They lifted him out and laid him on the warm beach. The crowd stood
aside, respectful and expectant. All eyes turned to Sophy. They were
waiting for the thrilling moment when the stone image would spring to
life, shriek and cast itself upon her husband's body. There was a hush
as in a theatre, just before the eagerly expected catastrophe breaks
into a scream or dagger-stroke. But the moment failed of its zest.
Slowly, as though moving in its sleep, the tall figure went over to the
drowned man, knelt down beside him, laid a white hand on the drenched,
sunburnt chest. Then she looked dully up at Peppin, who stood by, honest
pity on his rough face, the water that streamed from his clothes making
a little patter on the hot pebbles.
"It doesn't beat," she said in English, not heeding that the man could
not understand her. "What will you do now...?" she asked. And her eyes
still gazed up at the sailor as though he had been God.
The woman with the heavy breast, that Sophy had struck in her frantic
efforts to escape, began to sob. The little, yellow wooden chair still
bobbed up and down in the sunlight as some current bore it away towards
Ghiffa.
Peppin kneeled down, too. He put his square, dark hand, with its broken
nails and tattooed wrist, beside the white one.
Then he sprang up and began fiercely talking and gesticulating to the
others. He was telling them that they must help him try to revive the
_Scior_. They shrank. It is not considered wise on Lago Maggiore to
meddle with a drowned man before the civil authorities come on the
scene. One may get involved in all sorts of unpleasantness. Peppin
berated them roundly, with good work-a-day oaths. He, too, called them
"_Vigliacchi_." But though most of his angry dialect was but gibberish
to Sophy, certain words she understood. And these words acted on her
like an elixir of life. The blood flashed into her white face. She
sprang to her feet.
"I will help you! Show me!" she cried. "_Io_.... _Io_...." (I--I) she
kept repeating, striking her breast sharply to show him what she meant.
She caught the sailor's hand in hers and drew him towards Chesney. She
pointed to the drowned man, and then to herself and Peppin. In her
broken Italian--stammering with eagerness--she urged the sailor to let
her help revive her husband.
He understood, but he was at a loss. He knew that she could not assist
in the violent measures that were necessary. The drowned man must first
of all be made to disgorge the water that he had swallowed. This poor
_Sciora_ could not help him. He stood bewildered while Sophy held his
hand, pouring out her eager, broken words.... And as he stood there, at
his wit's end, a new cry went up:
"_Il dottore! Il dottore!_"
The doctor, whose name was Morelli, had a way with him that Peppin
thoroughly approved. He ordered the curious throng to keep back, in so
sharp a tone of authority that he was actually obeyed. Then he spoke to
Sophy, very gently, but in the same authoritative manner. He told her
that she must leave him to take at once the necessary measures for
reviving her husband.
"I implore you to return to the hotel, signora," he said earnestly. "It
will not be well for you to remain here."
Sophy rose at once, but her eyes fastened on Peppin's face.
"Will _you_ stay with him, too?" she asked.
"_Si! Si! Sciora!_" he answered eagerly. "_Staro_" (I will stay).
The Padrone came up and offered her his arm. The fat, kind-hearted woman
also came up, though her great bust still ached from Sophy's frenzied
blows.
"_Cara signora_," she pleaded humbly, "allow me to accompany you."
Between the Padrone and this kindly soul Sophy went obediently back to
the hotel.
Tilda and Rosa had both gone for a walk with Bobby along the high-road.
Tilda had missed one of the smaller bags, and wished to see if it had
been left by mistake with Luigi. So the two women had gone back to Villa
Bianca, and were there when the accident happened. Not until Morelli and
Peppin had been at work together over Chesney for twenty minutes did
they return with Luigi, who, on hearing the terrible news, ran straight
to help resuscitate his master. All the women in the hotel gathered
round Rosa. She yielded Bobby to one of them, and began to sob and
strike her breast and forehead in despair.
Tilda, her round face blotched with pallor, went straight to her lady.
She found Sophy standing by a window that overlooked the shore.
"Oh, Mrs. Chesney!" faltered the girl, beginning to tremble. "May I stay
with you?"
"No ... please...." said her mistress without turning. The girl went out
obediently, and sat crouched in a chair near the door. Some women stole
up and began whispering gruesome details to her. She listened
half-unwilling, half-fascinated. The insatiable craving of the lower
classes for "_le frisson_" made her listen, but she hated herself for
doing it, and them for telling her so eagerly. The fat woman, whom Sophy
had not permitted to remain with her, and to whose care Rosa had given
Bobby, took the boy to her room and fed him bonbons, eating some herself
to encourage him, and turning aside every now and then to cry again over
the poor _tousin_ whose Babbo had just been drowned, and who was so
innocently gay over this unexpected feast of sweetmeats.
