished.
“It’s so good to be loved,” she answered. “No one has ever said such things to me before, and I’m so ridiculously happy.”
But as though the gods envied their brief joy, when they arrived at Rome, Herbert, exhausted by the journey, fell desperately ill. The weather was cold, rainy, dismal; and each day when he awoke, and the shutters were thrown back, Herbert looked eagerly at the sky, but seeing that it remained gray and cloudy, with a groan of despair turned his face to the wall. Bella, too, watched with aching heart for the sunshine, thinking it might bring him at least some measure of health, for she had given up all hope of permanent recovery. The doctor explained the condition of the lungs. Since Frank’s examination the left side, which before was whole, had become affected, and the disease seemed to progress with a most frightful rapidity.
But at length the weather changed, and the warm wind of February, that month of languor, blew softly over the old stones of Rome; the sky once again was blue with a colour more intense by reason of the fleecy clouds that swayed across its dome, whitely, with the grace of dancers. The Piazza di Spagna, upon which looked Herbert’s window, was brilliant with many flowers; the models in their dress of the Campagna, lounged about Bernini’s easy steps; and the savour of the country and the spring was wafted into the sick man’s room.
He grew better quickly; his spirits, of late very despondent, now became extravagantly cheerful, and hating Rome, the scene of his illness, he was convinced that it only needed change of place to complete his recovery. He insisted so vehemently that Bella should take him down to Naples that the doctor agreed it would be better to go, and therefore, as soon as he could be moved, they went further South.
They arrived in Naples no longer a pair of light-hearted children, but a middle-aged woman, haggard with anxiety, and a dying youth. Herbert’s condition betrayed itself in an entire loss of his old buoyancy, so that the new scenes among which he found himself aroused no new emotions. The churches of Naples, white and gold like a ballroom of the eighteenth century, fit places of worship to a generation whose faith was a flippant superstition, chilled his heart; the statues in the museum were but lifeless stones; and the view itself, the glorious crown of Italian scenery, left him indifferent, Herbert, whose enthusiasm had once been so facile, now, profoundly bored, remained listless at all he saw, and discovered in Naples only its squalor and its vicious brutality. But on the other hand a restless spirit seized him, so that he could not remain quietly where he was, and he desired passionately to travel still further afield. With an eager longing for the country which above all others—above Italy, even—had fired his imagination, he wished before he died to see Greece. Bella, fearing the exertion, sought to dissuade him, but for once found him resolute.
“It’s all very well for you,” he cried. “You have plenty time before you. But I have only now. Let me go to Athens, and then I shan’t feel that I have left unseen the whole of the beautiful world.”
“But think of the risk.”
“Let us enjoy the day. What does it matter if I die here, in Greece, or elsewhere? Let me see Athens, Bella. You don’t know what it means to me. Don’t you remember that photograph of the Acropolis I had in my room at Tercanbury? Every morning on waking I looked at it, and at night before blowing out my candle it was the last thing I saw. I know every stone of it already. I want to breathe the Attic air that the Greeks breathed; I want to look on Salamis and Marathon. Sometimes I longed for those places so enormously that it was physical pain. Don’t prevent me from carrying out my last wish. After that you can do what you like with me.”
There was such yearning in his voice and such despair that Bella, much as she dreaded the journey, could not resist. The doctor at Naples warned her that at any time the catastrophe might occur, and she could no longer conceal from herself the frightful ravage of the disease. Herbert, according to the course of his illness, was at times profoundly depressed, and at others, when the day was fine or he had slept well, convinced that soon he would entirely recover. He thought then that if he could only get rid of the cough which racked his chest, he might grow perfectly well; and it was Bella’s greatest torture to listen to his confident plans for the future. He wished to spend the summer at Vallombrosa among the green trees, and buying a guide-book to Spain, made out a tour for the following winter. With smiling countenance, with humorous banter, Bella was forced to discuss schemes which she knew Death would utterly frustrate.