"They are coming, signora, they are coming! Don't you hear them?"
Lucrezia was by the terrace wall looking over into the ravine. She could
not see any moving figures, but she heard far down among the olives and
the fruit trees Gaspare's voice singing "O sole mio!" and while she
listened another voice joined in, the voice of the padrone:
"Dio mio, but they are merry!" she added, as the song was broken by a
distant peal of laughter.
Hermione came out upon the steps. She had been in the sitting-room
writing a letter to Miss Townly, who sent her long and tearful effusions
from London almost every day.
"Have you got the frying-pan ready, Lucrezia?" she asked.
"The frying-pan, signora!"
"Yes, for the fish they are bringing us."
Lucrezia looked knowing.
"Oh, signora, they will bring no fish."
"Why not? They promised last night. Didn't you hear?"
"They promised, yes, but they won't remember. Men promise at night and
forget in the morning."
Hermione laughed. She had been feeling a little dull, but now the sound
of the lusty voices and the laughter from the ravine filled her with a
sudden cheerfulness, and sent a glow of anticipation into her heart.
"Lucrezia, you are a cynic."
"What is a cinico, signora?"
"A Lucrezia. But you don't know your padrone. He won't forget us."
Lucrezia reddened. She feared she had perhaps said something that seemed
disrespectful.
"Oh, signora, there is not another like the padrone. Every one says so.
Ask Gaspare and Sebastiano. I only meant that--"
"I know. Well, to-day you will understand that all men are not forgetful,
when you eat your fish."
Lucrezia still looked very doubtful, but she said nothing more.
"There they are!" exclaimed Hermione.
She waved her hand and cried out. Life suddenly seemed quite different to
her. These moving figures peopled gloriously the desert waste, these
ringing voices filled with music the brooding silence of it. She murmured
to herself a verse of scripture, "Sorrow may endure for a night, but joy
cometh with the morning," and she realized for the first time how
absurdly sad and deserted she had been feeling, how unreasonably forlorn.
By her present joy she measured her past--not sorrow exactly; she could
not call it that--her past dreariness, and she said to herself with a
little shock almost of fear, "How terribly dependent I am!"
"Mamma mia!" cried Lucrezia, as another shout of laughter came up from
the ravine, "how merry and mad they are! They have had a good night's
fishing."
Hermione heard the laughter, but now it sounded a little harsh in her
ears.
"I wonder," she thought, as she leaned upon the terrace wall--"I wonder
if he has missed me at all? I wonder if men ever miss us as we miss
them?"
Her call, it seemed, had not been heard, nor her gesture of welcome seen,
but now Maurice looked up, waved his cap, and shouted. Gaspare, too, took
off his linen hat with a stentorian cry of "Buon giorno, signora."
"Signora!" said Lucrezia.
"Yes?"
"Look! Was not I right? Are they carrying anything?"
Hermione looked eagerly, almost passionately, at the two figures now
drawing near to the last ascent up the bare mountain flank. Maurice had a
stick in one hand, the other hung empty at his side. Gaspare still waved
his hat wildly, holding it with both hands as a sailor holds the
signalling-flag.
"Perhaps," she said--"perhaps it wasn't a good night, and they've caught
nothing."
"Oh, signora, the sea was calm. They must have taken--"
"Perhaps their pockets are full of fish. I am sure they are."
She spoke with a cheerful assurance.
"If they have caught any fish, I know your frying-pan will be wanted,"
she said.
"Chi lo sa?" said Lucrezia, with rather perfunctory politeness.
Secretly she thought that the padrona had only one fault. She was a
little obstinate sometimes, and disinclined to be told the truth. And
certainly she did not know very much about men, although she had a
husband.
Through the old Norman arch came Delarey and Gaspare, with hot faces and
gay, shining eyes, splendidly tired with their exertions and happy in the
thought of rest. Delarey took Hermione's hand in his. He would have
kissed her before Lucrezia and Gaspare, quite naturally, but he felt that
her hand stiffened slightly in his as he leaned forward, and he forbore.
