Hermione dropped the telegram. She did not feel at all surprised. Indeed,
she felt that she had been expecting almost these very words, telling her
of a tragedy at which the letter she still held in her hand had hinted.
For a moment she stood there without being conscious of any special
sensation. Then she stooped, picked up the telegram, and read it again.
This time it seemed like an answer to that unuttered prayer in her heart:
"Give me an opportunity to show my gratitude." She did not hesitate for
a moment as to what she would do. She would go to Kairouan, to close the
eyes of her friend if he must die, if not to nurse him back to life.
Antonino was munching some bread and cheese and had one hand round a
glass full of red wine.
"I'm going to write an answer," she said to him, "and you must run with
it."
"Si, signora."
"Was it from Africa, signora?" asked Lucrezia.
"Yes."
Lucrezia's jaw fell, and she stared in superstitious amazement.
"I wonder," Hermione thought, "if Maurice--"
She went gently to the bedroom. He was still sleeping calmly. His
attitude of luxurious repose, the sound of his quiet breathing, seemed
strange to her eyes and ears at this moment, strange and almost horrible.
For an instant she thought of waking him in order to tell him her news
and consult with him about the journey. It never occurred to her to ask
him whether there should be a journey. But something held her back, as
one is held back from disturbing the slumber of a tired child, and she
returned to the sitting-room, wrote out the following telegram:
"Shall start for Kairouan at once; wire me Tunisia Palace Hotel,
Tunis,
MADAME DELAREY."
and sent Antonino with it flying down the hill. Then she got time-tables
and a guide-book of Tunisia, and sat down at her writing-table to make
out the journey; while Lucrezia, conscious that something unusual was
afoot, watched her with solemn eyes.
Hermione found that she would gain nothing by starting that night. By
leaving early the next morning she would arrive at Trapani in time to
catch a steamer which left at midnight for Tunis, reaching Africa at
nine on the following morning. From Tunis a day's journey by train would
bring her to Kairouan. If the steamer were punctual she might be able to
catch a train immediately on her arrival at Tunis. If not, she would have
to spend one day there.
Already she felt as if she were travelling. All sense of peace had left
her. She seemed to hear the shriek of engines, the roar of trains in
tunnels and under bridges, to shake with the oscillation of the carriage,
to sway with the dip and rise of the action of the steamer.
Swiftly, as one in haste, she wrote down times of departure and arrival:
Cattaro to Messina, Messina to Palermo, Palermo to Trapani, Trapani to
Tunis, Tunis to Kairouan, with the price of the ticket--a return ticket.
When that was done and she had laid down her pen, she began for the first
time to realize the change a morsel of paper had made in her life, to
realize the fact of the closeness of her new knowledge of what was and
what was coming to Maurice's ignorance. The travelling sensation within
her, an intense interior restlessness, made her long for action, for some
ardent occupation in which the body could take part. She would have liked
to begin at once to pack, but all her things were in the bedroom where
Maurice was sleeping. Would he sleep forever? She longed for him to wake,
but she would not wake him. Everything could be packed in an hour. There
was no reason to begin now. But how could she remain just sitting there
in the great tranquillity of this afternoon of spring, looking at the
long, calm line of Etna rising from the sea, while Emile, perhaps, lay
dying?
She got up, went once more to the terrace, and began to pace up and down
under the awning. She had not told Lucrezia that she was going on the
morrow. Maurice must know first. What would he say? How would he take it?
And what would he do? Even in the midst of her now growing sorrow--for
at first she had hardly felt sorry, had hardly felt anything but that
intense restlessness which still possessed her--she was preoccupied with
that. She meant, when he woke, to give him the telegram, and say simply
that she must go at once to Artois. That was all. She would not ask, hint
at anything else. She would just tell Maurice that she could not leave
her dearest friend to die alone in an African city, tended only by an
Arab, and a doctor who came to earn his fee.
And Maurice--what would he say? What would he--do?
If only he would wake! There was something terrible to her in the
contrast between his condition and hers at this moment.
And what ought she to do if Maurice--?
She broke off short in her mental arrangement of possible happenings when
Maurice should wake.
The afternoon waned and still he slept. As she watched the light changing
on the sea, growing softer, more wistful, and the long outline of Etna
becoming darker against the sky, Hermione felt a sort of unreasonable
despair taking possession of her. So few hours of the day were left now,
and on the morrow this Sicilian life--a life that had been ideal--must
come to an end for a time, and perhaps forever. The abruptness of the
blow which had fallen had wakened in her sensitive heart a painful,
almost an exaggerated sense of the uncertainty of the human fate. It
seemed to her that the joy which had been hers in these tranquil Sicilian
days, a joy more perfect than any she had conceived of, was being broken
off short, as if it could never be renewed. With her anxiety for her
friend mingled another anxiety, more formless, but black and horrible in
its vagueness.
