There had been a slight, a very slight change in Sylvia since the day
when Wilbraham so abruptly announced that he was going to England. She
was not quite so confident; once or twice Mrs Brodrick had fancied she
was not confident at all. Teresa, blinded by art and sunshine, flung
off her cares, and enjoyed herself to the full. Mrs Maxwell, growing
slightly bored, began to talk of going on to Syracuse. She said it was
because Mrs Brodrick looked pale.
"I shall be so sorry to go myself. It's a delightful place," she
declared, yawning.
"A rare good hole for Greek coins," said her husband, "and a lot more
coming next week. I want to see them."
She glanced at him pityingly.
"Ten days more?" pleaded Teresa. "Come, that will carry us over Easter
and the processions. Think of a procession in the streets of Taormina!"
Mrs Maxwell, who liked to see everything, reflected and agreed.
"But I'm very uncomfortable here," she added. "I should wish you all to
know that Peppina is really no good to me at all. See how she's done my
hair to-day. A perfect fright, in spite of the lessons I showered upon
her."
"Our servants are not quite successful. Nina looks as she looked when
she had toothache, and I can't say more! She is prejudiced against
Sicily."
"They might consider us a little," said Mrs Maxwell. "But your Nina
does serve you faithfully. Now, Peppina would not care what happened to
me, so long as she clutched the lire. Why don't I part with her? Oh,
she's so pleasant, I can't. She makes up for all Jem's shortcomings,
and they're many. He always stumps about when I've a headache."
"What's that?" asked Colonel Maxwell.
"Nothing. I only said if I were weighed against a Greek coin--forged,
my dear, that's the sting of it," she whispered to Teresa--"I shouldn't
have a chance."
But her eyes smiled kindly as she looked at her big husband, whom she
teased and adored.
Teresa laughed, and went back to get her drawing things. Nina carried
them for her, almost the only personal service which the marchesa
accepted. She looked so miserable that Teresa began to question her--
"What is the matter, Nina? Have you, perhaps, toothache again?"
"It is an ache here, eccellenza," said Nina, laying her hand
dramatically on her heart. "It is because there are bad people in the
world."
In spite of herself Donna Teresa laughed.
"At that rate I don't know when the ache will stop. Have you met with
any specially bad people at Taormina?"
"_Altro_!" Nina cried emphatically. "It is an evil place. See here,
eccellenza, do not permit the signorina's Englishman to walk at night.
The nights are not wholesome."
"Not wholesome? You mean dangerous? _Ma, che_! What absurdity!" She
altered her tone a little. "If you are so unhappy away from Rome, I
will send you back."
"What good will that do the Englishman?" asked Nina gloomily. "Send
Peppina, that might be better, eccellenza."
"Peppina!" Teresa laughed again.
She knew that the two disagreed, and thought that Nina was inclined to
be hard on the girl. "And why?"
"She is hot-headed, and the air here is not good for that illness."
"The air? It is perfect."
"Not at night, eccellenza. It has been known to carry a man off as
quickly as if--"
"As if?"
"As if he had had a knife in his heart," Nina said slowly, in a low
whisper, and glancing round. Two men were coming up behind, and she
immediately raised her voice to a more cheerful key. "Is it to be the
blessed Santa Caterina to-day, eccellenza? Not that I believe she can
have anything to say to such ignorant people as these, but it is more
lucky to sit where a saint looks down upon you, since she might be
obliged to do something for her own credit."
She talked so persistently all the rest of the way that it was evident
she meant to say nothing more on the subject of unwholesome air.
Teresa, who knew her prejudices, was quite undisturbed by her hints, and
occupied in her drawing. She sat in a little angle of the long street,
which the Arabs called El Kasr--so linking it with the Luxor of Egypt--
facing the beautiful doorway of Santa Caterina's Church. The colouring
is exquisite, for the wood has been faded by sun and soft winds into a
grey blue--the exact shade of Saint Peter's dome--veined here and there
by pink, while high above door and cornice stands a small graceful
figure of the saint, leaning on her wheel, and shaded by delicate
grasses.
Teresa's eagerness about whatever interest absorbed her was apt to leave
other impressions in the lurch. She was very well content to believe
that things were greatly improved between Sylvia and Wilbraham, and that
there was no need for her to waste uneasiness in that direction; indeed,
she had persuaded herself that her past uneasiness had been born of mere
over-anxiety. All along she had ranked the girl's prettiness unduly
high in its effect, but now she was sure that her after qualms were
unnecessary. As for Nina's chatter, that she dismissed with all the
Tuesdays and Fridays, hunchbacks and oil-spilling, which haunted the
little Viterbo woman's days. She was, indeed, unusually gay at heart,
probably from her out-of-door life in that delicious air, which was now
gently sweeping off the almond petals on the hillside.
Mrs Maxwell was very much disappointed by the processions in Holy Week.
