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A Spirit in Prison

R >> Robert Hichens >> A Spirit in Prison




"La conscience, c'est la quantite de science innee que nous avons en
nous."

She did not know the words. Were they his own or another's? And had he
written them simply because they had chanced to come into his mind at
the moment, or because they expressed some underthought or feeling
that had surged up in him just then? She wished she knew.

It was a fine saying, she thought, but for the moment she was less
interested in it than in Emile's mood, his mind, when he had written
it. She realized now, on this calm of the sea, how absurd had been the
thought that a man so subtle as Emile would flagrantly reveal a
passing phase of his nature, a secret irritability, a jealousy,
perhaps, or a sudden hatred in a sentence written for any eyes that
chose to see. But he might covertly reveal himself to one who
understood him well.

She sat still, trying to match her subtlety against his.

From the shore came sounds of changing music, low down or falling to
them from the illuminated heights where people were making merry in
the night. Now and then a boat passed them. In one, young men were
singing, and interrupting their song to shout with laughter. Here and
there a fisherman's torch glided like a great fire-fly above the oily
darkness of the sea. The distant trees of the gardens climbing up the
hill made an ebony blackness beneath the stars, a blackness that
suggested impenetrable beauty that lay deep down with hidden face. And
the lights dispersed among them, gaining significance by their
solitude, seemed to summon adventurous or romantic spirits to come to
them by secret paths and learn their revelation. Over the sea lay a
delicate warmth, not tropical, not enervating, but softly inspiring.
And beyond the circling lamps of Naples Vesuvius lit up the firmament
with a torrent of rose-colored fire that glowed and died, and glowed
again, constantly as beats a heart.

And to Hermione came a melancholy devoid of all violence, soft almost
as the warmth upon this sea, quite as the resignation of the
fatalistic East. She felt herself for a moment such a tiny, dark thing
caught in the meshes of the great net of the Universe, this Universe
that she could never understand. What could she do? She must just sink
down upon the breast of this mystery, let it take her, hold her, do
with her what it would.

Her subtlety against Emile's! She smiled to herself in the dark. What
a combat of midgets! She seemed to see two marionettes battling in the
desert.

And yet--and yet! She remembered a saying of Flaubert's, that man is
like a nomad journeying on a camel through the desert; and he is the
nomad, and the camel--and the desert.

How true that was, for even now, as she felt herself to be nothing,
she felt herself to be tremendous.

She heard the sound of oars from the darkness before them, and saw the
dim outline of a boat, then the eyes of Emile looking straight into
hers.

"Emile!"

"Hermione!"

His face was gone. But yielding to her impulse she made Andrea stop,
and, turning round, saw that the other boat had also stopped a little
way from hers. It began to back, and in a moment was level with them.

"Emile! How strange to meet you! Have--you haven't been to the
island?"

"No. I was tired. I have been working very hard. I dined quietly at
Posilipo."

He did not ask her where she had been.

"Yes. I think you look tired," she said. He did not speak, and she
added: "I felt restless, so I took the tram from the Trattoria del
Giardinetto as far as the Scoglio di Frisio, and am going back, as you
see, by boat."

"It is exquisite on the sea to-night," he said.

"Yes, exquisite, it makes one sad."

She remembered all she had been through that day, as she looked at his
powerful face.

"Yes," he answered. "It makes one sad."

For a moment she felt that they were in perfect sympathy, as they used
to be. Their sadness, born of the dreaming hour, united them.

"Come soon to the island, dear Emile," she said, suddenly and with the
impulsiveness that was part of her, forgetting all her jealousy and
all her shadowy fears. "I have missed you."

He noticed that she ruled out Vere in that sentence; but the warmth of
her voice stirred warmth in him, and he answered:

"Let me come to-morrow."

"Do--do!"

"In the morning, to lunch, and to spend a long day."

Suddenly she remembered the Marchesino and the sound of his voice when
he had spoken of his friend.

"Lunch?" she said.

Instantly he caught her hesitation, her dubiety.

"It isn't convenient, perhaps?"

"Perfectly, only--only the Marchesino is coming."

"To-morrow--To lunch?"

The hardness of the Marchesino's voice was echoed now in the voice of
Artois. There was antagonism between these men. Hermione realized it.

"Yes. I invited him this evening."

There was a slight pause. Then Artois said:

"I'll come some other day, Hermione. Well, my friend, au revoir, and
bon voyage to the island."

His voice had suddenly become cold, and he signed to his boatman.

"Avanti!"

The boat slipped away and was lost in the darkness.

Hermione had said nothing. Once again--why, she did not know--her
friend had made her feel guilty.