"If this should be our last day together in Sicily!" she thought, as she
watched the light softening among the hills and the shadows of the
olive-trees lengthening upon the ground.
"If this should be our last night together in the house of the priest!"
It seemed to her that even with Maurice in another place she could never
know again such perfect peace and joy, and her heart ached at the thought
of leaving it.
"To-morrow!" she thought. "Only a few hours and this will all be over!"
It seemed almost incredible. She felt that she could not realize it
thoroughly and yet that she realized it too much, as in a nightmare one
seems to feel both less and more than in any tragedy of a wakeful hour.
A few hours and it would all be over--and through those hours Maurice
slept.
The twilight was falling when he stirred, muttered some broken words, and
opened his eyes. He heard no sound, and thought it was early morning.
"Hermione!" he said, softly.
Then he lay still for a moment and remembered.
"By Jove! it must be long past time for déjeuner!" he thought.
He sprang up and put his head into the sitting-room.
"Hermione!" he called.
"Yes," she answered, from the terrace.
"What's the time?"
"Nearly dinner-time."
He burst out laughing.
"Didn't you think I was going to sleep forever?" he said.
"Almost," her voice said.
He wondered a little why she did not come to him, but only answered him
from a distance.
"I'll dress and be out in a moment," he called.
"All right!"
Now that Maurice was awake at last, Hermione's grief at the lost
afternoon became much more acute, but she was determined to conceal it.
She remained where she was just then because she had been startled by the
sound of her husband's voice, and was not sure of her power of
self-control. When, a few minutes later, he came out upon the terrace
with a half-amused, half-apologetic look on his face, she felt safer. She
resolved to waste no time, but to tell him at once.
"Maurice," she said, "while you've been sleeping I've been living very
fast and travelling very far."
"How, Hermione? What do you mean?" he asked, sitting down by the wall and
looking at her with eyes that still held shadows of sleep.
"Something's happened to-day that's--that's going to alter everything."
He looked astonished.
"Why, how grave you are! But what? What could happen here?"
"This came."
She gave him the doctor's telegram. He read it slowly aloud.
"Artois!" he said. "Poor fellow! And out there in Africa all alone!"
He stopped speaking, looked at her, then leaned forward, put his arm
round her shoulder, and kissed her gently.
"I'm awfully sorry for you, Hermione," he said. "Awfully sorry, I know
how you must be feeling. When did it come?"
"Some hours ago."
"And I've been sleeping! I feel a brute."
He kissed her again.
"Why didn't you wake me?"
"Just to share a grief? That would have been horrid of me, Maurice!"
He looked again at the telegram.
"Did you wire?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Of course. Perhaps to-morrow, or in a day or two, we shall have better
news, that he's turned the corner. He's a strong man, Hermione; he ought
to recover. I believe he'll recover."
"Maurice," she said. "I want to tell you something."
"What, dear?"
"I feel I must--I can't wait here for news."
"But then--what will you do?"
"While you've been sleeping I've been looking out trains."
"Trains! You don't mean--"
"I must start for Kairouan to-morrow morning. Read this, too."
And she gave him Emile's letter.
"Doesn't that make you feel his loneliness?" she said, when he had
finished it. "And think of it now--now when perhaps he knows that he is
dying."
"You are going away," he said--"going away from here!"
His voice sounded as if he could not believe it.
"To-morrow morning!" he added, more incredulously.
"If I waited I might be too late."
She was watching him with intent eyes, in which there seemed to flame a
great anxiety.
"You know what friends we've been," she continued. "Don't you think I
ought to go?"
"I--perhaps--yes, I see how you feel. Yes, I see. But"--he got up--"to
leave here to-morrow! I felt as if--almost as if we'd been here always
and should live here for the rest of our lives."
"I wish to Heaven we could!" she exclaimed, her voice changing. "Oh,
Maurice, if you knew how dreadful it is to me to go!"
"How far is Kairouan?"
"If I catch the train at Tunis I can be there the day after to-morrow."
"And you are going to nurse him, of course?"
"Yes, if--if I'm in time. Now I ought to pack before dinner."
"How beastly!" he said, just like a boy. "How utterly beastly! I don't
feel as if I could believe it all. But you--what a trump you are,
Hermione! To leave this and travel all that way--not one woman in a
hundred would do it."
