CHAPTER XV.

‘Cara Signora,’ said Fulvia, with a slight smile, ‘I have literally nothing to tell you about myself. I saw you five years ago. I was almost seventeen then. It is therefore obvious that I am now nearly twenty-two. Since that day I have travelled a great deal, seen a great deal, and learnt a great deal. That was to be expected. A child of seventeen must necessarily be densely ignorant of everything outside the schoolroom and the nursery. But a child with any intelligence must necessarily learn a great deal in so long a time as has passed since we met, and I have had ample opportunities for learning--oh, ample.’

She broke off, smiling--a sweet, frigid smile. Minna scarcely heeded its sweetness but felt all its frigidity, which communicated itself to her own heart.

‘You have never been to Rome again, I suppose?’ she asked quickly, and this time Fulvia’s face grew hard, though she still smiled.

‘Not to Rome. We have been, I think, almost everywhere else, and, as you perceive, are now in London.’

‘Living here, or for the season?’ asked Minna.

‘Neither one nor the other. We are in a kind of transition period. We came here from the South of France, where we spent nearly the whole winter. I hate the Riviera--don’t you? There is such a spasmodic attempt at gaiety and amusing yourself there, which comes to nothing, however hard you may try. To an active-minded person like myself, it is a frightful life, but there is an institution at ---- where cases like my husband’s could be treated, so we stayed there.’

‘Cases like your husband’s--is he ill?’

‘Yes, he is ill.’

‘Is it anything serious? Did he benefit by the treatment you speak of?’

‘Not in the least, so far as I can see. This illness began, about eighteen months ago, with partial paralysis. It has continued to be partial paralysis ever since, and it is partial paralysis now. All the baths and waters (we have tried those too) and massage and electricity in the world will never produce the least effect upon it, but of course, when people are ill, they like to try everything, and my theory is to indulge them in their wish. It gives them something to do and think of, at any rate.’

She smiled, and adjusted the flowers in the belt of her white gown.

‘Then you have come to London for further treatment?’

‘For further advice. The doctors at Cannes told us the specialists whom we ought to consult here, so we have obediently come, and consulted them. Of course they don’t tell him--nor even me--but they know perfectly well what it is. It will not kill him yet--at least, it is not likely to do so. If he were a poor man, and unable to get proper attention, he might die very soon. But he is a rich man, who can command everything that he wants, and he may live for--a--great--many--years,’ said Fulvia, in quiet, clear tones, with little pauses between the words, as she reached the end of her sentence. ‘It may get worse. He might die of something quite different; or he might have a stroke, and die of it; but he will never be better. It is a very unpleasant thing for him, but, as one of the doctors told him a little while ago, it is the result entirely of the life he chose to live as a young man. It was quite too hard a life for his constitution, and he may be thankful that it is not something much more horrible.’

Minna was silent, feeling a horror in her heart. Fulvia sat beside her, with her little firm, delicately gloved hands folded lightly on her knee. Her face was like the face of Fulvia Dietrich, with startling yet indefinable differences. The girlish indecision of outline had entirely disappeared, and left an exquisitely modelled face, with firm, statuesque curves of cheek and lip, pure aquiline line of nose, and a broad, rather low forehead--that is, a forehead on which the hair grew low, the same thick, glistening hair which the girl Fulvia had had. The slim figure of the young maiden had bloomed out into the full strength and magnificent outlines of early womanhood. She had grown taller, Minna was convinced, as well as having taken on this perfect outline with its larger, firmer curves and commanding beauty. The expression on Fulvia’s face was one of the utmost calm and placidity. Did she, or did she not, feel anything? Minna speculated. In speaking of her husband, not a ray of feeling of any kind had betrayed itself. Whether she were glad or sorry, bored, disgusted, satisfied, it would have been utterly impossible to tell. Minna maintained an anxious, uneasy silence. Presently Fulvia resumed:

‘Of course, under these circumstances it is ridiculous to talk of being here “for the season.” He cannot go out at all, and I certainly cannot, alone, in London. We are in lodgings--a hotel was too noisy for him. The doctors recommend him to go to the country. They have told him this much: that he will never be strong again, and must never dream of making any exertions to speak of; and they talk about country air and a quiet life’--she laughed, for the first time during their meeting, a little cold laugh of mingled amusement and contempt. ‘So he is debating whether to buy a place, or hire a place in the country--and where. That is really all that keeps us in London now. I have already taken several most tiresome railway journeys, to see different places which were to let or sell--nothing suitable, of course, when I got there. And I am sure I don’t know when or if anything will ever be settled.’

‘How I wish you would come into our neighbourhood! There is a place close to mine,’ exclaimed Minna impulsively, ‘or rather, I ought to say, I occupy a sort of “at his gates” position with regard to it. It is the great house of the neighbourhood, and mine is only a little old-fashioned place. But it is to let or sell at this present moment, and nobody has taken it yet.’

‘Where do you live?’ asked Fulvia.

‘Up in the North--at West Wall, in Durham. It is near the sea, and it is near the moors, so that if healthiness is any consideration I am sure we can offer it to you.’

‘How cold!’ exclaimed Fulvia, with a little shiver.

‘Ah, yes, you child of the South! It is cold, it is gray, and it is bleak--towards the sea, at any rate. But we have warm hearts, and the Hall is built in a sheltered spot.’

