Sicilian Cousins
The relations, who had assembled to welcome Carmel back, came often to
the Casa Bianca, and in quite a short time they and the Ingletons were
on terms of intimacy. Ernesto Trapani, a handsome young fellow, slightly
older than Everard, was studying at the University of Palermo, in which
city Vittore was at school, and the two brothers came home from Saturday
to Monday. Douglas Greville, a tall boy of seventeen who had been at
school in Paris, also went to the Palermo University for certain classes
in chemistry, which would help him afterwards in the conduct of his
father's business. The younger children of the various families, Aimée,
Tito, and Claude Greville, Rosalia Trapani, and Berta, Gaspare, and
Pepino Rosso, had lessons with private governesses, under whose charge
they had learnt to chatter Italian, English, and French with the utmost
ease.
On the Saturday after the Ingletons' arrival all these young people came
over to Casa Bianca, and it was decided to take picnic baskets, and go
out in a body to show the guests some of the sights of the neighborhood.
So a very gay party started off from the veranda. First they went
through long groves of orange and lemon trees, where peasant women, with
bright handkerchiefs tied over their heads, were gathering the fruit and
packing it carefully in hampers.
"You must simply live on oranges here," said Dulcie, accepting the ripe
specimen offered her by Douglas. "Do you know this is the fifth I've had
this morning?"
"On the contrary, we hardly ever touch them ourselves," answered
Douglas. "I suppose we have so many that we don't care about them here.
I used to like them, though, when I was in Paris."
"It would take me a long time to get tired of them," declared Dulcie. "I
did not know before what a really ripe orange tastes like. They're
absolutely delicious. Why don't we get them like this in England?"
"They wouldn't keep if they were packed ripe, and fruit that ripens on a
tree is always much sweeter than when it has been stored."
"Yes, I know: our English apples are like that. I wish I could be here
in the autumn to see your peaches and vines! I shan't want to go away
from this ripping place. I've never seen anything so lovely in my
life!"
Montalesso was indeed in all the glory of its spring charm. Everywhere
the almond trees were in flower, and the effect of the masses of lovely
lacy blossom against the brilliant blue of the sky was a perfect
picture. With the cherry bloom of Japan the almond blossom of Sicily
holds equal rank as one of the most beautiful sights in the world. From
the height where the young people were walking they could see the sea at
Targia Vecchia, and the little red sails of fishing smacks in the
harbor, and the flat topped half Moorish houses, each with its clump of
orange trees and its veranda of vines. Beyond, a landmark for all the
district, was the great glittering peak of Etna. Its lower slopes were
clothed with vineyards, and dotted here and there with villages, a
second range was forest clad, and its dazzling summit, 10,742 feet above
sea-level, lay in the region of the eternal snows. A thin column of
smoke issued from the crater, and stretched like a gray ribbon across
the sky. Lilias viewed it with some uneasiness.
"I hope there won't be an eruption!" she said nervously.
The boys laughed.
"English people are always so scared at poor old Etna! They imagine the
crater is going to turn on fireworks for their entertainment. That smoke
is a safety valve, so don't be afraid. The observatory gives warning if
anything serious is going to take place."
"And what happens then?"
"Some of the people on the slopes run away in time, and some stay to
guard their property. We're quite safe at Montalesso, for we're fifteen
miles away, though the clear air makes the peak look so near."
They had left the lemon groves and the almond blossom behind, and were
now walking along a grassy table-land where flocks of goats were
feeding. The goatherds, picturesque little boys dressed in sheepskin
coats and soft felt hats, with brown eyes and thick brown curls, were
amusing themselves by playing on reed pipes. They recalled the Idylls of
Theocritus, and might almost have been products of the fourth century
B. C. instead of the twentieth century A. D. The wild flowers that grew
in this plain were gorgeous. There were anemones of all kinds, scarlet,
purple, pale pink, and white: irises of many colors, blue pimpernel,
yellow salvia, violet grape hyacinths, and clumps of small white
narcissus. Above all rose the splendid pale pink blossoms of the
asphodel, a striking feature of a Sicilian landscape.
The Ingletons ran about in greatest delight, picking handfuls of what
were to them beautiful garden flowers.
"It's a moot point whether Proserpine was gathering narcissus or
asphodel when Pluto ran away with her," declared Mr. Stacey, offering
Lilias a bouquet which a Greek nymph might have been pleased to accept.
"I incline to asphodel myself, because of its immortal significance. It
gives an added meaning to the myth."
"What is the story exactly?" asked Dulcie. "Do tell it, please!"
"Yes, do!" begged all the children, crowding round Mr. Stacey. "We want
to hear your English story!"
