Chapter 28

He was feverishly impatient to get rid of Artois. He hurried to the arch. A long way off, near the path that led up from the ravine, he saw a figure with a gun. He was not sure, but he was almost sure that it was Gaspare. It must be he. The gun made him look, indeed, a sentinel. If Salvatore came the boy would stop him, stop him, if need be, at the cost of his own life. Maurice felt sure of that, and realized the danger of setting such faithfulness and violence to be sentinel. He stood for a moment looking at the figure. Yes, he knew it now for Gaspare. The boy had forgotten tea-time, had forgotten everything, in his desire to carry out his padrone's instructions. The signora was not to know. She was never to know. And Salvatore might come. Very well, then, he was there in the sun--ready.

"We'll never part from Gaspare," Maurice thought, as he looked and understood.

He saw no other figure. The donkey-boy had perhaps forgotten his mission or had started late. Maurice chafed bitterly at the delay. But he could not well leave his guest on this first day of his coming to Monte Amato, more especially after the events of the preceding day. To do so would seem discourteous. He returned to the terrace ill at ease, but strove to disguise his restlessness. It was nearly six o'clock when the boy at last appeared. Artois at once bade Hermione and Maurice good-bye and mounted his donkey.

"You will come to-morrow, then?" Maurice said to him at parting.

"I haven't the courage to refuse," Artois replied. "Good-bye."

He had already shaken Maurice's hand, but now he extended his hand again.

"It is good of you to make me so welcome," he said.

He paused, holding Maurice's hand in his. Both Hermione and Maurice thought he was going to say something more, but he glanced at her, dropped his host's hand, lifted his soft hat, and signed to the boy to lead the donkey away.

Hermione and Maurice followed to the arch, and from there watched him riding slowly down till he was out of sight. Maurice looked for Gaspare, but did not see him. He must have moved into the shadow of the ravine.

"Dear old Emile!" Hermione said. "He's been happy to-day. You've made him very happy, Maurice. Bless you for it!"

Maurice said nothing. Now the moment had arrived when he could go he felt a strange reluctance to say good-bye to Hermione, even for a short time. So much might--must--happen before he saw her again that evening.

"And you?" she said, at last, as he was silent. "Are you really going down to bathe? Isn't it too late?"

"Oh no. I must have a dip. It will do me all the good in the world." He tried to speak buoyantly, but the words seemed to himself to come heavily from his tongue.

"Will you take Tito?"

"I--no, I think I'll walk. I shall get down quicker, and I like going into the sea when I'm hot. I'll just fetch my bathing things."

They walked back together to the house. Maurice wondered what had suddenly come to him. He felt horribly sad now--yet he wished to get the scene that awaited him over. He was longing to have it over. He went into the house, got his bathing-dress and towels, and came out again onto the terrace.

"I shall be a little late back, I suppose," he said.

"Yes. It's six o'clock now. Shall we dine at half-past eight--or better say nine? That will give you plenty of time to come up quietly."

"Yes. Let's say nine."

Still he did not move to go.

"Have you been happy to-day, Hermione?" he asked.

"Yes, very--since this morning."

"Since?"

"Yes. This morning I--"

She stopped.

"I was a little puzzled," she said, after a minute, with her usual frankness. "Tell me, Maurice--you weren't made unhappy by--by what I told you?"

"About--about the child?"

"Yes."

He did not answer with words, but he put his arms about her and kissed her, as he had not kissed her since she went away to Africa. She shut her eyes. Presently she felt the pressure of his arms relax.

"I'm perfectly happy now," she said. "Perfectly happy."

He moved away a step or two. His face was flushed, and she thought that he looked younger, that the boyish expression she loved had come back to him.

"Good-bye, Hermione," he said.

Still he did not go. She thought that he had something more to say but did not know how to say it. She felt so certain of this that she said:

"What is it, Maurice?"

"We shall come back to Sicily, I suppose, sha'n't we, some time or other?"

"Surely. Many times, I hope."

"Suppose--one can never tell what will happen--suppose one of us were to die here?"

"Yes," she said, soberly.

