Chapter 19

"Isn't it splendid? Emile may leave at once. But there is no good boat till the tenth. We shall take that, and be at Cattaro on the eleventh at five o'clock in the afternoon...."

"Isn't it splendid?"

For a moment he sat quite still in the glare of the sun, mentally repeating to himself these words of his wife. So the inevitable had happened. For he felt it was inevitable. Fate was against him. He was not to have his pleasure.

"Signorino! Come sta lei? Lei sta bene?"

He started and looked up. He had heard no footstep. Salvatore stood by him, smiling at him, Salvatore with bare feet, and a fish-basket slung over his arm.

"Buon giorno, Salvatore!" he answered, with an effort.

Salvatore looked at Maurice's cigarette, put down the basket, and sat down on the seat by Maurice's side.

"I haven't smoked to-day, signore," he began. "Dio mio! But it must be good to have plenty of soldi!"

"Ecco!"

Maurice held out his cigarette-case.

"Take two--three!"

"Grazie, signore, mille grazie!"

He took them greedily.

"And the fair, signorino--only four days now to the fair! I have been to order the donkeys for me and Maddalena."

"Davvero?" Maurice said, mechanically.

"Si, signore. From Angelo of the mill. He wanted fifteen lire, but I laughed at him. I was with him a good hour and I got them for nine. Per Dio! Fifteen lire and to a Siciliano! For he didn't know you were coming. I took care not to tell him that."

"Oh, you took care not to tell him that I was coming!"

Maurice was looking over the wall at the platform of the station far down below. He seemed to see himself upon it, waiting for the train to glide in on the day of the fair, waiting among the smiling Sicilian facchini.

"Si, signore. Was not I right?"

"Quite right."

"Per Dio, signore, these are good cigarettes. Where do they come from?"

"From Cairo, in Egypt."

"Egitto! They must cost a lot."

He edged nearer to Maurice.

"You must be very happy, signorino."

"I!" Maurice laughed. "Madonna! Why?"

"Because you are so rich!"

There was a fawning sound in the fisherman's voice, a fawning look in his small, screwed-up eyes.

"To you it would be nothing to buy all the donkeys at the fair of San Felice."

Maurice moved ever so little away from him.

"Ah, signorino, if I had been born you how happy I should be!"

And he heaved a great sigh and puffed at the cigarette voluptuously.

Maurice said nothing. He was still looking at the railway platform. And now he seemed to see the train gliding in on the day of the fair of San Felice.

"Signorino! Signorino!"

"Well, what is it, Salvatore?"

"I have ordered the donkeys for ten o'clock. Then we can go quietly. They will be at Isola Bella at ten o'clock. I shall bring Maddalena round in the boat."

"Oh!"

Salvatore chuckled.

"She has got a surprise for you, signore."

"A surprise?"

"Per Dio!"

"What is it?"

His voice was listless, but now he looked at Salvatore.

"I ought not to tell you, signore. But--if I do--you won't ever tell her?"

"No."

"A new gown, signorino, a beautiful new gown, made by Maria Compagni here in the Corso. Will you be at Isola Bella with Gaspare by ten o'clock on the day, signorino?"

"Yes, Salvatore!" Maurice said, in a loud, firm, almost angry voice. "I will be there. Don't doubt it. Addio Salvatore!"

He got up.

"A rivederci, signore. Ma--"

He got up, too, and bent to pick up his fish-basket.

"No, don't come with me. I'm going up now, straight up by the Castello."

"In all this heat? But it's steep there, signore, and the path is all covered with stones. You'll never--"

"That doesn't matter. I like the sun. Addio!"

"And this evening, signorino? You are coming to bathe this evening?"

"I don't know. I don't think so. Don't wait for me. Go to sea if you want to!"

"Birbanti!" muttered the fisherman, as he watched Maurice stride away across the Piazza, and strike up the mountain-side by the tiny path that led to the Castello. "You want to get me out of the way, do you? Birbanti! Ah, you fine strangers from England! You think to come here and find men that are babies, do you? men that--"

He went off noiselessly on his bare feet, muttering to himself with the half-smoked cigarette in his lean, brown hand.

