Part 38 (1/2)
A SLUMBERING HEART.
Time had hung heavily on Lettice's hands during the first month or two of her stay on the Continent. No one could have been kinder to her than Mrs. Hartley, more considerate of her needs and tastes, more anxious to please and distract her. But the recovery of her nerves from the shock and strain to which they had been subjected was a slow process, and her mind began to chafe against the restraint which the weakness of the body imposed upon it.
The early spring brought relief. Nature repairs her own losses as she punishes her own excess. Lettice had suffered by the abuse of her energy and power of endurance, but three months of idleness restored the balance. The two women lived in a small villa on the outskirts of Florence, and when they were not away from home, in quest of art or music, scenery or society, they read and talked to each other, or recorded their impressions on paper. Mrs. Hartley had many friends in England, with whom she was wont to exchange many thousand words; and these had the benefit of the ideas which a winter in Florence had excited in her mind. Lettice's confidant was her diary, and she sighed now and then to think that there was no one in the world to whom she could write the inmost thoughts of her heart, and from whom she could expect an intelligent and sympathetic response.
No doubt she wrote to Clara, and gave her long accounts of what she saw and did in Italy; but Clara was absorbed in the cares of matrimony and motherhood. She had nothing but actualities to offer in return for the idealities which were Lettice's mental food and drink. This had always been the basis of their friends.h.i.+p; and it is a basis on which many a firm friends.h.i.+p has been built.
Lettice had already felt the elasticity of returning health in every limb and vein when the news reached her of the success of her novel; and that instantly completed the cure. Her publisher wrote to her in high spirits, at each demand for a new edition, and he forwarded to her a handsome cheque ”on account,” which gave more eloquent testimony of his satisfaction than anything else. Graham sent her, through Clara, a bundle of reviews which he had been at the pains of cutting out of the papers, and Clara added many criticisms, mostly favorable, which she had heard from her husband and his friends. Lettice had a keen appet.i.te for praise, as for pleasure of every kind, and she was intoxicated by the good things which were spoken of her.
”There, dear,” she said to Mrs. Hartley one morning, spreading out before her friend the cheque which she had just received from Mr.
MacAlpine, ”you told me that my stupid book had given me nothing more than a nervous fever, but this has come also to pay the doctor's bill.
Is it not a great deal of money? What a lucky thing that I went in for half profits, and did not take the paltry fifty pounds which they offered me?”
”Ah, you need not twit me with what I said before I knew what your book was made of,” said Mrs. Hartley affectionately. ”How was I to know that you could write a novel, when you had only told me that you could translate a German philosopher? The two things do not sound particularly harmonious, do they?”
”I suppose I must have made a happy hit with my subject, though I never thought I had whilst I was writing. I only went straight on, and had not the least idea that people would find much to like in it. Nor had Mr.
MacAlpine either, for he did not seem at all anxious to publish it.”
”It was in you, my darling, and would come out. You have discovered a mine, and I daresay you can dig as much gold out of it as will suffice to make you happy.”
”Now, what shall we do with this money? We must have a big treat; and I am going to manage and pay for everything myself starting from to-day.
Shall it be Rome, or the Riviera, or the Engadine; or what do you say to returning by way of Germany? I do so long to see the Germans at home.”
Mrs. Hartley was downcast at once.
”The first thing you want to do with your wealth,” she said, ”is to make me feel uncomfortable! Have we not been happy together these six months, and can you not leave well alone? You know that I am a rich woman, through no credit of my own--for everything I have came from my husband.
If you talk of spending your money on anyone but yourself, I shall think that you are pining for independence again, and we may as well pack up our things and get home.”
”Oh dear, what have I said? I did not mean it, my dearest friend--my best friend in the world! I won't say anything like it again: but I must go out and spend some money, or I shall not believe in my good fortune.
Can you lend me ten pounds?”
”Yes, that I can!”
”Then let us put our things on, and go into paradise.”
”What very dissolute idea, to be sure! But come along. If you will be so impulsive, I may as well go to take care of you.”
So they went out together--the woman of twenty-six and the woman of sixty, and roamed about the streets of Florence like a couple of school-girls. And Lettice bought her friend a brooch, and herself a ring in memory of the day; and as the ten pounds would not cover it she borrowed fifteen; and then they had a delightful drive through the n.o.ble squares, past many a venerable palace and lofty church, through richly storied streets, and across a bridge of marble to the other side of the Arno; so onward till they came to the wood-enshrouded valley, where the trees were breaking into tender leaf.a.ge, every shade of green commingling with the blue screen of the Apennines beyond. Back again they came into the city of palaces, which they had learned to love, and alighting near the Duomo sought out a _pasticceria_ in a street hard by, and ate a genuine school-girl's meal.
”It has been the pleasantest day of my life here!” said Lettice as they reached home in the evening. ”I have not had a cloud upon my conscience.”
”And it has made the old woman young,” said Mrs. Hartley, kissing her friend upon the cheek. ”Oh, why are you not my daughter!”
”You would soon have too much of me if I were your daughter. But tell me what a daughter would have done for you, and let me do it while I can.”