Neither Artois nor the Marchesino visited the island during the days
that elapsed before the Festa of the Madonna del Carmine. But Artois
wrote to tell Hermione that the Marchesino had accepted his invitation,
and that he hoped she and Vere would be at the Hotel des Etrangers
punctually by eight o’clock on the night of the sixteenth. He wrote
cordially, but a little formally, and did not add any gossip or any
remarks about his work to the few sentences connected with the projected
expedition. And Hermione replied as briefly to his note. Usually, when
she wrote to Artois, her pen flew, and eager thoughts, born of the
thought of him, floated into her mind. But this time it was not so. The
energies of her mind in connection with his mind were surely failing. As
she put the note into its envelope, she had the feeling of one who had
been trying to “make” conversation with an acquaintance, and who had
not been successful, and she found herself almost dreading to talk with
Emile.
Yet for years her talks with him had been her greatest pleasure, outside
of her intercourse with Vere and her relations with Gaspare.
The change that had come over their friendship, like a mist over the
sea, was subtle, yet startling in its completeness. She wondered if he
saw and felt this mist as definitely as she did, if he regretted the
fair prospect it had blotted out, if he marvelled at its coming.
He was so acute that he must be aware of the drooping of their intimacy.
To what could he attribute it? And would he care to fight against the
change?
She remembered the days when she had nursed him in Kairouan. She felt
again the hot dry atmosphere. She heard the ceaseless buzzing of the
flies. How pale his face had been, how weak his body! He had returned
to the weakness of a child. He had depended upon her. That fact, that he
had for a time utterly depended upon her, had forged a new link in their
friendship, the strongest link of all. At least she had felt it to be
so. For she was very much of a woman, and full of a secret motherliness.
But perhaps he had forgotten all that.
In these days she often felt as if she did not understand men at all, as
if their natures were hidden from her, and perhaps, of necessity, from
all women.
“We can’t understand each other.”
She often said that to herself, and partly to comfort herself a little.
She did not want to be only one of a class of women from whom men’s
natures were hidden.
And yet it was not true.
For Maurice, at least, she had understood. She had not feared his
gayeties, his boyish love of pleasure, his passion for the sun, his
joy in the peasant life, his almost fierce happiness in the life of
the body. She had feared nothing in him, because she had felt that
she understood him thoroughly. She had read the gay innocence of his
temperament rightly, and so she had never tried to hold him back from
his pleasures, to keep him always with her, as many women would have
done.
And she clung to the memory of her understanding of Maurice as she faced
the mist that had swept up softly and silently over that sea and sky
which had been clear. He had been simple. There was nothing to dread
in cleverness, in complexity. One got lost in a nature that was full of
winding paths. Just then, and for the time, she forgot her love of, even
her passion for, mental things. The beauty of the straight white road
appealed to her. She saw it leading one onward to the glory of the sun.
Vere and she did not see very much of each other during these days. They
met, of course, at meals, and often for a few minutes at other times.
But it seemed as if each tacitly, and almost instinctively, sought to
avoid any prolonged intercourse with the other. Hermione was a great
deal in her sitting-room, reading, or pretending to read. And Vere made
several long expeditions upon the sea in the sailing-boat with Gaspare
and a boy from the nearest village, who was hired as an extra hand.
Hermione had a strange feeling of desertion sometimes, when the white
sail of the boat faded on the blue and she saw the empty sea. She would
watch the boat go out, standing at the window and looking through the
blinds. The sailor-boy pulled at the oars. Vere was at the helm, Gaspare
busy with the ropes. They passed quite close beneath her. She saw Vere’s
bright and eager face looking the way they were going, anticipating the
voyage; Gaspare’s brown hands moving swiftly and deftly. She saw the
sail run up, the boat bend over. The oars were laid in their places now.
The boat went faster through the water. The forms in it dwindled.
Was that Vere’s head, or Gaspare’s? Who was that standing up? The
fisher-boy? What were they now, they and the boat that held them? Only a
white sail on the blue, going towards the sun.
And how deep was the silence that fell about the house, how deep and
hollow! She saw her life then like a cavern that was empty. No waters
flowed into it. No lights played in its recesses. No sounds echoed
through it.
She looked up into the blue, and remembered her thought, that Maurice
had been taken by the blue. Hark! Was there not in the air the thin
sound of a reed flute playing a tarantella? She shut her eyes, and saw
the gray rocks of Sicily. But the blue was too vast. Maurice was lost in
it, lost to her forever. And she gazed up into it again, with the effort
to travel through it, to go on and on and on. And it seemed as if her
soul ached from that journey.