She longed for his kiss, but to receive it there would have spoiled a
joy. And kind and familiar though she was with those beneath her, she
could not bear to show the deeps of her heart before them. To her his
kiss after her lonely night would be an event. Did he know that? She
wondered.
He still kept her hand in his as he began to tell her about their
expedition.
"Did you enjoy it?" she asked, thinking what a boy he looked in his
eager, physical happiness.
"Ask Gaspare!"
"I don't think I need. Your eyes tell me."
"I never enjoyed any night so much before, out there under the moon. Why
don't we always sleep out-of-doors?"
"Shall we try some night on the terrace?"
"By Jove, we will! What a lark!"
"Did you go into the sea?"
"I should think so! Ask Gaspare if I didn't beat them all. I had to swim,
too."
"And the fish?" she said, trying to speak, carelessly.
"They were stunning. We caught an awful lot, and Mother Carmela cooked
them to a T. I had an appetite, I can tell you, Hermione, after being in
the sea."
She was silent for a moment. Her hand had dropped out of his. When she
spoke again, she said:
"And you slept in the caves?"
"The others did."
"And you?"
"I couldn't sleep, so I went out on to the beach. But I'll tell you all
that presently. You won't be shocked, Hermione, if I take a siesta now?
I'm pretty well done--grandly tired, don't you know. I think I could get
a lovely nap before collazione."
"Come in, my dearest," she said. "Collazione a little late, Lucrezia, not
till half-past one."
"And the fish, signora?" asked Lucrezia.
"We've got quite enough without fish," said Hermione, turning away.
"Oh, by Jove!" Delarey said, as they went into the cottage, putting his
hand into his jacket-pocket, "I've got something for you, Hermione."
"Fish!" she cried, eagerly, her whole face brightening. "Lucre--"
"Fish in my coat!" he interrupted, still not remembering. "No, a letter.
They gave it me from the village as we came up. Here it is."
He drew out a letter, gave it to her, and went into the bedroom, while
Hermione stood in the sitting-room by the dining-table with the letter in
her hand.
It was from Artois, with the Kairouan postmark.
"It's from Emile," she said.
Maurice was closing the shutters, to make the bedroom dark.
"Is he still in Africa?" he asked, letting down the bar with a clatter.
"Yes," she said, opening the envelope. "Go to bed like a good boy while I
read it."
She wanted his kiss so much that she did not go near to him, and spoke
with a lightness that was almost like a feigned indifference. He thrust
his gay face through the doorway into the sunshine, and she saw the beads
of perspiration on his smooth brow above his laughing, yet half-sleepy
eyes.
"Come and tuck me up afterwards!" he said, and vanished.
Hermione made a little movement as if to follow him, but checked it and
unfolded the letter.
"4, RUE D'ABDUL KADER, KAIROUAN.
MY DEAR FRIEND,--This will be one of my dreary notes, but you must
forgive me. Do you ever feel a heavy cloud of apprehension lowering
over you, a sensation of approaching calamity, as if you heard the
footsteps of a deadly enemy stealthily approaching you? Do you know
what it is to lose courage, to fear yourself, life, the future, to
long to hear a word of sympathy from a friendly voice, to long to
lay hold of a friendly hand? Are you ever like a child in the dark,
your intellect no weapon against the dread of formless things? The
African sun is shining here as I sit under a palm-tree writing,
with my servant, Zerzour, squatting beside me. It is so clear that
I can almost count the veins in the leaves of the palms, so warm
that Zerzour has thrown off his burnous and kept on only his linen
shirt. And yet I am cold and seem to be in blackness. I write to
you to gain some courage if I can. But I have gained none yet. I
believe there must be a physical cause for my malaise, and that I
am going to have some dreadful illness, and perhaps lay my bones
here in the shadow of the mosques among the sons of Islam. Write to
me. Is the garden of paradise blooming with flowers? Is the tree of
knowledge of good weighed down with fruit, and do you pluck the
fruit boldly and eat it every day? You told me in London to come
over and see you. I am not coming. Do not fear. But how I wish that
I could now, at this instant, see your strong face, touch your
courageous hand! There is a sensation of doom upon me. Laugh at me
as much as you like, but write to me. I feel cold--cold in the sun.