Andrea, the boatman, still paused. Now she saw him staring into her
face, and she felt like a woman publicly deserted, almost humiliated.

"Avanti, Andrea!" she said.

Her voice trembled as she spoke.

He bent to his oars and rowed on.

And man is the nomad, and the camel--and the desert.

Yes, she carried the desert within her, and she was wandering in it
alone. She saw herself, a poor, starved, shrinking figure, travelling
through a vast, a burning, a waterless expanse, with an iron sky above
her, a brazen land beneath. She was in rags, barefoot, like the
poorest nomad of them all.

But even the poorest nomad carries something.

Against her breast, to her heart, she clasped--a memory--the sacred
memory of him who had loved her, who had taken her to be his, who had
given her himself.



CHAPTER XX

That night when Hermione drew near to the island she saw the Saint's
light shining, and remembered how, in the storm, she had longed for it
--how, when she had seen it above the roaring sea, she had felt that
it was a good omen. To-night it meant nothing to her. It was just a
lamp lit, as a lamp might be lit in a street, to give illumination in
darkness to any one who passed. She wondered why she had thought of it
so strangely.

Gaspare met her at the landing. She noticed at once a suppressed
excitement in his manner. He looked at Andrea keenly and suspiciously.

"How late you are, Signora!"

He put out his strong arm to help her to the land.

"Am I, Gaspare? Yes, I suppose I am--you ought all to be in bed."

"I should not go to bed while you were out, Signora."

Again she linked Gaspare with her memory, saw the nomad not quite
alone on the journey.

"I know."

"Have you been to Naples, Signora?"

"No--only to--"

"To Mergellina?"

He interrupted her almost sharply.

"No, to the Scoglio di Frisio. Pay the boatman this, Gaspare. Good-
night, Andrea."

"Good-night, Signora."

Gaspare handed the man his money, and at once the boat set out on its
return to Posilipo.

Hermione stood at the water's edge watching its departure. It passed
below the Saint, and the gleam of his light fell upon it for a moment.
In the gleam the black figure of Andrea was visible stooping to the
water. He was making the fishermen's sign of the Cross. The cross on
Peppina's face--was it an enemy of the Cross that carried with it San
Francesco's blessing? Vere's imagination! She turned to go up to the
house.

"Is the Signorina in bed yet, Gaspare?"

"No, Signora."

"Where is she? Still out?"

"Si, Signora."

"Did she think I was lost?"

"Signora, the Signorina is on the cliff with Ruffo."

"With Ruffo?"

They were going up the steps.

"Si, Signora. We have all been together."

Hermione guessed that Gaspare had been playing chaperone, and loved
him for it.

"And you heard the boat coming from the cliff?"

"I saw it pass under the Saint's light, Signora. I did not hear it."

"Well, but it might have been a fisherman's boat."

"Si, Signora. And it might have been your boat."

The logic of this faithful watcher was unanswerable. They came up to
the house.

"I think I'll go and see Ruffo," said Hermione.

She was close to the door of the house, Gaspare stood immediately
before her. He did not move now, but he said:

"I can go and tell the Signorina you are here, Signora. She will come
at once."

Again Hermione noticed a curious, almost dogged, excitement in his
manner. It recalled to her a night of years ago when he had stood on a
terrace beside her in the darkness and had said: "I will go down to
the sea. Signora, let me go down to the sea!"

"There's nothing the matter, is there, Gaspare?" she said, quickly.
"Nothing wrong?"

"Signora, of course not! What should there be?"

"I don't know."

"I will fetch the Signorina."

On that night, years ago, she had battled with Gaspare. He had been
forced to yield to her. Now she yielded to him.

"Very well," she answered. "Go and tell the Signorina I am here."

She turned and went into the house and up to the sitting-room. Vere
did not come immediately. To her mother it seemed as if she was a very
long time coming; but at last her light step fell on the stairs, and
she entered quickly.

"Madre! How late you are! Where have you been?"

"Am I late? I dined at the little restaurant at the top of the hill
where the tram passes."

"There? But you haven't been there all this time?"

"No. Afterwards I took the tram to Posilipo and came home by boat. And
what have you been doing?"

"Oh, all sorts of things--what I always do. Just now I've been with
Ruffo."

"Gaspare told me he was here."

"Yes. We've been having a talk."

Hermione waited for Vere to say something more, but she was silent.
She stood near the window looking out, and the expression on her face
had become rather vague, as if her mind had gone on a journey.

"Well," said the mother at last, "and what does Ruffo say for himself,
Vere?"

"Ruffo? Oh, I don't know."

She paused, then added:

"I think he has rather a hard time, do you know, Madre?"