And Sophy, all alone at her window in the bleak hotel bedroom, stood and
gazed at the little group on the beach, where Morelli, Peppin, and Luigi
were striving to restore her husband to life. The first rigorous methods
having been used, they had moved him to the shadow of some trees and
spread blankets under and over him--only his head and the upper part of
his chest were now exposed. And on either side knelt the sailor and the
doctor. They had each grasped one of the massive arms, and regularly,
with a machine-like motion, they lifted these arms up above the prone
head, then down again--up--then down again. So powerful did the huge man
look, even thus outstretched upon the ground, that it seemed to Sophy as
though with his naked, herculean arms, he were bending the two men back
and forth--back and forth. She would not believe that he was dead. It
was as if, should she allow herself for a moment to believe it, he would
really die. It was as if his life depended on her will to believe in it.
It was impossible--that thus, in the sunlight, within a few yards of
shore, within the sound of her voice, with his midday-meal preparing for
him, his clothes awaiting him on the warm beach--that thus in a
moment--in the twinkling of an eye--he should be dead....
Up and down--up and down waved the massive arms, white and gleaming in
the glare from sky and water. Another figure joined the group. Sophy
recognised Tibaldo, the gardener's boy from Villa Bianca. The doctor
said something, turning his head sharply. Then she saw Luigi turn back
the blankets, and Tibaldo take up a bottle that had been standing near.
He poured stuff from this bottle into Luigi's hands, then into his own.
They began rubbing the naked man vigorously. The doctor and Peppin
paused a moment. She saw Morelli mop his face with his handkerchief, and
Peppin sling the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. A change
was made. Now it was Luigi and Tibaldo who were moving the great arms up
and down, while Peppin and Morelli rubbed the outstretched body
vigorously....
All at once, without any warning, she could not see them any longer. All
that she could see was an endless reach of gleeful, bright blue water,
and floating on it, bobbing drolly, a small, yellow chair. Then she saw
nothing--then dark clouds that coiled and swam. She did not regain
consciousness for five hours. When she came to herself again, she was
lying on the bed with Tilda kneeling at her feet, rubbing them. A man's
face was bending over her--the face of Doctor Morelli. The Venetian
blinds were closed, making a strange green light in the room ... it
seemed to be under water. She struggled to rise, feeling
suffocated--feeling as though she, too, were drowning. She heard Morelli
take a breath as of relief. Tilda had put down her face upon the
bedclothes.
"How is he?... How is my husband?" she managed to stammer.
She felt the girl sobbing against her feet.
"_Coraggio, signora_.... _Coraggio_...." murmured the doctor. Then she
knew. He was dead. She sank again into merciful depths of
unconsciousness.
* * * * *
This time, when she recovered, it was into the tender, lustrous eyes of
the Marchesa Amaldi that she looked up. As soon as Peppin had brought
the news to Le Vigne, the Marchesa had set out for Ghiffa. Amaldi was
away on a walking tour in the Carpathians. He had left very suddenly.
The Marchesa divined that it was his feeling for Sophy that had caused
him to leave so abruptly. She applauded him in her heart while she
ached, mother-like, for his unhappiness. Now came this horrible
disaster. She was glad that Marco was away. Sheer pity might have
stripped him too bare before her, in spite of his powerful reserve. And
with the sense of his hopeless, unfortunate love adding to her own
passion of pity for this young creature widowed in so horrible a way,
the Marchesa gathered Sophy as it were into the very shrine of
mother-tenderness. Never again after that were things quite the same
between them. Never again could the Marchesa look on Sophy only as a
charming woman whom her son unfortunately loved; never again could Sophy
forget, that on the heart of Marco's mother she had lain in that tragic
hour.
"Can't you cry, my poor darling?... Can't you cry?" the Marchesa kept
murmuring, her beautiful large hand folding Sophy's head to her breast,
as it had been the head of a child that she was suckling. But no tears
would come. It was as though she were bleeding tears inwardly.
When she was strong enough to rise, she said, whispering:
"I want to go to him."
The Marchesa assisted her to her feet without a word. In silence she led
her to the communicating door behind which her husband lay, then
stepped aside for her to enter.
Sophy closed the door softly as she went in. It was late at night.
Candles burned by the bed, on either side. He lay there immensely,
majestically long under the white sheet. Sophy went forward
unfalteringly, and kneeling down beside him, lifted back the sheet. Awe
filled her at the icy splendour of that face. She had not known how
beautiful he was, until thus translated into cream-hued marble. His brow
seemed to triumph; on his lips was that austere, secretive smile as of
Initiation, that only death can give. It seemed to her that it was not
her husband who lay there before her, but a majestic High-priest, dead
with the words of some mysterious and awful ritual still on his lips,
now sealed with that smile of ultimate initiation.
