"Signorino! Signorino!"
Maurice lifted his head lazily from the hands that served it as a pillow,
and called out, sleepily:
"Che cosa c'é?"
"Where are you, signorino?"
"Down here under the oak-trees."
He sank back again, and looked up at the section of deep-blue sky that
was visible through the leaves. How he loved the blue, and gloried in the
first strong heat that girdled Sicily to-day, and whispered to his happy
body that summer was near, the true and fearless summer that comes to
southern lands. Through all his veins there crept a subtle sense of
well-being, as if every drop of his blood were drowsily rejoicing. Three
days had passed, had glided by, three radiant nights, warm, still,
luxurious. And with each his sense of the south had increased, and with
each his consciousness of being nearer to the breast of Sicily. In those
days and nights he had not looked into a book or glanced at a paper. What
had he done? He scarcely knew. He had lived and felt about him the
fingers of the sun touching him like a lover. And he had chattered idly
to Gaspare about Sicilian things, always Sicilian things; about the fairs
and the festivals, Capo d'Anno and Carnevale, martedì grasso with its
_Tavulata_, the solemn family banquet at which all the relations assemble
and eat in company, the feasts of the different saints, the peasant
marriages and baptisms, the superstitions--Gaspare did not call them
so--that are alive in Sicily, and that will surely live till Sicily is
no more; the fear of the evil-eye and of spells, and the best means of
warding them off, the "guaj di lu linu," the interpretation of dreams,
the power of the Mafia, the legends of the brigands, and the vanished
glory of Musolino. Gaspare talked without reserve to his padrone, as to
another Sicilian, and Maurice was never weary of listening. All that was
of Sicily caught his mind and heart, was full of meaning to him, and of
irresistible fascination. He had heard the call of the blood once for all
and had once for all responded to it.
But the nights he had loved best. For then he slept under the stars. When
ten o'clock struck he and Gaspare carried out one of the white beds onto
the terrace, and he slipped into it and lay looking up at the clear sky,
and at the dimness of the mountain flank, and at the still silhouettes of
the trees, till sleep took him, while Gaspare, rolled up in a rug of many
colors, snuggled up on the seat by the wall with his head on a cushion
brought for him by the respectful Lucrezia. And they awoke at dawn to see
the last star fade above the cone of Etna, and the first spears of the
sun thrust up out of the stillness of the sea.
"Signorino, ecco la posta!"
And Gaspare came running down from the terrace, the wide brim of his
white linen hat flapping round his sun-browned face.
"I don't want it, Gaspare. I don't want anything."
"But I think there's a letter from the signora!"
"From Africa?"
Maurice sat up and held out his hand.
"Yes, it is from Kairouan. Sit down, Gaspare, and I'll tell you what the
padrona says."
Gaspare squatted on his haunches like an Oriental, not touching the
ground with his body, and looked eagerly at the letter that had come
across the sea. He adored his padrona, and was longing for news of her.
Already he had begun to send her picture post-cards, laboriously written
over. "Tanti saluti carissima Signora Pertruni, a rividici, e suno il suo
servo fidelisimo per sempre--Martucci Gaspare. Adio! Adio! Ciao! Ciao!"
What would she say? And what message would she send to him? His eyes
sparkled with affectionate expectation.
"HOTEL DE FRANCE, KAIROUAN.
MY DEAREST,--I cannot write very much, for all my moments ought to
be given up to nursing Emile. Thank God, I arrived in time. Oh,
Maurice, when I saw him I can't tell you how thankful I was that I
had not hesitated to make the journey, that I had acted at once on
my first impulse to come here. And how I blessed God for having
given me an unselfish husband who trusted me completely, and who
could understand what true friendship between man and woman means,
and what one owes to a friend. You might so easily have
misunderstood, and you are so blessedly understanding. Thank you,
dearest, for seeing that it was right of me to go, and for thinking
of nothing but that. I feel so proud of you, and so proud to be
your wife. Well, I caught the train at Tunis mercifully, and got
here at evening. He is frightfully ill. I hardly recognized him.