The sail had dipped down below the horizon. She let fall the blind. She
sat down in the silence.
Vere was greatly perplexed about her mother. One day in the boat she
followed her instinct and spoke to Gaspare about her. Hermione and she
between them had taught Gaspare some English. He understood it fairly
well, and could speak it, though not correctly, and he was very proud of
his knowledge. Because of the fisher-boy, Vere said what she had to say
slowly in English. Gaspare listened with the grave look of learning that
betokened his secret sensation of being glorified by his capacities.
But when he grasped the exact meaning of his Padroncina’s words, his
expression changed. He shook his head vigorously.
“Not true!” he said. “Not true! No matter--there is no matter with my
Padrona.”
“But Gaspare--”
Vere protested, explained, strong in her conviction of the change in her
mother.
But Gaspare would not have it. With energetic gestures he affirmed that
his Padrona was just as usual. But Vere surprised a look in his eyes
which told her he was watching her to see if he had deceived her. Then
she realized that for some reason of his own Gaspare did not wish her to
know that he had seen the change, wished also to detach her observation
from her mother.
She wondered why this was.
Her busy mind could not arrive at any conclusion in the matter, but she
knew her mother was secretly sad. And she knew that she and her mother
were no longer at ease with each other. This pained her, and the pain
was beginning to increase. Sometimes she felt as if her mother disliked
something in her, and did not choose to say so, and was irritated by
the silence that she kept. But what could it be? She searched among her
doings carefully. Had she failed in anything? Certainly she had not been
lacking in love. And her knowledge of that seemed simply to exclude any
possibility of serious shortcomings. And her mother?
Vere remembered how her mother had once longed to have a son, how she
had felt certain she was going to have a son. Could it be that? Could
her mother be dogged by that disappointment? She felt chilled to the
heart at that idea. Her warm nature protested against it. The love
she gave to her mother was so complete that it had always assumed the
completeness of that which it was given in return. But it might be so,
Vere supposed. It was possible. She pondered over this deeply, and when
she was with her mother watched for signs that might confirm or dispel
her fears. And thus she opposed to the mother’s new watchfulness the
watchfulness of the child. And Hermione noticed it, and wondered whether
Vere had any suspicion of the surreptitious reading of her poems.
But that was scarcely possible.
Hermione had not said a word to Vere of her discovery that Peppina had
done what she had been told not to do--related the story of her fate.
Almost all delicate-minded mothers and daughters find certain subjects
difficult, if not impossible of discussion, even when an apparent
necessity of their discussion arrives in the course of life. The present
reserve between Hermione and Vere rendered even the idea of any plain
speaking about the revelation of Peppina quite insupportable to the
mother. She could only pretend to ignore that it had ever been made.
And this she did. But now that she knew of it she felt very acutely the
difference it had made in Vere. That difference was owing to her own
impulsive action. And Emile knew the whole truth. She understood now
what he had been going to say about Peppina and Vere when they had
talked about the books.
He did condemn her in his heart. He thought she was not a neglectful,
but a mistaken mother. He thought her so impulsive as to be dangerous,
perhaps, even to those she loved best. Almost she divined that curious
desire of his to protect Vere against her. And yet without her impulsive
nature he himself might long ago have died.
She could not help at this time dwelling secretly on one or two actions
of hers, could not help saying to herself now and then: “I have been
some good in the world. I am capable of unselfishness sometimes. I
did leave my happiness for Emile’s sake, because I had a great deal
of friendship and was determined to live up to it. My impulses are not
always crazy and ridiculous.”
She did this, she was obliged to do it, to prevent the feeling of
impotence from overwhelming her. She had to do it to give herself
strength to get up out of the dust. The human creature dares not say to
itself, “You are nothing.” And now Hermione, feeling the withdrawal from
her of her friend, believing in the withdrawal from her of her child,
spoke to herself, pleading her own cause to her own soul against
invisible detractors.
One visitor the island had at this time. Each evening, when the
darkness fell, the boat of Ruffo’s employer glided into the Pool of San
Francesco. And the boy always came ashore while his companions slept.
Since Hermione had been charitable to his mother, and since he had
explained to her about his Patrigno and Peppina, he evidently had
something of the ready feeling that springs up in Sicilians in whom
real interest has been shown--the feeling of partly belonging to his
benefactor. There is something dog-like in this feeling. And it is
touching and attractive because of the animalism of its frankness and
simplicity. And as the dog who has been kindly, tenderly treated has
no hesitation in claiming attention with a paw, or in laying its muzzle
upon the knee of its benefactor, so Ruffo had no hesitation in relating
to Hermione all the little intimate incidents of his daily life, in
crediting her with an active interest in his concerns. There was no
conceit in this, only a very complete boyish simplicity.
