A Spirit in Prison Part 56

"Yes."

"I do not dislike him, Signorina. He has never done me any harm."

"Of course not. Why should he?"

"I say--he has not."

"I like Ruffo."

"Lo so."

Again he looked at her with that curious expression in his eyes. Then he said:

"Come, Signorina! It is getting late. We must go to the island."

And they pulled out round the point to the open sea.

During the hot weather the dwellers in the Casa del Mare made the siesta after the mid-day meal. The awnings and blinds were drawn. Silence reigned, and the house was still as the Palace of the Sleeping Beauty.

At the foot of the cliffs the sea slept in the suns.h.i.+ne, and it was almost an empty sea, for few boats pa.s.sed by in those hot, still hours.

To-day the servants were quiet in their quarters. Only Gaspare was outside. And he, in s.h.i.+rt and trousers, with a white linen hat covering his brown face, was stretched under the dwarf trees of the little garden, in the shadow of the wall, resting profoundly after the labors of the morning. In their respective rooms Hermione and Vere were secluded behind shut doors. Hermione was lying down, but not sleeping.

Vere was not lying down. Generally she slept at this time for an hour.

But to-day, perhaps because of her nap in the cave, she had no desire for sleep.

She was thinking about her mother. And Hermione was thinking of her.

Each mind was working in the midst of its desert s.p.a.ce, its solitude eternal.

What was growing up between them, and why was it growing?

Hermione was beset by a strange sensation of impotence. She felt as if her child were drifting from her. Was it her fault, or was it no one's, and inevitable? Had Vere been able to divine certain feelings in her, the mother, obscure pains of the soul that had travelled to mind and heart? She did not think it possible. Nor had it been possible for her to kill those pains, although she had made her effort--to conceal them.

Long ago, before she was married to Maurice, Emile had spoken to them of jealousy. At the time she had not understood it. She remembered thinking, even saying, that she could not be jealous.

But then she had not had a child.

Lately she had realized that there were forces in her of which she had not been aware. She had realized her pa.s.sion for her child. Was it strange that she had not always known how deep and strong it was?

Her mutilated life was more vehemently centred upon Vere than she had understood. Of Vere she could be jealous. If Vere put any one before her, trusted any one more than her, confided anything to another rather than to her, she could be frightfully jealous.

Recently she had suspected--she had imagined--

Restlessly she moved on her bed. A mosquito-curtain protected it. She was glad of that, as if it kept out prying eyes. For sometimes she was ashamed of the vehemence within her.

She thought of her friend Emile, whom she had dragged back from death.

He, too, had he not drifted a little from her in these last days? It seemed to her that it was so. She knew that it was so. Women are so sure of certain things, more almost than men are ever sure of anything. And why should Vere have drifted, Emile have drifted, if there were not some link between them--some link between the child and the middle-aged man which they would not have her know of?

Vere had told to Emile something that she had kept, that she still kept from her mother. When Vere had been shut up in her room she had not been reading. Emile knew what it was that she did during those long hours when she was alone. Emile knew that, and perhaps other things of Vere that she, Hermione, did not know, was not allowed to know.

Hermione, in their long intimacy, had learned to read Artois more clearly, more certainly than he realized. Although often impulsive, and seemingly unconscious of the thoughts of others, she could be both sharply observant and subtle, especially with those she loved. She had noticed the difference between his manner when first they spoke of Vere's hidden occupation and his manner when last they spoke of it. In the interval he had found out what it was, and that it was not reading.

Of that she was positive. She was positive also that he did not wish her to suspect this. Vere must have told him what it was.

It was characteristic of Hermione that at this moment she was free from any common curiosity as to what it was that Vere did during those many hours when she was shut up in her room. The thing that hurt her, that seemed to humiliate her, was the Emile should know what it was and not she, that Vere should have told Emile and not told her.

As she lay there she cowered under the blow a mutual silence can give, and something woke up in her, something fiery, something surely that could act with violence. It startled her, almost as a stranger rus.h.i.+ng into her room would have startled her.

For a moment she thought of her child and her loved friend with a bitterness that was cruel.

How long had they shared their secret? She wondered, and began to consider the recent days, searching their hours for those tiny incidents, those small reticences, avoidances, that to women are revelations. When had she first noticed a slight change in Emile's manner to her? When had Vere and he first seemed a little more intimate, a little more confidential than before? When had she, Hermione, first felt a little "out of it," not perfectly at ease with these two dear denizens of her life?

Her mind fastened at once upon the day of the storm. On the night of the storm, when she and Emile had been left alone in the restaurant, she had felt almost afraid of him. But before then, in the afternoon on the island, there had been something. They had not been always at ease.

She had been conscious of trying to tide over moments that were almost awkward--once or twice, only once or twice. But that was the day. Her woman's instinct told her so. That was the day on which Vere had told Emile the secret she had kept from her mother. How excited Vere had been, almost feverishly excited! And Emile had been very strange. When the Marchesino and Vere went out upon the terrace, how restless, how irritable he--

Suddenly Hermione sat up in her bed. The heat, the stillness, the white cage of the mosquito net, the silence had become intolerable to her.

