Where Angels Fear To Tread

A house was finally taken for her at Sawston, and there for three years she lived with Irma, continually subject to the refining influences of her late husband's family. During one of her rare Yorkshire visits trouble began again. Lilia confided to a friend that she liked a Mr Kingcroft extremely, but that she was not exactly engaged to him. The news came round to Mrs Herriton, who at once wrote, begging for information, and pointing out that Lilia must either be engaged or not, since no intermediate state existed. It was a good letter, and flurried Lilia extremely. She left Mr Kingcroft without even the pressure of a rescue-party. She cried a great deal on her return to Sawston, and said she was very sorry. Mrs Herriton took the opportunity of speaking more seriously about the duties of widowhood and motherhood than she had ever done before. But somehow things never went easily after. Lilia would not settle down in her place among Sawston matrons. She was a bad house-keeper, always in the throes of some domestic crisis, which Mrs Herriton, who kept her servants for years, had to step across and adjust. She let Irma stop away from school for insufficient reasons, and she allowed her to wear rings. She learned to bicycle, for the purpose of waking the place up, and coasted down the High Street one Sunday evening, falling off at the turn by the church. If she had not been a relative, it would have been entertaining. But even Philip, who in theory loved outraging English conventions, rose to the occasion, and gave her a talking which she remembered to her dying day. It was just then, too, that they discovered that she still allowed Mr Kingcroft to write to her as a gentleman friend', and to send presents to Irma. Philip thought of Italy, and the situation was saved. Caroline, charming sober Caroline Abbott, who lived two turnings away, was seeking a companion for a year's travel. Lilia gave up her house, sold half her furniture, left the other half and Irma with Mrs Herriton, and had now departed, amid universal approval, for a change of scene. She wrote to them frequently during the winter — more frequently than she wrote to her mother. Her letters were always prosperous. Florence she found perfectly sweet, Naples a dream, but very whiffy. In Rome one had simply to sit still and feel. Philip, however, declared that she was improving. He was particularly gratified when in the early spring she began to visit the smaller towns that he had recommended. 'In a place like this,' she wrote, 'one really does feel in the heart of things, and off the beaten track. Looking out of a Gothic window every morning, it seems impossible that the Middle Ages have passed away.' The letter was from Monteriano, and concluded with a not un-successful description of the wonderful little town. `It is something that she is contented,' said Mrs Herriton. 'But no one could live three months with Caroline Abbott and not be the better for it.' Just then Irma came in from school, and she read her mother's letter to her, carefully correcting any grammatical errors, for she was a loyal supporter of parental authority. Irma listened politely, but soon changed the subject to hockey, in which her whole being was absorbed. They were to vote for colours that afternoon — yellow and white or yellow and green. What did her grandmother think? Of course Mrs Herriton had an opinion, which she sedately expounded, in spite of Harriet, who said that colours were un-necessary for children, and of Philip, who said that they were ugly. She was getting proud of Irma, who had certainly greatly improved, and could no longer be called that most appalling of things — a vulgar child. She was anxious to form her before her mother returned.

and

"But pardon me, Miss Abbott; of most of your conduct you
have given a description rather than an explanation."
He had fairly caught her, and expected that she would
gape and collapse. To his surprise she answered with some
spirit, "An explanation may bore you, Mr. Herriton: it drags
in other topics."
"Oh, never mind."
"I hated Sawston, you see."
He was delighted. "So did and do I. That's splendid.
Go on."
"I hated the idleness, the stupidity, the
respectability, the petty unselfishness."
"Petty selfishness," he corrected. Sawston psychology
had long been his specialty.
"Petty unselfishness," she repeated. "I had got an idea
that every one here spent their lives in making little
sacrifices for objects they didn't care for, to please
people they didn't love; that they never learnt to be
sincere--and, what's as bad, never learnt how to enjoy
themselves. That's what I thought--what I thought at Monteriano."

