Chapter IX

It seemed to Anne as if they would never reach Madonna di Campiglio. Rome clung to them in its little hollow at every turn of the long winding road, a soft golden blur under a high and silvery cap; and when at last the Campagna, wave after wave, had rolled over it, and defied even St. Peter’s to raise itself again above the last blue fold, the heat and dust of the plains swallowed them, train and all. It was a comfort to exchange (after a night’s heat and bells) into the smooth swift gliding car, to stop at a wayside inn and rest in the heat of the day, and to catch glimpses of the lake of Garda, a charmed turquoise, with olives hanging like smoke, down the mountains to the water’s edge. They passed Riva and Arco, Riva broken and crumpled like a roughly used toy by the ravages of war; and Arco lifting its sharp rock hill, covered with cypress, into the wide spaces of the blue air. The valley climbed and wound behind Arco, the road shifting to and fro by the banks of a fast flowing river. Far away over the plain they could see small towered islands resting in it, and castles rising from wooded promontories above its smooth flow. The cypresses and the hills were shaped and pointed, like the small wild tulips which grow in southern meadows; at last Italy sank away altogether.

A flock of mountains drove across their sight. The air changed suddenly into the scent of pines and juniper, and the small herbs which make breathing a strong delight. The day grew dark and clear, the piled gold of the sunset lay far away upon the western hills. The scent of the small Alpine meadows was very cool and sweet. On all sides of them they heard the sound of innumerable hidden streams, rustling and whispering down into the valley; and above their heads the coming and going of the wind in the pines died away, increased to a volume of intense secretive rapture, and murmured on indefinitely among a thousand ruminating trees.

Toby smoked speechlessly. He was conscious of Anne’s every movement, and it would have been difficult to say if he found her presence most a torment or a strange delight. Whenever she was jolted against him by the movements of the car, he set his teeth hard on the stem of his pipe. He was burningly aware of her nearness, and not without amusement at the distance of her unsuspecting thoughts. It was doubtful if Anne was any more alive to Toby’s presence than she was to the chauffeur’s in front of them. They had spent nearly two days travelling together, and talk beyond discussion of incidents of travel had died down between them. In a sense Anne may have been said to have enjoyed these days more than Toby. She had had no wish to improve upon them, and Toby could have suggested many improvements.

“It’s very far away,” Anne said at last, “to Madonna di Campiglio.”

“Up to the top of the Pass,” agreed Toby. “Are you warm enough?” Anne acquiesced in a thick cloak being tucked around her, and nestled down more comfortably into its folds. The valley had sunk into a deep gulf beneath them, and on the other side of it swept range after range of pine covered mountains, with every now and then, at a turn of the road, bare and splendid, a distant Dolomite, a treeless rock as big as half a world. Anne grew stiff and tired and in spite of the extra cloak, a little cold. It seemed to her as if they must long ago have passed the last traces of mankind, and be skimming upwards to some empty star. She could not visualise Norman and Nina awaiting her. It was a year since she had said good-bye to Norman in her little London house, and given up one by one the beauty of her selected treasures. She could remember the blue delphiniums in the tall opalescent vases, and how the motor ’buses had sent up a distant roar, not unlike the torrent they were fast leaving behind. But she couldn’t remember what she had felt, or dimly imagine what she was going to feel again. The towering background of the mountains made emotion seem a remote and trivial thing. You could not continue to care about Sheraton chairs or blue Venetian vases in this vast and empty space, where houses and human beings were but frailties of possession. How worse than ridiculous it was—how petty, but at the bottom of her heart she found the fear that they wouldn’t be glad enough to see her, to impress Toby! She was conscious that Toby’s doubts were still real, and that her heart was set on seeing them dispersed.

Winter and darkness came down upon them in a stride. Anne had no fear left now, but the fear that they weren’t ever going to arrive at all. The road wound up interminably, the mountains seemed to turn like a vast silent top, whipped by an invisible demon. It came with a shock when they found themselves at last upon an open space.

“Well, here we are,” said Toby stepping out into the darkness. This pine-scented dusk was Madonna di Campiglio. Norman and Nina were on the roadside in front of the hotel to greet them. As Anne moved stiffly down, she found herself folded in Nina’s arms, and then suddenly, surprisingly, for a brief moment, in Norman’s.