‘Who are “we”?’ asked Fulvia tranquilly, and not repelling the suggestion which Minna had made.

‘We are’--she paused abruptly, then went on quickly: ‘you will be surprised, if you have heard no home news--Signor Oriole lives with me now. “We” are Signor Oriole and myself, and Rhoda Hamilton, my niece. She is nearly always with me. She is my brother’s only child, and he is a widower.’

‘Signor Oriole!’ echoed Fulvia, and this time the calm coolness of her voice and expression changed. ‘He lives with you? How and why is that?’

‘Mia cara, after you were married--the day you were married--he left Casa Dietrich, never to return. He was very unhappy--so unhappy that it makes me so only to think of it. He quite disappeared for a time. Even I lost him; and we are great friends, as you know. Then almost by accident I found him again, in a sad condition mentally and morally, though he had become a little better off as this world’s things go. Almost by force I brought him to England with me. I was leaving Rome when I found him. He was to pay me a long visit--that was all we said. But my home has been his ever since that day. He has never quite recovered from that grief--your marriage, I mean; but I think, except for that, he is almost contented. I think he is happier than he would be anywhere else.’

‘It was very kind of you,’ said Fulvia, in an abrupt, cool tone. She began to beat with her parasol on the skirt of her dress--the only sign she had given of nervous discomposure. ‘Is he very sad? Do you know, I think it will be better to drop talking of all that time. It is quite over and done with. I am glad he is not in poverty. It would be very delightful to be near you, and yet----’

‘Don’t decide upon anything. Think about it.’

‘I cannot say that I will not, though I don’t know whether I am wise to consider it. My husband always had a sort of vexed admiration for you, because you had an assured position and were hardly civil to him. He might like to go somewhere where we knew someone who was “in society”’ (with another little cool laugh). ‘But, listen! You will come and see me, won’t you? I am busy to-day--I have a lot of things to do; but to-morrow come and have lunch with me if you can. After lunch I will take you to see my husband. If I should find an opportunity between now and then, I will tell him I have seen you, and what you say about this place. What is it called? But you can tell him all that yourself. It will be something to talk about--the greatest boon in the world to me.’

‘I will come. You must give me your address,’ said Minna. She hated the idea of seeing Marchmont, but she could not refuse Fulvia’s request, and she felt a kind of delighted joy in the fact that Fulvia wished to see her again--turned to her with confidence, as an old friend in whose goodwill she trusted.

‘Yes. And now, I am sorry to say, I shall have to go. I suppose the carriage will be waiting. Can I take you anywhere? What are you doing?’

‘Loafing about,’ said Minna, laughing; ‘and to some purpose, since I have met you. No, thank you; go your own way. I must join my friends at lunch.’

They rose and moved slowly away.

‘Stop!’ exclaimed Minna suddenly. ‘Did Hans bring you here to see that thing of mine?’

‘Exactly.’

‘And did he not mention his own picture, hanging here in the corner?’

‘No!’ said Fulvia quickly, turning back again. ‘Where is it--and which?’

Minna pointed it out to her. Fulvia looked at it for some little time in silence. She did not smile, she did not frown, but turned at last to Minna, saying simply, though very gravely:

‘It is very pretty--and very sentimental. He ought to do better than that, and he intends to.’

‘Does he?’ They were now really walking away. ‘To tell you the truth, I was almost more surprised to see him than you. I thought he was in the Tyrol, or Italy, somewhere, for the whole summer.’

‘He was at Como when we were there a month or two ago. He was even then on his way home from Southern Italy and Sicily. He came to England about a fortnight after we did, and of course we have seen a good deal of him since. He knows everything, you see,’ she added, in the same grave, matter-of-fact tone. ‘We have some few acquaintances in London, and houses where we visited; but my husband is morbidly anxious that they should not know about our being here now. And yet he gets so nervous and fidgety if he has not some outsider to talk to. So Mr. Riemann’s society has been a real godsend.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Minna vaguely.

At the door of the gallery, Fulvia gave Minna her card and address, and held out her hand. She did not avoid her friend’s eyes. She smiled most frankly and most sweetly upon her as she shook hands. It was Fulvia’s old smile--outwardly. Holding her hand for a moment, Minna said:

‘I shall be writing to Signor Oriole. I shall tell him I have met you. It would be absurd not to do so. Will you not give me some message for him?’

Fulvia’s lips tightened for a moment. Then she said quietly:

‘Please give him my love, and say that perhaps we may meet during the summer, if--supposing we should by any chance think of this place you have told me of.’

‘Very well,’ said Minna, and Fulvia added cheerfully:

‘I am so glad he is independent now. It must make everything so much easier for him.’

With another pressure of the hand they parted. Fulvia got into her carriage, and was driven away. Minna, torn by all kinds of different emotions, kept thinking, ‘How glad I am to have found her! How I wish she would not keep saying she is glad he is independent, as if that compensated for everything else! I shall see her again to-morrow. What is she in reality? What has he become? She is a riddle to me yet.’

Vaguely she went out into the street, looking about her with the equally vague intention of getting into an omnibus to go part of the way home, and finally, with an impatient ‘pshaw!’ beckoned to the driver of a hansom, got into it, and was likewise borne into the working-day world again.