Hermione had taken off her hat. She laid it on a table and sat down.
She was feeling tired.

"But generally he looks so gay, so strong. Don't you remember that
first day you saw him?"

"Ah--then!"

"Of course, when he had fever--"

"No, it wasn't that. Any one might be ill. I think he has things at
home to make him unhappy sometimes."

"Has he been telling you so?"

"Oh, he doesn't complain," Vere said, quickly, and almost with a touch
of heat. "A boy like that couldn't whine, you know, Madre. But one can
understand things without hearing them said. There is some trouble. I
don't know what it is exactly. But I think his step-father--his
Patrigno, as he calls him--must have got into some bother, or done
something horrible. Ruffo seemed to want to tell me, and yet not to
want to tell me. And, of course, I couldn't ask. I think he'll tell me
to-morrow, perhaps."

"Is he coming here to-morrow?"

"Oh, in summer I think he comes nearly every night."

"But you haven't said anything about him just lately."

"No. Because he hasn't landed till to-night since the night of the
storm."

"I wonder why?" said Hermione.

She was interested; but she still felt tired, and the fatigue crept
into her voice.

"So do I," Vere said. "He had a reason, I'm sure. You're tired Madre,
so I'll go to bed. Good-night."

She came to her mother and kissed her. Moved by a sudden overwhelming
impulse of tenderness, Hermione put her arms round the child's slim
body. But even as she did so she remembered Vere's secret, shared with
Emile and not with her. She could not abruptly loose her arms without
surprising her child. But they seemed to her to stiffen, against her
will, and her embrace was surely mechanical. She wondered if Vere
noticed this, but she did not look into her eyes to see.

"Good-night, Vere."

"Good-night."

Vere was at the door when Hermione remembered her two meetings of that
evening.

"By-the-way," she said, "I met the Marchesino to-night. He was at the
Scoglio di Frisio."

"Was he?"

"And afterwards on the sea I met Emile."

"Monsieur Emile! Then he isn't quite dead!"

There was a sound almost of irritation in Vere's voice.

"He has been working very hard."

"Oh, I see."

Her voice had softened.

"The Marchesino is coming here to lunch to-morrow."

"Oh, Madre!"

"Does he bore you? I had to ask him to something after accepting his
dinner, Vere."

"Yes, yes, of course. The Marchese is all right."

She stood by the door with her bright, expressive eyes fixed on her
mother. Her dark hair had been a little roughened by the breeze from
Ischia, and stuck up just above the forehead, giving to her face an
odd, almost a boyish look.

"What is it, Vere?"

"And when is Monsieur Emile coming? Didn't he say?"

"No. He suggested to-morrow, but when I told him the Marchese was
coming he said he wouldn't."

As Hermione said this she looked very steadily at her child. Vere's
eyes did not fall, but met hers simply, fearlessly, yet not quite
childishly.

"I don't wonder," she said. "To tell the truth, Madre, I can't see how
a man like the Marchesino could interest a man like Monsieur Emile--at
any rate, for long. Well--" She gave a little sigh, throwing up her
pretty chin. "A letto si va!"

And she vanished.

When she had gone Hermione thought she too would go to bed. She was
very tired. She ought to go. Yet now she suddenly felt reluctant to
go, and as if the doings of the day for her were not yet over. And,
besides, she was not going to sleep well. That was certain. The dry,
the almost sandy sensation of insomnia was upon her. What was the
matter with Gaspare to-night? Perhaps he had had a quarrel with some
one at Mergellina. He had a strong temper as well as a loyal heart.

Hermione went to a window. The breeze from Ischia touched her. She
opened her lips, shut her eyes, drank it in. It would be delicious to
spend the whole night upon the sea, like Ruffo. Had he gone yet? Or
was he in the boat asleep, perhaps in the Saint's Pool? How interested
Vere was in all the doings of that boy--how innocently, charmingly
interested!

Hermione stood by the window for two or three minutes, then went out
of the room, down the stairs, to the front door of the house. It was
already locked. Yet Gaspare had not come up to say good-night to her.
And he always did that before he went to bed. She unlocked the door,
went out, shut it behind her, and stood still.

How strangely beautiful and touching the faint noise of the sea round
the island was at night, and how full of meaning not quite to be
divined! It came upon her heart like the whisper of a world trying to
tell its secret to the darkness. What depths, what subtleties, what
unfailing revelations of beauty, and surely, too, of love, there were
in Nature! And yet in Nature what terrible indifference there was: a
powerful, an almost terrific inattention, like that of the sphinx that
gazes at what men cannot see. Hermione moved away from the house. She
walked to the brow of the island and sat down on the seat that Vere
was fond of. Presently she would go to the bridge and look over into
the Pool and listen for the voices of the fishermen. She sat there for
some time gaining a certain peace, losing something of her feeling of
weary excitement and desolation under the stars. At last she thought
that sleep might come if she went to bed. But before doing so she made
her way to the bridge and leaned on the rail, looking down into the
Pool.