She bent closer, very reverently, and kissed the thick fair hair, then
the wonderful, triumphant brow. She had never before touched the dead.
This coldness of what had been so warm made her realise in one sick
throe that the imagination of Divinity may be abominable....
Then all at once in the stark silence of the room she became conscious
of the ticking of his watch, made resonant by the bare wood of the table
on which it had been placed. Like a little metal heart it seemed,
continuing the unavailing minutes of the life that had stopped, while it
went on. And next to the coldness of the familiar brow, that ticking of
the dead man's watch seemed to her the most fearful thing that she had
ever known or dreamed of. She sank back on her knees, her hands folded
upon the bed, gazing at that loftily indifferent face, listening to the
steady pulse of the watch.... She could not bring it all near her. A
tragedy had taken place in some far planet, and this was the mysterious
painting of it on which she looked. That was not Cecil who lay there in
that frozen dignity, Cecil who had been like a flame from the hottest
core of life's great furnace ... he could never have lapsed into such
seemingly voluntary passionlessness, even in death. Had there been a
frown of revolt on his forehead, he would have seemed nearer, more real.
Thus, he was not Cecil, but a stranger.... She felt confused, impassive
and appalled. She was appalled at what she thought her own
heartlessness. But then why should she weep for him, when he lay there
with such plenitude of satisfaction and agreement on his forbiddingly
beautiful, stranger's face?
She went back after an hour into the next room. Her face looked dull and
wild at the same time. The Marchesa, who had lain down on the bed, rose
and drew her down beside her, keeping gentle but firm hold of her hand.
Sophy submitted obediently. She lay until day without moving, her eyes
wide open, fixed on the opposite wall. Now and then the Marchesa would
turn her head cautiously to see if by chance she had fallen asleep. But
the dark eyes were always wide open, fixed on the bright green
wallpaper.
"Poor girl," thought the Marchesa. "Poor Marco ... she loved her husband
deeply, in spite of all. There may be brain fever unless I can make her
cry in some way."
At dawn Sophy was still stretched there moveless, her eyes on the green
wall behind which Cecil lay in cold, aloof content.
Robins began their sweet autumnal piping in the hotel garden. A thought
came to the Marchesa. Babies waked with birds. She rose softly, and
slipped out into the hall. Rosa and Bobby had been given a room just
opposite. The Marchesa entered without knocking. The wisdom of the old
nurse in the song was in her heart. As she had thought, the boy was
awake. He was sitting up in bed, his short red curls tousled, the
sleeves of his blue flannel dressing-gown that came far down over his
hands, evidently annoying him, for he tugged at them impatiently. He was
trying to make two fiercely moustachioed tin soldiers do battle on the
pillow that Rosa had laid before him. Every time that one soldier would
almost clash swords with the other, down would come the sleeves like a
curtain, extinguishing the warriors.
"Bad teeves!" he was scolding them as the Marchesa entered. "_Pias minga
a mi_" (You don't please me). He had picked up much dialect since coming
to the Lake. Rosa, who also waked with the birds, and who, attired in a
red flannel petticoat and cotton under-body, was washing her face in a
corner of the room, kept murmuring, "_Pazienza, tousin, pazienza._"
She looked up as the Marchesa entered, horrified to be found by a
_Sciora_ in such attire. But the Marchesa did not glance at her. She
went straight to Bobby.
He greeted her joyously.
"My 'ady! Take off!" he cried, holding up his muffled hands.
The Marchesa talked with him for about twenty minutes, then she lifted
him, all subdued and piteous, into her arms, and carried him to his
mother. The sun had now risen and that green light as of watery depths
again filled the room.
The Marchesa put the boy down beside Sophy without a word. She did not
look at him, but her arm went round him. Bobby snuggled close, then
lifted his head and gazed into her white face. He began "pooring" it
with his little hand. The Marchesa had turned back the bothersome
sleeves. Then he knelt up to see her better.
"Poor dada ... dwownded...." he murmured, caressing her cheek. "Poor
muvvah ... all lone...." His lips began to quiver with the sad sound of
his own broken words.... "Don't c'y...." he pleaded, big tears bursting
from his own eyes.... "Bobby 'tay wiv you.... Bobby tate tare of you....
Don't c'y...."
And with this he began to sob himself as though his little heart would
break.
Sophy started from her trance of numbness. She caught the boy to her....
Then her tears came.... Then she remembered Cecil as her young lover ...
her husband.... Then he became real to her again, as she clasped his son
in her arms and they wept together.
The Marchesa had stolen out.
"_Ringrazio Dio!_" she said in her heart. She, too, was weeping.