"Oh yes, I 'll go! I might as well be there as anywhere--reverting to idiocy and living upon alms.I can do nothing with all this; perhaps I should really like Northampton.
If I 'm to vegetate for the rest of my days, I can do it there better than here.""Oh, come home, come home," Mrs.Hudson said, "and we shall all be safe and quiet and happy.My dearest son, come home with your poor mother!""Let us go, then, and go quickly!"
Mrs.Hudson flung herself upon his neck for gratitude.
"We 'll go to-morrow!" she cried."The Lord is very good to me!"Mary Garland said nothing to this; but she looked at Rowland, and her eyes seemed to contain a kind of alarmed appeal.
Rowland noted it with exultation, but even without it he would have broken into an eager protest.
"Are you serious, Roderick?" he demanded.
"Serious? of course not! How can a man with a crack in his brain be serious? how can a muddlehead reason?
But I 'm not jesting, either; I can no more make jokes than utter oracles!""Are you willing to go home?"
"Willing? God forbid! I am simply amenable to force;if my mother chooses to take me, I won't resist.
I can't! I have come to that!"
"Let me resist, then," said Rowland."Go home as you are now?
I can't stand by and see it."
It may have been true that Roderick had lost his sense of humor, but he scratched his head with a gesture that was almost comical in its effect.
"You are a queer fellow! I should think I would disgust you horribly.""Stay another year," Rowland simply said.
"Doing nothing?"
"You shall do something.I am responsible for your doing something.""To whom are you responsible?"
Rowland, before replying, glanced at Miss Garland, and his glance made her speak quickly."Not to me!""I 'm responsible to myself," Rowland declared.
"My poor, dear fellow!" said Roderick.
"Oh, Mr.Mallet, are n't you satisfied?" cried Mrs.Hudson, in the tone in which Niobe may have addressed the avenging archers, after she had seen her eldest-born fall."It 's out of all nature keeping him here.When we 're in a poor way, surely our own dear native land is the place for us.
Do leave us to ourselves, sir!"
This just failed of being a dismissal in form, and Rowland bowed his head to it.Roderick was silent for some moments; then, suddenly, he covered his face with his two hands."Take me at least out of this terrible Italy,"he cried, "where everything mocks and reproaches and torments and eludes me!
Take me out of this land of impossible beauty and put me in the midst of ugliness.Set me down where nature is coarse and flat, and men and manners are vulgar.There must be something awfully ugly in Germany.
Pack me off there!"
Rowland answered that if he wished to leave Italy the thing might be arranged; he would think it over and submit a proposal on the morrow.
He suggested to Mrs.Hudson, in consequence, that she should spend the autumn in Switzerland, where she would find a fine tonic climate, plenty of fresh milk, and several pensions at three francs and a half a day.
Switzerland, of course, was not ugly, but one could not have everything.
Mrs.Hudson neither thanked him nor assented; but she wept and packed her trunks.Rowland had a theory, after the scene which led to these preparations, that Mary Garland was weary of waiting for Roderick to come to his senses, that the faith which had bravely borne his manhood company hitherto, on the tortuous march he was leading it, had begun to believe it had gone far enough.
This theory was not vitiated by something she said to him on the day before that on which Mrs.Hudson had arranged to leave Florence.
"Cousin Sarah, the other evening," she said, "asked you to please leave us.
I think she hardly knew what she was saying, and I hope you have not taken offense.""By no means; but I honestly believe that my leaving you would contribute greatly to Mrs.Hudson's comfort.I can be your hidden providence, you know;I can watch you at a distance, and come upon the scene at critical moments."Miss Garland looked for a moment at the ground; and then, with sudden earnestness, "I beg you to come with us!" she said.
It need hardly be added that after this Rowland went with them.
