Vittoria realised that it was beyond her power to keep Orsino in Rome,
and she was in great trouble. She had begged him not to speak of their
betrothal, scarcely knowing why she made the request, but she was
afterwards very glad that she had done so. To her, he was a condemned
man, and her betrothal was a solemn binding of herself to keep faith
with a beloved being who must soon be dead. She did not believe that she
could really outlive him, but if Heaven should be so unkind to her, she
had already made up her mind to return to the convent where she had been
educated, and to end her days as a nun. The acute melancholy which
belongs to the people of the far south, as well as of the far north, of
Norway and of Sicily or Egypt alike, at once asserted itself and took
possession of her. The next time Orsino saw her he was amazed at the
change. The colour was all gone from her face, her lips were tightly
set, and her brown eyes followed him with a perpetual, mute anxiety. Her
radiance was veiled, and her beauty was grievously diminished.
It was at a garden party, in a great, old villa beyond the walls, two
days after the dance. Orsino had not been able to see her in the
meantime, and had wisely abstained from visiting her mother, lest, in
any way, he should betray their joint secret. She was already in the
garden when he arrived with Corona, who caught sight of Vittoria from a
distance and noted the change in her face.
'Vittoria d'Oriani looks ill,' said the Princess, and she went towards
her at once.
She was too tactful to ask the girl what was the matter, but she saw how
Vittoria's eyes could not keep from Orsino, and she half guessed the
truth, though her son's face was impenetrable just then. An old friend
came up and spoke to her, and she left the two alone.
They quietly moved away from the more crowded part of the garden,
walking silently side by side, till they came to a long walk covered by
the interlacing branches of ilex trees. Another couple was walking at
some distance before them. Orsino glanced down at Vittoria, and tried to
say something, but it was not easy. He had not realised how the mere
sight of her stirred him, until he found himself speechless when he
wished to say many things.
'You are suffering,' he said softly, at last. 'What is it?'
'You know,' she answered. 'What is the use of talking about it? I have
said all--but tell me only when you are going.'
'To-morrow morning. I shall be back in a fortnight.'
'You will never come back,' said Vittoria, in a dull and hopeless tone.
She spoke with such conviction that Orsino was silent for a moment. He
had not the smallest belief in any danger, but he did not know how to
argue with her.
'I have thought it all over,' she went on. 'If you try to live there,
you will certainly be killed. But if you only go once, there is a
chance--a poor, miserable, little chance. Let them think that you are
coming up from Piedimonte, by way of Randazzo. It is above Randazzo that
the black lands begin, all lava and ashes, with deep furrows in which a
man can lie hidden to shoot. That is where they will try to kill you. Go
the other way, round by Catania. It is longer, but they will not expect
you, and you can get a guide. They may not find out that you have
changed your plan. If they should know it, they could kill you even more
easily on that side, in the narrow valley; but they need not know it.'
'Nothing will happen to me on either side,' said Orsino carelessly.
Vittoria bent her head and walked on in silence beside him.
'I did not wish to talk about all that,' he continued. 'There are much
more important things. When I come back we must be married soon--'
'We shall never be married if you go to Sicily,' answered Vittoria in
the same dull voice.
It was a fixed idea, and Orsino felt the hopelessness of trying to
influence her, together with a pardonable impatience. The couple ahead
of them reached the end of the walk, turned, met them, and passed them
with a greeting, for they were acquaintances. Where the little avenue
ended there was a great fountain of travertine stone, behind which, in
the wide arch of the opening trees, they could see the Campagna and the
Sabine mountains to the eastward.
Vittoria stopped when they reached the other side of the basin, which
was moss-grown but full of clear water that trickled down an almost
shapeless stone triton. The statue and the fountain hid them from any
one who might be coming up the walk, and at their feet lay the broad
green Campagna. They were quite alone.
The young girl raised her eyes, and she looked already as though she had
been in an illness.
'We cannot stay more than a moment,' she said. 'If people see us going
off together, they will guess. I want it to be all my secret. I want to
say goodbye to you--for the last time. I shall remember you always as
you are now, with the light on your face.'
She looked at him long, and her eyes slowly filled with tears, which did
not break nor run over, but little by little subsided again, taking her
grief back to her heart. Orsino's brows frowned with pain, for he saw
how profoundly she believed that she was never to see him again, and it
hurt him that for him she should be so hurt, most of all because he was
convinced that there was no cause.
'We go to-morrow,' he said. 'We shall be in Messina the next day. On the
day after that go and see my mother, and she will tell you that she has
had news of our safe arrival. What more can I say? I am sure of it.'
But Vittoria only looked long and earnestly into his face.
'I want to remember,' she said in a low voice.
'For a fortnight?' Orsino smiled lovingly, and took her hand.
'For ever,' she answered very gravely, and her fingers clutched his
suddenly and hard.
He still smiled, for he could find nothing to say against such
possession of presentiment. Common sense never has anything effectual to
oppose to conviction.
'Goodbye,' she said softly. 'Goodbye, Orsino.'
She had not called him by his name yet, and it sounded like an
enchantment to him, though it was a rough name in itself. The breeze
stirred the ilex leaves overhead in the spring afternoon, and the water
trickled down, with a pleasant murmur, into the big basin. It was all
lovely and peaceful and soft, except the look in her despairing eyes.
That disturbed him as he met it and saw no change in it, but always the
same hopeless pain.
'Come,' he said quietly, 'this is not sensible. Do I look like a man who
is going to be killed like a dog in the street, without doing something
to help myself?'
Her eyes filled again.
'Oh, pray--please--do not speak like that! Say goodbye to me--I cannot
bear it any longer--and yet it kills me to let you go!'