"Don't you think it would be good to lie there where we lay this afternoon, under the oak-trees, in sight of Etna and the sea? I think it would. Good-bye, Hermione."

He swung the bathing-dress and the towels up over his shoulder and went away through the arch. She followed and watched him springing down the mountain-side. Just before he reached the ravine he turned and waved his hand to her. His movements, that last gesture, were brimful of energy and of life. He acted better then than he had that day upon the terrace. But the sense of progress, the feeling that he was going to meet fate in the person of Salvatore, quickened the blood within him. At last the suspense would be over. At last he would be obliged to play not the actor but the man. He longed to be down by the sea. The youth in him rose up at the thought of action, and his last farewell to Hermione, looking down to him from the arch, was bold and almost careless.

Scarcely had he got into the ravine before he met Gaspare. He stopped. The boy's face was aflame with expression as he stood, holding his gun, in front of his padrone.

"Gaspare!" Maurice said to him.

He held out his hand and grasped the boy's hot hand.

"I sha'n't forget your faithful service," he said. "Thank you, Gaspare."

He wanted to say more, to find other and far different words. But he could not.

"Let me come with you, signorino."

The boy's voice was intensely, almost savagely, earnest.

"No. You must stay with the signora."

"I want to come with you."

His great eyes were fastened on his padrone's face.

"I have always been with you."

"But you were with the signora first. You were her servant. You must stay with her now. Remember one thing, Gaspare--the signora is never to know."

The boy nodded. His eyes still held Maurice. They glittered as if with leaping fires. That deep and passionate spirit of Sicilian loyalty, which is almost savage in its intensity and heedless of danger, which is ready to go to hell with, or for, a friend or a master who is beloved and believed in, was awake in Gaspare, illuminated him at this moment. The peasant boy looked noble.

"Mayn't I come with you, signorino?"

"Gaspare," Maurice said, "I must leave some one with the padrona. Salvatore might come still. I may miss him going down. Whom can I trust to stop Salvatore, if he comes, but you? You see?"

"Va bene, signorino."

The boy seemed convinced, but he suffered and did not try to conceal it.

"Now I must go," Maurice said.

He shook Gaspare's hand.

"Have you got the revolver, signorino?" said the boy.

"No. I am not going to fight with Salvatore."

"How do you know what Salvatore will do?"

Maurice looked down upon the stones that lay on the narrow path.

"My revolver can have nothing to do with Maddalena's father," he said.

He sighed.

"That's how it is, Gaspare. Addio!"

"Addio, signorino."

Maurice went on down the path into the shadow of the trees. Presently he turned. Gaspare stood quite still, looking after him.

"Signorino!" he called. "May I not come? I want to come with you."

Maurice waved his hand towards the mountain-side.

"Go to the signora," he called back. "And look out for me to-night. Addio, Gaspare!"

The boy's "Addio!" came to him sadly through the gathering shadows of the evening.

Presently Hermione, who was sitting alone on the terrace with a book in her lap which she was not reading, saw Gaspare walking listlessly through the archway holding his gun. He came slowly towards her, lifted his hat, and was going on without a word, but she stopped him.

"Why, Gaspare," she said, lightly, "you forgot us to-day. How was that?"

"Signora?"

Again she saw the curious, almost ugly, look of obstinacy, which she had already noticed, come into his face.

"You didn't remember about tea-time!"

"Signora," he answered, "I am sorry."

He looked at her fixedly while he spoke.

"I am sorry," he said again.

"Never mind," Hermione said, unable to blame him on this first day of her return. "I dare say you have got out of regular habits while I've been away. What have you been doing all the time?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Niente."

Again she wondered what was the matter with the boy to-day. Where were his life and gayety? Where was his sense of fun? He used to be always joking, singing. But now he was serious, almost heavy in demeanor.

"Gaspare," she said, jokingly, "I think you've all become very solemn without me. I am the old person of the party, but I begin to believe that it is I who keep you lively. I mustn't go away again."

"No, signora," he answered, earnestly; "you must never go away from us again. You should never have gone away from us."

