But she had none of the formalism or the self-consciousness of grief, and I was almost surprised to see her standing there in the first dusk with her hands full of flowers, smiling at me with her reddened eyes.Her white face, in the frame of her mantilla, looked longer, leaner than usual.
I had had an idea that she would be a good deal disgusted with me--would consider that I ought to have been on the spot to advise her, to help her; and, though I was sure there was no rancor in her composition and no great conviction of the importance of her affairs, I had prepared myself for a difference in her manner, for some little injured look, half-familiar, half-estranged, which should say to my conscience, "Well, you are a nice person to have professed things!"But historic truth compels me to declare that Tita Bordereau's countenance expressed unqualified pleasure in seeing her late aunt's lodger.That touched him extremely, and he thought it simplified his situation until he found it did not.
I was as kind to her that evening as I knew how to be, and I walked about the garden with her for half an hour.
There was no explanation of any sort between us; I did not ask her why she had not answered my letter.Still less did I repeat what I had said to her in that communication; if she chose to let me suppose that she had forgotten the position in which Miss Bordereau surprised me that night and the effect of the discovery on the old woman I was quite willing to take it that way:
I was grateful to her for not treating me as if I had killed her aunt.
We strolled and strolled and really not much passed between us save the recognition of her bereavement, conveyed in my manner and in a visible air that she had of depending on me now, since I let her see that I took an interest in her.
Miss Tita had none of the pride that makes a person wish to preserve the look of independence; she did not in the least pretend that she knew at present what would become of her.
I forebore to touch particularly on that, however, for I certainly was not prepared to say that I would take charge of her.
I was cautious; not ignobly, I think, for I felt that her knowledge of life was so small that in her unsophisticated vision there would be no reason why--since I seemed to pity her--I should not look after her.She told me how her aunt had died, very peacefully at the last, and how everything had been done afterward by the care of her good friends (fortunately, thanks to me, she said, smiling, there was money in the house;and she repeated that when once the Italians like you they are your friends for life); and when we had gone into this she asked me about my giro, my impressions, the places I had seen.I told her what I could, making it up partly, I am afraid, as in my depression I had not seen much;and after she had heard me she exclaimed, quite as if she had forgotten her aunt and her sorrow, "Dear, dear, how much I should like to do such things--to take a little journey!"It came over me for the moment that I ought to propose some tour, say I would take her anywhere she liked; and I remarked at any rate that some excursion--to give her a change--might be managed: we would think of it, talk it over.
I said never a word to her about the Aspern documents; asked no questions as to what she had ascertained or what had otherwise happened with regard to them before Miss Bordereau's death.
It was not that I was not on pins and needles to know, but that Ithought it more decent not to betray my anxiety so soon after the catastrophe.I hoped she herself would say something, but she never glanced that way, and I thought this natural at the time.
Later however, that night, it occurred to me that her silence was somewhat strange; for if she had talked of my movements, of anything so detached as the Giorgione at Castelfranco, she might have alluded to what she could easily remember was in my mind.
It was not to be supposed that the emotion produced by her aunt's death had blotted out the recollection that I was interested in that lady's relics, and I fidgeted afterward as it came to me that her reticence might very possibly mean simply that nothing had been found.We separated in the garden (it was she who said she must go in); now that she was alone in the rooms I felt that (judged, at any rate, by Venetian ideas)I was on rather a different footing in regard to visiting her there.
As I shook hands with her for goodnight I asked her if she had any general plan--had thought over what she had better do.
"Oh, yes, oh, yes, but I haven't settled anything yet,"she replied quite cheerfully.Was her cheerfulness explained by the impression that I would settle for her?
I was glad the next morning that we had neglected practical questions, for this gave me a pretext for seeing her again immediately.
There was a very practical question to be touched upon.
I owed it to her to let her know formally that of course I did not expect her to keep me on as a lodger, and also to show some interest in her own tenure, what she might have on her hands in the way of a lease.
But I was not destined, as it happened, to converse with her for more than an instant on either of these points.I sent her no message;I simply went down to the sala and walked to and fro there.
I knew she would come out; she would very soon discover I was there.
Somehow I preferred not to be shut up with her; gardens and big halls seemed better places to talk.It was a splendid morning, with something in the air that told of the waning of the long Venetian summer; a freshness from the sea which stirred the flowers in the garden and made a pleasant draught in the house, less shuttered and darkened now than when the old woman was alive.
It was the beginning of autumn, of the end of the golden months.