After waiting for days, as she said, to see them, she _had_ expected
something better than a few white-hooded men straggling before the
baldacchino. Yet the Duomo, empty of interest as it is--except to those
who penetrate to the embroideries in the sacristy--lends itself
picturesquely to effect, with its fine doorways and its red marble
steps. And on Good Friday, as she, Sylvia, and Wilbraham waited in a
little piazza just inside an inner gate, Teresa saw something which she
will never forget.
A church stands on one side, facing Etna and the many-coloured sea.
Here the procession began to gather, and out of the church and down the
steps was borne an inexpressibly scarred and forbidding-looking dead
Christ on his bier. Through the gate it was carried towards the Duomo,
while down a steep and stony lane the Madonna, high uplifted, came to
join her divine Son. So far, though interesting, there was nothing very
striking or impressive in the scene, but when the procession crept out
again from the shadow of the Duomo, and, making its way back, wound
slowly along the whole length of Taormina, it was different. The
narrowness of the street, with its balconies and leaning figures, the
white-draped, white-hooded men, the multitude of moving twinkling
lights, the flashes here and there of colour, the priests in their
vestments, the swaying baldacchino--smote home, overpowered sordid
details. Teresa looked at it with wet eyes.
Wilbraham was standing mutely next her; Sylvia, full of exclamations,
beyond him. Suddenly Teresa became aware that one of the hooded figures
had turned his head towards them. There was no more than a slit for the
eyes, yet she knew without seeing that some gaze, fierce and menacing,
burnt behind the hood. So sure was she, that she spoke impetuously to
Wilbraham when the figure had passed--
"Did you see? Who was it?"
"Some fellow who means to know me again," he said after a momentary
pause.
"No. It was some one who hated you," she answered with a trembling
voice. Nina's words, "a knife in the heart," came driving back, and
moved her strangely.
His head whirled. In unconscious excitement she had pressed a little
closely to him, her sleeve brushed his. He was forced to guard his
voice, lest it should betray joy that his possible danger should have so
moved her. Sylvia spoke twice and he did not hear.
"Thank you," he said in a low voice. "Thank you."
Something of strained repression in his voice startled her. She looked
at him in sudden dismay, and the revelation was so impossible, so
astounding, that it for the instant left her dazed. She felt as if a
cold hand had been laid upon her heart. The next moment the
consciousness of Sylvia gave her back herself. Had she seen? Did she
know? It was of Sylvia that she must think, it was Sylvia whom she must
protect, it was to her she spoke very gently--
"I'm going back now, and you will come when you like." Amazement, not
emotion, had shaken her, and, afraid lest he should think she was in any
degree sharing his, she looked coolly in his face. "Don't let Sylvia
overtire herself," she said. "That would be much more serious than for
a man to stare at us behind his hood."
But, as she walked swiftly along the white road, fear and amazement at
her discovery swept over her again. The odiousness of the situation
appalled her. She raged against herself, beginning to realise her folly
in trying to bolster up Wilbraham's short-lived love. She had put
Sylvia in the best positions, hidden the emptiness of the girl's mind by
her own quickness, been kind to Wilbraham for her sister's sake until
now, now--
Mrs Brodrick was startled by Teresa, white-faced and shaken, appearing
suddenly in her room.
"Granny," she began breathlessly and flinging herself by her side,
"things are going very badly indeed."
And their eyes met, full of understanding.
"It had to come," said Mrs Brodrick with a sigh.
"But not this. Nothing so wretched as this! I don't think I _can_ tell
you," she went on, flinging her head back and staring dismally at her
grandmother. Mrs Brodrick met her look without a vestige of the
surprise she expected.
"Poor Teresa!" she said, laying her hand on hers. "Has he been making
love to you instead of to Sylvia? What has he done?"
There was a certain relief in not having to explain the first miserable
discovery, and she told her tale in short gasps which ended in a
half-laugh of contempt.
"Nina was so odd in her warnings," she explained, "that although I did
not mind them at the time, when I saw that man glaring I was seized with
terror. Something--of course it was a ridiculous fancy--made me think
it was Cesare. And, granny,--I shall never forgive myself!--I was
frightened, and I suppose he thought I cared for him. But how could he!
How could he!"
"It had to come," Mrs Brodrick repeated, but a perplexed frown gathered
on her forehead, for she was trying to think what would come next. "Put
yourself out of your thoughts, dear," she added after a moment's pause.
"It does not much matter what has brought the climax. What matters a
great deal is the effect upon--Sylvia. She--she does not see so quickly
as some girls would."
"I know, and I know that I am to blame," said Donna Teresa very humbly.
"I will do anything you think best. Must she be told?" she suggested
hesitatingly. "It takes so little to make her happy!"
"There are two to make happy," answered her grandmother, smiling sadly.