"Wouldn't you for a friend?"
"I!" he said, simply. "I don't know whether I understand friendship as
you do. I've had lots of friends, of course, but one seemed to me very
like another, as long as they were jolly."
"How Sicilian!" she thought.
She had heard Gaspare speak of his boy friends in much the same way.
"Emile is more to me than any one in the world but you," she said.
Her voice changed, faltered on the last word, and she walked along the
terrace to the sitting-room window.
"I must pack now," she said. "Then we can have one more quiet time
together after dinner."
Her last words seemed to strike him, for he followed her, and as she was
going into the bedroom, he said:
"Perhaps--why shouldn't I--"
But then he stopped.
"Yes, Maurice!" she said, quickly.
"Where's Gaspare?" he asked. "We'll make him help with the packing. But
you won't take much, will you? It'll only be for a few days, I suppose."
"Who knows?"
"Gaspare! Gaspare!" he called.
"Che vuole?" answered a sleepy voice.
"Come here."
In a moment a languid figure appeared round the corner. Maurice explained
matters. Instantly Gaspare became a thing of quicksilver. He darted to
help Hermione. Every nerve seemed quivering to be useful.
"And the signore?" he said, presently, as he carried a trunk into the
room.
"The signore!" said Hermione.
"Is he going, too?"
"No, no!" said Hermione, swiftly.
She put her finger to her lips. Delarey was just coming into the room.
Gaspare said no more, but he shot a curious glance from padrona to
padrone as he knelt down to lay some things in the trunk.
By dinner-time Hermione's preparations were completed. The one trunk she
meant to take was packed. How hateful it looked standing there in the
white room with the label hanging from the handle! She washed her face
and hands in cold water, and came out onto the terrace where the
dinner-table was laid. It was a warm, still night, like the night of the
fishing, and the moon hung low in a clear sky.
"How exquisite it is here!" she said to Maurice, as they sat down. "We
are in the very heart of calm, majestic calm. Look at that one star over
Etna, and the outlines of the hills and of that old castle--"
She stopped.
"It brings a lump into my throat," she said, after a little pause. "It's
too beautiful and too still to-night."
"I love being here," he said.
They ate their dinner in silence for some time. Presently Maurice began
to crumble his bread.
"Hermione," he said. "Look here--"
"Yes, Maurice."
"I've been thinking--of course I scarcely know Artois, and I could be of
no earthly use, but I've been thinking whether it would not be better for
me to come to Kairouan with you."
For a moment Hermione's rugged face was lit up by a fire of joy that
made her look beautiful. Maurice went on crumbling his bread.
"I didn't say anything at first," he continued, "because I--well, somehow
I felt so fixed here, almost part of the place, and I had never thought
of going till it got too hot, and especially not now, when the best time
is only just beginning. And then it all came so suddenly. I was still
more than half asleep, too, I believe," he added, with a little laugh,
"when you told me. But now I've had time, and--why shouldn't I come, too,
to look after you?"
As he went on speaking the light in Hermione's face flickered and died
out. It was when he laughed that it vanished quite away.
"Thank you, Maurice," she said, quietly. "Thank you, dear. I should love
to have you with me, but it would be a shame!"
"Why?"
"Why? Why--the best time here is only just beginning, as you say. It
would be selfish to drag you across the sea to a sick-bed, or perhaps to
a death-bed."
"But the journey?"
"Oh, I am accustomed to being a lonely woman. Think how short a time
we've been married! I've nearly always travelled alone."
"Yes, I know," he said. "Of course there's no danger. I didn't mean that,
only--"
"Only you were ready to be unselfish," she said. "Bless you for it. But
this time I want to be unselfish. You must stay here to keep house, and
I'll come back the first moment I can--the very first. Let's try to think
of that--of the day when I come up the mountain again to my--to our
garden of paradise. All the time I'm away I shall pray for the moment
when I see these columns of the terrace above me, and the geraniums,
and--and the white wall of our little--home."
She stopped. Then she added:
"And you."
"Yes," he said. "But you won't see me on the terrace."
"Why not?"
"Because, of course, I shall come to the station to meet you. That day
will be a festa."
She said nothing more. Her heart was very full, and of conflicting
feelings and of voices that spoke in contradiction one of another. One or
two of these voices she longed to hush to silence, but they were
persistent. Then she tried not to listen to what they were saying. But
they were pitilessly distinct.
Dinner was soon over, and Gaspare came to clear away. His face was very
grave, even troubled. He did not like this abrupt departure of his
padrona.
