Chapter 24

Gaspare said no more, but as they rode up, drawing ever nearer to the bare mountain-side and the house of the priest, Maurice's heart reiterated the thought of the boy. Why had Hermione ever gone? What a madness it had all been, her going, his staying! He knew it now for a madness, a madness of the summer, of the hot, the burning south. In this terrible quiet of the mountains, without the sun, without the laughter and the voices and the movement of men, he understood that he had been mad, that there had been something in him, not all himself, which had run wild, despising restraint. And he had known that it was running wild, and he had thought to let it go just so far and no farther. He had set a limit of time to his wildness and its deeds. And he had set another limit. Surely he had. He had not ever meant to go too far. And then, just when he had said to himself "E' finito!" the irrevocable was at hand, the moment of delirium in which all things that should have been remembered were forgotten. What had led him? What spirit of evil? Or had he been led at all? Had not he rather deliberately forced his way to the tragic goal whither, through all these sunlit days, these starry nights, his feet had been tending?

He looked upon himself as a man looks upon a stranger whom he has seen commit a crime which he could never have committed. Mentally he took himself into custody, he tried, he condemned himself. In this hour of acute reaction the cool justice of the Englishman judged the passionate impulse of the Sicilian, even marvelled at it, and the heart of the dancing Faun cried: "What am I--what am I really?" and did not find the answer.

"Signorino?"

"Yes, Gaspare."

"When we get to that rock we shall see the house."

"I know."

How eagerly he had looked upward to the little white house on the mountain on that first day in Sicily, with what joy of anticipation, with what an exquisite sense of liberty and of peace! The drowsy wail of the "Pastorale" had come floating down to him over the olive-trees almost like a melody that stole from paradise. But now he dreaded the turn of the path. He dreaded to see the terrace wall, the snowy building it protected. And he felt as if he were drawing near to a terror, and as if he could not face it, did not know how to face it.

"Signorino, there is no light! Look!"

"The signora and Lucrezia must be asleep at this hour."

"If they are, what are we to do? Shall we wake them?"

"No, no."

He spoke quickly, in hope of a respite.

"We will wait--we will not disturb them."

Gaspare looked down at the parcel he was holding with such anxious care.

"I would like to play the 'Tre Colori,'" he said. "I would like the first thing the signora hears when she wakes to be the 'Tre Colori.'"

"Hush! We must be very quiet."

The noise made on the path by the tripping feet of the donkeys was almost intolerable to him. It must surely wake the deepest sleeper. They were now on the last ascent where the mountain-side was bare. Some stones rattled downward, causing a sharp, continuous sound. It was answered by another sound, which made both Gaspare and Maurice draw rein and pull up.

As on that first day in Sicily Maurice had been welcomed by the "Pastorale," so he was welcomed by it now. What an irony that was to him! For an instant his lips curved in a bitter smile. But the smile died away as he realized things, and a strange sadness took hold of his heart. For it was not the ceramella that he heard in this still hour, but a piano played softly, monotonously, with a dreamy tenderness that made it surely one with the tenderness of the deep night. And he knew that Hermione had been watching, that she had heard him coming, that this was her welcome, a welcome from the depths of her pure, true heart. How much the music told him! How clearly it spoke to him! And how its caress flagellated his bare soul! Hermione had returned expectant of welcome and had found nothing, and instead of coming out upon the terrace, instead of showing surprise, vexation, jealous curiosity, of assuming the injured air that even a good woman can scarcely resist displaying in a moment of acute disappointment, she sent forth this delicate salutation to him from afar, the sweetest that she knew, the one she herself loved best.

Tears came into his eyes as he listened. Then he shut his eyes and said to himself, shuddering:

"Oh, you beast! You beast!"

"It is the signora!" said Gaspare, turning round on his donkey. "She does not know we are here, and she is playing to keep herself awake."

He looked down at his clock, and his eyes began to shine.

"I am glad the signora is awake!" he said. "Signorino, let us get off the donkeys and leave them at the arch, and let us go in without any noise."

"But perhaps the signora knows that we are here," Maurice said.

Directly he had heard the music he had known that Hermione was aware of their approach.

"No, no, signore. I am sure she does not, or she would have come out to meet us. Let us leave the donkeys!"