Meanwhile, Maurice climbed rapidly up the steep track over the stones in the eye of the sun. He had not lied to Salvatore. While the fisherman had been speaking to him he had come to a decision. A disgraceful decision he knew it to be, but he would keep to it. Nothing should prevent him from keeping to it. He would be at Isola Bella on the day of the fair. He would go to San Felice. He would stay there till the last rocket burst in the sky over Etna, till the last song had been sung, the last toast shouted, the last tarantella danced, the last--kiss given--the last, the very last. He would ignore this message from Africa. He would pretend he had never received it. He would lie about it. Yes, he would lie--but he would have his pleasure. He was determined upon that, and nothing should shake him, no qualms of conscience, no voices within him, no memories of past days, no promptings of duty.

He hurried up the stony path. He did not feel the sun upon him. The sweat poured down over his face, his body. He did not know it. His heart was set hard, and he felt villanous, but he felt quite sure what he was going to do, quite sure that he was going to the fair despite that letter.

When he reached the priest's house he felt exhausted. Without knowing it he had come up the mountain at a racing pace. But he was not tired merely because of that. He sank down in a chair in the sitting-room. Lucrezia came and peeped at him.

"Where is Gaspare?" he asked, putting his hand instinctively over the pocket in which were the letters.

"He is still out after the birds, signore. He has shot five already."

"Poor little wretches! And he's still out?"

"Si, signore. He has gone on to Don Peppino's terreno now. There are many birds there. How hot you are, signorino! Shall I--"

"No, no. Nothing, Lucrezia! Leave me alone!"

She disappeared.

Then Maurice drew the letters from his pocket and slowly spread out Hermione's in his lap. He had not read it through yet. He had only glanced at it and seen what he had feared to see. Now he read it word by word, very slowly and carefully. When he had come to the end he kept it on his knee and sat for some time quite still.

In the letter Hermione asked him to go to the Hôtel Regina Margherita at Marechiaro, and engage two good rooms facing the sea for Artois, a bedroom and a sitting-room. They were to be ready for the eleventh. She wrote with her usual splendid frankness. Her soul was made of sincerity as a sovereign is made of gold.

"I know"--these were her words--"I know you will try and make Emile's coming to Sicily a little festa. Don't think I imagine you are personally delighted at his coming, though I am sure you are delighted at his recovery. He is my old friend, not yours, and I am not such a fool as to suppose that you can care for him at all as I do, who have known him intimately and proved his loyalty and his nobility of nature. But I think, I am certain, Maurice, that you will make his coming a festa for my sake. He has suffered very much. He is as weak almost as a child still. There's something tremendously pathetic in the weakness of body of a man so brilliant in mind, so powerful of soul. It goes right to my heart as I think it would go to yours. Let us make his return to life beautiful and blessed. Sha'n't we? Put flowers in the rooms for me, won't you? Make them look homey. Put some books about. But I needn't tell you. We are one, you and I, and I needn't tell you any more. It would be like telling things to myself--as unnecessary as teaching an organ-grinder how to turn the handle of his organ! Oh, Maurice, I can laugh to-day! I could almost--_I_--get up and dance the tarantella all alone here in my little, bare room with no books and scarcely any flowers. And at the station show Emile he is welcome. He is a little diffident at coming. He fancies perhaps he will be in the way. But one look of yours, one grasp of your hand will drive it all out of him! God bless you, my dearest. How he has blessed me in giving you to me!"

As Maurice sat there, under his skin, burned deep brown by the sun, there rose a hot flush of red! Yes, he reddened at the thought of what he was going to do, but still he meant to do it. He could not forego his pleasure. He could not. There was something wild and imperious within him that defied his better self at this moment. But the better self was not dead. It was even startlingly alive, enough alive to stand almost aghast at that which was going, it knew, to dominate it--to dominate it for a time, but only for a time. On that he was resolved, as he was resolved to have this one pleasure to which he had looked forward, to which he was looking forward now. Men often mentally put a period to their sinning. Maurice put a period to his sinning as he sat staring at the letter on his knees. And the period which he put was the day of the fair at San Felice. After that day this book of his wild youth was to be closed forever.

After the day of the fair he would live rightly, sincerely, meeting as it deserved to be met the utter sincerity of his wife. He would be, after that date, entirely straight with her. He loved her. As he looked at her letter he felt that he did love, must love, such love as hers. He was not a bad man, but he was a wilful man. The wild heart of youth in him was wilful. Well, after San Felice, he would control that wilfulness of his heart, he would discipline it. He would do more, he would forget that it existed. After San Felice!

