A Spirit in Prison. Robert Hichens
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don’t know, Signorina; I have never thought about it. What does it matter?”
“It may not matter, but such things are interesting sometimes.”
“Are they, Signorina?”
Then, evidently with a polite desire to please her and carry on the conversation in the direction indicated by her, he added:
“And are you like your Signora Madre, Signorina?”
Vere felt inclined to smile, but she answered, quite seriously.
“I don’t believe I am. My mother is very tall, much taller than I am, and not so dark. My eyes are much darker than hers and quite different.”
“I think you have the eyes of a Sicilian, Signorina.”
Again Vere was conscious of a simple effort on the part of the boy to be gallant. And he had a good memory too. He had not forgotten her three-days’-old claim to Sicilian blood. The night mitigated the blunders of his temperament, it seemed. Vere could not help being pleased. There was something in her that ever turned towards the Sicily she had never seen. And this boy had not seen Sicily either.
“Isn’t it odd that you and I have never seen Sicily?” she said, “and that both our mothers have? And mine is all English, you know.”
“My mamma would be very glad to kiss the hand of your Signora Mother,” replied Ruffo. “I told her about the kind ladies who gave me cigarettes, and that the Signorina had never seen her father. When she heard that the Signorina was born after her father was dead, and that her father had died in Sicily, she said—my poor mamma!—‘If ever I see the Signorina’s mother, I shall kiss her hand. She was a widow before she was a mother; may the Madonna comfort her.’ My mamma spoke just like that, Signorina. And then she cried for a long time. But when Patrigno came in she stopped crying at once.”
“Did she? Why was that?”
“I don’t know, Signorina.”
Vere was silent for a moment. Then she said:
“Is your Patrigno kind to you, Ruffo?”
The boy looked at her, then swiftly looked away.
“Kind enough, Signorina,” he answered.
Then they both kept silence. They were standing side by side thus, looking down rather vaguely at the Saint’s pool, when another boat floated gently into it, going over to the far side, where already lay the two boats at the feet of San Francesco. Vere saw it with indifference. She was accustomed to the advent of the fishermen at this hour. Ruffo stared at it for a moment with a critical inquiring gaze. The boat drew up near the land and stopped. There was a faint murmur of voices, then silence again.
The Marchesino had told the two sailors that they could have an hour or two of sleep before beginning to fish.
The men lay down, shut their eyes, and seemed to sleep at once. But Artois and the Marchesino, lounging on a pile of rugs deftly arranged in the bottom of the stern of the boat, smoked their cigars in a silence laid upon them by the night silence of the Pool. Neither of them had as yet caught sight of the figures of Vere and Ruffo, which were becoming more clearly relieved as the moon rose and brought a larger world within its radiance, of its light. Artois was satisfied that the members of the Casa del Mare were in bed. As they approached the house he had seen no light from its windows. The silence about the islet was profound, and gave him the impression of being in the very heart of the night. And this impression lasted, and so tricked his mind that he forgot that the hour was not really late. He lay back, lazily smoking his cigar, and drinking in the stark beauty round about him, a beauty delicately and mysteriously fashioned by the night, which, as by a miracle, had laid hold of bareness and barren ugliness, and turned them to its exquisite purposes, shrinking from no material in its certainty of its own power to transform.
The Marchesino, too, lay back, with his great, gray eyes staring about him. While the feelings of his friend had moved towards satisfaction, his had undergone a less pleasant change. His plan seemed to be going awry, and he began to think of himself as of a fool. What had he anticipated? What had he expected of this expedition? He had been, as usual, politely waiting on destiny. He had come to the islet in the hope that Destiny would meet him there and treat him with every kindness and hospitality, forestalling his desires. But lo! He was abandoned in a boat among a lot of taciturn men, while the object of all his thoughts and pains, his plots and hopes, was, doubtless, hermetically sealed in the home on the cliff above him.
Several Neapolitan words, familiar in street circles, ran through his mind, but did not issue from his lips, and his face remained perfectly calm—almost seraphic in expression.
Out of the corners of his eyes he stole a glance at “caro Emilio.” He wished his friend would follow the example of the men and go to sleep. He wanted to feel himself alone in wakefulness and unobserved. For he was not resigned to an empty fate. The voices of the laughing women at the Antico Giuseppone still rang through his memory. He was adventurous by nature. What he would do if Emilio would only slumber he did not know. But it was certain he would do something. The islet, dark and distinct in outline beneath the moon, summoned him. Was he a Neapolitan and not beneath her window? It was absurd. And he was not at all accustomed to control himself or to fight his own impulses. For the moment “caro Emilio” became “maledetto Emilio” in his mind. Sleepless as Providence, Emilio reclined there. A slightly distracted look came into the Marchesino’s eyes as he glanced away from his friend and stared once more at the islet, which he longed so ardently to invade.
This time he saw the figures of Vere and Ruffo above him in the moonlight, which now sharply relieved them. He gazed. And as he gazed they moved away from the bridge, going towards the seat where Vere had been before she had seen Ruffo.
Vere had on a white dress.
The heart of the Marchesino leaped. He was sure it was the girl of the white boat. Then the inhabitants of the house on the islet were not asleep, were not even in bed. They—she at least, and that was all he cared for—were out enjoying the moon and the sea. How favorable was the night! But who was with her?
The Marchesino had very keen eyes. And now he used them with almost fierce intensity. But Ruffo was on the far side of Vere. It was not possible to discern more than that he was male, and taller than the girl in the white dress.
Jealousy leaped up in the Marchesino, that quick and almost frivolous jealousy which, in the Southerner, can so easily deepen into the deadliness that leads to crime. Not for a moment did he doubt that the man with Vere was a lover. This was a blow which, somehow, he had not expected. The girl in the white boat had looked enchantingly young. When he had played the seal for her she had laughed like a child. He—even he, who believed in no one’s simplicity, made sceptical by his own naughtiness so early developed towards a fine maturity!—had not expected anything like this. And these English, who pride themselves upon their propriety, their stiffness, their cold respectability! These English misses!
“Ouf!”
It was out of the Marchesino’s mouth before he was aware of it, an exclamation of cynical disgust.
“What’s the matter, amico mio?” said Artois, in a low voice.
“Niente!” said the Marchesino, recollecting himself. “Are not you going to sleep?”
“Yes,” said Artois, throwing away his cigar end. “I am. And you?”
“I too!”
The Marchesino was surprised by his friend’s reply. He did not understand the desire of Artois not to have his sense of the romance of their situation broken in upon by conversation just then. The romance of women was not with Artois, but the romance of Nature was. He wanted to keep it. And now he settled himself a little lower in the boat, under the shadow of its side, and seemed to be giving himself to sleep.
The Marchesino thanked the Madonna, and made his little pretence of slumber too, but he kept his head above the gunwale, leaning it on his arm with a supporting