He sprang off softly. Mechanically, Maurice followed his example.

"Now, signore!"

The boy took him by the hand and led him on tiptoe to the terrace, making him crouch down close to the open French window. The "Pastorale" was louder here. It never ceased, but returned again and again with the delicious monotony that made it memorable and wove a spell round those who loved it. As he listened to it, Maurice fancied he could hear the breathing of the player, and he felt that she was listening, too, listening tensely for footsteps on the terrace.

Gaspare looked up at him with bright eyes. The boy's whole face was alive with a gay and mischievous happiness, as he turned the handle at the back of his clock slowly, slowly, till at last it would turn no more. Then there tinkled forth to join the "Pastorale" the clear, trilling melody of the "Tre Colori."

The music in the room ceased abruptly. There was a rustling sound as the player moved. Then Hermione's voice, with something trembling through it that was half a sob, half a little burst of happy laughter, called out:

"Gaspare, how dare you interrupt my concert?"

"Signora! Signora!" cried Gaspare, and, springing up, he darted into the sitting-room.

But Maurice, though he lifted himself up quickly, stood where he was with his hand set hard against the wall of the house. He heard Gaspare kiss Hermione's hand. Then he heard her say:

"But, but, Gaspare----"

He took his hand from the wall with an effort. His feet seemed glued to the ground, but at last he was in the room.

"Hermione!" he said.

"Maurice!"

He felt her strong hands, strong and yet soft like all the woman, on his.

"Cento di questi giorni!" she said. "Ah, but it is better than all the birthdays in the world!"

He wanted to kiss her--not to please her, but for himself he wanted to kiss her--but he dared not. He felt that if his lips were to touch hers--she must know. To excuse his avoidance of the natural greeting he looked at Gaspare.

"I know!" she whispered. "You haven't forgotten!"

She was alluding to that morning on the terrace when he came up from the fishing. They loosed their hands. Gaspare set the clock playing again.

"What a beauty!" Hermione said, glad to hide her emotion for a moment till she and Maurice could be alone. "What a marvel! Where did you find it, Gaspare--at the fair?"

"Si, signora!"

Solemnly he handed it, still playing brightly, to his padrona, just a little reluctantly, perhaps, but very gallantly.

"It is for you, signora."

"A present--oh, Gaspare!"

Again her voice was veiled. She put out her hand and touched the boy's hand.

"Grazie! How sweetly it plays! You thought of me!"

There was a silence till the tune was finished. Then Maurice said:

"Hermione, I don't know what to say. That we should be at the fair the day you arrived! Why--why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you write?"

"You didn't know, then!"

The words came very quickly, very eagerly.

"Know! Didn't Lucrezia tell you that we had no idea?"

"Poor Lucrezia! She's in a dreadful condition. I found her in the village."

"No!" Maurice cried, thankful to turn the conversation from himself, though only for an instant. "I specially told her to stay here. I specially----"

"Well, but, poor thing, as you weren't expecting me! But I wrote, Maurice, I wrote a letter telling you everything, the hour we were coming--"

"It's Don Paolo!" exclaimed Gaspare, angrily. "He hides away the letters. He lets them lie sometimes in his office for months. To-morrow I will go and tell him what I think; I will turn out every drawer."

"It is too bad!" Maurice said.

"Then you never had it?"

"Hermione"--he stared at the open door--"you think we should have gone to the fair if----"

"No, no, I never thought so. I only wondered. It all seemed so strange."

"It is too horrible!" Maurice said, with heavy emphasis. "And Artois--no rooms ready for him! What can he have thought?"

"As I did, that there had been a mistake. What does it matter now? Just at the moment I was dreadfully--oh, dreadfully disappointed. I saw Gaspare at the fair. And you saw me, Gaspare?"

"Si, signora. I ran all the way to the station, but the train had gone."

"But I didn't see you, Maurice. Where were you?"

Gaspare opened his lips to speak, but Maurice did not give him time.

"I was there, too, in the fair."

"But of course you weren't looking at the train?"

"Of course not. And when Gaspare told me, it was too late to do anything. We couldn't get back in time, and the donkeys were tired, and so----"

"Oh, I'm glad you didn't hurry back. What good would it have done then?"