Hermione found in this new attitude of Ruffo’s a curious solace for the
sudden loneliness of soul that had come upon her. Originally Ruffo’s
chief friendship had obviously been for Vere, but now Vere, seeing her
mother’s new and deep interest in the boy, gave way a little to it, yet
without doing anything ostentatious, or showing any pique. Simply she
would stay in the garden, or on the terrace, later than usual, till
after Ruffo was sure to be at the island, and let her mother stroll to
the cliff top. Or, if she were there with him first, she would soon make
an excuse to go away, and casually tell her mother that he was there
alone or with Gaspare. And all this was done so naturally that Hermione
did not know it was deliberate, but merely fancied that perhaps Vere’s
first enthusiasm for the fisher-boy was wearing off, that it had been a
child’s sudden fancy, and that it was lightly passing away.
Vere rather wondered at her mother’s liking for Ruffo, although
she herself had found him so attractive, and had drawn her mother’s
attention to his handsome face and bold, yet simple bearing. She
wondered, because she felt in it something peculiar, a sort of heat and
anxiety, a restlessness, a watchfulness; attributes which sprang from
the observation of that resemblance to the dead man which drew her
mother to Ruffo, but of which her mother had never spoken to her.
Nor did Hermione speak of it again to Gaspare. He had almost angrily
denied it, but since the night of Artois’ visit she knew that he had
seen it, been startled, moved by it, almost as she had been.
She knew that quite well. Yet Gaspare puzzled her. He had become moody,
nervous, and full of changes. She seemed to discern sometimes a latent
excitement in him. His temper was uneven. Giulia had said that one could
not speak with him. Since that day she had grumbled about him again, but
discreetly, with a certain vagueness. For all the servants thoroughly
appreciated his special position in the household as the “cameriere
di confidenza” of the Padrona. One thing which drew Hermione’s special
attention was his extraordinary watchfulness of her. When they were
together she frequently surprised him looking at her with a sort of
penetrating and almost severe scrutiny which startled her. Once or
twice, indeed, she showed that she was startled.
“What’s the matter, Gaspare?” she said, one day. “Do I look ill again?”
For she had remembered his looking at her in the boat.
“No, Signora,” he answered, this time, quickly. “You are not looking ill
to-day.”
And he moved off, as if anxious to avoid further questioning.
Another time she thought that there was something wrong with her dress,
or her hair, and said so.
“Is there anything wrong with me?” she exclaimed. “What is it?” And
she instinctively glanced down at her gown, and put up her hands to her
head.
And this time he had turned it off with a laugh, and had said:
“Signora, you are like the Signorina! Once she told me I was--I was”--he
shook his head--“I forget the word. But I am sure it was something that
a man could never be. Per dio!”
And then he had gone off into a rambling conversation that had led
Hermione’s attention far away from the starting-point of their talk.
Vere, too, noticed the variations of his demeanor.
“Gaspare was very ‘jumpy’ to-day in the boat,” she said, one evening,
after returning from a sail; “I wonder what’s the matter with him. Do
you think he can be in love, Madre?”
“I don’t know. But he is _fidanzato_, Vere, with a girl in Marechiaro,
you remember?”
“Yes, but that lasts forever. When I speak of it he always says: ‘There
is plenty of time, Signorina. If one marries in a hurry, one makes two
faces ugly!’ I should think the girl must be sick of waiting.”
Hermione was sure that there was some very definite reason for Gaspare’s
curious behavior, but she could not imagine what it was. That it was not
anything to do with his health she had speedily ascertained. Any small
discipline of Providence in the guise of a cold in the head, or a pain
in the stomach, despatched him promptly to the depths. But he had
told her that he was perfectly well and “made of iron,” when she had
questioned him on the subject.
She supposed time would elucidate the mystery, and meanwhile she knew
it was no use troubling about it. Years had taught her that when Gaspare
chose to be silent not heaven nor earth could make him speak.
Although Vere could not know why Ruffo attracted her mother, Hermione
knew that Gaspare must understand, at any rate partially, why she cared
so much to be with him. During the days between the last visit of Artois
and the Festa of the Madonna del Carmine her acquaintance with the boy
had progressed so rapidly that sometimes she found herself wondering
what the days had been like before she knew him, the evenings before his
boat slipped into the Saint’s Pool, and his light feet ran up from the
water’s edge to the cliff top. Possibly, had Ruffo come into her life
when she was comparatively happy and at ease, she would never have
drawn so closely to him, despite the resemblance that stirred her to the
heart. But he came when she was feeling specially lonely and sad; and
when he, too, was in trouble. Both wanted sympathy. Hermione gave Ruffo
hers in full measure. She could not ask for his. But giving had always
been her pleasure. It was her pleasure now. And she drew happiness from
the obvious and growing affection of the boy. Perfectly natural at all
times, he kept back little from the kind lady of the island. He told her
the smallest details of his daily life, his simple hopes and fears,
his friendships and quarrels, his relations with the other fishermen of
Mergellina, his intentions in the present, his ambitions for the future.