She pulled aside the net. Yes, that was better. She felt more free. She would lie down outside the net. But the pillow was hot. She turned it, but its pressure against her cheek almost maddened her, and she got up, went across the room to the wash-stand and bathed her face with cold water. Then she put some _eau de Cologne_ on her forehead, opened a drawer and drew out a fan, went over to an arm-chair near the window and sat down in it.

What had Emile written in the visitors' book at the Scoglio di Frisio?

With a strange abruptness, with a flight that was instinctive as that of a homing pigeon, Hermione's mind went to that book as to a book of revelation. Just before he wrote he had been feeling acutely--something.

She had been aware of that at the time. He had not wanted to write. And then suddenly, almost violently, he had written and had closed the book.

She longed to open that book now, at once, to read what he had written.

She felt as if it would tell her very much. There was no reason why she should not read it. The book was one that all might see, was kept to be looked over by any chance visitor. She would go one day, one evening, to the restaurant and see what Emile had written. He would not mind. If she had asked him that night of course he would have shown her the words.

But she had not asked him. She had been almost afraid of things that night. She remembered how the wind had blown up the white table-cloth, her cold, momentary s.h.i.+ver of fear, her relief when she had seen Gaspare walking st.u.r.dily into the room.

And now, at once, this thought of Gaspare brought to her a sense of relief again, of relief so great, so sharp--piercing down into the very deep of her nature--that by it she was able to measure something, her inward desolation at this moment. Yes, she clung to Gaspare, because he was loyal, because he loved her, because he had loved Maurice--but also because she was terribly alone.

Because he had loved Maurice! Had there been a time, really a time, when she had possessed one who belonged utterly to her, who lived only in and for her? Was that possible? To-day, with the fierceness of one starving, she fastened upon this memory, her memory, hers only, shared by no one, never shared by living or dead. That at least she had, and that could never be taken from her. Even if Vere, her child, slipped from her, if Emile, her friend, whose life she had saved, slipped from her, the memory of her Sicilian was forever hers, the memory of his love, his joy in their mutual life, his last kiss. Long ago she had taken that kiss as a gift made to two--to her and to Vere unborn. To-day, almost savagely, she took it to herself, alone, herself--alone. Hers it was, hers only, no part of it Vere's.

That she had--her memory, and Gaspare's loyal, open-hearted devotion.

He knew what she had suffered. He loved her as he had loved his dead Padrone. He would always protect her, put her first without hesitation, conceal nothing from her that it was her right--for surely even the humblest, the least selfish, the least grasping, surely all who love have their rights--that it was her right to know.

Her cheeks were burning. She felt like one who had been making some physical exertion.

Deeply silent was the house. Her room was full of shadows, yet full of the hidden presence of the sun. There was a glory outside, against which she was protected. But outside, and against a.s.saults that were inglorious, what protection had she? Her own personality must protect her, her own will, the determination, the strength, the courage that belong to all who are worth anything in the world. And she called upon herself. And it seemed to her that there was no voice that answered.

There was a hideous moment of drama.

She sat there quietly in her chair in the pretty room. And she called again, and she listened--and again there was silence.

Then she was afraid. She had a strange and horrible feeling that she was deserted by herself, by that which, at least, had been herself and on which she had been accustomed to rely. And what was left was surely utterly incapable, full of the flabby wickedness that seems to dwell in weakness. It seemed to her that if any one who knew her well, if Vere, Emile, or even Gaspare, had come into the room just then, the intruder would have paused on the threshold amazed to see a stranger there. She felt afraid to be seen and yet afraid to remain alone. Should she do something definite, something defiant, to prove to herself that she had will and could exercise it?

She got up, resolved to go to Vere. When she was there, with her child, she did not know what she was going to do. She had said to Vere, "Keep your secrets." What if she went now and humbled herself, explained to the child quite simply and frankly a mother's jealousy, a widow's loneliness, made her realize what she was in a life from which the greatest thing had been ruthlessly withdrawn? Vere would understand surely, and all would be well. This shadow between them would pa.s.s away.

Hermione had her hand on the door. But she did not open it. An imperious reserve, autocrat, tyrant, rose up suddenly within her. She could never make such a confession to Vere. She could never plead for her child's confidence--a confidence already given to Emile, to a man. And now for the first time the common curiosity to which she had not yet fallen a victim came upon her, flooded her. What was Vere's secret? That it was innocent, probably even childish, Hermione did not question even for a moment. But what was it?

She heard a light step outside and drew back from the door. The step pa.s.sed on and died away down the paved staircase. Vere had gone out to the terrace, the garden, or the sea.

Hermione again moved forward, then stopped abruptly. Her face was suddenly flooded with red as she realized what she had been going to do, she who had exclaimed that every one has a right to their freedom.

For an instant she had meant to go to Vere's room, to try to find out surrept.i.tiously what Emile knew.

A moment later Vere, coming back swiftly for a pencil she had forgotten, heard the sharp grating of a key in the lock of her mother's door.