There was a touch of constraint in her voice.

"You must have thought I should be in bed."

"Yes, we did."

"And so I ought to be now. I believe I am tremendously tired, but--but I'm so tremendously something else that I hardly know."

The constraint had gone.

"The signora is happy because she is back in my country," Gaspare remarked, with pride and an air of shrewdness.

He nodded his head. The faded roses shook above his ears. Hermione smiled at him.

"He knows all about it," she said. "Well, if we are ever to go to bed----"

Gaspare looked from her to his padrone.

"Buona notte, signora," he said, gravely. "Buona notte, signorino. Buon riposo!"

"Buon riposo!" echoed Hermione. "It is blessed to hear that again. I do love the clock, Gaspare."

The boy beamed at her and went reluctantly away to find the donkeys. At that moment Maurice would have given almost anything to keep him. He dreaded unspeakably to be alone with Hermione. But it had to be. He must face it. He must seem natural, happy.

"Shall I put the clock down?" he asked.

He went to her, took the clock, carried it to the writing-table, and put it down.

"Gaspare was so happy to bring it to you."

He turned. He felt desperate. He came to Hermione and put out his hands.

"I feel so bad that we weren't here," he said.

"That is it!"

There was a sound of deep relief in her voice. Then she had been puzzled by his demeanor! He must be natural; but how? It seemed to him as if never in all his life could he have felt innocent, careless, brave. Now he was made of cowardice. He was like a dog that crawls with its belly to the floor. He got hold of Hermione's hands.

"I feel--I feel horribly, horribly bad!"

Speaking the absolute truth, his voice was absolutely sincere, and he deceived her utterly.

"Maurice," she said, "I believe it's upset you so much that--that you are shy of me."

She laughed happily.

"Shy--of me!"

He tried to laugh, too, and kissed her abruptly, awkwardly. All his natural grace was gone from him. But when he kissed her she did not know it; her lips clung to his with a tender passion, a fealty that terrified him.

"She must know!" he thought. "She must feel the truth. My lips must tell it to her."

And when at last they drew away from each other his eyes asked her furiously a question, asked it of her eyes.

"What is it, Maurice?"

He said nothing. She dropped her eyes and reddened slowly, till she looked much younger than usual, strangely like a girl.

"You haven't--you haven't----"

There was a sound of reserve in her voice, and yet a sound of triumph, too. She looked up at him again.

"Do you guess that I have something to tell you?" she said, slowly.

"Something to tell me?" he repeated, dully.

He was so intent on himself, on his own evil-doing, that it seemed to him as if everything must have some connection with it.

"Ah," she said, quickly; "no, I see you weren't."

"What is it?" he asked, but without real interest.

"I can't tell you now," she said.

Gaspare went by the window leading the donkeys.

"Buona notte, signora!"

It was a very happy voice.

"Buona notte, Gaspare. Sleep well."

Maurice caught at the last words.

"We must sleep," he said. "To-morrow we'll--we'll----"

"Tell each other everything. Yes, to-morrow!"

She put her arm through his.

"Maurice, if you knew how I feel!"

"Yes?" he said, trying to make his voice eager, buoyant. "Yes?"

"If you knew how I've been longing to be back! And so often I've thought that I never should be here with you again, just in the way we were!"

He cleared his throat.

"Why?"

"It is so difficult to repeat a great, an intense happiness, I think. But we will, we are repeating it, aren't we?"

"Yes."

"When I got to the station to-day, and--and you weren't there, I had a dreadful foreboding. It was foolish. The explanation of your not being there was so simple. Of course I might have guessed it."

"Of course."

"But in the first moment I felt as if you weren't there because I had lost you forever, because you had been taken away from me forever. It was such an intense feeling that it frightened me--it frightened me horribly. Put your arm round me, Maurice. Let me feel what an idiot I have been!"

He obeyed her and put his arm round her, and he felt as if his arm must tell her what she had not learned from his lips. And she thought that now he must know the truth she had not told him.

"Don't think of dreadful things," he said.

"I won't any more. I don't think I could with you. To me you always mean the sun, light, and life, and all that is brave and beautiful!"

He took his arm away from her.

