A Spirit in Prison Part 109

"I! How can I tell, Ruffo? I have never seen your mother. How can I know what she meant?"

"No, Signora."

Again there was a silence. Then Hermione said:

"I should like to see your mother, Ruffo."

"Si, Signora."

"I must see her."

Hermione said the last words in a low and withdrawn voice, like one speaking to herself. As she spoke she was gazing at the boy beside her, and in her eyes there was a mystery almost like that of the night.

"Ruffo," she added, in a moment, "I want you to promise me something."

"Si, Signora."

"Don't speak to any one about the little talk we have had to-night.

Don't say anything, even to Gaspare."

"No, Signora."

For a short time they remained together talking of other things.

Hermione spoke only enough to encourage Ruffo. And always she was watching him. But to-night she did not see the look she longed for, the look that made Maurice stand before her. Only she discerned, or believed she discerned, a definite physical resemblance in the boy to the dead man, a certain resemblance of outline, a likeness surely in the poise of the head upon the strong, brave-looking neck, and in a trait that suggested ardor about the full yet delicate lips. Why had she never noticed these things before? Had she been quite blind? Or was she now imaginative? Was she deceiving herself?

"Good-night, Ruffo," she said, at last.

He took off his cap and stood bareheaded.

"Good-night, Signora."

He put the cap on his dark hair with a free and graceful gesture.

Was not that, too, Maurice?

"A rivederci, Signora."

He was gone.

Hermione stood alone in the fatal night. She had forgotten Vere. She had forgotten Artois. The words of Ruffo had led her on another step in the journey it was ordained that she should make. She felt the under-things.

It seemed to her that she heard in the night the dull murmuring of the undercurrents that carry through wayward, or terrible, channels the wind-driven bark of life. What could it mean, this encounter just described to her: this pain, this emotion of a woman, her strange question to her son? And Gaspare's agitation, his pallor, his "mysterious" face, the colloquy that Ruffo was not allowed to hear!

What did it mean? That woman's question--that question!

"What is it? What am I near?" Ruffo's mother knew Gaspare, must have known him intimately in the past. When? Surely long ago in Sicily; for Ruffo was sixteen, and Hermione felt sure--knew, in fact--that till they came to the island Gaspare had never seen Ruffo.

That woman's question!

Hermione went slowly to the bench and sat down by the edge of the cliff.

What could it possibly mean?

Could it mean that this woman, Ruffo's mother, had once known Maurice, known him well enough to see in her son the resemblance to him?

But then--

Hermione, as sometimes happened, having reached truth instinctively and with a sure swiftness, turned to retreat from it. She had lost confidence in herself. She feared her own impulses. Now, abruptly, she told herself that this idea was wholly extravagant. Ruffo probably resembled some one else whom his mother and Gaspare knew. That was far more likely. That must be the truth.

But again she seemed to hear in the night the dull murmurings of those undercurrents. And many, many times she recurred mentally to that weeping woman's question to her son--that question about Gaspare.

Gaspare--he had been strange, disturbed lately. Hermione had noticed it; so had the servants. There had been in the Casa del Mare an oppressive atmosphere created by the mentality of some of its inhabitants.

Even she, on that day when she had returned from Capri, had felt a sensation of returning to meet some grievous tale.

She remembered Artois now, recalling his letter which she had found that day.

Gaspare and Artois--did they both suspect, or both know, something which they had been concealing from her?

Suddenly she began to feel frightened. Yet she did not form in her mind any definite conception of what such a mutual secret might be. She simply began to feel frightened, almost like a child.

She said to herself that this brooding night, with its dumbness, its heat, its vaporous mystery, was affecting her spirit. And she got up from the bench, and began to walk very slowly towards the house.

When she did this she suddenly felt sure that while she had been on the crest of the cliff Artois had arrived at the island, that he was now with Vere in the house. She knew that it was so.

And again there rushed upon her that sensation of outrage, of being defaced, and of approaching a dwelling in which things monstrous had taken up their abode.

She came to the bridge and paused by the rail. She felt a sort of horror of the Casa del Mare in which Artois was surely sitting--alone or with Vere? With Vere. For otherwise he would have come up to the cliff.

She leaned over the rail. She looked into the Pool. One boat was there just below her, the boat to which Ruffo belonged. Was there another? She glanced to the right. Yes; there lay by the rock a pleasure-boat from Naples.

Artois had come in that.

She looked again at the other boat, searching the shadowy blackness for the form of Ruffo. She longed that he might be awake. She longed that he might sing, in his happy voice, of the happy summer nights, of the sweet white moons that light the Southern summer nights, of the bright eyes of Rosa, of the sea of Mergellina. But from the boat there rose no voice, and the mist hung heavily over the silent Pool.

Then Hermione lifted her eyes and looked across the Pool, seeking the little light of San Francesco. Only the darkness and the mist confronted her. She saw no light--and she trembled like one to whom the omens are hostile.

She trembled and hid her face for a moment. Then she turned and went up into the house.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

When Hermione reached the door of the Casa del Mare she did not go in immediately, but waited on the step. The door was open. There was a dim lamp burning in the little hall, which was scarcely more than a pa.s.sage. She looked up and saw a light s.h.i.+ning from the window of her sitting-room. She listened; there was no sound of voices.

They were not in there.

She was trying to crush down her sense of outrage, to feel calm before she entered the house.