CHAPTER I. IN A STRANGE LAND.

It will be a terrible thing to be ill here, among strangers, to have my little child born, and no one with me, if Sidney does not come back. I have been looking for him every day for the last three weeks. Every morning I feel sure he will come, and every night I lie listening for any sound out of doors which might mean he is come. Out on the clock tower the watchmen strike the time on the bell every quarter of an hour, and I know how the night is slipping away. Sometimes I get up and look through the window at the stars sparkling brighter than they ever sparkle on frosty nights in England, and the keen, keen air makes me shiver; but I never see him in the village street, never hear him calling softly, so as not to wake other people, "Sophy!"

And I wonder what Aunt Rachel is thinking of me in England. I know she is troubled about me; yes, and father will be half crazy about me. How dreadful it must be for those you love to disappear! I did not think of that when I stole away, and left them. And now, O God! what would I give to have Aunt Rachel with me!—especially if he does not come back in time.

It is so lonely here, and I am growing frightened and homesick. I wish I was at home in my little room, in the bed with white curtains round it, and the window darkened to keep the sun out, as it used to be when Aunt Rachel nursed me through the fever. But this room! why, it is as large as a house almost, and my little oil lamp is no better than a glowworm in it. The far corners of the room are as black as a pit, and there are four doors into it, and I cannot fasten any of them. I did not care much when he was with me; but now I am frightened. I never knew before what it was to be afraid. Then there is no landlady in this inn—only Chiara, the old servant, whom I do not like. The landlord is a widower, a rough, good man, I dare say; but I wish there had been a good mistress. Surely, surely, he will come back to me to-morrow.

And now, because I have nothing else to do, and because I want to keep my mind off from worrying about his return, which is certain to be in time, I will write quite fairly and honestly how we came to quarrel, and why he left me, disappearing from me almost as I disappeared from Aunt Rachel and father, only I left them in their own home, and he has left me all alone in a rough inn, in a strange country; and if he does not come back, what will become of me?

Aunt Rachel and father, I am writing all this for you.

We were married quite secretly, for fear of his rich uncle, who would never, never have consented to him marrying a poor saddler's daughter like me. And we left England directly under another name, and went down into Italy and wandered about; I shall have strange things to tell of when I reach home again. And he was so kind, so fond of me; only I vexed him often, because I did not care about the pictures and the music, and the old ruins, and all the things he delighted in. I wish I had pretended to care for them; but he only laughed at first, and called me an odd name—a "pretty Philistine," and took me to look in at the shop windows. So I did not guess that he cared so much, till he got tired, and used to leave me by myself while he went to picture galleries and concerts, and exploring ancient buildings. In Venice he left me all day, time after time, and I used to wander about the Piazza, and in and out of the little narrow streets, until I lost myself; and I knew nothing of Italian, and very little French, and often and often I walked up and down for hours before I found the Piazza again, and then I knew where to go. From Venice we came up here, among the mountains, and now I am in Austria.

When I was a girl at school I never thought I should go to Austria. It is a very narrow valley, just wide enough to hold a village with one street, and all that is on the slope. There are fields all along the valley—fields without any hedgerows, and only rough cart tracks through them, and wherever the tracks cross one another there is a crucifix. Yes, there are crucifixes everywhere, and most of them are so ugly I cannot bear to look at them. I like better the little shrines, where Mary sits with the child Jesus in her arms.

It is strange when I look out of the window to see the great high rocks rising up like walls far into the sky; thousands of feet, Sidney said they are. They are so steep that snow cannot rest on them, and it only lies in the niches and on the ledges and the sharp points, which shine like silver in the sun. The sky looks almost like a flat roof lying over the valley on the tops of these rocky walls. There is not a tree, or a shrub, or a blade of grass growing on them; and how bleak it looks!

I do not like to begin about our quarrel. We had fallen into a way of quarreling, and I did not think much of it. You know, Aunt Rachel, I am always ready to kiss and be friends again, and it will be so again. When he comes back I will do everything he wishes, and I'll pretend to like what he likes. I'll not be the foolish, silly girl I was again.

Nearly a mile from the village there is an old ruin, not a pretty place, only a fortress, built to guard the valley from the Italians, if they sent their soldiers this way. An ugly old place. There is a church built out of the stone, and a long flight of stone steps up to it. I felt very ill and wretched and out of spirits that day; three weeks to-morrow it will be, and Sidney was worrying me about the ruins.