"Come, we must sleep, Hermione!" he said. "It's nearly dawn. I can almost see the smoke on Etna."

He shut the French window and drew the bolt.

She had gone into the bedroom and was standing by the dressing-table. She did not know why, but a great shyness had come upon her. It was like a cloud enveloping her. Never before had she felt like this with Maurice, not even when they were first married. She had loved him too utterly to be shy with him. Maurice was still in the sitting-room, fastening the shutters of the window. She heard the creak of wood, the clatter of the iron bar falling into the fastener. Now he would come.

But he did not come. He was moving about in the room. She heard papers rustling, then the lid of the piano shut down. He was putting everything in order.

This orderliness was so unusual in Maurice that it made a disagreeable impression upon her. She began to feel as if he did not want to come into the bedroom, as if he were trying to put off the moment of coming. She remembered that he had seemed shy of her. What had come to them both to-night? Her instinct moved her to break through this painful, this absurd constraint.

"Maurice!" she called.

"Yes."

His voice sounded odd to her, almost like the voice of some other man, some stranger.

"Aren't you coming?"

"Yes. Hermione."

But still he did not come. After a moment, he said:

"It's awfully hot to-night!"

"After Africa it seems quite cool to me."

"Does it? I've been--since you've been away I've been sleeping nearly always out-of-doors on the terrace."

Now he came to the doorway and stood there. He looked at the white room, at Hermione. She had on a white tea-gown. It seemed to him that everything here was white, everything but his soul. He felt as if he could not come into this room, could not sleep here to-night, as if it would be a desecration. When he stood in the doorway the painful shyness returned to her.

"Have you?" she said.

"Yes."

"Do you--would you rather sleep there to-night?"

She did not mean to say it. It was the last thing she wished to say. Yet she said it. It seemed to her that she was forced to say it.

"Well, it's much cooler there."

She was silent.

"I could just put one or two rugs and cushions on the seat by the wall," he said. "I shall sleep like a top. I'm awfully tired!"

"But--but the sun will soon be up, won't it?"

"Oh--then I can come in."

"All right."

"I'll take the rugs from the sitting-room. I say--how's Artois?"

"Much better, but he's still weak."

"Poor chap!"

"He'll ride up to-morrow on a donkey."

"Good! I'm--I'm most awfully sorry about his rooms."

"What does it matter? I've made them quite nice already. He's perfectly comfortable."

"I'm glad. It's all--it's all been such a pity--about to-day, I mean."

"Don't let's think of it! Don't let's think of it any more."

A passionate sound had stolen into her voice. She moved a step towards him. A sudden idea had come to her, an idea that stirred within her a great happiness, that made a flame of joy spring up in her heart.

"Maurice, you--you----"

"What is it?" he asked.

"You aren't vexed at my staying away so long? You aren't vexed at my bringing Emile back with me?"

"No, of course not," he said. "But--but I wish you hadn't gone away."

And then he disappeared into the sitting-room, collected the rugs and cushions, opened the French window, and went out upon the terrace. Presently he called out:

"I shall sleep as I am, Hermione, without undressing. I'm awfully done. Good-night."

"Good-night!" she called.

There was a quiver in her voice. And yet that flame of happiness had not quite died down. She said to herself:

"He doesn't want me to know. He's too proud. But he has been a little jealous, perhaps." She remembered how Sicilian he was.

"But I'll make him forget it all," she thought, eagerly. "To-morrow--to-morrow it will be all right. He's missed me, he's missed me!"

That thought was very sweet to her. It seemed to explain all things; this constraint of her husband, which had reacted upon her, this action of his in preferring to sleep outside--everything. He had always been like a boy. He was like a boy now. He could not conceal his feelings. He did not doubt her. She knew that. But he had been a little jealous about her friendship for Emile.

She undressed. When she was ready for bed she hesitated a moment. Then she put a white shawl round her shoulders and stole quickly out of the room. She came upon the terrace. The stars were waning. The gray of the dawn was in the sky towards the east. Maurice, stretched upon the rugs, with his face turned towards the terrace wall, was lying still. She went to him, bent down, and kissed him.

"I love you," she whispered--"oh, so much!"