It was very dark, but she saw the shadowy shape of a fishing-boat
lying close to the rock. She stood and watched it, and presently she
lost herself in a thicket of night thoughts, and forgot where she was
and why she had come there. She was recalled by hearing a very faint
voice singing, scarcely more than humming, beneath her.

"Oh, dolce luna bianca de l' Estate
Mi fugge il sonno accanto a la marina:
Mi destan le dolcissime serate
Gli occhi di Rosa e il mar di Mergellina."

It was the same song that Artois had heard that day as he leaned on
the balcony of the Ristorante della Stella. But this singer of it sang
the Italian words, and not the dialetto. The song that wins the prize
at the Piedigrotta Festival is on the lips of every one in Naples. In
houses, in streets, in the harbor, in every piazza, and upon the sea
it is heard incessantly.

And now Ruffo was singing it softly and rather proudly in the Italian,
to attract the attention of the dark figure he saw above him. He was
not certain who it was, but he thought it was the mother of the
Signorina, and--he did not exactly know why--he wished her to find out
that he was there, squatting on the dry rock with his back against the
cliff wall. The ladies of the Casa del Mare had been very kind to him,
and to-night he was not very happy, and vaguely he longed for
sympathy.

Hermione listened to the pretty, tripping words, the happy, youthful
words. And Ruffo sang them again, still very softly.

"Oh, dolce luna bianca de l' Estate--"

And the poor nomad wandering in the desert? But she had known the
rapture of youth, the sweet white moons of summer in the South. She
had known them long ago for a little while, and therefore she knew
them while she lived. A woman's heart is tenacious, and wide as the
world, when it contains that world which is the memory of something
perfect that gave it satisfaction.

"Mi destan le dolcissime serate
Gli occhi do Rosa e il mar di Mergellina."

Dear happy, lovable youth that can sing to itself like that in the
deep night! Like that once Maurice, her sacred possession of youth,
sang. She felt a rush of tenderness for Ruffo, just because he was so
young, and sang--and brought back to her the piercing truth of the
everlasting renewal that goes hand in hand with the everlasting
passing away.

"Ruffo--Ruffo!"

Almost as Vere had once called "Pescator!" she called. And as Ruffo
had once come running up to Vere he came now to Vere's mother.

"Good-evening, Ruffo."

"Good-evening, Signora."

She was looking at the boy as at a mystery which yet she could
understand. And he looked at her simply, with a sort of fearless
gentleness, and readiness to receive the kindness which he knew dwealt
in her for him to take.

"Are you better?"

"Si, Signora, much better. The fever has gone. I am strong, you know."

"You are so young."

She could not help saying it, and her eyes were tender just then.

"Si, Signora, I am very young."

His simple voice almost made her laugh, stirred in her that sweet
humor which has its dwelling at the core of the heart.

"Young and happy," she said.

And as she said it she remembered Vere's words that evening; "I think
he has rather a hard time."

"At least, I hope you are happy, Ruffo," she added.

"Si, Signora."

He looked at her. She was not sure which he meant, whether his assent
was to her hope or to the fact of his happiness. She wondered which it
was.

"Young people ought to be happy," she said.

"Ought they, Signora?"

"You like your life, don't you? You like the sea?"

"Si, Signora. I could not live away from the sea. If I could not see
the sea every day I don't know what I should do."

"I love it, too."

"The Signorina loves the sea."

He had ignored her love for it and seized on Vere's. She thought that
this was very characteristic of his youth.

"Yes. She loves being here. You talked to her to-night, didn't you?"

"Si, Signora."

"And to Gaspare?"

"Si, Signora. And this afternoon, too. Gaspare was at Mergellina this
afternoon."

"And you met there, did you?"

"Si, Signora. I had been with my mamma, and when I left my mamma--
poveretta--I met Gaspare."

"I hope your mother is well."

"Signora, she is not very well just now. She is a little sad just
now."

Hermione felt that the boy had some trouble which, perhaps, he would
like to tell her. Perhaps some instinct made him know that she felt
tender towards him, very tender that night.

"I am sorry for that," she said--"very sorry."

"Si, Signora. There is trouble in our house."

"What is it, Ruffo?"

The boy hesitated to answer. He moved his bare feet on the bridge and
looked down towards the boat. Hermione did not press him, said
nothing.