But his mind is quite clear, though he suffers terribly. He was
poisoned by eating some tinned food, and peritonitis has set in. We
can't tell yet whether he will live or die. When he saw me come in
he gave me such a look of gratitude, although he was writhing with
pain, that I couldn't help crying. It made me feel so ashamed of
having had any hesitation in my heart about coming away from our
home and our happiness. And it was difficult to give it all up, to
come out of paradise. That last night I felt as if I simply
couldn't leave you, my darling. But I'm glad and thankful I've done
it. I have to do everything for him. The doctor's rather an ass,
very French and excitable, but he does his best. But I have to see
to everything, and be always there to put on the poultices and the
ice, and--poor fellow, he does suffer so, but he's awfully brave
and determined to live. He says he will live if it's only to prove
that I came in time to save him. And yet, when I look at him, I
feel as if--but I won't give up hope. The heat here is terrible,
and tries him very much now he is so desperately ill, and the
flies--but I don't want to bother you with my troubles. They're not
very great--only one. Do you guess what that is? I scarcely dare to
think of Sicily. Whenever I do I feel such a horrible ache in my
heart. It seems to me as if I had not seen your face or touched
your hand for centuries, and sometimes--and that's the worst of
all--as if I never should again, as if our time together and our
love were a beautiful dream, and God would never allow me to dream
it again. That's a little morbid, I know, but I think it's always
like that with a great happiness, a happiness that is quite
complete. It seems almost a miracle to have had it even for a
moment, and one can scarcely believe that one will be allowed to
have it again. But, please God, we will. We'll sit on the terrace
again together, and see the stars come out, and--The doctor's come
and I must stop. I'll write again almost directly. Good-night, my
dearest. Buon riposo. Do you remember when you first heard that?
Somehow, since then I always connect the words with you. I won't
send my love, because it's all in Sicily with you. I'll send it
instead to Gaspare. Tell him I feel happy that he is with the
padrone, because I know how faithful and devoted he is. Tanti
saluti a Lucrezia. Oh, Maurice, pray that I may soon be back. You
do want me, don't you?
HERMIONE."
Maurice looked up from the letter and met Gaspare's questioning eyes.
"There's something for you," he said.
And he read in Italian Hermione's message. Gaspare beamed with pride and
pleasure.
"And the sick signore?" he asked. "Is he better?"
Maurice explained how things were.
"The signora is longing to come back to us," he said.
"Of course she is," said Gaspare, calmly.
Then suddenly he jumped up.
"Signorino," he said. "I am going to write a letter to the signora. She
will like to have a letter from me. She will think she is in Sicily."
"And when you have finished, I will write," said Maurice.
"Si, signore."
And Gaspare ran off up the hill towards the cottage, leaving his master
alone.
Maurice began to read the letter again, slowly. It made him feel almost
as if he were with Hermione. He seemed to see her as he read, and he
smiled. How good she was and true, and how enthusiastic! When he had
finished the second reading of the letter he laid it down, and put his
hands behind his head again, and looked up at the quivering blue. Then he
thought of Artois. He remembered his tall figure, his robust limbs, his
handsome, powerful face. It was strange to think that he was desperately
ill, perhaps dying. Death--what must that be like? How deep the blue
looked, as if there were thousands of miles of it, as if it stretched on
and on forever! Artois, perhaps, was dying, but he felt as if he could
never die, never even be ill. He stretched his body on the warm ground.
The blue seemed to deny the fact of death. He tried to imagine Artois in
bed in the heat of Africa, with the flies buzzing round him. Then he
looked again at the letter, and reread that part in which Hermione wrote
of her duties as sick-nurse.
"I have to see to everything, and be always there to put on the poultices
and the ice."
He read those words again and again, and once more he was conscious of a
stirring of anger, of revolt, such as he had felt on the night after
Hermione's departure when he was alone on the terrace. She was his wife,
his woman. What right had she to be tending another man? His imagination
began to work quickly now, and he frowned as he looked up at the blue. He
forgot all the rest of Hermione's letter, all her love of him and her
longing to be back in Sicily with him, and thought only of her friendship
for Artois, of her ministrations to Artois. And something within him
sickened at the thought of the intimacy between patient and nurse, raged
against it, till he felt revengeful. The wild unreasonableness of his
feeling did not occur to him now. He hated that his wife should be
performing these offices for Artois; he hated that she had chosen to go
to him, that she had considered it to be her duty to go.
Had it been only a sense of duty that had called her to Africa?
When he asked himself this question he could not hesitate what answer to
give. Even this new jealousy, this jealousy of the Sicilian within him,
could not trick him into the belief that Hermione had wanted to leave
him.