The deep solemnity of his great eyes startled her. He put on his hat and went away round the angle of the cottage.

"What can be the matter with him?" she thought.

She remained sitting there on the terrace, wondering. Now she thought over things quietly, it struck her as strange the fact that she had left behind her in the priest's house three light-hearted people, and had come back to find Lucrezia drowned in sorrow, Gaspare solemn, even mysterious in his manner, and her husband--but here her thoughts paused, not labelling Maurice. At first he had puzzled her the most. But she thought she had found reasons for the change--a passing one, she felt sure--in him. He had secretly resented her absence, and, though utterly free from any ignoble suspicion of her, he had felt boyishly jealous of her friendship with Emile. That was very natural. For this was their honeymoon. She considered it their honeymoon prolonged, delightfully prolonged, beyond any fashionable limit. Lucrezia's depression was easily comprehensible. The change in her husband she accounted for; but now here was Gaspare looking dismal!

"I must cheer them all up," she thought to herself. "This beautiful time mustn't end dismally."

And then she thought of the inevitable departure. Was Maurice looking forward to it, desiring it? He had spoken that day as if he wished to be off. In London she had been able to imagine him in the South, in the highway of the sun. But now that she was here in Sicily she could not imagine him in London.

"He is not in his right place there," she thought.

Yet they must go, and soon. She knew that they were going, and yet she could not feel that they were going. What she had said under the oak-trees was true. In the spring her tender imagination had played softly with the idea of Sicily's joy in the possession of her son, of Maurice. Would Sicily part from him without an effort to retain him? Would Sicily let him go? She smiled to herself at her fancies. But if Sicily kept him, how would she keep him? The smile left her lips and her eyes as she thought of Maurice's suggestion. That would be too horrible. God would not allow that. And yet what tragedies He allowed to come into the lives of others. She faced certain facts, as she sat there, facts permitted, or deliberately brought about by the Divine Will. The scourge of war--that sowed sorrows over a land as the sower in the field scatters seeds. She, like others, had sat at home and read of battles in which thousands of men had been killed, and she had grieved--or had she really grieved, grieved with her heart? She began to wonder, thinking of Maurice's veiled allusion to the possibility of his death. He was the spirit of youth to her. And all the boys slain in battle! Had not each one of them represented the spirit of youth to some one, to some woman--mother, sister, wife, lover?

What were those women's feelings towards God?

She wondered. She wondered exceedingly. And presently a terrible thought came into her mind. It was this. How can one forgive God if He snatches away the spirit of youth that one loves?

Under the shadow of the oak-trees she had lain that day and looked out upon the shining world--upon the waters, upon the plains, upon the mountains, upon the calling coast-line and the deep passion of the blue. And she had felt the infinite love of God. When she had thought of God, she had thought of Him as the great Provider of happiness, as One who desired, with a heart too large and generous for the mere accurate conception of man, the joy of man.

But Maurice was beside her then.

Those whose lives had been ruined by great tragedies, when they looked out upon the shining world what must they think, feel?

She strove to imagine. Their conception of God must surely be very different from hers.

Once she had been almost unable to believe that God could choose her to be the recipient of a supreme happiness. But we accustom ourselves with a wonderful readiness to a happy fate. She had come back--she had been allowed to return to the Garden of Paradise. And this fact had given to her a confidence in life which was almost audacious. So now, even while she imagined the sorrows of others, half strove to imagine what her own sorrows might be, her inner feeling was still one of confidence. She looked out on the shining world, and in her heart was the shining world. She looked out on the glory of the blue, and in her heart was the glory of the blue. The world shone for her because she had Maurice. She knew that. But there was light in it. There would always be light whatever happened to any human creature. There would always be the sun, the great symbol of joy. It rose even upon the battle-field where the heaps of the dead were lying.

She could not realize sorrow to-day. She must see the sunlight even in the deliberate visions conjured up by her imagination.

