I had forgotten how brief was their flowering time, like every other blossom, also how beautiful; and suddenly I remembered the drooping tree in the little courtyard in the Italian villa, and the woman from the lodge taking her broom, sweeping the pods away.
“There was a fine tree of this kind,” I said, “in Florence, where Mrs. Ashley had her villa.”
“Yes, sir?” he said.
“Well, they grow most things in that climate, I understand.
It must be a wonderful place.
I can understand the mistress wishing to return.”
“I don’t think she has any intention of returning,” I replied.
“I’m glad of that, sir,” he said, “but we heard different.
That she was only waiting to see you restored to health before she went.”
It was incredible what stories were made up from scraps of gossip, and I thought how the announcement of our marriage would be the only means to stop it.
Yet I was hesitant to broach the matter to her. It seemed to me that once before there had been discussion on that point, which had made her angry, before I was taken ill.
That evening, when we were sitting in the boudoir and I was drinking my tisana, as had become my custom before going to bed, I said to her,
“There is fresh gossip round the countryside.”
“What now?” she asked, lifting her head to look at me.
“Why, that you are going back to Florence,” I replied.
She did not answer me at once, but bent her head again to her embroidery.
“There is plenty of time to decide about these things,” she said.
“First, you must get well and strong.”
I looked at her, puzzled.
Then Tamlyn had not been entirely in error.
The idea of going to Florence was there, somewhere in her mind.
“Have you not sold the villa yet?” I asked.
“Not yet,” she answered, “nor do I intend to sell it after all, or even let it.
Now things are changed and I can afford to keep it.”
I was silent.
I did not want to hurt her, but the thought of having the two homes was not one that pleased me very well.
In fact, I hated the very image of that villa which I held still in my mind, and which I thought by now she hated too.
“Do you mean you would want to spend the winter there?” I asked.
“Possibly,” she said, “or the late summer; but there is no necessity to talk of it.”
“I have been idle too long,” I said.
“I don’t think I should leave this place without attention for the winter, or, in fact, be absent from it at all.”
“Probably not,” she said, “in fact, I would not care to leave the property unless you were in charge.
You might like to pay me a visit in the spring, and I could show you Florence.”
The illness I had suffered had left me very slow of understanding; nothing of what she said made any sense.
“Pay you a visit?” I said.
“Is that how you propose that we should live?
Absent from one another for long months at a time?”
She laid down her work and looked at me.
There was something of anxiety in her eyes, a shadow on her face.
“Philip dear,” she said, “I have said, I don’t wish to talk about the future now.
You have only just recovered from a dangerous illness, and it is bad to start planning the time ahead.
I give you my promise I will not leave you until you are well.”
“But why,” I demanded, “is there any need to go at all?
You belong here now.
This is your home.”
“I have my villa too,” she said, “and many friends, and a life out there—different from this, I know, but nonetheless I am accustomed to it.
I have been in England for eight months, and now feel the need for change again.
Be reasonable, and try to understand.”
“I suppose,” I said slowly, “I am very selfish.
I had not thought of it.”