Some day he hoped to be the Padrone of a boat of his own. That seemed
to be the ultimate aim of his life. Hermione smiled as she heard it, and
saw his eyes shining with the excitement of anticipation. When he spoke
the word “Padrone,” his little form seemed to expand with authority and
conscious pride. He squared his shoulders. He looked almost a man. The
pleasures of command dressed all his person, as flags dress a ship on a
festival day. He stood before Hermione a boy exuberant.
And she thought of Maurice bounding down the mountain-side to the
fishing, and rousing the night with his “Ciao, Ciao, Ciao, Morettina
bella--Ciao!”
But Ruffo was sometimes reserved. Hermione could not make him speak of
his father. All she knew of him was that he was dead. Sometimes she gave
Ruffo good advice. She divined the dangers of Naples for a lad with
the blood bounding in his veins, and she dwelt upon the pride of man’s
strength, and how he should be careful to preserve it, and not dissipate
it before it came to maturity. She did not speak very plainly, but Ruffo
understood, and answered her with the unconscious frankness that is
characteristic of the people of the South. And at the end of his remarks
he added:
“Don Gaspare has talked to me about that. Don Gaspare knows much,
Signora.”
He spoke with deep respect. Hermione was surprised by this little
revelation. Was Gaspare secretly watching over the boy? Did he concern
himself seriously with Ruffo’s fate? She longed to question Gaspare.
But she knew that to do so would be useless. Even with her Gaspare would
only speak freely of things when he chose. At other times he was calmly
mute. He wrapped himself in a cloud. She wondered whether he had ever
given Ruffo any hints or instructions as to suitable conduct when with
her.
Although Ruffo was so frank and garrulous about most things, she noticed
that if she began to speak of his mother or his Patrigno, his manner
changed, and he became uncommunicative. Was this owing to Gaspare’s
rather rough rebuke upon the cliff before Artois and Vere? Or had
Gaspare emphasized that by further directions when alone with Ruffo? She
tried deftly to find out, but the boy baffled her. But perhaps he was
delicate about money, unlike Neapolitans, and feared that if he talked
too much of his mother the lady of the island would think he was “making
misery,” was hoping for another twenty francs. As to his Patrigno, the
fact that Peppina was living on the island made that subject rather a
difficult one. Nevertheless, Hermione could not help suspecting that
Gaspare had told the boy not to bother her with any family troubles.
She had not offered him money again. The giving of the twenty francs had
been a sudden impulse to help a suffering woman, less because she was
probably in poverty than because she was undoubtedly made unhappy by
her husband. Since she had suffered at the hands of death, Hermione
felt very pitiful for women. She would gladly have gone to see Ruffo’s
mother, have striven to help her more, both materially and morally.
But as to a visit--Peppina seemed to bar the way. And as to more money
help--she remembered Gaspare’s warning. Perhaps he knew something of the
mother that she did not know. Perhaps the mother was an objectionable,
or even a wicked woman.
But when she looked at Ruffo she could not believe that. And then
several times he had spoken with great affection of his mother.
She left things as they were, taking her cue from the boy in despite
of her desire. And here, as in some other directions, she was secretly
governed by Gaspare.
Only sometimes did she see in Ruffo’s face the look that had drawn her
to him. The resemblance to Maurice was startling, but it was nearly
always fleeting. She could not tell when it was coming, nor retain it
when it came. But she noticed that it was generally when Ruffo was moved
by affection, by a sudden sympathy, by a warm and deferent impulse that
the look came in him. And again she thought of the beautiful obedience
that springs directly from love, of Mercury poised for flight to the
gods, his mission happily accomplished.
She wondered if Artois had ever thought of it when he was with Ruffo.
But she felt now that she could never ask him.
And, indeed, she cherished her knowledge, her recognition, as something
almost sacred, silently shared with Gaspare.
To no one could that look mean what it meant to her. To no other heart
could it make the same appeal.
And so in those few days between Hermione and the fisher-boy a firm
friendship was established.
And to Hermione this friendship came like a small ray of brightly golden
light, falling gently in a place that was very dark.