A Spirit in Prison Part 111

"No, leave Vere alone to-night."

"Why?"

"She wishes to be alone to-night."

"But I find her here with you."

There was a harsh bitterness of suspicion, of doubt, in her tone that he ought surely to have resented. But he did not resent it.

"I was sitting on the terrace," he said, gently. "Vere came in from the garden. Naturally she stayed to entertain me till you were here."

"And directly I come she rushes away into the house!"

"Perhaps there was--something may have occurred to upset her."

"What was it?"

Her voice was imperious.

"You must tell me what it was!" she said, as he was silent.

"Hermione, my friend, let us sit down. Let us at any rate be with each other as we always have been--till now."

He was almost pleading with her, but she did not feel her hardness melting. Nevertheless she sat down.

"Now tell me what it was."

"I don't think I can do that, Hermione."

"I am her mother. I have a right to know. I have a right to know everything about my child's life."

In those words, and in the way they were spoken, Hermione's bitter jealousy about the two secrets kept from her, but shared by Artois, rushed out into the light.

"I am sure there is nothing in Vere's life that might not be told to the whole world without shame; and yet there may be many things that an innocent girl would not care to tell to any one."

"But if things are told they should be told to the mother. The mother comes first."

He said nothing.

"The mother comes first!" she repeated, almost fiercely. "And you ought to know it. You do know it!"

"You do come first with Vere."

"If I did, Vere would confide in me rather than in any one else."

As Hermione said this, all the long-contained bitterness caused by Vere's exclusion of her from the knowledge that had been freely given to Artois brimmed up suddenly in her heart, overflowed boundaries, seemed to inundate her whole being.

"I do not come first," she said.

Her voice trembled, almost broke.

"You know that I do not come first. You have just told me a lie."

"Hermione!"

His voice was startled.

"You know it perfectly well. You have known it for a long time."

Hot tears were in her eyes, were about to fall. With a crude gesture, almost like that of a man, she put up her hands to brush them away.

"You have known it, you have known it, but you try to keep me in the dark."

Suddenly she was horribly conscious of the darkness of the night in which they were together, of the darkness of the world.

"You love to keep me in the dark, in prison. It is cruel, it is wicked of you."

"But Hermione--"

"Take care, Emile, take care--or I shall hate you for keeping me in the dark."

Her pa.s.sionate words applied only to the later events in which Vere was concerned. But his mind rushed back to Sicily, and suddenly there came to his memory some words he had once read, he did not know when, or where:

"The spirit that resteth upon a lie is a spirit in prison."

As he remembered them he felt guilty, guilty before Hermione. He saw her as a spirit confined for years in a prison to which his action had condemned her. Yes, she was in the dark. She was in an airless place.

She was deprived of the true liberty, that great freedom which is the accurate knowledge of the essential truths of our own individual lives.

From his mind in that moment the cause of Hermione's outburst, Vere and her childish secrets, were driven out by a greater thing that came upon it like a strong and mighty wind--the memory of that lie, in which he had enclosed his friend's life for years, that lie on which her spirit had rested, on which it was resting still. And his sense of truth did not permit him to try to refute her accusation. Indeed, he was filled with a desire that nearly conquered him--there and then, brutally, clearly, nakedly, to pour forth to his friend all the truth, to say to her:

"You have a strong, a fiery spirit, a spirit that hates the dark, that hates imprisonment, a spirit that can surely endure, like the eagle, to gaze steadfastly into the terrible glory of the sun. Then come out of the darkness, come out of your prison. I put you there--let me bring you forth. This is the truth--listen! hear it!--it is this--it is this--and--this!"

This desire nearly conquered him. Perhaps it would have conquered him but for an occurrence that, simple though it was, changed the atmosphere in which their souls were immersed, brought in upon them another world with the feeling of other lives than their own.

The boat to which Ruffo belonged, going out of the Pool to the fis.h.i.+ng, pa.s.sed at this moment slowly upon the sea beneath the terrace, and from the misty darkness his happy voice came up to them in the song of Mergellina which he loved:

"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."

Dark was the night, moonless, shrouded in the mist. But his boy's heart defied it, laughed at the sorrowful truths of life, set the sweet white moon in the sky, covered the sea with her silver. Artois turned towards the song and stood still. But Hermione, as if physically compelled towards it, moved away down the terrace, following in the direction in which the boat was going.

As she pa.s.sed Artois saw tears running down her cheeks. And he said to himself:

"No, I cannot tell her; I can never tell her. If she is to be told, let Ruffo tell her. Let Ruffo make her understand. Let Ruffo lift her up from the lie on which I have made her rest, and lead her out of prison."

As this thought came to him a deep tenderness towards Hermione flooded his heart. He stood where he was. Far off he still heard Ruffo's voice drifting away in the mist out to the great sea. And he saw the vague form of Hermione leaning down over the terrace wall, towards the sea, the song, and Ruffo.

How intensely strange, how mysterious, how subtle was the influence housed within the body of that singing boy, that fisher-boy, which, like an issuing fluid, or escaping vapor, or perfume, had stirred and attracted the childish heart of Vere, had summoned and now held fast the deep heart of Hermione.

Just then Artois felt as if in the night he was walking with the Eternities, as if that song, now fading away across the sea, came even from them. We do not die. For in that song to which Hermione bent down--the dead man lived when that boy's voice sang it. In that boat, now vanis.h.i.+ng upon the sea, the dead man held an oar. In that warm young heart of Ruffo the dead man moved, and spoke--spoke to his child, Vere, whom he had never seen, spoke to his wife, Hermione, whom he had deceived, yet whom he had loved.