Gaspare did not reappear. For a long time she was alone. She watched the changing of the light, the softening of the great landscape as the evening approached. Sometimes she thought of Maurice's last words about being laid to rest some day in the shadows of the oak-trees, in sight of Etna and the sea. When the years had gone, perhaps they would lie together in Sicily, wrapped in the final siesta of the body. Perhaps the unborn child, of whose beginning she was mystically conscious, would lay them to rest there.

"Buon riposo." She loved the Sicilian good-night. Better than any text she would love to have those simple words written above her sleeping-place and his. "Buon riposo!"--she murmured the words to herself as she looked at the quiet of the hills, at the quiet of the sea. The glory of the world was inspiring, but the peace of the world was almost more uplifting, she thought. Far off, in the plain, she discerned tiny trails of smoke from Sicilian houses among the orange-trees beside the sea. The gold was fading. The color of the waters was growing paler, gentler, the color of the sky less passionate. The last point of the coast-line was only a shadow now, scarcely that. Somewhere was the sunset, its wonder unseen by her, but realized because of this growing tenderness, that was like a benediction falling upon her from a distant love, intent to shield her and her little home from sorrow and from danger. Nature was whispering her "Buon riposo!" Her hushed voice spoke withdrawn among the mountains, withdrawn upon the spaces of the sea. The heat of the golden day was blessed, but after it how blessed was the cool of the dim night!

Again she thought that the God who had placed man in the magnificent scheme of the world must have intended and wished him to be always happy there. Nature seemed to be telling her this, and her heart was convinced by Nature, though the story of the Old Testament had sometimes left her smiling or left her wondering. Men had written a Bible. God had written a Bible, too. And here she read its pages and was made strong by it.

"Signora!"

Hermione started and turned her head.

"Lucrezia! What is it?"

"What time is it, signora?"

Hermione looked at her watch.

"Nearly eight o'clock. An hour still before supper."

"I've got everything ready."

"To-night we've only cold things, haven't we? You made us a very nice collazione. The French signore praised your cooking, and he's very particular, as French people generally are. So you ought to be proud of yourself."

Lucrezia smiled, but only for an instant. Then she stood with an anxious face, twisting her apron.

"Signora!"

"Yes? What is it?"

"Would you mind--may I--"

She stopped.

"Why, Lucrezia, are you afraid of me? I've certainly been away too long!"

"No, no, signora, but--" Tears hung in her eyes. "Will you let me go away if I promise to be back by nine?"

"But you can't go to Marechiaro in--"

"No, signora. I only want to go to the mountain over there under Castel Vecchio. I want to go to the Madonna."

Hermione took one of the girl's hands.

"To the Madonna della Rocca?"

"Si, signora."

"I understand."

"I have a candle to burn to the Madonna. If I go now I can be back before nine."

She stood gazing pathetically, like a big child, at her padrona.

"Lucrezia," Hermione said, moved to a great pity by her own great happiness, "would you mind if I came, too? I think I should like to say a prayer for you to-night. I am not a Catholic, but my prayer cannot hurt you."

Lucrezia suddenly forgot distinctions, threw her arms round Hermione, and began to sob.

"Hush, you must be brave!"

She smoothed the girl's dark hair gently.

"Have you got your candle?"

"Si."

She showed it.

"Let us go quickly, then. Where's Gaspare?"

"Close to the house, signora, on the mountain. One cannot speak with him to-day."

"Why not?"

"Non lo so. But he is terrible to-day!"

So Lucrezia had noticed Gaspare's strangeness, too, even in the midst of her sorrow!

"Gaspare!" Hermione called.

There was no answer.

"Gaspare!"

She called louder.

"Si, signora!"

The voice came from somewhere behind the house.

"I am going for a walk with Lucrezia. We shall be back at nine. Tell the padrone if he comes."

"Si, signora."

The two women set out without seeing Gaspare. They walked in silence down the mountain-path. Lucrezia held her candle carefully, like one in a procession. She was not sobbing now. There were no tears in her eyes. The companionship and the sympathy of her padrona had given her some courage, some hope, had taken away from her the desolate feeling, the sensation of abandonment which had been torturing her. And then she had an almost blind faith in the Madonna della Rocca. And the padrona was going to pray, too. She was not a Catholic, but she was a lady and she was good. The Madonna della Rocca must surely be influenced by her petition.