Yet his feeling of bitterness, of being wronged, persisted and grew.
When, after a very long time, Gaspare came to show him a letter written
in large, round hand, he was still hot with the sense of injury. And a
new question was beginning to torment him. What must Artois think?
"Aren't you going to write, signorino?" asked Gaspare, when Maurice had
read his letter and approved it.
"I?" he said.
He saw an expression of surprise on Gaspare's face.
"Yes, of course. I'll write now. Help me up. I feel so lazy!"
Gaspare seized his hands and pulled, laughing. Maurice stood up and
stretched.
"You are more lazy than I, signore," said Gaspare. "Shall I write for
you, too?"
"No, no."
He spoke abstractedly.
"Don't you know what to say?"
Maurice looked at him swiftly. The boy had divined the truth. In his
present mood it would be difficult for him to write to Hermione. Still,
he must do it. He went up to the cottage and sat down at the
writing-table with Hermione's letter beside him.
He read it again carefully, then began to write. Now he was faintly aware
of the unreason of his previous mood and quite resolved not to express
it, but while he was writing of his every-day life in Sicily a vision of
the sick-room in Africa came before him again. He saw his wife shut in
with Artois, tending him. It was night, warm and dark. The sick man was
hot with fever, and Hermione bent over him and laid her cool hand on his
forehead.
Abruptly Maurice finished his letter and thrust it into an envelope.
"Here, Gaspare!" he said. "Take the donkey and ride down with these to
the post."
"How quick you have been, signore! I believe my letter to the signora is
longer than yours."
"Perhaps it is. I don't know. Off with you!"
When Gaspare was gone, Maurice felt restless, almost as he had felt on
the night when he had been left alone on the terrace. Then he had been
companioned by a sensation of desertion, and had longed to break out into
some new life, to take an ally against the secret enemy who was attacking
him. He had wanted to have his Emile Artois as Hermione had hers. That
was the truth of the matter. And his want had led him down to the sea.
And now again he looked towards the sea, and again there was a call from
it that summoned him.
He had not seen Maddalena since Gaspare came to seek him in the Sirens'
Isle. He had scarcely wanted to see her. The days had glided by in the
company of Gaspare, and no moment of them had been heavy or had lagged
upon its way.
But now he heard again the call from the sea.
Hermione was with her friend. Why should not he have his? But he did not
go down the path to the ravine, for he thought of Gaspare. He had tricked
him once, while he slept in the cave, and once Gaspare had tracked him to
the sirens' house. They had spoken of the matter of Maddalena. He knew
Gaspare. If he went off now to see Maddalena the boy would think that the
sending him to the post was a pretext, that he had been deliberately got
out of the way. Such a crime could never be forgiven. Maurice knew enough
about the Sicilian character to be fully aware of that. And what had he
to hide? Nothing. He must wait for Gaspare, and then he could set out for
the sea.
It seemed to him a long time before he saw Tito, the donkey, tripping
among the stones, and heard Gaspare's voice hailing him from below. He
was impatient to be off, and he shouted out:
"Presto, Gaspare, presto!"
He saw the boy's arm swing as he tapped Tito behind with his switch, and
the donkey's legs moving in a canter.
"What is it, signorino? Has anything happened?"
"No. But--Gaspare, I'm going down to the sea."
"To bathe?"
"I may bathe. I'm not sure. It depends upon how I go."
"You are going to the Casa delle Sirene?"
Maurice nodded.
"I didn't care to go off while you were away."
"Do you wish me to come with you, signorino?"
The boy's great eyes were searching him, yet he did not feel
uncomfortable, although he wished to stand well with Gaspare. They were
near akin, although different in rank and education. Between their minds
there was a freemasonry of the south.
"Do you want to come?" he said.
"It's as you like, signore."
He was silent for a moment; then he added:
"Salvatore might be there now. Do you want him to see you?"
"Why not?"
A project began to form in his mind. If he took Gaspare with him they
might go to the cottage more naturally. Gaspare knew Salvatore and could
introduce him, could say--well, that he wanted sometimes to go out
fishing and would take Salvatore's boat. Salvatore would see a prospect
of money. And he--Maurice--did want to go out fishing. Suddenly he knew
it. His spirits rose and he clapped Gaspare on the back.
"Of course I do. I want to know Salvatore. Come along. We'll take his
boat one day and go out fishing."