With a sigh, like that of a burdened man, he got up, took the letter in his hand, and went out up the mountain-side. There he tore the letter and its envelope into fragments, and hid the fragments in a heap of stones hot with the sun.

When Gaspare came in that evening with a string of little birds in his hand and asked Maurice if there were any letter from Africa to say when the signora would arrive, Maurice answered "No."

"Then the signora will not be here for the fair, signorino?" said the boy.

"I don't suppose--no, Gaspare, she will not be here for the fair."

"She would have written by now if she were coming.

"Yes, if she were coming she would certainly have written by now."

XVI

"Signorino! Signorino! Are you ready?"

It was Gaspare's voice shouting vivaciously from the sunny terrace, where Tito and another donkey, gayly caparisoned and decorated with flowers and little streamers of colored ribbon, were waiting before the steps.

"Si, si! I'm coming in a moment!" replied Maurice's voice from the bedroom.

Lucrezia stood by the wall looking very dismal. She longed to go to the fair, and that made her sad. But there was also another reason for her depression. Sebastiano was still away, and for many days he had not written to her. This was bad enough. But there was something worse. News had come to Marechiaro from a sailor of Messina, a friend of Sebastiano's, that Sebastiano was lingering in the Lipari Isles because he had found a girl there, a pretty girl called Teodora Amalfi, to whom he was paying attentions. And although Lucrezia laughed at the story, and pretended to disbelieve it, her heart was rent by jealousy and despair, and a longing to travel away, to cross the sea, to tear her lover from temptation, to--to speak for a few moments quietly--oh, very quietly--with this Teodora. Even now, while she stared at the donkeys, and at Gaspare in his festa suit, with two large, pink roses above his ears, she put up her hands instinctively to her own ears, as if to pluck the ear-rings out of them, as the Sicilian women of the lower classes do, deliberately, sternly, before they begin to fight their rivals, women who have taken their lovers or their husbands from them.

Ah, if she were only in the Lipari Isles she would speak with Teodora Amalfi, speak with her till the blood flowed! She set her teeth, and her face looked almost old in the sunshine.

"Coraggio, Lucrezia!" laughed Gaspare. "He will come back some day when--when he has sold enough to the people of the isles! But where is the padrone, Dio mio? Signorino! Signorino!"

Maurice appeared at the sitting-room door and came slowly down the steps.

Gaspare stared. "Eccomi!"

"Why, signorino, what is the matter? What has happened?"

"Happened? Nothing!"

"Then why do you look so black?"

"I! It's the shadow of the awning on my face."

He smiled. He kept on smiling.

"I say, Gasparino, how splendid the donkeys are! And you, too!"

He took hold of the boy by the shoulders and turned him round.

"Per Bacco! We shall make a fine show at the fair! I've got money, lot's of money, to spend!"

He showed his portfolio, full of dirty notes. Gaspare's eyes began to sparkle.

"Wait, signorino!"

He lifted his hands to Maurice's striped flannel jacket and thrust two large bunches of flowers and ferns into the two button-holes, to right and left.

"Bravo! Now, then."

"No, no, signorino! Wait!"

"More flowers! But where--what, over my ears, too!"

He began to laugh.

"But--"

"Si, signore, si! To-day you must be a real Siciliano!"

"Va bene!"

He bent down his head to be decorated.

"Pouf! They tickle! There, then! Now let's be off!"

He leaped onto Tito's back. Gaspare sprang up on the other donkey.

"Addio, Lucrezia!"

Maurice turned to her.

"Don't leave the house to-day."

"No, signore," said poor Lucrezia, in a deplorable voice.

"Mind, now! Don't go down to Marechiaro this afternoon."

There was an odd sound, almost of pleading, in his voice.

"No, signore."

"I trust you to be here--remember."

"Va bene, signorino!"

"Ah--a--a--ah!" shouted Gaspare.

They were off.

"Signorino," said Gaspare, presently, when they were in the shadow of the ravine, "why did you say all that to Lucrezia?"

"All what?"

"All that about not leaving the house to-day?"

"Oh--why--it's better to have some one there."

"Si, signore. But why to-day specially?"

"I don't know. There's no particular reason."

"I thought there was."

