“We will save the peas to the last; they are the greatest fun,” said Mrs. Herriton, who had the gift of making work a treat. She and her elderly daughter always got on very well, though they had not a great deal in common. Harriet's education had been almost too successful. As Philip once said, she had “bolted all the cardinal virtues and couldn't digest them.” Though pious and patriotic, and a great moral asset for the house, she lacked that pliancy and tact which her mother so much valued, and had expected her to pick up for herself. Harriet, if she had been allowed, would have driven Lilia to an open rupture, and, what was worse, she would have done the same to Philip two years before, when he returned full of passion for Italy, and ridiculing Sawston and its ways.
“It's a shame, Mother!” she had cried. “Philip laughs at everything—the Book Club, the Debating Society, the Progressive Whist, the bazaars. People won't like it. We have our reputation. A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
Mrs. Herriton replied in the memorable words, “Let Philip say what he likes, and he will let us do what we like.” And Harriet had acquiesced.
They sowed the duller vegetables first, and a pleasant feeling of righteous fatigue stole over them as they addressed themselves to the peas. Harriet stretched a string to guide the row straight, and Mrs. Herriton scratched a furrow with a pointed stick. At the end of it she looked at her watch.
“It's twelve! The second post's in. Run and see if there are any letters.”
Harriet did not want to go. “Let's finish the peas. There won't be any letters.”
“No, dear; please go. I'll sow the peas, but you shall cover them up—and mind the birds don't see 'em!”
Mrs. Herriton was very careful to let those peas trickle evenly from her hand, and at the end of the row she was conscious that she had never sown better. They were expensive too.
“Actually old Mrs. Theobald!” said Harriet, returning.
“Read me the letter. My hands are dirty. How intolerable the crested paper is.”
Harriet opened the envelope.
“I don't understand,” she said; “it doesn't make sense.”
“Her letters never did.”
“But it must be sillier than usual,” said Harriet, and her voice began to quaver. “Look here, read it, Mother; I can't make head or tail.”
Mrs. Herriton took the letter indulgently. “What is the difficulty?” she said after a long pause. “What is it that puzzles you in this letter?”
“The meaning—” faltered Harriet. The sparrows hopped nearer and began to eye the peas.
“The meaning is quite clear—Lilia is engaged to be married. Don't cry, dear; please me by not crying—don't talk at all. It's more than I could bear. She is going to marry some one she has met in a hotel. Take the letter and read for yourself.” Suddenly she broke down over what might seem a small point. “How dare she not tell me direct! How dare she write first to Yorkshire! Pray, am I to hear through Mrs. Theobald—a patronizing, insolent letter like this? Have I no claim at all? Bear witness, dear”—she choked with passion—“bear witness that for this I'll never forgive her!”
“Oh, what is to be done?” moaned Harriet. “What is to be done?”
“This first!” She tore the letter into little pieces and scattered it over the mould. “Next, a telegram for Lilia! No! a telegram for Miss Caroline Abbott. She, too, has something to explain.”
“Oh, what is to be done?” repeated Harriet, as she followed her mother to the house. She was helpless before such effrontery. What awful thing—what awful person had come to Lilia? “Some one in the hotel.” The letter only said that. What kind of person? A gentleman? An Englishman? The letter did not say.
“Wire reason of stay at Monteriano. Strange rumours,” read Mrs. Herriton, and addressed the telegram to Abbott, Stella d'Italia, Monteriano, Italy. “If there is an office there,” she added, “we might get an answer this evening. Since Philip is back at seven, and the eight-fifteen catches the midnight boat at Dover—Harriet, when you go with this, get 100 pounds in 5 pound notes at the bank.”
“Go, dear, at once; do not talk. I see Irma coming back; go quickly.... Well, Irma dear, and whose team are you in this afternoon—Miss Edith's or Miss May's?”
But as soon as she had behaved as usual to her grand-daughter, she went to the library and took out the large atlas, for she wanted to know about Monteriano. The name was in the smallest print, in the midst of a woolly-brown tangle of hills which were called the “Sub-Apennines.” It was not so very far from Siena, which she had learnt at school. Past it there wandered a thin black line, notched at intervals like a saw, and she knew that this was a railway. But the map left a good deal to imagination, and she had not got any. She looked up the place in “Childe Harold,” but Byron had not been there. Nor did Mark Twain visit it in the “Tramp Abroad.” The resources of literature were exhausted: she must wait till Philip came home. And the thought of Philip made her try Philip's room, and there she found “Central Italy,” by Baedeker, and opened it for the first time in her life and read in it as follows:—
MONTERIANO (pop. 4800). Hotels: Stella d'Italia, moderate only; Globo, dirty. * Caffe Garibaldi. Post and Telegraph office in Corso Vittorio Emmanuele, next to theatre. Photographs at Seghena's (cheaper in Florence). Diligence (1 lira) meets principal trains.
Chief attractions (2-3 hours): Santa Deodata, Palazzo Pubblico, Sant' Agostino, Santa Caterina, Sant' Ambrogio, Palazzo Capocchi. Guide (2 lire) unnecessary. A walk round the Walls should on no account be omitted. The view from the Rocca (small gratuity) is finest at sunset.
History: Monteriano, the Mons Rianus of Antiquity, whose Ghibelline tendencies are noted by Dante (Purg. xx.), definitely emancipated itself from Poggibonsi in 1261. Hence the distich, “POGGIBONIZZI, FAUI IN LA, CHE MONTERIANO SI FA CITTA!” till recently enscribed over the Siena gate. It remained independent till 1530, when it was sacked by the Papal troops and became part of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. It is now of small importance, and seat of the district prison. The inhabitants are still noted for their agreeable manners.
- - - - -
The traveller will proceed direct from the Siena gate to the Collegiate Church of Santa Deodata, and inspect (5th chapel on right) the charming * Frescoes....
Mrs. Herriton did not proceed. She was not one to detect the hidden charms of Baedeker. Some of the information seemed to her unnecessary, all of it was dull. Whereas Philip could never read “The view from the Rocca (small gratuity) is finest at sunset” without a catching at the heart. Restoring the book to its place, she went downstairs, and looked up and down the asphalt paths for her daughter. She saw her at last, two turnings away, vainly trying to shake off Mr. Abbott, Miss Caroline Abbott's father. Harriet was always unfortunate. At last she returned, hot, agitated, crackling with bank-notes, and Irma bounced to greet her, and trod heavily on her corn.
“Your feet grow larger every day,” said the agonized Harriet, and gave her niece a violent push. Then Irma cried, and Mrs. Herriton was annoyed with Harriet for betraying irritation. Lunch was nasty; and during pudding news arrived that the cook, by sheer dexterity, had broken a very vital knob off the kitchen-range. “It is too bad,” said Mrs. Herriton. Irma said it was three bad, and was told not to be rude. After lunch Harriet would get out Baedeker, and read in injured tones about Monteriano, the Mons Rianus of Antiquity, till her mother stopped her.
“It's ridiculous to read, dear. She's not trying to marry any one in the place. Some tourist, obviously, who's stopping in the hotel. The place has nothing to do with it at all.”