Where Angels Fear to Tread - E. M. Forster (drm ebook reader .txt) 📗

But, as I told you, I thought the man I met on the Rocca a strange, difficult man.”

“He’s insolent to ladies, we know. But my brother can be trusted to bring him to his senses. That woman, Philip, whom you saw will carry the baby to the hotel. Of course you must tip her for it. And try, if you can, to get poor Lilia’s silver bangles. They were nice quiet things, and will do for Irma. And there is an inlaid box I lent her⁠—lent, not gave⁠—to keep her handkerchiefs in. It’s of no real value; but this is our only chance. Don’t ask for it; but if you see it lying about, just say⁠—”

“No, Harriet; I’ll try for the baby, but for nothing else. I promise to do that tomorrow, and to do it in the way you wish. But tonight, as we’re all tired, we want a change of topic. We want relaxation. We want to go to the theatre.”

“Theatres here? And at such a moment?”

“We should hardly enjoy it, with the great interview impending,” said Miss Abbott, with an anxious glance at Philip.

He did not betray her, but said, “Don’t you think it’s better than sitting in all the evening and getting nervous?”

His sister shook her head. “Mother wouldn’t like it. It would be most unsuitable⁠—almost irreverent. Besides all that, foreign theatres are notorious. Don’t you remember those letters in the Church Family Newspaper?”

“But this is an opera⁠—Lucia di Lammermoor⁠—Sir Walter Scott⁠—classical, you know.”

Harriet’s face grew resigned. “Certainly one has so few opportunities of hearing music. It is sure to be very bad. But it might be better than sitting idle all the evening. We have no book, and I lost my crochet at Florence.”

“Good. Miss Abbott, you are coming too?”

“It is very kind of you, Mr. Herriton. In some ways I should enjoy it; but⁠—excuse the suggestion⁠—I don’t think we ought to go to cheap seats.”

“Good gracious me!” cried Harriet, “I should never have thought of that. As likely as not, we should have tried to save money and sat among the most awful people. One keeps on forgetting this is Italy.”

“Unfortunately I have no evening dress; and if the seats⁠—”

“Oh, that’ll be all right,” said Philip, smiling at his timorous, scrupulous womenkind. “We’ll go as we are, and buy the best we can get. Monteriano is not formal.”

So this strenuous day of resolutions, plans, alarms, battles, victories, defeats, truces, ended at the opera. Miss Abbott and Harriet were both a little shamefaced. They thought of their friends at Sawston, who were supposing them to be now tilting against the powers of evil. What would Mrs. Herriton, or Irma, or the curates at the Back Kitchen say if they could see the rescue party at a place of amusement on the very first day of its mission? Philip, too, marvelled at his wish to go. He began to see that he was enjoying his time in Monteriano, in spite of the tiresomeness of his companions and the occasional contrariness of himself.

He had been to this theatre many years before, on the occasion of a performance of La Zia di Carlo. Since then it had been thoroughly done up, in the tints of the beetroot and the tomato, and was in many other ways a credit to the little town. The orchestra had been enlarged, some of the boxes had terra-cotta draperies, and over each box was now suspended an enormous tablet, neatly framed, bearing upon it the number of that box. There was also a drop-scene, representing a pink and purple landscape, wherein sported many a lady lightly clad, and two more ladies lay along the top of the proscenium to steady a large and pallid clock. So rich and so appalling was the effect, that Philip could scarcely suppress a cry. There is something majestic in the bad taste of Italy; it is not the bad taste of a country which knows no better; it has not the nervous vulgarity of England, or the blinded vulgarity of Germany. It observes beauty, and chooses to pass it by. But it attains to beauty’s confidence. This tiny theatre of Monteriano spraddled and swaggered with the best of them, and these ladies with their clock would have nodded to the young men on the ceiling of the Sistine.

Philip had tried for a box, but all the best were taken: it was rather a grand performance, and he had to be content with stalls. Harriet was fretful and insular. Miss Abbott was pleasant, and insisted on praising everything: her only regret was that she had no pretty clothes with her.

“We do all right,” said Philip, amused at her unwonted vanity.

“Yes, I know; but pretty things pack as easily as ugly ones. We had no need to come to Italy like guys.”

This time he did not reply, “But we’re here to rescue a baby.” For he saw a charming picture, as charming a picture as he had seen for years⁠—the hot red theatre; outside the theatre, towers and dark gates and medieval walls; beyond the walls olive trees in the starlight and white winding roads and fireflies and untroubled dust; and here in the middle of it all, Miss Abbott, wishing she had not come looking like a guy. She had made the right remark. Most undoubtedly she had made the right remark. This stiff suburban woman was unbending before the shrine.

“Don’t you like it at all?” he asked her.

“Most awfully.” And by this bald interchange they convinced each other that Romance was here.

Harriet, meanwhile, had been coughing ominously at the drop-scene, which presently rose on the grounds of Ravenswood, and the chorus of Scotch retainers burst into cry. The audience accompanied with tappings and drummings, swaying in the melody like corn in the wind. Harriet, though she did not care for music, knew how to listen to it. She uttered an acid “Shish!”

“Shut it,” whispered her brother.

“We must make a stand from the