“I shall seek a better way—I shall seek it. And the only thing I ask you to-night is—that you will not forbid me to seek it.”
The pressure of his hands upon her shoulders was becoming almost unbearable. But she bore it. She bore it for she loved it. Perhaps that night no words could have quite convinced her of his desperate honesty of soul in that moment, perhaps no sound of his voice could have quite convinced her. But the unconsciously cruel pressure of his hands upon her convinced her absolutely. She felt as if it was his soul—the truth of his soul—which was grasping her—which was closing upon her. And she felt that only a thing that needed could grasp, could close like that.
And even in the midst of her chaos of misery and doubt she felt, she knew, that it was herself that was needed.
“I will not forbid you to seek it,” she said.
He sighed deeply. His hands dropped down from her. They stood for a moment quite still. Then he said, in a low voice:
“You took thefattura della morte?”
“Yes,” she answered. “It was in—in her room at Mergellina to-day.”
“Have you got it still?”
“Yes.”
She held out her right hand. He took the death-charm from her.
“She made it—the woman who wronged you made it to bring death into the Casa del Mare.”
“Not to me?”
“No, to Peppina. Has it not brought another death? Or, at least, does it not typify another death to-night, the death of a great lie? I think it does. I look upon it as a symbol. But—but—?”
He looked at her. He was at the huge doorway of the palace. The sea murmured below him. Hermione understood and bent her head.
Then Artois threw the death-charm far away into the sea.
“Let me take you to the boat. Let me take you back to the island.”
She did not answer him. But when he moved she followed him, till they came to the rocks and saw floating on the dim water the two white boats.
“Gaspare!”
“Vengo!”
That cry—what did it recall to Hermione? Gaspare’s cry from the inlet beneath the Isle of the Sirens when he was bringing the body of Maurice from the sea. As she had trembled then, she began to tremble now. She felt exhausted, that she could bear no more, that she must rest, be guarded, cared for, protected, loved. The boat touched shore. Gaspare leaped out. He cast an eager, fiery look of scrutiny on his Padrona. She returned it. Then, suddenly, he seized her hand, bent down and kissed it.
She trembled more. He lifted his head, stared at her again. Then he took her up in his strong arms, as if she were a child, and carried her gently and carefully to the stern of the boat.
“Lei si riposi!” he whispered, as he set her down.
She shut her eyes, leaning back against the seat. She heard Artois get in, the boat pushed off, the splash of the oars. But she did not open her eyes, until presently an instinct told her there was something she must see. Then she looked.
The boat was passing under the blessing hand of San Francesco, under the light of the Saint, which was burning calmly and brightly.
Hermione moved. She bent down to the water, theacqua benedetta. She sprinkled it over the boat and made the sign of the cross. When they reached the island Artois got out. As she came on shore he said to her:
“Hermione, I left the—the two children together in the garden. Do you think—will you go to them for a moment? Or—”
“I will go,” she answered.
She was no longer trembling. She followed him up the steps, walking slowly but firmly. They came to the house door. Gaspare had kept close behind them. At the door Artois stopped. He felt as if to-night he ought to go no farther.
Hermione looked at him and passed into the house. Gaspare, seeing that Artois did not follow her, hesitated, but Artois said to him:
“Go, Gaspare, go with your Padrona.”
Then Gaspare went in, down the passage, and out to the terrace.
Hermione was standing there.
“Do you think they are in the garden, Gaspare?” she said.
“Si, Signora. Listen! I can hear them!”
He held up his hand. Not far away there was a sound of voices speaking together.
“Shall I go and tell them, Signora?”
After a moment Hermione said:
“Yes, Gaspare—go and tell them.”
He went away, and she waited, leaning on the balustrade and looking down to the dim sea, from which only the night before Ruffo’s voice had floated up to her, singing the song of Mergellina. Only the night before! And it seemed to her centuries ago.
“Madre!”
Vere spoke to her. Vere was beside her. But she gazed beyond her child to Ruffo, who stood with his cap in his hand and his eyes, full of gentleness, looking at her for recognition.
“Ruffo!” she said.
Vere moved to let Ruffo pass. He came up and stood before Hermione.
“Ruffo!” she said again.
It seemed that she was going to say more. They waited for her to say more. But she did not speak. She stood quite still for a moment looking at the boy. Then she put one hand on his shoulder, bent down and touched his forehead with her lips.
And in that kiss the dead man was forgiven.
On a radiant day of September in the following year, from the little harbor of Mergellina a white boat with a green line put off. It was rowed by Gaspare, who wore his festa suit, and it contained two people, a man and a women, who had that morning been quietly married.
Another boat preceded theirs, going towards the island, but it was so far ahead of them that they could only see it as a moving dot upon the shining sea, when they rounded the breakwater and set their course for the point of land where lies the Antico Giuseppone.