"No, of course not. How could there be?"

"Non lo so."

"If Lucrezia goes down to the village they'll be filling her ears with that stupid gossip about Sebastiano and that girl--Teodora."

"It was for Lucrezia then, signorino?"

"Yes, for Lucrezia. She's miserable enough already. I don't want her to be a spectacle when--when the signora returns."

"I wonder when she is coming? I wonder why she has not written all these days?"

"Oh, she'll soon come. We shall--we shall very soon have her here with us."

He tried to speak naturally, but found the effort difficult, knowing what he knew, that in the evening of that day Hermione would arrive at the house of the priest and find no preparations made for her return, no one to welcome her but Lucrezia--if, indeed, Lucrezia obeyed his orders and refrained from descending to the village on the chance of hearing some fresh news of her fickle lover. And Artois! There were no rooms engaged for him at the Hôtel Regina Margherita. There were no flowers, no books. Maurice tingled--his whole body tingled for a moment--and he felt like a man guilty of some mean crime and arraigned before all the world. Then he struck Tito with his switch, and began to gallop down the steep path at a breakneck pace, sticking his feet far out upon either side. He would forget. He would put away these thoughts that were tormenting him. He would enjoy this day of pleasure for which he had sacrificed so much, for which he had trampled down his self-respect in the dust.

When they reached the road by Isola Bella, Salvatore's boat was just coming round the point, vigorously propelled by the fisherman's strong arms over the radiant sea. It was a magnificent day, very hot but not sultry, free from sirocco. The sky was deep blue, a passionate, exciting blue that seemed vocal, as if it were saying thrilling things to the world that lay beneath it. The waveless sea was purple, a sea, indeed, of legend, a wine-dark, lustrous, silken sea. Into it, just here along this magic coast, was surely gathered all the wonder of color of all the southern seas. They must be blanched to make this marvel of glory, this immense jewel of God. And the lemon groves were thick along the sea. And the orange-trees stood in their decorative squadrons drinking in the rays of the sun with an ecstatic submission. And Etna, snowless Etna, rose to heaven out of this morning world, with its base in the purple glory and its feather of smoke in the calling blue, child of the sea-god and of the god that looks down from the height, majestically calm in the riot of splendor that set the feet of June dancing in a great tarantella.

As Maurice saw the wonder of sea and sky, the boat coming in over the sea, with Maddalena in the stern holding a bouquet of flowers, his heart leaped up and he forgot for a moment the shadow in himself, the shadow of his own unworthiness. He sprang off the donkey.

"I'll go down to meet them!" he cried. "Catch hold of Tito, Gaspare!"

The railway line ran along the sea, between road and beach. He had to cross it. In doing so one of his feet struck the metal rail, which gave out a dry sound. He looked down, suddenly recalled to a reality other than the splendor of the morning, the rapture of this careless festa day. And again he was conscious of the shadow. Along this line, in a few hours, would come the train bearing Hermione and Artois. Hermione would be at the window, eagerly looking out, full of happy anticipation, leaning to catch the first sight of his face, to receive and return his smile of welcome. What would her face be like when--? But Salvatore was hailing him from the sea. Maddalena was waving her hand. The thing was done. The die was cast. He had chosen his lot. Fiercely he put away from him the thought of Hermione, lifted his voice in an answering hail, his hand in a salutation which he tried to make carelessly joyous. The boat glided in between the flat rocks. And then--then he was able to forget. For Maddalena's long eyes were looking into his, with the joyousness of a child's, and yet with something of the expectation of a woman's, too. And her brown face was alive with a new and delicious self-consciousness, asking him to praise her for the surprise she had prepared, in his honor surely, specially for him, and not for her comrades and the public of the fair.

"Maddalena!" he exclaimed.

He put out his hands to help her out. She stood on the gunwale of the boat and jumped lightly down, with a little laugh, onto the beach.

"Maddalena! Per Dio! Ma che bellezza!"

She laughed again, and stood there on the stones before him smiling and watching him, with her head a little on one side, and the hand that held the tight bouquet of roses and ferns, round as a ring and red as dawn, up to her lips, as if a sudden impulse prompted her now to conceal something of her pleasure.

"Le piace?"

It came to him softly over the roses.

Maurice said nothing, but took her hand and looked at her. Salvatore was fastening up the boat and putting the oars into their places, and getting his jacket and hat.