So Lucrezia plucked up a little courage. The activity of the walk helped her. She knew the solace of movement. And perhaps, without being conscious of it, she was influenced by the soft beauty of the evening, by the peace of the hills. But as they crossed the ravine they heard the tinkle of bells, and a procession of goats tripped by them, following a boy who was twittering upon a flute. He was playing the tune of the tarantella, that tune which Hermione associated with careless joy in the sun. He passed down into the shadows of the trees, and gradually the airy rapture of his fluting and the tinkle of the goat-bells died away towards Marechiaro. Then Hermione saw tears rolling down over Lucrezia's brown cheeks.

"He can't play it like Sebastiano, signora!" she said.

The little tune had brought back all her sorrow.

"Perhaps we shall soon hear Sebastiano play it again," said Hermione.

They began to climb upward on the far side of the ravine towards the fierce silhouette of the Saracenic castle on the height. Beneath the great crag on which it was perched was the shrine of the Madonna della Rocca. Night was coming now, and the little lamp before the shrine shone gently, throwing a ray of light upon the stones of the path. When they reached it, Lucrezia crossed herself, and they stood together for a moment looking at the faded painting of the Madonna, almost effaced against its rocky background. Within the glass that sheltered it stood vases of artificial flowers, and on the ledge outside the glass were two or three bunches of real flowers, placed there by peasants returning to their homes in Castel Vecchio from their labors in the vineyards and the orchards. There were also two branches with clustering, red-gold oranges lying among the flowers. It was a strange, wild place. The precipice of rock, which the castello dominated, leaned slightly forward above the head of the Madonna, as if it meditated overwhelming her. But she smiled gently, as if she had no fear of it, bending down her pale eyes to the child who lay upon her girlish knees. Among the bowlders, the wild cactus showed its spiked leaves, and in the daytime the long black snakes sunned themselves upon the stones.

To Hermione this lonely and faded Madonna, smiling calmly beneath the savagely frowning rock upon which dead men had built long years ago a barbarous fastness, was touching in her solitude. There was something appealing in her frailness, in her thin, anæmic calm. How long had she been here? How long would she remain? She was fading away, as things fade in the night. Yet she had probably endured for years, would still be here for years to come, would be here to receive the wild flowers of peasant children, the prayers of peasant lovers, the adoration of the poor, who, having very little here, put their faith in far-off worlds, where they will have harvests surely without reaping in the heat of the sun, where they will have good wine without laboring in the vineyards, where they will be able to rest without the thought coming to them, "If to-day I rest, to-morrow I shall starve."

As Hermione looked at the painting lit by the little lamp, at the gifts of the flowers and the fruit, she began to feel as if indeed a woman dwelt there, in that niche of the crag, as if a heart were there, a soul to pity, an ear to listen.

Lucrezia knelt down quietly, lit her candle, turned it upside down till the hot wax dripped onto the rock and made a foundation for it, then stuck it upright, crossed herself silently, and began to pray. Her lips moved quickly. The candle-flame flickered for a moment, then burned steadily, sending its thin fire up towards the evening star. After a moment Hermione knelt down beside her.

She had never before prayed at a shrine. It was curious to be kneeling under this savage wall of rock above which the evening star showed itself in the clear heaven of night. She looked at the star and at the Madonna, then at the little bunches of flowers, and at Lucrezia's candle. These gifts of the poor moved her heart. Poverty giving is beautiful. She thought that, and was almost ashamed of the comfort of her life. She wished she had brought a candle, too. Then she bent her head and began to pray that Sebastiano might remember Lucrezia and return to her. To make her prayer more earnest, she tried to realize Lucrezia's sorrow by putting herself in Lucrezia's place, and Maurice in Sebastiano's. It was such a natural effort as people make every day, every hour. If Maurice had forgotten her in absence, had given his love to another, had not cared to return to her! If she were alone now in Sicily while he was somewhere else, happy with some one else!