They were glad to see her—gladder than she had dared to expect. Their eyes and voices were all greeting, excitement and pleasure. They even flowed over Toby who took their enthusiasm with a stoical cordiality. It was so perfect a meeting that Anne was afraid of the warmth and light; they might make her silly. But she was drinking Gluwein, and having hot water bottles produced like magic, in a room on the bed of which a pink satin coverlet gleamed, before she had time to let the silliness come over her. There was no fear of it after that. Fortified and invigorated she could let all her pleasures come—Nina’s joy first, and then her beauty. Nina was really beautiful now. All her prettiness was set free and flowing, her eyes were so full of laughter, all the storms of life could not have quenched their light, while they left the source of it untouched. At dinner Anne had time to notice the change (beautiful too, she instantly allowed) in Norman. He was older as well as handsomer, something had filled him out and made him at once more responsible and less highly strung. There was no hint of antagonism in his eyes as they met hers, nor even of embarrassment. They looked at her in a kind of warm, companionable tenderness, as if they only had in common the happy secret of how to take care of Nina. Anne shrank from no participation in their joy. Her feelings were unalloyed by the slightest touch of resentment. She was even careful not to crow too openly over Toby, who must be looking a little silly at the absence of any situation to face. But fortunately for Toby, he had in general very little change of expression. Anne was relieved to see that he was going to get on perfectly well with Nina. He treated her from the first with the kind of indulgent chaff which Nina herself best liked to display. As for Toby’s behaviour to Norman, it could hardly be called behaviour at all, so perfectly had it sunk into the casual ease of their old relationship. Norman was too happy to be embarrassed, but he was a little too excited. He couldn’t quite contain the overflowings of his joy. He made too many jokes and he couldn’t for two minutes together leave Nina’s name out of the conversation.

The season was still young, and there were not too many people yet in the hotel. The ones there were looked at them with considerable envy, for they were easily the merriest party in the room. When it was decided that Anne must be too tired for anything but the pink satin coverlet Nina went with her to help her to unpack her things.

“This,” said Nina, “is quite the most beautiful thing of all—just to have you here with us.” She seemed to hesitate a little, though her eyes, full of their relentless laughter, ran before her speech. “You and Toby! And anyone can see, you know, you beautiful, absurd, and splendid Anne, how happy you could make him!”

Anne was a little disturbed by this incredible blunder, but she wasn’t angry. She saw that Nina couldn’t help wishing to find partners for every solitary soul. “It doesn’t matter that you’re wrong,” she said smilingly, “more wrong than you can possibly imagine—Toby’s tragedy, fortunately for me, lies somewhere else, so I haven’t that on my conscience, nor any unhappiness of my own. My dear, to see you and Norman——!”

Nina appeared for a moment a trifle crestfallen. She had a strong will and disliked her plans, however recent, to miss fire. But she didn’t long believe that they could. “Oughtn’t I to have said that,” she asked, “so soon? Norman scolds me awfully about my tongue. He says I always say first all the things I oughtn’t, and then all the things the other person oughtn’t. But seriously, Anne, Norman has set his heart too——”

Anne interrupted her by a light kiss. “I know where his heart is set, and where for that matter it rises,” she said good-humouredly. “It will get on quite well, my dear, without making mistakes about poor Toby.” She didn’t say anything about herself. That Norman should have had such a thought for her made her want to get the door shut and Nina well on the other side of it, but she couldn’t be said, even when that happened, to feel much better off. Her window had a balcony and she went out on it and leaned into the cold fine darkness. She reminded herself that she must be prepared for sinkings of the heart. She wasn’t there to let herself mind trivial mishaps, but to build up a sane and tranquil relationship. They would make many mistakes and no doubt she would make them as well, and find her own rather more difficult to face than theirs. Mistakes didn’t matter, providing she could bear the brunt of them herself. What she mustn’t do was to be resentful when she was hurt, or to allow herself to sink into disastrous self-pity. As to their absurd romance about Toby, if it saved them from all compunction to weave it, why shouldn’t she let it alone? Dear, quiet, undemonstrative Toby, with his comfortably buried secret about some quite impossible person, was probably the safest peg to hang their fancies on.

“Anne,” said a voice below her window, “is your room all right?”

It wasn’t Toby’s fault that for a brief, breathless moment she had thought it was Norman’s voice.