Gaspare's grave face relaxed in a sly smile.
"Signorino!" he said, shaking his hand to and fro close to his nose.
"Birbante!"
There was a world of meaning in his voice. Maurice laughed joyously. He
began to feel like an ingenious school-boy who was going to have a lark.
There was neither thought of evil nor even a secret stirring of desire
for it in him.
"A rivederci, Lucrezia!" he cried.
And they set off.
When they were not far from the sea, Gaspare said:
"Signorino, why do you like to come here? What is the good of it?"
They had been walking in silence. Evidently these questions were the
result of a process of thought which had been going on in the boy's mind.
"The good!" said Maurice. "What is the harm?"
"Well, here in Sicily, when a man goes to see a girl it is because he
wants to love her."
"In England it is different, Gaspare. In England men and women can be
friends. Why not?"
"You want just to be a friend of Maddalena?"
"Of course. I like to talk to the people. I want to understand them. Why
shouldn't I be friends with Maddalena as--as I am with Lucrezia?"
"Oh, Lucrezia is your servant."
"It's all the same."
"But perhaps Maddalena doesn't know. We are Sicilians here, signore."
"What do you mean? That Maddalena might--nonsense, Gaspare!"
There was a sound as of sudden pleasure, even sudden triumph, in his
voice.
"Are you sure you understand our girls, signore?"
"If Maddalena does like me there's no harm in it. She knows who I am now.
She knows I--she knows there is the signora."
"Si, signore. There is the signora. She is in Africa, but she is coming
back."
"Of course!"
"When the sick signore gets well?"
Maurice said nothing. He felt sure Gaspare was wondering again, wondering
that Hermione was in Africa.
"I cannot understand how it is in England," continued the boy. "Here it
is all quite different."
Again jealousy stirred in Maurice and a sensation almost of shame. For a
moment he felt like a Sicilian husband at whom his neighbors point the
two fingers of scorn, and he said something in his wrath which was
unworthy.
"You see how it is," he said. "If the signora can go to Africa to see her
friend, I can come down here to see mine. That is how it is with the
English."
He did not even try to keep the jealousy out of his voice, his manner.
Gaspare leaped to it.
"You did not like the signora to go to Africa!"
"Oh, she will come back. It's all right," Maurice answered, hastily.
"But, while she is there, it would be absurd if I might not speak to any
one."
Gaspare's burden of doubt, perhaps laid on his young shoulders by his
loyalty to his padrona, was evidently lightened.
"I see, signore," he said. "You can each have a friend. But have you
explained to Maddalena?"
"If you think it necessary, I will explain."
"It would be better, because she is Sicilian and she must think you love
her."
"Gaspare!"
The boy looked at him keenly and smiled.
"You would like her to think that?"
Maurice denied it vigorously, but Gaspare only shook his head and said:
"I know, I know. Girls are nicest when they think that, because they are
pleased and they want us to go on. You think I see nothing, signorino,
but I saw it all in Maddalena's face. Per Dio!"
And he laughed aloud, with the delight of a boy who has discovered
something, and feels that he is clever and a man. And Maurice laughed
too, not without a pride that was joyous. The heart of his youth, the
wild heart, bounded within him, and the glory of the sun, and the
passionate blue of the sea seemed suddenly deeper, more intense, more
sympathetic, as if they felt with him, as if they knew the rapture of
youth, as if they were created to call it forth, to condone its
carelessness, to urge it to some almost fierce fulfilment.
"Salvatore is there, signorino."
"How do you know?"
"I saw the smoke from his pipe. Look, there it is again!"
A tiny trail of smoke curled up; and faded in the blue.
"I will go first because of Maddalena. Girls are silly. If I do this at
her she will understand. If not she may show her father you have been
here before."
He closed one eye in a large and expressive wink.
"Birbante!"
"It is good to be birbante sometimes."
He went out from the trees and Maurice heard his voice, then a man's,
then Maddalena's. He waited where he was till he heard Gaspare say:
"The padrone is just behind. Signorino, where are you?"
"Here!" he answered, coming into the open with a careless air.
Before the cottage door in the sunshine a great fishing-net was drying,
fastened to two wooden stakes. Near it stood Salvatore, dressed in a
dark-blue jersey, with a soft black hat tilted over his left ear, above
which was stuck a yellow flower. Maddalena was in the doorway looking
very demure. It was evident that the wink of Gaspare had been seen and
comprehended. She stole a glance at Maurice but did not move. Her father
took off his hat with an almost wildly polite gesture, and said, in a
loud voice:
"Buona sera, signore."