"It's not an English one, but a very old Greek one. Shall we rest on
this wall while I tell it? Luigia shall come on my knee. Yes, there's
room for Pepino too, and Gaspare and Vincent may sit next to me. Well,
in the old Golden Age, when the world was young, Ceres, the Goddess of
the Harvest, who gave all the fruits of earth to men, had a beautiful
daughter named Proserpine, or, as the Greeks called her, Persephone. She
made Sicily her place of residence, and she and her nymphs used to
delight themselves with its flowery meadows and limpid streams, and
beautiful views. One day she and her companions were wandering in the
plain of Enna, gathering flowers, when there suddenly appeared the god
Pluto, king of Hades, the regions of the dead. Falling in love with
beautiful Proserpine, he seized her, and forced her to get into his
chariot. She screamed to her maidens, but they could not help her, and
Pluto carried her off. With his trident he struck a hole in the ground,
so that chariot and horses fell through into Hades, of which place
Proserpine became the queen. Now Ceres did not know what had happened to
her daughter, and she wandered all over the earth seeking for her. At
last she found Proserpine's girdle on the surface of the waters of a
fountain where Pluto had struck his hole in the ground, and the nymph
Arethusa told her how her daughter had been stolen away. Full of
indignation, Ceres went to complain to Jupiter, who promised that
Proserpine should be restored if she had taken nothing to eat in the
realm of Hades. Unfortunately Proserpine, as she walked in the Elysian
fields, had gathered and eaten a pomegranate, which act constituted her
a subject of those regions. To pacify Ceres, Jupiter permitted that
Proserpine should spend six months of every year with Pluto in Hades,
and the other six months with her mother on earth. Each spring Ceres
went to the entrance of a great gloomy grotto to meet her daughter, and
with her return all the flowers bloomed on earth again. There is a very
celebrated picture by Sir Frederick Leighton, called 'The Return of
Persephone.' The artist has painted Ceres at the entrance of the grotto
with the sunshine behind her, holding out her arms to the lovely
daughter whom the god Mercury is bringing back to her out of the
darkness.
"The story is one of those old nature myths of which the Greeks were so
fond. The time Proserpine spent in Hades symbolized winter, when winds
blew cold, and few flowers bloomed, and her return symbolized the advent
of spring. It has a deeper meaning, also, to those who look for it,
because it is a type of the Resurrection, and shows that our dear ones
are not really taken from us, but will come again in more glorious life
and beauty. Many of the old Greek myths had this meaning hidden under
them, as if they were sent to prepare people for the truth that Christ
was to reveal more fully later on. Nearly all early religions began with
pure and beautiful conceptions of God, and then trailed down to earth,
because their followers were too ignorant to understand. The ancient
Egyptians believed in God, and said that one of His attributes was
strength. The strongest thing they knew was a bull, so they made
colossal statues of bulls in black marble, to show God's strength, but
the populace worshipped the statues instead of God himself, and became
idolaters. In the same way the ancient Greeks realized that Beauty was
part of God's scheme of work, and they came to worship Beauty quite
apart from Goodness, forgetting that the two must go together. They
imagined their gods and goddesses as magnificent men and women, with
superb bodies but no beauty of soul, and as there was nothing uplifting
in this religion, it soon died out, as all things die in time, if they
don't help us to grow nearer to God. The story of Proserpine is one of
the prettiest of the old Greek legends, and I can just imagine her
gathering these lovely flowers. I believe we're going on to see her
fountain, aren't we, Vittore? She made it with her tears when Pluto
carried her off."
The object of the expedition was indeed to see Proserpine's fountain, a
clear spring out of which flowed a small river. After walking another
mile across the meadows, the party came to this river, where they were
able to engage boats to row them up to the fount. It was a unique spot,
for the whole of the banks were bordered with an avenue of papyrus,
which grew there in greatest profusion. Legend said that it had been
planted by an Egyptian princess who brought it from the Nile, and that
it grew in no other place in Europe, a statement which was satisfactory
enough, though rather difficult to verify. There was much bargaining,
after true Sicilian fashion, with the native boatmen, who demanded at
least four times what they meant to take, protesting that they would be
ruined at the sum Ernesto named to them, and finally, when he pretended
to walk away, accepting his offer with enthusiasm. This very necessary
preliminary satisfactorily settled, the company was packed into the
small boats, about four going in each. In the distribution of the guests
occurred the first hitch in the Ingletons' visit. Mr. Stacey suggested
that it was advisable to sandwich children and grown-ups, and he and
Lilias started in the first "barca" in charge of little Luigia, Vincent,
and Pepino. Dulcie and Douglas were responsible for Gaspare, Rosalia,
and Nina, while Vittore, and Aimée, Claude, and Bertram went together.
Carmel held Tito and Berta each by a hand, and Ernesto helped them all
three into a boat. Everard was in the very act of jumping in after them,
when Ernesto stopped him.
"Excuse me, Signore, that is my place! There is plenty of room for you
in the other boat."