What a transformation it was, making an almost new Maddalena! This festival dress was really quite wonderful. He felt inclined to touch it here and there, to turn Maddalena round for new aspects, as a child turns round a marvellous doll.

Maddalena wore a tudischina, a bodice of blue cotton velvet, ornamented with yellow silken fringes, and opening over the breast to show a section of snowy white edged with little buttons of sparkling steel. Her petticoat--the sinava--was of pea-green silk and thread, and was partially covered by an apron, a real coquette of an apron, white and green, with little pockets and puckers, and a green rosette where the strings met round the supple waist. Her sleeves were of white muslin, bound with yellow silk ribbons, and her stockings were blue, the color of the bodice. On her feet were shining shoes of black leather, neatly tied with small, black ribbons, and over her shoulders was a lovely shawl of blue and white with a pattern of flowers. She wore nothing on her head, but in her ears were heavy ear-rings, and round her neck was a thin silver chain with bright-blue stones threaded on it here and there.

"Maddalena!" Maurice said, at last. "You are a queen to-day!"

He stopped, then he added:

"No, you are a siren to-day, the siren I once fancied you might be."

"A siren, signorino? What is that?"

"An enchantress of the sea with a voice that makes men--that makes men feel they cannot go, they cannot leave it."

Maddalena lifted the roses a little higher to hide her face, but Maurice saw that her eyes were still smiling, and it seemed to him that she looked even more radiantly happy than when she had taken his hands to spring down to the beach.

Now Salvatore came up in his glory of a dark-blue suit, with a gay shirt of pink-and-white striped cotton, fastened at the throat with long, pink strings that had tasselled ends, a scarlet bow-tie with a brass anchor and the Italian flag thrust through it, yellow shoes, and a black hat, placed well over the left ear. Upon the forefinger of his left hand he displayed a thick snake-ring of tarnished metal, and he had a large, overblown rose in his button-hole. His mustaches had been carefully waxed, his hair cropped, and his hawklike, subtle, and yet violent face well washed for the great occasion. With bold familiarity he seized Maurice's hand.

"Buon giorno, signore. Come sta lei?"

"Benissimo."

"And Maddalena, signore? What do you think of Maddalena?"

He looked at his girl with a certain pride, and then back at Maurice searchingly.

"Maddalena is beautiful to-day," Maurice answered, quickly. He did not want to discuss her with her father, whom he longed to be rid of, whom he meant to get rid of if possible at the fair. Surely it would be easy to give him the slip there. He would be drinking with his companions, other fishermen and contadini, or playing cards, or--yes, that was an idea!

"Salvatore!" Maurice exclaimed, catching hold of the fisherman's arm.

"Signore?"

"There'll be donkeys at the fair, eh?"

"Donkeys--per Dio! Why, last year there were over sixty, and--"

"And isn't there a donkey auction sometimes, towards the end of the day, when they go cheap?"

"Si, signore! Si, signore!"

The fisherman's greedy little eyes were fixed on Maurice with keen interrogation.

"Don't let us forget that," Maurice said, returning his gaze. "You're a good judge of a donkey?"

Salvatore laughed.

"Per Bacco! There won't be a man at San Felice that can beat me at that!"

"Then perhaps you can do something for me. Perhaps you can buy me a donkey. Didn't I speak of it before?"

"Si, signore. For the signora to ride when she comes back from Africa?"

He smiled.

"For a lady to ride," Maurice answered, looking at Maddalena.

Salvatore made a clicking noise with his tongue, a noise that suggested eating. Then he spat vigorously and took from his jacket-pocket a long, black cigar. This was evidently going to be a great day for him.

"Avanti, signorino! Avanti!"

Gaspare was shouting and waving his hat frantically from the road.

"Come along, Maddalena!"

They left the beach and climbed the bank, Maddalena walking carefully in the shining shoes, and holding her green skirt well away from the bushes with both hands. Maurice hurried across the railway line without looking at it. He wanted to forget it. He was determined to forget it, and what it was bringing to Cattaro that afternoon. They reached the group of four donkeys which were standing patiently in the dusty white road.

"Mamma mia!" ejaculated Gaspare, as Maddalena came full into his sight. "Madre mia! But you are like a burgisa dressed for the wedding-day, Donna Maddalena!"