"I wish you would learn to take some interest in anything besides yourself," he said at last.

I was sitting on the church steps, and he stood over me, with a gloomy face, and looked at me as if he despised me.

"I wish I'd never seen you!" I cried out suddenly, as if I was beside myself. "I hate the day I ever saw you. I wish I'd been struck blind or dead that day. We're going to be miserable for ever and ever, and I was happy enough till I knew you."

Those were bitter words; how could I say them to Sidney?

"If you say that again," he answered, "I'll leave you. I've borne your temper as long as I can bear it. Do you think you are the only one to be miserable? I curse the day when I met you. It has spoiled all my future life, fool that I was!"

"Fool! yes, that's true," I said in my passion, "and I'm married to a fool! And they used to think me so clever at home, poor Aunt Rachel and father did. Me! I'm married to a fool, you know," and I looked up, and looked round, as if there were people to hear me beside him. But there was nobody. He ground the pebbles under his foot, and raised himself up and stood as if he were going away the next moment.

"Go on one minute longer, Sophy," he said, "and I'm off. You may follow me if you please, and be the ruin of my life, as you're likely to be the plague of it. Oh, fool, fool that I was! But I'll get a few days' peace. Another word from you, and I go."

"Go! go! go!" I cried, quite beside myself; "I shall only be too glad to see you go. Only I wish Aunt Rachel was here."

"Sophy, will you be reasonable?" he asked, and I thought he was going to give way again, as he always did before.

"No, I won't be reasonable; I can't be reasonable," I said; "how can I be reasonable when I'm married to a fool? If you're going, go; and if you're staying, stay. I'm so miserable, I don't care which."

I covered my face with my hands and rocked myself to and fro, hearing nothing but my own sobs. I expected to feel his hand on my head every moment, and to hear him say how he adored me. For we had quarreled many a time before, and he had even gone away, and sulked all day with me. But he never failed to beg me to forgive him and be friends again. I did not want to look up into his face, lest I should give way, and be friends before he said he was sorry. But he did not touch me, nor speak, though I sobbed louder and louder.

"Sidney!" I said at last, with my face still hidden from him.

But even then he did not speak; and by and by I lifted up my head, and could not see him anywhere. There seemed to be no one near me; but there were plenty of corners in the ruins where he could hide himself and watch me. I sat still for a long time to tire him out. Then I got up, and strolled very slowly down toward the village. There is a crucifix by the side of the narrow fort-road, larger than most of the others, and there on the cross hangs a wooden figure of Jesus Christ, so worn and weather-beaten that it looks almost a skeleton, and all bleached and pale as if it had been hanging there through thousands of years. It seemed very desolate and sad that evening, and I stood looking at it, with the tears in my eyes, making it all dim and misty. The sun was going down, and just then it passed behind the peak of one of the precipices, and a long stream of light fell across a pine forest more than a mile away, and into that forest a lonely man was passing, and he looked like Sidney. My heart sank suddenly; it is a strange thing to feel one's heart sinking, and I felt all at once as desolate and forsaken as the image on the cross above me.

"Sidney!" I called in as clear and loud a tone as I could. "Sidney!"

But if that man, lost now in the pine forest, was Sidney, he was too far off to hear me, wasn't he? Still I could not give up the hope that he was hiding among the ruins, and I called and called again, louder and louder, for I began to be terrified. It was all in vain. The sun set, and the air grew chilly, and they rang the Angelus in the clock-tower. The long twilight began, and the flowers shut up their pretty leaves. The cold was very sharp and biting, and made me shiver. So I called him once again in a despairing voice.

"Oh!" I said, looking up to the worn, white face of the Christ upon the cross, as if the wooden image could hear me, "I'm so miserable, and I am so wicked."

That really made me feel better, and my passion went away in a moment. Yes, I would be good, I said to myself, and never vex him again. I knew I ought to be good to him, for he was so much above me, and ran such risks to marry me. Perhaps I ought to be more obedient to him than if I had married a man who kept a shop, like father. Sometimes I think I should have been happier if I had; but that is nonsense, you know. And Sidney has never been rough or rude to me, as many men would be, if I went into such tempers with them. He is always a gentleman; always.

