| Chapter: I., II., III., IV., V., VI., VII., VIII., IX., X., XI., XII., XIII., XIV., XV., XVI. |
A HOUSE
DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF
BYMRS OLIPHANT
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. I.
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MDCCCLXXXVI
A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF.
CHAPTER I.
The day was warm, and there was no shade; out of the olive woods whichthey had left behind, and where all was soft coolness and freshness,they had emerged into a piece of road widened and perfected by recentimprovements till it was as shelterless as a broad street. High walls onone side clothed with the green clinging trails of the mesembryanthemum,with palm-trees towering above, but throwing no shadow below; on theother a low house or two, and more garden walls, leading in a broadcurve to the little old walled town, its campanile rising up over theclustered roofs, in{2} which was their home. They had fifteen minutes ormore of dazzling sunshine before them ere they could reach any point ofshelter.
Ten minutes, or even five, would have been enough for Frances. She couldhave run along, had she been alone, as like a bird as any human creaturecould be, being so light and swift and young. But it was very differentwith her father. He walked but slowly at the best of times; and in theface of the sun at noon, what was to be expected of him? It was part ofthe strange contrariety of fate, which was against him in whatever heattempted, small or great, that it should be just here, in this broad,open, unavoidable path, that he encountered one of those parties whichalways made him wroth, and which usually he managed to keep clear ofwith such dexterity—an English family from one of the hotels.
Tourists from the hotels are always objectionable to residents in aplace. Even when the residents are themselves strangers—perhaps,indeed, all the more from that fact—the chance visitors who come tostare and gape at those scenes which the others have appropriated and{3}taken possession of, are insufferable. Mr Waring had lived in the oldtown of Bordighera for a great number of years. He had seen the Marinaand the line of hotels on the beach created, and he had watched thetravellers arriving to take possession of them—the sick people, and thepeople who were not sick. He had denounced the invasion unceasingly, andwith vehemence; he had never consented to it. The Italians about mightbe complacent, thinking of the enrichment of the neighbourhood, and ofwhat was good for trade, as these pro