"And surely in this too?" said Everard, flushing with annoyance.
Ernesto shrugged his shoulders.
"Oh, no! You and I are too heavy to be together. Vittore and the others
are light; you will just make weight." And, stepping in, Ernesto took
his seat beside Carmel, and told the boatman to push off, while Everard,
with a face like a thundercloud, joined the younger children.
Up the narrow little river the light boats pushed, under an overhanging
archway of papyrus reeds, so that they seemed as if penetrating through
a green jungle. The boatmen began to sing Sicilian folk-songs, and
Vittore and Rosalia and Tito and some of the others joined in. To
everyone except Everard the excursion was delightful, but he,
considering himself treated with scant politeness, sat sulking in
Vittore's boat, and would scarcely speak to Aimée, who made a really
heroic effort to amuse him.
Proserpine's fountain, where after half an hour's rowing the boatmen
took them, was a clear deep pool reflecting the blue of the sky, and
encircled with papyrus, donax reeds, and beautiful irises. It seemed a
fit setting for the legend of antiquity, and a fertile imagination could
almost conjure up a vision of Pluto, with his chariot and black horses,
carrying off the lovely nymph from her meadows of flowers to his gloomy
realm of darkness. On the way back the second boat made a halt to cut
some pieces of papyrus reed, and Dulcie called out in much excitement to
the occupants of the other "barcas."
"Lilias! Everard! We're cutting some papyrus, and Douglas is going to
show me how to make it into parchment like the ancient Egyptians used to
write on. Won't it be gorgeous? Don't you want some too?"
"Rather!" replied Lilias, appealing to Mr. Stacey, who promptly pulled
out his penknife, and began to hack away at a stout stem on her behalf.
The lengths of papyrus which they bore off with them somewhat resembled
thick pieces of rhubarb, and how these were ever going to be turned into
writing materials was a puzzle to Dulcie, though Douglas assured her
airily that he knew all about it. The elders of the party were glad to
get the lively youngsters safely on dry land again.
"I thought Rosalia was going to turn into a water nymph," said Lilias,
comparing notes afterwards with Dulcie. "She leaned over in the most
dangerous manner, and so did Tito. If the boats hadn't been so broad,
they would have capsized."
"Then Pluto would have bagged the whole lot of us! More than he quite
bargained for, perhaps!" laughed Dulcie.
The making of the parchment was a matter of great interest to the
Ingletons. With Douglas as an instructor, they all set to work on its
manufacture. Taking ten inch lengths of the papyrus reeds, they cut them
into long, thin, vertical slices, and laid these across each other in
the form of a small mat between sheets of blotting paper. This was next
squeezed through a wringing-machine to rid it of superfluous moisture,
then placed under a heavy weight, in the manner of pressing flowers.
When at last it was dry, the alternate layers of the papyrus had
adhered together and amalgamated into a substance identical with the old
Egyptian parchment, though much coarser and rougher in quality. The
girls were delighted with it. They borrowed a book on Egypt from Mr.
Greville's library, and copied little pictures of the Sphinx, scarabs,
Ra, the Sun god, and other appropriate bits, painting them in bold
colors on their pieces of parchment, and feeling as if they had gone
back a few thousand years in history, and were dwellers in Memphis or
some other great city on the banks of the Nile. They designed special
ones for Miss Walters, Miss Hardy, and Miss Herbert, and smaller
offerings for Gowan, Bertha, Phillida, Noreen, and others of their
friends at Chilcombe Hall. Papyrus, indeed, became the rage at Casa
Bianca. All the various cousins vied with one another in making the
choicest specimens. They wrote letters to each other upon it, rolling up
the parchments and tying them with ribbons in the manner of ancient
scribes. Perhaps the whitest and best welded sheet of all was one made
by Mr. Stacey, who turned out to be so clever at the new craze that he
jokingly declared he must be a priest of some Egyptian temple come to
life again. He used a reed pen, and got some very happy effects in
hieroglyphs, puzzling out the names of each of the company in the
curious picture writing of the days of the Pharaohs who reared the
pyramids.
"Will you take us some day to see the Nile?" asked Lilias, happy in the
possession of her name neatly pictured on the specially white sheet of
papyrus, with a lotus bloom, the lily of Egypt, painted underneath. "You
know Captain Porter said we ought to go to Alexandria!"
"Nothing would please me better, if the fates willed it!" smiled Mr.
Stacey.
"We'll go in a party, and hire a boat up the Nile, and take all the
Grevilles with us, specially Douglas," declared Dulcie. "I count them my
cousins too. Don't you, Everard?"
"Right-o!" laughed Everard. "Cousins by all manner of means let them
be!" ("Though I don't bargain to include the Trapani family among our
new relations!" he added softly to himself, half under his breath).