She turned from him and covered her eyes with her hands for a moment,
while he put his arm round her reassuringly. Then, all at once, she
looked up.
'I will be brave--goodbye!' she said quickly.
It was a silent leave-taking after that, for he could not say much. His
only answer to her must be his safe return, but as they went back along
the walk she felt that she was with him for the last time. It was like
going with him to execution.
Orsino walked back to the city alone, thinking over her words and her
face, and wondering whether there could be anything in presentiments of
evil. He had never had any himself, that he could remember, and he had
never seen anybody so thoroughly under the influence of one as Vittoria
seemed to be.
Before dinner he went to see San Giacinto, whom he found alone in his
big study, sitting in his huge chair before his enormous table. He was
so large that he had his own private furniture made to suit his own
dimensions. The table was covered with note-books and papers, very
neatly arranged, and the gray-haired giant was writing a letter. He
looked up as Orsino entered and uttered a sort of inarticulate
exclamation of satisfaction. Then he went on writing, while Orsino sat
down and watched him.
'Do you happen to have a gun license?' asked San Giacinto, without
looking up.
'Of course.'
'Put it in your pocket for the journey,' was the answer, as the pen went
on steadily.
'Is there any game about Camaldoli?' enquired Orsino, after a pause.
'Brigands,' replied San Giacinto, laconically, and still writing.
He would have said 'woodcock' in the same tone, being a plain man and
not given to dramatic emphasis. Orsino laughed a little incredulously,
but said nothing as he sat waiting for his kinsman to finish his letter.
His eyes wandered about the room, and presently they fell on a stout
sole-leather bag which stood by a chair near the window. On the chair
itself lay two leathern gun-cases obviously containing modern rifles, as
their shape and size showed. With a man's natural instinct for arms,
Orsino rose and took one of the weapons out of its case, and examined
it.
'Winchesters,' said San Giacinto, still driving his pen.
'I see,' answered Orsino, feeling the weight, and raising the rifle to
his shoulder as though to try the length of the stock.
'Most people prefer them in Sicily,' observed San Giacinto, who had
signed his name and was folding his note carefully.
'What do you want them for?' asked the younger man, still incredulous.
'It is the custom of the country to carry them down there,' said the
other. 'Besides, there are brigands about. I told you so just now.'
San Giacinto did not like to repeat explanations.
'I thought you were joking,' remarked Orsino.
'I never did that. I suppose we shall not have the luck to fall in with
any of those fellows, but there has been a good deal of trouble lately,
and we shall not be particularly popular as Romans going to take
possession of Sicilian lands. We should be worth a ransom too, and by
this time the whole country knows that we are coming.'
'Then we may really have some excitement,' said Orsino, more surprised
than he would show at his cousin's confirmation of much that Vittoria
had said. 'How about the mafia?' he asked by way of leading San Giacinto
into conversation. 'How will it look at us?'
'The mafia is not a man,' answered San Giacinto, bluntly. 'The mafia is
the Sicilian character--Sicilian honour, Sicilian principles. It is an
idea, not an institution. It is what makes it impossible to govern
Sicily.'
'Or to live there,' suggested Orsino.
'Except with considerable tact. You will find out something about it
very soon, if you try to manage that place. But if you are nervous you
had better not try.'
'I am not nervous, I believe.'
'No, it is of no use to be. It is better to be a fatalist. Fatalism
gives you your own soul, and leaves your body to the chemistry of the
universe, where it belongs. If your body comes into contact with
something that does not agree with it, you die. That is all.'
There was an admirable directness in San Giacinto's philosophy, as
Orsino knew. They made a final agreement about meeting at the station on
the following morning, and Orsino went home a good deal less inclined to
treat Vittoria's presentiments lightly. It had been characteristic of
San Giacinto that he had hitherto simply forgotten to mention that there
might be real danger in the expedition to Camaldoli, and it was equally
in accordance with Orsino's character to take the prospect of it simply
and gravely. There was a strong resemblance between the two kinsmen, and
Orsino understood his cousin better than his father or any of his
brothers.
He had already explained to his mother what he was going to do, and she
had been glad to learn that he had found something to interest him. Both
Corona and Sant' Ilario had the prevailing impression that the Sicilian
difficulties were more or less imaginary. That is what most Romans
think, and the conviction is general in the north of Italy. As Orsino
said nothing about his conversation with San Giacinto on that last
evening, his father and mother had not the slightest idea that there was
danger before him, and as they had both noticed his liking for Vittoria,
they were very glad that he should go away just then, and forget her.
The old Prince bade him goodbye that night.
'Whatever you do, my boy,' he said, shaking his snowy old head
energetically, 'do not marry a Sicilian girl.'
The piece of advice was so unexpected that Orsino started slightly, and
then laughed, as he took his grandfather's hand. It was oddly smooth, as
the hands of very old men are, but it was warm still, and not so feeble
as might have been expected.
'And if you should get into trouble down there,' said the head of the
house, who had known Sicily seventy years earlier, 'shoot first. Never
wait to be shot at.'
'It is not likely that there will be much shooting nowadays,' laughed
Sant' Ilario.
'That does not make my advice bad, does it?' asked old Saracinesca,
turning upon his son, for the least approach to contradiction still
roused his anger instantly.
'Oh no!' answered Giovanni. 'It is very good advice.'
'Of course it is,' growled the old gentleman, discontentedly. 'I never
gave anyone bad advice in my life. But you boys are always contradicting
me.'
Giovanni smiled rather sadly. It was not in the nature of things that
men over ninety years old should live much longer, but he felt what a
break in the household's life the old man's death must one day make,
when the vast vitality should be at last worn out.