"You will come back, signora?" he said, as he drew away the cloth and
prepared to fold up the table and carry it in-doors.
Hermione managed to laugh.
"Why, of course, Gaspare! Did you think I was going away forever?"
"Africa is a long way off."
"Only nine hours from Trapani. I may be back very soon. Will you forget
me?"
"Did I forget my padrona when she was in England?" the boy replied, his
expressive face suddenly hardening and his great eyes glittering with
sullen fires.
Hermione quickly laid her hand on his.
"I was only laughing. You know your padrona trusts you to remember her as
she remembers you."
Gaspare lifted up her hand quickly, kissed it, and hurried away, lifting
his own hand to his eyes.
"These Sicilians know how to make one love them," said Hermione, with a
little catch in her voice. "I believe that boy would die for me if
necessary."
"I'm sure he would," said Maurice. "But one doesn't find a padrona like
you every day."
"Let us walk to the arch," she said. "I must take my last look at the
mountains with you."
Beyond the archway there was a large, flat rock, a natural seat from
which could be seen a range of mountains that was invisible from the
terrace. Hermione often sat on this rock alone, looking at the distant
peaks, whose outlines stirred her imagination like a wild and barbarous
music. Now she drew down Maurice beside her and kept his hand in hers.
She was thinking of many things, among others of the little episode that
had just taken place with Gaspare. His outburst of feeling, like fire
bursting up through a suddenly opened fissure in the crust of the earth,
had touched her and something more. It had comforted her, and removed
from her a shadowy figure that had been approaching her, the figure of a
fear. She fixed her eyes on the mountains, dark under the silver of the
moon.
"Maurice," she said. "Do you often try to read people?"
The pleasant look of almost deprecating modesty that Artois had noticed
on the night when they dined together in London came to Delarey's face.
"I don't know that I do, Hermione," he said. "Is it easy?"
"I think--I'm thinking it especially to-night--that it is horribly
difficult. One's imagination seizes hold of trifles, and magnifies them
and distorts them. From little things, little natural things, one
deduces--I mean one takes a midget and makes of it a monster. How one
ought to pray to see clear in people one loves! It's very strange, but I
think that sometimes, just because one loves, one is ready to be afraid,
to doubt, to exaggerate, to think a thing is gone when it is there. In
friendship one is more ready to give things their proper value--perhaps
because everything is of less value. Do you know that to-night I realize
for the first time the enormous difference there is between the love one
gives in love and the love one gives in friendship?"
"Why, Hermione?" he asked, simply.
He was looking a little puzzled, but still reverential.
"I love Emile as a friend. You know that."
"Yes. Would you go to Kairouan if you didn't?"
"If he were to die it would be a great sorrow, a great loss to me. I pray
that he may live. And yet--"
Suddenly she took his other hand in hers.
"Oh, Maurice, I've been thinking to-day, I'm thinking now--suppose it
were you who lay ill, perhaps dying! Oh, the difference in my feeling, in
my dread! If you were to be taken from me, the gap in my life! There
would be nothing--nothing left."
He put his arm round her, and was going to speak, but she went on:
"And if you were to be taken from me how terrible it would be to feel
that I'd ever had one unkind thought of you, that I'd ever misinterpreted
one look or word or action of yours, that I'd ever, in my egoism or my
greed, striven to thwart one natural impulse of yours, or to force you
into travesty away from simplicity! Don't--don't ever be unnatural or
insincere with me, Maurice, even for a moment, even for fear of hurting
me. Be always yourself, be the boy that you still are and that I love you
for being."
She put her head on his shoulder, and he felt her body trembling.
"I think I'm always natural with you," he said.
"You're as natural as Gaspare. Only once, and--and that was my fault, I
know; but you mean so much to me, everything, and your honesty with me is
like God walking with me."
She lifted her head and stood up.
"Please God we'll have many more nights together here," she said--"many
more blessed, blessed nights. The stillness of the hills is like all the
truth of the world, sifted from the falsehood and made into one beautiful
whole. Oh, Maurice, there is a Heaven on earth--when two people love
each other in the midst of such a silence as this."
They went slowly back through the archway to the terrace. Far below them
the sea gleamed delicately, almost like a pearl. In the distance,
towering above the sea, the snow of Etna gleamed more coldly, with a
bleaker purity, a suggestion of remote mysteries and of untrodden
heights. Above the snow of Etna shone the star of evening. Beside the sea
shone the little light in the house of the sirens.
And as they stood for a moment before the cottage in the deep silence of
the night, Hermione looked up at the star above the snow. But Maurice
looked down at the little light beside the sea.