"Signora," Ruffo said, at last, coming to a decision, "my Patrigno is
not a good man. He makes my mamma jealous. He goes after others."

It was the old story of the South, then! Hermione knew something of
the persistent infidelities of Neapolitan men. Poor women who had to
suffer them!

"I am sorry for your mother," she said, gently. "That must be very
hard."

"Si, Signora, it is hard. My mamma was very unhappy to-day. She put
her head on the table, and she cried. But that was because my Patrigno
is put in prison."

"In prison! What has he done?"

Ruffo looked at her, and she saw that the simple expression had gone
out of his eyes.

"Signora, I thought perhaps you knew."

"I? But I have never seen your step-father."

"No, Signora. But--but you have that girl here in your house."

"What girl?"

Suddenly, almost while she was speaking, Hermione understood.

"Peppina!" she said. "It was your Patrigno who wounded Peppina?"

"Si, Signora."

There was a silence between them. Then Hermione said, gently:

"I am very sorry for your poor mother, Ruffo--very sorry. Tell me, can
she manage? About money, I mean?"

"It is not so much the money she was crying about, Signora. But, of
course, while Patrigno is in prison he cannot earn money for her. I
shall give her my money. But my mamma does not like all the neighbors
knowing about that girl. It is a shame for her."

"Yes, of course it is. It is very hard."

She thought a moment. Then she said:

"It must be horrible--horrible!"

She spoke with all the vehemence of her nature. Again, as long ago,
when she knelt before a mountain shrine in the night, she had put
herself imaginatively in the place of a woman, this time in the place
of Ruffo's mother. She realized how she would have felt if her
husband, her "man," had ever been faithless to her.

Ruffo looked at her almost in surprise.

"I wish I could see your poor mother, Ruffo," she said. "I would go to
see her, only--well, you see, I have Peppina here, and--"

She broke off. Perhaps the boy would not understand what she
considered the awkwardness of the situation. She did not quite know
how these people regarded certain things.

"Wait here a moment, Ruffo," she said. "I am going to give you
something for your mother. I won't be a moment."

"Grazie, Signora."

Hermione went away to the house. The perfect naturalness and
simplicity of the boy appealed to her. She was pleased, too, that he
had not told all this to Vere. It showed a true feeling of delicacy.
And she was sure he was a good son. She went up to her room, got two
ten lira notes, and went quickly back to Ruffo, who was standing upon
the bridge.

"There, Ruffo," she said, giving them to him. "These are for your
mother."

The boy's brown face flushed, and into his eyes there came an
expression of almost melting gentleness.

"Oh, Signora!" he said.

And there was a note of protest in his voice.

"Take them to her, Ruffo. And--and I want you to promise me something.
Will you?"

"Si, Signora. I will do anything--anything for you."

Hermione put her hand on his shoulder.

"Be very, very kind to your poor mother, Ruffo."

"Signora, I always am good for my poor mamma."

He spoke with warm eagerness.

"I am sure you are. But just now, when she is sad, be very good to
her."

"Si, Signora."

She took her hand from the boy's shoulder. He bent to kiss her hand,
and again, as he was lifting up his head, she saw the melting look in
his eyes. This time it was unmingled with amazement, and it startled
her.

"Oh, Ruffo!" she said, and stopped, staring at him in the darkness.

"Signora! What is it? What have you?"

"Nothing. Good-night, Ruffo."

"Good-night, Signora."

He took off his cap and ran down to the boat. Hermione leaned over the
railing, bending down to see the boy reappear below. When he came he
looked like a shadow. From this shadow there rose a voice singing very
softly.

"Oh, dolce luna bianca de l' Estate--"

The shadow went over to the boat, and the voice died away.

"Gli occhi di Rosa e il mar di Mergellina."

Hermione still was bending down. And she formed the last words with
lips that trembled a little.

"Gli occhi di Rosa e il mar di Mergellina."

Then she said: "Maurice--Maurice!"

And then she stood trembling.

Yes, it was Maurice whom she had seen again for an instant in the
melting look of Ruffo's face. She felt frightened in the dark. Maurice
--when he kissed her for the last time, had looked at her like that.
It could not be fancy. It was not.

Was this the very first time she had noticed in Ruffo a likeness to
her dead husband? She asked herself if it was. Yes. She had never--or
had there been something? Not in the face, perhaps. But--the voice?
Ruffo's singing? His attitude as he stood up in the boat? Had there
not been something? She remembered her conversation with Artois in the
cave. She had said to him that--she did not know why--the boy, Ruffo,
had made her feel, had stirred up within her slumbering desires,
slumbering yearnings.

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