"Look!" she said. "Italy! There's sunshine and all sorts of beautiful things ahead. Warm sunshine, wonderful old ruins, green lizards...." She paused and whispered almost noiselessly: "love——"
They pressed against each other.
"And yet isn't it strange? All you can see is darkness, and clouds—and big waves that hiss as they come near...."
§ 11
Italy gave all her best to welcome them. It was a late year, a golden autumn, with skies of such blue as Marjorie had never seen before. They stayed at first in a pretty little Italian hotel with a garden on the lake, and later they walked over Salvator to Morcote and by boat to Ponte Tresa, and thence they had the most wonderful and beautiful tramp in the world to Luino, over the hills by Castelrotto. To the left of them all day was a broad valley with low-lying villages swimming in a luminous mist, to the right were purple mountains. They passed through paved streets with houses the colour of flesh and ivory, with balconies hung with corn and gourds, with tall church campaniles rising high, and great archways giving upon the blue lowlands; they tramped along avenues of sweet chestnut and between stretches of exuberant vineyard, in which men and women were gathering grapes—purple grapes, a hatful for a soldo, that rasped the tongue. Everything was strange and wonderful to Marjorie's eyes; now it would be a wayside shrine and now a yoke of soft-going, dewlapped oxen, now a chapel hung about with ex votos, and now some unfamiliar cultivation—or a gipsy-eyed child—or a scorpion that scuttled in the dust. The very names of the villages were like jewels to her, Varasca, Croglio, Ronca, Sesia, Monteggio. They walked, or sat by the wayside and talked, or rested at the friendly table of some kindly albergo. A woman as beautiful as Ceres, with a white neck all open, made them an omelette, and then fetched her baby from its cradle to nurse it while she talked to them as they made their meal. And afterwards she filled their pockets with roasted chestnuts, and sent them with melodious good wishes upon their way. And always high over all against the translucent blue hung the white shape of Monte Rosa, that warmed in colour as the evening came.
Marjorie's head was swimming with happiness and beauty, and with every fresh delight she recurred again to the crowning marvel of this clean-limbed man beside her, who smiled and carried all her luggage in a huge rucksack that did not seem to exist for him, and watched her and caressed her—and was hers, hers!
At Baveno there were letters. They sat at a little table outside a café and read them, suddenly mindful of England again. Incipient forgiveness showed through Mrs. Pope's reproaches, and there was also a simple, tender love-letter (there is no other word for it) from old Mrs. Trafford to her son.
From Baveno they set off up Monte Mottarone—whence one may see the Alps from Visto to Ortler Spitz—trusting to find the inn still open, and if it was closed to get down to Orta somehow before night. Or at the worst sleep upon the mountain side.
(Monte Mottarone! Just for a moment taste the sweet Italian name upon your lips.) These were the days before the funicular from Stresa, when one trudged up a rude path through the chestnuts and walnuts.
As they ascended the long windings through the woods, they met an old poet and his wife, coming down from sunset and sunrise. There was a word or two about the inn, and they went upon their way. The old man turned ever and again to look at them.
"Adorable young people," he said. "Adorable happy young people....
"Did you notice, dear, how she held that dainty little chin of hers?...
"Pride is such a good thing, my dear, clear, straight pride like theirs—and they were both so proud!...
"Isn't it good, dear, to think that once you and I may have looked like that to some passer-by. I wish I could bless them—sweet, swift young things! I wish, dear, it was possible for old men to bless young people without seeming to set up for saints...."
BOOK THE SECOND
MARJORIE MARRIED
CHAPTER THE FIRST
Settling Down
§ 1
It was in a boat among reeds upon the lake of Orta that Trafford first became familiarized with the idea that Marjorie was capable of debt.
"Oh, I ought to have told you," she began, apropos of nothing.
Her explanation was airy; she had let the thing slip out of her mind for a time. But there were various debts to Oxbridge tradespeople. How much? Well, rather a lot. Of course, the tradespeople were rather enticing when first one went up——How much, anyhow?
"Oh, about fifty pounds," said Marjorie, after her manner. "Not more. I've not kept all the bills; and some haven't come in. You know how slow they are."
"These things will happen," said Trafford, though, as a matter of fact, nothing of the sort had happened in his case. "However, you'll be able to pay as soon as you get home, and get them all off your mind."
"I think fifty pounds will clear me," said Marjorie, clinging to her long-established total, "if you'll let me have that."
"Oh, we don't do things like that," said Trafford. "I'm arranging that my current account will be a sort of joint account, and your signature will be as good as mine—for the purpose of drawing, at least. You'll have your own cheque-book——"
"I don't understand, quite," said Marjorie.
"You'll have your own cheque-book and write cheques as you want them. That seems the simplest way to me."
"Of course," said Marjorie. "But isn't this—rather unusual? Father always used to allowance mother."
"It's the only decent way according to my ideas," said Trafford. "A man shouldn't marry when he can't trust."
"Of course not," said Marjorie. Something between fear and compunction wrung her. "Do you think you'd better?" she asked, very earnestly.
"Better?"
"Do this."
"Why not?"
"It's—it's so generous."
He didn't answer. He took up an oar and began to push out from among the reeds with something of the shy awkwardness of a boy who becomes apprehensive of thanks. He stole a glance at her presently and caught her expression—there was something very solemn and intent in her eyes—and he thought what a grave, fine thing his Marjorie could be.
But, indeed, her state of mind was quite exceptionally confused. She was disconcerted—and horribly afraid of herself.
"Do you mean that I can spend what I like?" asked Marjorie.
"Just as I may," he said.
"I wonder," said Marjorie again, "if I'd better."
She was tingling with delight at this freedom, and she knew she was not fit for its responsibility. She just came short of a passionate refusal of his proposal. He was still so new to her, and things were so wonderful, or I think she would have made that refusal.
"You've got to," said Trafford, and ended the matter.
So Marjorie was silent—making good resolutions.
§ 2
Perhaps some day it may be possible to tell in English again, in the language of Shakspeare and Herrick, of the passion, the tenderness, the beauty, and the delightful familiarizations of a happy honeymoon; suffice it now, in this delicate period, to record only how our two young lovers found one day that neither had a name for the other. He said she could be nothing better than Marjorie to him; and she, after a number of unsuccessful experiments, settled down to the old school-boy nickname made out of his initials, R. A. G.