Gaspare rowed standing up, with his back towards Hermione and Artois and his great eyes staring steadily out to sea. He plied the oars mechanically. During the first few minutes of the voyage to the island his mind was far away. He was a boy in Sicily once more, waiting proudly upon his first, and indeed his only, Padrona in the Casa del Prete on Monte Amato. Then she was quite alone. He could see her sitting at evening upon the terrace with a book in her lap, gazing out across the ravine and the olive-covered mountain slopes to the waters that kissed the shore of the Sirens’ Isle. He could see her, when night fell, going slowly up the steps into the lighted cottage, and turning on its threshold to wish him “Buon riposo.”
Then there was an interval—and she came again. He was waiting at the station of Cattaro. Outside stood the little train of donkeys, decorated with flowers under his careful supervision. Upon Monte Amato, in the Casa del Prete, everything was in readiness for the arrival of the Padrona—and the Padrone. For this time his Padrona was not to be alone. And the train came in, thundering along by the sea, and he saw a brown eager face looking out of a window—a face which at once had seemed familiar to him almost as if he had always known it in Sicily.
And the new and wonderful period of his boy’s life began.
But it passed, and in the early morning he stood in the corner of the Campo Santo where Protestants were buried, and threw flowers from his father’s terreno into an open grave.
And once more his Padrona was alone.
Far away from Sicily, from his “Paese,” among the great woods of the Abetone he received for the first time into his untutored arms his Padroncina. His Padrone was gone from him forever. But once more, as he would have expressed it to a Sicilian comrade, they were “in three.” And still another period began.
And now that period was ended.
As Gaspare rowed slowly on towards the island, in his simple and yet shrewd way he was pondering on life, on its irresistible movement, on its changes, its alternations of grief and joy, loneliness and companionship. He was silently reviewing the combined fates of his Padrona and himself.
Behind him for a long while there was silence. But when the boat was abreast of the sloping gardens of Posilipo Artois spoke at last.
“Hermione!” he said.
“Yes,” she answered.
“Do you remember that evening when I met you on the sea?”
“After I had been to Frisio’s? Yes I remember it.”
“You had been reading what I wrote in the wonderful book.”
“And I was wondering why you had written it.”
“I had no special reason. I thought of that saying. I had to write something, so I wrote that. I wonder—I wonder now why long ago my conscience did not tell me plainly something. I wonder it did not tell me plainly what you were in my life, all you were.”
“Have I—have I really been much?”
“I never knew how much till I thought of you permanently changed towards me, till I thought of you living, but with your affection permanently withdrawn from me. That night—you know—?”
“Yes, I know.”
“At first I was not sure—I was afraid for a moment about you. Vere and I were afraid, when your room was dark and we heard nothing. But even then I did not fully understand how much I need you. I only understood that in the Palace of the Spirits, when—when you hated me—”
“I don’t think I ever hated you.”
“Hatred, you know, is the other side of love.”
“Then perhaps I did. Yes—I did.”
“How long my conscience was inactive, was useless to me! It needed a lesson, a terrible lesson. It needed a cruel blow to rouse it.”
“And mine!” she answered, in a low voice.
“We shall make many mistakes, both of us,” he said. “But I think, after that night, we can never for very long misunderstand each other. For that night we were sincere.”
“Let us always be sincere.”
“Sincerity is the rock on which one should build the house of life.”
“Let us—you and I—let us build upon it our palace of the spirits.”
Then they were silent again. They were silent until the boat passed the point, until in the distance the island appeared, even until the prow of the boat grated against the rock beneath the window of the Casa del Mare.
As Hermione got out Gaspare bent to kiss her hand.
“Benedicite!” he murmured.
And, as she pressed his hand with both of hers, she answered:
“Benedicite!”
That night, not very late, but when darkness had fallen over the sea, Hermione said to Vere:
“I am going out for a little, Vere.”
“Yes, Madre.”
The child put her arms round her mother and kissed her. Hermione tenderly returned the kiss, looked at Artois, and went out.
She made her way to the brow of the island, and stood still for a while, drinking in the soft wind that blew to her from Ischia. Then she descended to the bridge and looked down into the Pool of San Francesco.
The Saint’s light was burning steadily. She watched it for a moment, and while she watched it she presently heard beneath her a boy’s voice singing softly the song of Mergellina:
“Oh, dolce luna bianca de l’ estateMi fugge il sonno accanto a la marina;Mi destan le dolcissime serate,Gli occhi di Rosa e il mar di Mergellina.”
The voice died away. There was a moment of silence.
She clasped the rail with her hand; she leaned down over the Pool.
“Buona notte, Ruffino!” she said softly.
And the voice from the sea answered her:
“Buona notte, Signora. Buona notte e buon riposo.”