Part 8 (1/2)

”But these temples are--are rather different. I was saying to our neighbor here that she really ought on no account to miss going down to Paestum,” the fresh-faced Englishwoman continued, addressing her husband, who sat next to her on the right, for the moment very busy with his peas (which were good, but a little oily). ”The drive is not difficult. And we found it most interesting.”

”Interesting? It may well be interesting; finest Greek remains outside of Athens,” answered the husband, a portly Warwicks.h.i.+re vicar. He bent forward a little to glance past his wife at this ignorer of temples at her other hand. ”American,” he said to himself, and returned to his peas.

The friendly vicaress offered a few words more the next day. Coming in from her walk, in her stout shoes, and broad straw hat garnished with white muslin, she was entering the inn by the back door, when she espied her neighbor of the dinner-table sitting near by on a bench. There was nothing to see but a paling fence; she was unoccupied, unless a basket with Souvenir de Lucerne on one side, and a flat bouquet of artificial flowers on the other, represented occupation.

”Do you prefer this to the garden in front?” the English woman asked, in some surprise.

”Yes, I think I do.”

”I must differ from you, then, because there we have the sea, you know; 'tis such a pretty view.”

”I don't know as I care about the sea; it's all water--nothing to look at.”

”Ah! I dare say it makes you ill. We had a very nasty day when we crossed from Folkestone.”

”No; it ain't that exactly. I sit here because I like ter see the things grow,” hazarded the American, timidly, as if she felt that some explanation was expected.

”The things?”

”Yes, in there.” (She pointed to the paling fence.) ”There's peas, and asparagus, and beans, and some sorts I don't know; you wouldn't believe how they do push up, day after day.”

”Ah, indeed! I dare say they do,” the Englishwoman answered, a little bewildered, looking at the lines of green behind the palings.

”Her name is Ash, Azubah Ash--fancy!” she said to her husband, later. ”I saw it written on a Swiss basket in which she keeps her crewel-work. She is extremely odd. She has no maid, yet she wears those very good diamonds; and she always appears in that Paris gown of rich black silk--the very richest quality, I a.s.sure you, Augustas: she wears it and the diamonds at breakfast. She has spoken of a son, but apparently he never turns up. And she spends all her time on a bench behind the house watching the beans grow.”

”I should think she would bore herself to extinction,” said the easy-going vicar.

”I dare say she _is_ having rather a hard time of it, she is so _bornee_. I would offer her a book, but I don't think she ever reads.

And when I told her that I should be very pleased to show her some of the pretty walks about here, she said that she never walked. She must be sadly lonely, poor thing!”

But Mrs. Ash was not lonely; or, if she was, she did not know the name of her malady. The comings and goings of her son were without doubt very uncertain; but the mother had been born among people who believe that the ”men-folks” of a family have an existence apart from that of mothers and sisters, and that it is right that they should have it. Her son, who never went himself to a public table, had taken it for granted that his mother would prefer to have her meals served privately in one of the four large rooms which he had engaged for her at the inn.

”I think I like it better in the big dining-room, John,” Mrs. Ash had replied. She did not tell him that she found it less difficult to eat her dinner when the attention of the waiter was distracted by the necessity of attending to the wants of ten persons than when his gaze was concentrated upon her solitary knife and fork alone.

John Ash was fond of his mother. It did not occur to him that this nomad life abroad was causing her any suffering. Her shyness, her dread of being looked at, her dread of foreign servants, he did not fully see, because when he was present she controlled them; when he was present, also, in a great measure, they disappeared. He knew that she would not have had one moment's content had he left her behind him, even if he had left her in the finest house his money could purchase; so he took her with him, and travelled slowly, for her sake, making no journeys that she could not make, sending forward to engage the best rooms for her at the inns where he intended to stop.

That he had not taken her to Paestum was not an evidence of neglect.

During the first months of their wanderings he had been at pains to take her everywhere he had thought that she would enjoy it. But Mrs. Ash had enjoyed nothing--save the going about on her son's arm. If he left her alone amid the most exquisite scenery in the world, she did not even see the scenery; she thought a dusty jaunt in a horse-car ”very pleasant” if John was there. So at last John gave her his simple presence often, but troubled her with descriptions and excursions no more.

Dumb, shy, hopelessly out of her element as she was, this mother had, on the whole, enjoyed her two years abroad. The reason was found in the fact that she could say to herself, or rather could hope to herself, that John was more ”steady” over here.

The rustic term covered much--the days and the nights when John had not been ”steady.”

These six weeks at Salerno particularly had been a season of blessed repose to Azubah Ash; the days had gone by so peacefully that life had become almost comfortable to her again, in spite of the ordeal of dinner. She had even been beguiled into thinking a little of the future--of the farm she should like to have some day, with fruit and cream and vegetables--yes, especially vegetables; and she dreamed of an old pleasure of her youth, that of hunting for little round artichokes in the cool brown earth. John had been contented all the time, and his mood had been very tranquil. His mother liked this much better than high spirits. There was an element sometimes in John's high spirits that had made her tremble.

But on the day succeeding that last ride with Mrs. Graham, when they had dismounted and walked down to the sh.o.r.e, John had come back to the inn with a darkened face. The dark mood had lasted now for ten days. His mother began to lead her old sleepless, restless life again. Her awkward crochet-needle had stopped of itself; she went no more to her bench beside the asparagus. Instead, she remained in her room--her four rooms--every now and then peeping anxiously through the blinds. Nothing happened--so any one would have said; the sea continued blue and misty, the sky blue and clear; every one came and went as usual in the divine weather of the Italian spring. But John Ash's mother had, to use an old expression, her heart in her mouth all the time.

It choked her, and she gave up going to the _table d'hote_; she let her son suppose that the meal was served in her sitting-room, but in reality she took no dinner at all. When he came in she was always there, always carefully dressed in the black silk whose rich texture the vicar's wife had noticed, with the ”very good” diamonds fastening her collar and on her thin hands. She made a constant effort that her son should notice no change in her.

Azubah Ash had a gaunt frame with large bones; her chest was hollow, and she stooped a little as she walked. Yet, looking at her, one felt sure that she would live to be an old woman. Her large features were roughly moulded, her cheeks thin; her thick dusky hair was put plainly back from her face, and arranged with a high comb after a fas.h.i.+on of her youth.