Chapter 35

They stood there for what seemed to the beadle at the bottom an intolerable time, the lady, evidently nobody certificated, with her cheek on the gentleman’s hand, and he himself, as honest a man as ever wanted to get his tip and be done with it, kept waiting with nothing to do but curse and rattle his keys; and though it was summer the crypt was cold, and so would his feet be soon; and what could the world be coming to when people carried their caressings even into crypts? Becoming maddened by these delays the beadle cursed them both, their present, past, and future, roundly and thoroughly and also profanely—for by the accident of his calling he was very perfect in profanity—beneath his breath.

“I’m so sorry, so sorry,” Ingeborg was murmuring, who did nothing by halves, neither penitence, nor humility, nor gratitude.

“My worshipped child,” whispered Ingram, immensely moved by this swift change in her, and changed as swiftly himself by the softness of her cheek against his hand.

“Oughtn’t we to go to Venice to-night?” she asked, still standing in that oddly touching attitude of apology.

“Not to-night.”

“But how can a picture get painted in just that little time?”

“Ah, but you know I’m good at pictures.”

“But I can’t stay a minute longer than Thursday. I have to be back on Saturday at the very latest.”

“You’ll see. It will all be quite easy.”

“But to think that I forgot the picture!” she said, looking up at him shocked, while the ancient humility in which the Bishop had so carefully trained her descended on her once more, only four-fold this time, like a garment grown voluminous since last it was put on.

They had for some reason been talking in murmurs, and the embittered beadle, losing his self-control, began to say things audibly. Strong in the knowledge of tourist ignorance when it came to real language in Italian, he said exactly what he thought; and what he thought was so monstrous, so inappropriate to beadles and to the atmosphere of a crypt, besides being so extremely and personally rude, that it roused Ingram, who knew Italian almost better than the beadle—for his included scholarly by-ways in vituperation, strange and curious twists beyond the reach of the uneducated—to pour a sudden great burning blast of red-hot contumely down on to his head; and having done this he turned, and holding Ingeborg’s hand led her up the steps again, leaving the beadle at the bottom, solitary, shrivelled, and singed.

They thought no more of crypts and beadles. They looked neither to the right nor to the left. Ingram held her by the hand all the way down the Cathedral, and the piazza when they came out on to it with its crowds of vociferating men and bell-ringing tramcars and sellers of souvenirs seemed to Ingeborg nothing now but a noisy irrelevance. Whole strips of postcards were thrust unnoticed into her face. The purpose of her journey was the picture. Marvellous that she should have lost sight of it and of the wonder and pride of being needed for it—needed at last for anything, she who so profoundly had longed to be needed, but needed for this, as a collaborator actually, even though passive and humble, in the creation of something splendid.

He put her into a cab and drove with her away from the fuss and din. She was exquisite again to him, adorable altogether. The memory of the fret and hot irritation of the day was wiped out as though it had never been by that other memory of her sweet apology on the steps of the crypt. He told the driver, for it was towards evening, to take them to those gardens described by the guide-book as probably the finest public park in Italy; and presently, as they walked together in the remoter parts, the dusk dropped down like a curtain between them and the Sunday night crowd collecting round the fountains. Tall trees, and clumps of box, and rose-bushes shut out everything except mystery; and she in that quiet place of trickling water and dim flowers began again to talk to him as she had talked at Kökensee, softly, deliciously, about nothing except himself. It was like the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land; it was infinite refreshment and relief.

She talked about the picture, with reverence, adoringly. She told him how in the rush of new impressions she had been forgetting everything that really mattered, not only that greatest of them all, but the other things she had to thank him for besides—Italy, her unexpected holiday, due so entirely to him. She said, her husky voice softer than ever with gratitude, “You have been giving me happiness and happiness. You’ve heaped happiness on me with both your hands.” She said, searching only for words that should be sweet enough, “Do you know I could cry to think of it all—of all you’ve been to me since you came to Kökensee. When I’m back there again, this time with you will be like a hidden precious stone, and when I’m stupid and thinking that life is dull I’ll get it out and look at it, and it will flash colour and light at me.”