Chapter XL: Phyllis and Dorothy

But as they passed the small public garden, lying on the steep slope of the river banks, Philip caught sight of Phyllis sitting alone on one of the benches. He had seen but little of her at Toblach, and that was after a separation of some months. It was an opportunity not to be missed, and his arrangements could very well be made an hour later. Though the sun was gone down behind the mountains, the air was still warm and balmy, and the sky was of that deep blue which is caused by the absence of mist and vapor. Far away on the highest peaks the sunlight lingered, making all their soft colors glow with a delicate bloom and luster. Phyllis's pretty face, as she looked up at his approach, was a little sulky.

"Your father is making a tremendous fuss about this man," she said, looking up into his face with a hard expression in her bright eyes; "all the world is talking of it here. Is it prudent?"

"My darling!" he answered fondly, "this man is my elder brother--my father's son. How can we make too much fuss, as you call it? We must do all we can to compensate him for the past."

"But you can never reclaim him from his savagery--never!" she rejoined. "A man of thirty! He must remain a monster all his life. Is it certain that your father really married Sophy Goldsmith?"

"My father says so," he answered shortly.

"But they could not prove it," she continued with eagerness, and a shrewd expression in her face which made it look almost hateful to him, "and he is not compelled to own it. Why could he not have left him here in peace? It is the only wise thing to do. I don't say leave him in such poverty and misery as you find him in; no! that would be cruel and unjust. It is not too late yet to act sensibly. Why do not you all quietly hush it up? The Goldsmiths need never know; and you can provide comfortably for him. You will only work misery all round by taking him to England as your father's eldest son and heir. A monster like that to become an English gentleman! Good gracious!"

Philip made no answer. Such considerations had presented themselves to his own mind, and he had dismissed them hastily, as hateful temptations arising from the evil that was in his nature. Now that Phyllis uttered them they seemed more hateful from her lips. He did not know what the future might bring, but the present brought to him a clear and simple duty. Justice must be done to Sophy Goldsmith's son.

"Is it too late, dearest Philip?" asked Phyllis persuasively, both of her hands clasping his own. "Will not your father listen to reason? Don't you see what an enormous, enormous difference it makes to us! To me as much as to any of you. You are sacrificing me. I have turned it over and over in my mind till I am sick and weary of it. Have you never thought of what such a change must mean for me?"

"I have thought of it, my dear one," he said gently. "You are always first in my thoughts. But I must act according to my conscience."

"I know you cannot say much about it," she urged, "but shall I tell your father that I know all, and reason with him? He may be too excited to act wisely. Let me speak to him."

"No! no!" he exclaimed, "there is but one course before us; my mother pointed it out clearly, but I hope I should have taken it of myself. Martin must come home with us to England, and we must do what we can to reclaim him, and fit him in some degree for the future. You must help us, Phyllis--you and Dorothy."

"You had better go and tell Dorothy of her fine task, then," said Phyllis peevishly.

Philip was not long in finding Dorothy, who had sauntered away, following the little tracks that crossed the open fields, to gather the wild flowers which were blooming in profusion. She saw him coming toward her, and retraced her steps to meet him. She had hardly spoken to him before, so eager had she been to carry the good news of his arrival to his father. Her face was lighted up with a very pleasant smile.

"How glad I am you are come back!" she exclaimed. "Your father has been so wretched and low-spirited. O Philip! is it true that Andrew Goldsmith's daughter is found at last? How did she come here? and is she dead? and what had Mr. Martin to do with it? If I might only know the truth I should be so thankful."

"I will tell you, Dorothy," he said. "My father married Sophy Goldsmith when he was a young man about as old as myself. Secretly, for fear of his uncle; and they came here, as we did, out of Italy, thirty years ago. They quarreled, and he left her, expecting her to follow him; but she died, leaving a child behind her, and he never knew it."

"He did not know that she was dead!" exclaimed Dorothy.

"He let things drift," answered Philip with an unconscious accent of scorn, "because he was afraid of his uncle discarding him. He made no inquiries after her till he wanted to marry my mother; and then his messenger sent him word that Sophy Goldsmith was dead, but said nothing about the birth of their son. And my father was satisfied! But the child grew up here among these peasants. He was the man you saw at the _festa_ who was like Andrew Goldsmith."

Dorothy walked on beside him in silence, and, somewhat surprised by it, Philip looked down into her half averted face, and saw the tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Oh, poor Andrew!" she sobbed at last; "poor old man! And poor Sophy! How he has mourned for her! and how he has almost worshiped Mr. Martin! How will Andrew bear it, Philip? How can your father bear it?"

"He is all but broken-hearted," he replied, "and so is my mother. They look already years older, Dorothy. It is we younger ones who must go to their help now. We must make them feel that the future will not be a failure, even after this blow. Why cannot we in part reclaim my brother? He can never be an educated man, not a civilized man according to our notions. But after all, civilization is as much a fashion as reality. He need not remain a brute or a savage. The grandson of Andrew Goldsmith and my father's son must have something in him which will make him not altogether irreclaimable. You will help us, Dorothy?"

"Do you remember how wild and uneducated I was when your father found me?" she asked. "I know I can never have such dainty ways as Phyllis; and this poor fellow can never be like you. But he will improve as I have done."

Philip could not help laughing as he looked at her, and thought of the rough, uncouth man his brother was. The tears filled her eyes again.

"I have seen him," she continued, catching her breath, as if she could not quite control her sobs, "every night since we came back. Oh, how dreadful it is I cannot say; and I never thought he was Mr. Martin's son. He is just like a wild creature prowling about the houses. The first night I heard him I was awake, and I stole quite quietly on to the balcony, wondering if I should catch sight of a wolf down in the street, and there, in the moonlight, was a miserable man searching in the gutters for food. Ever since I have taken some bread from dinner and let it down to the ground just under my balcony, and he has come for it every night."

"Thank God!" cried Philip in an accent of unutterable pity and amazement; "then he is not dying of famine. And that is my brother!"

"I just spoke a word to him last night," she went on. "I spoke very softly. 'Poor man,' I said in Italian, and he lifted up his head and threw his hands above it. Then he ran away very swiftly, without making a sound."

"Oh, if my father had only known!" he said.

"I did not tell him, he seemed so absent," replied Dorothy; "but the poor fellow will come again to-night most likely. We will sit in the dark watching till he comes, and you can see him from my balcony. The moon rises later every night, but there will be light enough."

The vision he had seen the previous night had haunted Martin's dull brain all the day. He had stolen under the windows of the hotel, where he had never failed to find food from the first night he had sought it in the streets. Suddenly a white, quiet form, standing in the moonlight on the balcony above him, like some image of the Blessed Virgin, such as he had often seen in shrines and churches, spoke to him in a low, soft, sweet voice, such a voice as the Blessed Virgin might have. The vision hardly frightened him, and yet he fled from it, and hurried back to his place of refuge. He pondered over it in a confused way all through the day. Legends of the apparition of angels, but more often of demons, had been told to him and the other children in his earliest days. It was not strange that such a blessed vision should be seen, but it was strange that it appeared to him, whose mother was accursed in hell. Was it possible that this white angel had come to tell him better news of his mother? Why had he fled so swiftly, when he felt so little fear of it? Would he see it again if he went down into the valley?