She did not wait, but went away at once. When she was gone he put up his hand to his face. On his cheek there was a tear.

"God forgive me!" he said to himself. "God forgive me!"

His body was shaken by a sob.

XVIII

When the sun came up over the rim of the sea Maurice ceased from his pretence of sleep, raised himself on his elbow, then sat upright and looked over the ravine to the rocks of the Sirens' Isle. The name seemed to him now a fatal name, and everything connected with his sojourn in Sicily fatal. Surely there had been a malign spirit at work. In this early morning hour his brain, though unrefreshed by sleep, was almost unnaturally clear, feverishly busy. Something had met him when he first set foot in Sicily--so he thought now--had met him with a fixed and evil purpose. And that purpose had never been abandoned.

Old superstitions, inherited perhaps from a long chain of credulous Sicilian ancestors, were stirring in him. He did not laugh at his idea, as a pure-blooded Englishman would have laughed. He pondered it. He cherished it.

On his very first evening in Sicily the spirit had led him to the wall, had directed his gaze to the far-off light in the house of the sirens. He remembered how strangely the little light had fascinated his eyes, and his mind through his eyes, how he had asked what it was, how, when Hermione had called him to come in to sleep, he had turned upon the steps to gaze down on it once more. Then he had not known why he gazed. Now he knew. The spirit that had met him by the sea in Sicily had whispered to him to look, and he had obeyed because he could not do otherwise.

He dwelt upon that thought, that he had obeyed because he had been obliged to obey. It was a palliative to his mental misery and his hatred of himself. The fatalism that is linked with superstition got hold upon him and comforted him a little. He had not been a free agent. He had had to do as he had done. Everything had been arranged so that he might sin. The night of the fishing had prepared the way for the night of the fair. If Hermione had stayed--but of course she had not stayed. The spirit that had kept him in Sicily had sent her across the sea to Africa. In the full flush of his hot-blooded youth, intoxicated by his first knowledge of the sun and of love, he had been left quite alone. Newly married, he had been abandoned by his wife for a good, even perhaps a noble, reason. Still, he had been abandoned--to himself and the keeping of that spirit. Was it any wonder that he had fallen? He strove to think that it was not. In the night he had cowered before Hermione and had been cruel with himself. Now, in the sunshine, he showed fight. He strove to find excuses for himself. If he did not find excuses he felt that he could not face the day, face Hermione in sunlight.

And now that the spirit had led him thus far, surely its work was done, surely it would leave him alone. He tried to believe that.

Then he thought of Maddalena.

She was there, down there where the rising sun glittered on the sea. She surely was awake, as he was awake. She was thinking, wondering--perhaps weeping.

He got up. He could not look at the sea any more. The name "House of the Sirens" suddenly seemed to him a terrible misnomer, now that he thought of Maddalena perhaps weeping by the sea.

He had his revenge upon Salvatore, but at what a cost!

Salvatore! The fisherman's face rose up before him. If he ever knew! Maurice remembered his sensation that already, before he had done the fisherman any wrong, the fisherman had condemned him. Now there was a reason for condemnation. He had no physical fear of Salvatore. He was not a man to be physically afraid of another man. But if Salvatore ever knew he might tell. He might tell Hermione. That thought brought with it to Maurice a cold as of winter. The malign spirit might still have a purpose in connection with him, might still be near him full of intention. He felt afraid of the Sicily he had loved. He longed to leave it. He thought of it as an isle of fear, where terrors walked in the midst of the glory of the sunshine, where fatality lurked beside the purple sea.

"Maurice!"

He started. Hermione was on the steps of the sitting-room.

"You're not sleeping!" he said.

He felt as if she had been there reading all his thoughts.

"And you!" she answered.

"The sun woke me."

He lied instinctively. All his life with her would be a lie now, could never be anything else--unless----

He looked at her hard and long in the eyes for the first time since they had met after her return. Suppose he were to tell her, now, at once, in the stillness, the wonderful innocence and clearness of the dawn! For a moment he felt that it would be an exquisite relief, a casting down of an intolerable burden. She had such a splendid nature. She loved sincerity as she loved God. To her it was the one great essential quality, whose presence or absence made or marred the beauty of a human soul. He knew that.