choose to acknowledge his child, if she didn't; there were promises and promises, and many people would consider they had been let off when circumstances were so altered. She would have to reckon with Mr. Benyon more than she thought.
I know what I am about, Georgina answered. There is only one promise for him. I don't know what you mean by circumstances being altered.
Everything seems to me to be altered, poor Mrs. Portico murmured, rather tragically.
Well, he isn't, and he never will! I am sure of him, as sure as that I sit here. Do you think I would have looked at him if I hadn't known he was a man of his word?
You have chosen him well, my dear, said Mrs. Portico, who by this time was reduced to a kind of bewildered acquiescence.
Of course I have chosen him well. In such a matter as this he will be perfectly splendid. Then suddenly, Perfectly splendid, that's why I cared for him, she repeated, with a flash of incongruous passion.
This seemed to Mrs. Portico audacious to the point of being sublime; but she had given up trying to understand anything that the girl might say or do. She understood less and less after they had disembarked in England and begun to travel southward; and she understood least of all when, in the
Page 25
middle of the winter, the event came off with which in imagination she had tried to familiarise herself, but which, when it occurred, seemed to her beyond measure strange and dreadful. It took place at Genoa; for Georgina had made up her mind that there would be more privacy in a big town than in a little; and she wrote to America that both Mrs. Portico and she had fallen in love with the place and would spend two or three months there. At that time people in the United States knew much less than to-day about the comparative attractions of foreign cities; and it was not thought surprising that absent New Yorkers should wish to linger in a seaport where they might find apartments, according to Georgina's report, in a palace painted in fresco by Vandyke and Titian. Georgina, in her letters, omitted, it will be seen, no detail that could give colour to Mrs. Portico's long stay at Genoa. In such a palacewhere the travellers hired twenty gilded rooms for the most insignificant suma remarkably fine boy came into the world. Nothing could have been more successful and comfortable than this transactionMrs. Portico was almost appalled at the facility and felicity of it. She was by this time in a pretty bad way; andwhat had never happened to her before in her lifeshe suffered from chronic depression of spirits. She hated to have to lie, and now she was lying all the time. Everything she wrote home, everything that had been said or done in connection with their stay in Genoa, was a lie. The way they remained indoors to avoid meeting chance compatriots was a lie. Compatriots in Genoa, at that period, were very rare; but nothing could exceed the business-like completeness of Georgina's precautions. Her nerve, her self-possession, her apparent want of feeling, excited on Mrs. Portico's part a kind of gloomy suspense; a morbid anxiety to see how far her companion would go took possession of the excellent woman who, a few months before, hated to fix her mind on disagreeable things. Georgina went very far indeed; she did everything in her power to dissimulate the origin of her child. The record of his birth was made under a false name, and he was baptized at the nearest church by a Catholic priest. A magnificent contadina was brought to light by the doctor in a village in the hills, and this big, brown, barbarous creature, who, to do her justice, was full of handsome, familiar
Page 26
smiles and coarse tenderness, was constituted nurse to Raymond Benyon's son. She nursed him for a fortnight under the mother's eye, and she was then sent back to her village with the baby in her arms and sundry gold coin knotted into a corner of her pocket-handkerchief. Mr. Gressie had given his daughter a liberal letter of
I know what I am about, Georgina answered. There is only one promise for him. I don't know what you mean by circumstances being altered.
Everything seems to me to be altered, poor Mrs. Portico murmured, rather tragically.
Well, he isn't, and he never will! I am sure of him, as sure as that I sit here. Do you think I would have looked at him if I hadn't known he was a man of his word?
You have chosen him well, my dear, said Mrs. Portico, who by this time was reduced to a kind of bewildered acquiescence.
Of course I have chosen him well. In such a matter as this he will be perfectly splendid. Then suddenly, Perfectly splendid, that's why I cared for him, she repeated, with a flash of incongruous passion.
This seemed to Mrs. Portico audacious to the point of being sublime; but she had given up trying to understand anything that the girl might say or do. She understood less and less after they had disembarked in England and begun to travel southward; and she understood least of all when, in the
Page 25
middle of the winter, the event came off with which in imagination she had tried to familiarise herself, but which, when it occurred, seemed to her beyond measure strange and dreadful. It took place at Genoa; for Georgina had made up her mind that there would be more privacy in a big town than in a little; and she wrote to America that both Mrs. Portico and she had fallen in love with the place and would spend two or three months there. At that time people in the United States knew much less than to-day about the comparative attractions of foreign cities; and it was not thought surprising that absent New Yorkers should wish to linger in a seaport where they might find apartments, according to Georgina's report, in a palace painted in fresco by Vandyke and Titian. Georgina, in her letters, omitted, it will be seen, no detail that could give colour to Mrs. Portico's long stay at Genoa. In such a palacewhere the travellers hired twenty gilded rooms for the most insignificant suma remarkably fine boy came into the world. Nothing could have been more successful and comfortable than this transactionMrs. Portico was almost appalled at the facility and felicity of it. She was by this time in a pretty bad way; andwhat had never happened to her before in her lifeshe suffered from chronic depression of spirits. She hated to have to lie, and now she was lying all the time. Everything she wrote home, everything that had been said or done in connection with their stay in Genoa, was a lie. The way they remained indoors to avoid meeting chance compatriots was a lie. Compatriots in Genoa, at that period, were very rare; but nothing could exceed the business-like completeness of Georgina's precautions. Her nerve, her self-possession, her apparent want of feeling, excited on Mrs. Portico's part a kind of gloomy suspense; a morbid anxiety to see how far her companion would go took possession of the excellent woman who, a few months before, hated to fix her mind on disagreeable things. Georgina went very far indeed; she did everything in her power to dissimulate the origin of her child. The record of his birth was made under a false name, and he was baptized at the nearest church by a Catholic priest. A magnificent contadina was brought to light by the doctor in a village in the hills, and this big, brown, barbarous creature, who, to do her justice, was full of handsome, familiar
Page 26
smiles and coarse tenderness, was constituted nurse to Raymond Benyon's son. She nursed him for a fortnight under the mother's eye, and she was then sent back to her village with the baby in her arms and sundry gold coin knotted into a corner of her pocket-handkerchief. Mr. Gressie had given his daughter a liberal letter of
Similar Books
Smokeheads
Doug Johnstone
The Log from the Sea of Cortez
John Steinbeck, Richard Astro
The Signal
Ron Carlson
As Luck Would Have It
Jennifer Anne
Sal Gabrini: His House of Cards
Mallory Monroe
Legal Heat
Sarah Castille
Infinite Risk
Ann Aguirre
B006O3T9DG EBOK
Linda Berdoll