and

"Is the young person mad?" burst out Philip as soon as
she had departed. "Never in my life have I seen such
colossal impertinence. She ought to be well smacked, and
sent back to Sunday-school."
His mother said nothing.
"But don't you see--she is practically threatening us?
You can't put her off with Mrs. Theobald; she knows as well
as we do that she is a nonentity. If we don't do anything
she's going to raise a scandal--that we neglect our
relatives, &c., which is, of course, a lie. Still she'll
say it. Oh, dear, sweet, sober Caroline Abbott has a screw
loose! We knew it at Monteriano. I had my suspicions last
year one day in the train; and here it is again. The young
person is mad."
She still said nothing.
"Shall I go round at once and give it her well? I'd
really enjoy it."
In a low, serious voice--such a voice as she had not used
to him for months--Mrs. Herriton said, "Caroline has been
extremely impertinent. Yet there may be something in what
she says after all. Ought the child to grow up in that
place--and with that father?"
Philip started and shuddered. He saw that his mother
was not sincere. Her insincerity to others had amused him,
but it was disheartening when used against himself.
"Let us admit frankly," she continued, "that after all
we may have responsibilities."
"I don't understand you, Mother. You are turning
absolutely round. What are you up to?"
In one moment an impenetrable barrier had been erected
between them. They were no longer in smiling confidence.
Mrs. Herriton was off on tactics of her own--tactics which
might be beyond or beneath him.
His remark offended her. "Up to? I am wondering
whether I ought not to adopt the child. Is that
sufficiently plain?"
"And this is the result of half-a-dozen idiocies of Miss
Abbott?"
"It is. I repeat, she has been extremely impertinent.
None the less she is showing me my duty. If I can rescue
poor Lilia's baby from that horrible man, who will bring it
up either as Papist or infidel--who will certainly bring it
up to be vicious--I shall do it."
"You talk like Harriet."
"And why not?" said she, flushing at what she knew to be
an insult. "Say, if you choose, that I talk like Irma.
That child has seen the thing more clearly than any of us.
She longs for her little brother. She shall have him. I
don't care if I am impulsive."
He was sure that she was not impulsive, but did not dare
to say so. Her ability frightened him. All his life he had
been her puppet. She let him worship Italy, and reform
Sawston--just as she had let Harriet be Low Church. She had
let him talk as much as he liked. But when she wanted a
thing she always got it.
And though she was frightening him, she did not inspire
him with reverence. Her life, he saw, was without meaning.
To what purpose was her diplomacy, her insincerity, her
continued repression of vigour? Did they make any one
better or happier? Did they even bring happiness to
herself? Harriet with her gloomy peevish creed, Lilia with
her clutches after pleasure, were after all more divine than
this well-ordered, active, useless machine.
Now that his mother had wounded his vanity he could
criticize her thus. But he could not rebel. To the end of
his days he could probably go on doing what she wanted. He
watched with a cold interest the duel between her and Miss
Abbott. Mrs. Herriton's policy only appeared gradually. It
was to prevent Miss Abbott interfering with the child at all
costs, and if possible to prevent her at a small cost.
Pride was the only solid element in her disposition. She
could not bear to seem less charitable than others.
and
"Absurd nonsense they talk about the heat," said Philip,
as they drove from the station. "Supposing we were here for
pleasure, what could be more pleasurable than this?"
"Did you hear, though, they are remarking on the cold?"
said Harriet nervously. "I should never have thought it cold."
And on the second day the heat struck them, like a hand
laid over the mouth, just as they were walking to see the
tomb of Juliet. From that moment everything went wrong.
They fled from Verona. Harriet's sketch-book was stolen,
and the bottle of ammonia in her trunk burst over her
prayer-book, so that purple patches appeared on all her
clothes. Then, as she was going through Mantua at four in
the morning, Philip made her look out of the window because
it was Virgil's birthplace, and a smut flew in her eye, and
Harriet with a smut in her eye was notorious. At Bologna
they stopped twenty-four hours to rest. It was a FESTA, and
children blew bladder whistles night and day. "What a
religion!" said Harriet. The hotel smelt, two puppies were
asleep on her bed, and her bedroom window looked into a
belfry, which saluted her slumbering form every quarter of
an hour. Philip left his walking-stick, his socks, and the
Baedeker at Bologna; she only left her sponge-bag. Next day
they crossed the Apennines with a train-sick child and a hot
lady, who told them that never, never before had she sweated
so profusely. "Foreigners are a filthy nation," said
Harriet. "I don't care if there are tunnels; open the
windows. "He obeyed, and she got another smut in her eye.
Nor did Florence improve matters. Eating, walking, even a
cross word would bathe them both in boiling water. Philip,
who was slighter of build, and less conscientious, suffered
less. But Harriet had never been to Florence, and between
the hours of eight and eleven she crawled like a wounded
creature through the streets, and swooned before various
masterpieces of art. It was an irritable couple who took
tickets to Monteriano.
and
She kept her promise, and never opened her lips all the
rest of the way. But her eyes glowed with anger and
resolution. For she was a straight, brave woman, as well as
a peevish one.
Philip acknowledged her reproof to be true. He did not
care about the baby one straw. Nevertheless, he meant to do
his duty, and he was fairly confident of success. If Gino
would have sold his wife for a thousand lire, for how much
less would he not sell his child? It was just a commercial
transaction. Why should it interfere with other things?
His eyes were fixed on the towers again, just as they had
been fixed when he drove with Miss Abbott. But this time
his thoughts were pleasanter, for he had no such grave
business on his mind. It was in the spirit of the
cultivated tourist that he approached his destination.
One of the towers, rough as any other, was topped by a
cross--the tower of the Collegiate Church of Santa Deodata.
She was a holy maiden of the Dark Ages, the city's patron
saint, and sweetness and barbarity mingle strangely in her
story. So holy was she that all her life she lay upon her
back in the house of her mother, refusing to eat, refusing
to play, refusing to work. The devil, envious of such
sanctity, tempted her in various ways. He dangled grapes
above her, he showed her fascinating toys, he pushed soft
pillows beneath her aching head. When all proved vain he
tripped up the mother and flung her downstairs before her
very eyes. But so holy was the saint that she never picked
her mother up, but lay upon her back through all, and thus
assured her throne in Paradise. She was only fifteen when
she died, which shows how much is within the reach of any
school-girl. Those who think her life was unpractical need
only think of the victories upon Poggibonsi, San Gemignano,
Volterra, Siena itself--all gained through the invocation of
her name; they need only look at the church which rose over
her grave. The grand schemes for a marble facade were never
carried out, and it is brown unfinished stone until this
day. But for the inside Giotto was summoned to decorate the
walls of the nave. Giotto came--that is to say, he did not
come, German research having decisively proved--but at all
events the nave is covered with frescoes, and so are two
chapels in the left transept, and the arch into the choir,
and there are scraps in the choir itself. There the
decoration stopped, till in the full spring of the
Renaissance a great painter came to pay a few weeks' visit
to his friend the Lord of Monteriano. In the intervals
between the banquets and the discussions on Latin etymology
and the dancing, he would stroll over to the church, and
there in the fifth chapel to the right he has painted two
frescoes of the death and burial of Santa Deodata. That is
why Baedeker gives the place a star.
Santa Deodata was better company than Harriet, and she
kept Philip in a pleasant dream until the legno drew up at
the hotel. Every one there was asleep, for it was still the
hour when only idiots were moving. There were not even any
beggars about. The cabman put their bags down in the
passage--they had left heavy luggage at the station--and
strolled about till he came on the landlady's room and woke
her, and sent her to them.