The young marchesa flung up her head haughtily.
"He! I do not think of him!"
"Then you do not really blame yourself, for it is he whom you have
injured."
"Oh," cried Teresa with an angry light in her eyes, "I shall never
forgive him!"
Mrs Brodrick took no notice.
"It always comes back to one fact," she said presently. "I suppose you
or I will have to speak to poor Sylvia."
Teresa sprang up, and began to walk about the room.
"What can we say?" she asked, stopping. "Not everything?"
"No, certainly. You mustn't come into it. We must tell her that--that
we think there has been a mistake. That perhaps she should give him
back his word--"
"Tell her she ought," Teresa broke in drearily. "Sylvia is so good, she
will do anything she thinks she ought. Why is it the good people who
always have to suffer? Little Sylvia! And I meant her to be so happy!
Granny, be very, very kind to her. Must it be to-day?"
"No," said Mrs Brodrick, considering. "Let us wait a day."
"Till Monday."
"Well--till Monday. Perhaps he will speak. Perhaps something will come
to her. Do you think that man was really Cesare?"
"What do I care if it was?"
But in spite of her indifference her grandmother, without mentioning the
incident, asked Mrs Maxwell whether Peppina's lover was in Taormina.
"I wonder?" returned Mrs Maxwell meditatively. "She broke a scent
bottle this morning--I believe he is."
Peppina, however, asked casually where her lover now was, swore with so
much detail that her Cesare, poor fellow, was in Rome, working on the
_Avanti_ staff; that her sister had seen him the day before and had
heard from him how he had been obliged to have the doctor for Angelo,
the poor cripple, and the doctor had said it was good broth the creature
wanted--but how could Cesare, with his wages, get good broth?--that Mrs
Maxwell melted into conviction and five lire.
No one thought of asking Nina, and no one except she was aware that on
that same night Peppina was leaning over a wall, under a golden moon,
talking to a man whose movements were very like those of Cesare. She
was pressing something into his hand.
"Diamine," she was saying, "and why not, when I tell you I have more
than I want?"
"But how, how? That is my question. You do not ask for it?" he added
suddenly, his anger rising.
"And if I did, what is that to you?" she retorted, swinging away. "But
I do not. They raise my wages."
"Again?" said Cesare, still suspicious. "Per Bacco, and for what?"
"For what? For nothing. I tell you they fling their money, they have
so much. To me, or to others, what does it matter? And so long as you
want it and do not waste it on--the Cianchetti, for instance--"
Her breath came shortly; but Cesare, who had grown used to these hints,
for which indeed Nina only was responsible, took no notice, and as her
moods changed quickly and she was impressionable the soft stillness of
the night calmed her.
"Cesare mio, what are you going to do? Do not be rash. There is danger
with these cold-blooded English," she went on, speaking very tenderly.
"I am not afraid. There is no danger here. And if there were, I do not
know that I care. Now or then, what does it matter? But I am not
afraid. I have friends."
She swayed towards him whispering a word in his ear, and the next moment
his hand was on her lips, and roughly.
"Mother of Heaven," he exclaimed, "be quiet! I will not have you speak
of that, do you hear? I will not!"
She pushed away his hand and laughed.
"You and the lizards. There is no other to be the wiser."
He stood silent for some minutes, presently reverting to what she had
said--
"They fling their money, do they? And on Monday I went to the Bianchis'
house--you know the Bianchi?"
She nodded.
"Livia is ill--the little white one who always suffers, always! But now
she is worse. I tell you she has nothing. She lies on the floor and
moans till your heart swells. They took her to the hospital, the one at
Sant' Onofrio--"
Peppina nodded again.
"The Bambino Gesu, yes."
"And they shut the door in their faces. There was room, but no money.
They are good women, I do not blame them. But no money. And these,
these fling theirs here, there, where they will, while we die." He went
on gloomily, "We shall change all that before we have done."
"Eh," said the girl happily, "and then you will be rich in your turn."
She closed her eyes, lapping herself in delicious thoughts of how she
would have a dress which should outshine the Cianchetti's wildest
attempts, and plenty of good things to eat without working for them.
Cesare was clever. But he must not be imprudent. And she did not mean
to ask him what was in his mind. She could forgive him anything except
love for the Cianchetti.
Perhaps Cesare had not heard her last words. His worn and eager eyes
looked out over the almond-trees to where dark Etna lay stretched along
the land. There were things he saw in the night of which he never spoke
to Peppina; often a haunting girl's face changing from laughter into
sudden terrible reproach. He did not regret his deed. He looked upon
himself as a righteous executioner despising ordered law, and believing
that he and others of his own way of thinking were bound to execute
judgment where it was called for. But his belief did not shut out the
face, and he had now a curious thought that any other eyes looking out
of the darkness would be more bearable than hers, so long--so long as
they were not a woman's.