"Buona sera," replied Maurice, holding out his hand.
Salvatore took it in a large grasp.
"You are the signore who lives up on Monte Amato with the English lady?"
"Yes."
"I know. She has gone to Africa."
He stared at Maurice while he spoke, with small, twinkling eyes, round
which was a minute and intricate web of wrinkles, and again Maurice felt
almost--or was it quite?--ashamed. What were these Sicilians thinking of
him?
"The signora will be back almost directly," he said. "Is this your
daughter?"
"Yes, Maddalena. Bring a chair for the signore, Maddalena."
Maddalena obeyed. There was a slight flush on her face and she did not
look at Maurice. Gaspare stood pulling gently at the stretched-out net,
and smiling. That he enjoyed the mild deceit of the situation was
evident. Maurice, too, felt amused and quite at his ease now. His
sensation of shame had fleeted away, leaving only a conviction that
Hermione's absence gave him a right to snatch all the pleasure he could
from the hands of the passing hour.
He drew out his cigar-case and offered it to Salvatore.
"One day I want to come fishing with you if you'll take me," he said.
Salvatore looked eager. A prospect of money floated before him:
"I can show you fine sport, signore," he answered, taking one of the long
Havanas and examining it with almost voluptuous interest as he turned it
round and round in his salty, brown fingers. "But you should come out at
dawn, and it is far from the mountain to the sea."
"Couldn't I sleep here, so as to be ready?"
He stole a glance at Maddalena. She was looking at her feet, and twisting
the front of her short dress, but her lips were twitching with a smile
which she tried to repress.
"Couldn't I sleep here to-night?" he added, boldly.
Salvatore looked more eager. He loved money almost as an Arab loves it,
with anxious greed. Doubtless Arab blood ran in his veins. It was easy to
see from whom Maddalena had inherited her Eastern appearance. She
reproduced, on a diminished scale, her father's outline of face, but that
which was gentle, mysterious, and alluring in her, in him was informed
with a rugged wildness. There was something bird-like and predatory in
his boldly curving nose with its narrow nostrils, in his hard-lipped
mouth, full of splendid teeth, in his sharp and pushing chin. His whole
body, wide-shouldered and deep-chested, as befitted a man of the sea,
looked savage and fierce, but full of an intensity of manhood that was
striking, and his gestures and movements, the glance of his penetrating
eyes, the turn of his well-poised head, revealed a primitive and
passionate nature, a nature with something of the dagger in it, steely,
sharp, and deadly.
"But, signore, our home is very poor. Look, signore!"
A turkey strutted out through the doorway, elongating its neck and
looking nervously intent.
"Ps--sh--sh--sh!"
He shooed it away, furiously waving his arms.
"And what could you eat? There is only bread and wine."
"And the yellow cheese!" said Maurice.
"The--?" Salvatore looked sharply interrogative.
"I mean, there is always cheese, isn't there, in Sicily, cheese and
macaroni? But if there isn't, it's all right. Anything will do for me,
and I'll buy all the fish we take from you, and Maddalena here shall cook
it for us when we come back from the sea. Will you, Maddalena?"
"Si, signore."
The answer came in a very small voice.
"The signore is too good."
Salvatore was looking openly voracious now.
"I can sleep on the floor."
"No, signore. We have beds, we have two fine beds. Come in and see."
With not a little pride he led Maurice into the cottage, and showed him
the bed on which he had already slept.
"That will be for the signore, Gaspare."
"Si--è molto bello."
"Maddalena and I--we will sleep in the outer room."
"And I, Salvatore?" demanded the boy.
"You! Do you stay too?"
"Of course. Don't I stay, signore?"
"Yes, if Lucrezia won't be frightened."
"It does not matter if she is. When we do not come back she will keep
Guglielmo, the contadino."
"Of course you must stay. You can sleep with me. And to-night we'll play
cards and sing and dance. Have you got any cards, Salvatore?"
"Si, signore. They are dirty, but--"
"That's all right. And we'll sit outside and tell stories, stories of
brigands and the sea. Salvatore, when you know me, you'll know I'm a true
Sicilian."
He grasped Salvatore's hand, but he looked at Maddalena.