"I told him I was passionate," I said, half-aloud, I think; "and he ought to have believed me. And oh! to think how anxious Aunt Rachel is about me, never knowing where I am or what has happened to me for nearly nine months! It is that makes me so miserable and cross; I can't help flying out at him; but he says I must not tell or write for his sake. Oh! I will be better, I will be good. And he's so fond of me; I know he can't be gone far away. I expect he's gone back to the inn, and will be waiting for his supper, and I'd better make haste."

But I could not walk quickly, for I felt faint and giddy. Once or twice I stumbled against a stone, and Sidney was not there to help me. When I reached the inn I looked into the room where we had our meals; but he was not there. And he was nowhere in our great barn of a bedroom. His portmanteau was there, and all his things, so I knew he could not stay long away. I made signs to Chiara, the maid, for I cannot speak Italian or German; but she did not understand me. So I went to bed and cried myself to sleep.

Now I have told exactly how it happened. It is nearly three weeks ago; and every hour I have expected to see Sidney come back. He has left most of his money behind in my care; there are nearly eighty pounds in foreign money that I do not understand. Quite plenty; I'm not vexed about that. But I want him to be here taking care of me. What am I to do if he is not here in time? Chiara is kind enough; only we cannot understand one another, and what will become of me? Oh! if Aunt Rachel could only be here!

It is a very rough place, this inn. My bedroom is paved with red tiles like our kitchen at home; and there is no fire-place, only an immense white stove in one corner, which looks like a ghost at night, when there is any moonlight. There is a big deal table, and a kind of sofa, as large as a bed, placed on one side of it. The bed itself is so high I have to climb into it by a chair. There are four windows; and when I look out at them there is little else to be seen but the great high, awful rocks, shutting out the sky from my sight; they frighten me. Downstairs, the room below mine is the kitchen. It is like a barn, too; paved with rough slabs of stone. There is an enormous table, with benches on each side. At one end of the kitchen is a sort of little room, with six sides, almost round; and in the middle of it is a kind of platform, built of brick, about two feet high; and this is their fire-place, where all the cooking is done. There is always a huge fire of logs burning, and there are tall chairs standing round it, tall enough for people to put their feet on the high hearth. I've sat there myself, with my cold feet on the hot bricks, and very comfortable it is on a frosty night. And above it hangs an enormous, enormous extinguisher, which serves as a chimney, but which can be lowered by chains. At nights all the rough men in the village come and sit round this queer fire-place; and oh! the noises there are make me shiver with terror.

Chiara is very careful of me; too careful. She makes me go out a little every day, when I would rather stay in, and watch for Sidney. I always go as far as the old crucifix, for it seems to comfort me. I always say to it, "Oh, he must come back to-day, I can't bear it any longer. And oh! I'll never, never vex him any more." And the sad face seems to understand, and the head bows down lower as if to listen to me. It seems to heed me, and to be very sorry for me. I wonder if it can be wicked to feel in this way. But in England I should not want any crucifix, I should have Aunt Rachel.

I am afraid Sidney forgot that I should want him near me. Suppose he does not come back till I am well and strong again, and can put my baby into his arms myself. There is a pretty shrine on the other road to the village, not the road where he left me, and in it is Mary with a sweet little child lying across her knees asleep. Suppose he should come and find us like that, and I could not wake the baby, and he knelt down before us, and put his arms round us both. Oh, I should never be in a passion again.

I have not written all this at once. Oh, no! Chiara takes the pen and ink away, and shakes her funny old head at me. She makes me laugh sometimes, even now. Whenever I hear the tramp, tramp of her wooden shoes, I fancy she is coming to say Sidney is here, and afraid to startle me; but it would not startle me, for I expect him all the time.

Some day he will drive me in a carriage and pair, along the streets at home, and all the neighbors will see, and say, "Why, there's Sophy Goldsmith come back, riding in her own carriage!" And I shall take my baby, and show him to my aunts and father, and ask them if it was not worth while to be sorry and anxious for a time to have an ending like this.

This moment I have made up my mind that they shall not be sorry nor anxious any longer. I will send this long story I have written to Aunt Rachel; and I will send our portraits which Sidney had taken in Florence. Oh, how handsome he is! And I, don't you think I am very pretty? I did not know I looked like that. Good-by, Sidney and myself. I must make Chiara buy me ever so many postage stamps to-morrow morning.

Dearest father and Aunt Rachel, come and take care of me and my little baby. Forgive me, forgive me, for being a grief to you!

SOPHY.