The Call of the Blood Part 35

"And you saw Salvatore?"

"He came out and went down to the fis.h.i.+ng."

"Salvatore is a terrible man. He used to beat his wife Teresa."

"P'f! Would you have me be afraid of him?"

Maurice's blood was up. Even his sense of romance was excited. He felt that he was in the coils of an adventure, and his heart leaped, but not with fear.

"Fear is not for men. But the padrona has left you with me because she trusts me and because I know Sicily."

It seemed to Maurice that he was with an inflexible chaperon, against whose dominion it would be difficult, if not useless, to struggle. They were walking on again, and had come into the ravine. Water was slipping down among the rocks, between the twisted trunks of the olive-trees. Its soft sound, and the cool dimness in this secret place, made Maurice suddenly realize that he had pa.s.sed the night without sleep, and that he would be glad to rest. It was not the moment for combat, and it was not unpleasant, after all--so he phrased it in his mind--to be looked after, thought for, educated in the etiquette of the Enchanted Isle by a son of its soil, with its wild pa.s.sions and its firm repressions linked together in his heart.

"Gasparino," he said, meekly. "I want you to look after me. But don't be unkind to me. I'm older than you, I know, but I feel awfully young here, and I do want to have a little fun without doing any harm to anybody, or getting any harm myself. One thing I promise you, that I'll always trust you and tell you what I'm up to. There! Have you quite forgiven me now?"

Gaspare's face became radiant. He felt that he had done his duty, and that he was now properly respected by one whom he looked up to and of whom he was not merely the servant, but also the lawful guardian.

They went up to the cottage singing in the morning suns.h.i.+ne.

XI

"Signorino! Signorino!"

Maurice lifted his head lazily from the hands that served it as a pillow, and called out, sleepily:

"Che cosa c'e?"

"Where are you, signorino?"

"Down here under the oak-trees."

He sank back again, and looked up at the section of deep-blue sky that was visible through the leaves. How he loved the blue, and gloried in the first strong heat that girdled Sicily to-day, and whispered to his happy body that summer was near, the true and fearless summer that comes to southern lands. Through all his veins there crept a subtle sense of well-being, as if every drop of his blood were drowsily rejoicing. Three days had pa.s.sed, had glided by, three radiant nights, warm, still, luxurious. And with each his sense of the south had increased, and with each his consciousness of being nearer to the breast of Sicily. In those days and nights he had not looked into a book or glanced at a paper. What had he done? He scarcely knew. He had lived and felt about him the fingers of the sun touching him like a lover. And he had chattered idly to Gaspare about Sicilian things, always Sicilian things; about the fairs and the festivals, Capo d'Anno and Carnevale, marted gra.s.so with its _Tavulata_, the solemn family banquet at which all the relations a.s.semble and eat in company, the feasts of the different saints, the peasant marriages and baptisms, the superst.i.tions--Gaspare did not call them so--that are alive in Sicily, and that will surely live till Sicily is no more; the fear of the evil-eye and of spells, and the best means of warding them off, the "guaj di lu linu," the interpretation of dreams, the power of the Mafia, the legends of the brigands, and the vanished glory of Musolino. Gaspare talked without reserve to his padrone, as to another Sicilian, and Maurice was never weary of listening. All that was of Sicily caught his mind and heart, was full of meaning to him, and of irresistible fascination. He had heard the call of the blood once for all and had once for all responded to it.

But the nights he had loved best. For then he slept under the stars. When ten o'clock struck he and Gaspare carried out one of the white beds onto the terrace, and he slipped into it and lay looking up at the clear sky, and at the dimness of the mountain flank, and at the still silhouettes of the trees, till sleep took him, while Gaspare, rolled up in a rug of many colors, snuggled up on the seat by the wall with his head on a cus.h.i.+on brought for him by the respectful Lucrezia. And they awoke at dawn to see the last star fade above the cone of Etna, and the first spears of the sun thrust up out of the stillness of the sea.

"Signorino, ecco la posta!"

And Gaspare came running down from the terrace, the wide brim of his white linen hat flapping round his sun-browned face.

"I don't want it, Gaspare. I don't want anything."

"But I think there's a letter from the signora!"

"From Africa?"

Maurice sat up and held out his hand.

"Yes, it is from Kairouan. Sit down, Gaspare, and I'll tell you what the padrona says."

Gaspare squatted on his haunches like an Oriental, not touching the ground with his body, and looked eagerly at the letter that had come across the sea. He adored his padrona, and was longing for news of her.

Already he had begun to send her picture post-cards, laboriously written over. "Tanti saluti carissima Signora Pertruni, a rividici, e suno il suo servo fidelisimo per sempre--Martucci Gaspare. Adio! Adio! Ciao! Ciao!"

What would she say? And what message would she send to him? His eyes sparkled with affectionate expectation.

"HOTEL DE FRANCE, KAIROUAN.

MY DEAREST,--I cannot write very much, for all my moments ought to be given up to nursing Emile. Thank G.o.d, I arrived in time. Oh, Maurice, when I saw him I can't tell you how thankful I was that I had not hesitated to make the journey, that I had acted at once on my first impulse to come here. And how I blessed G.o.d for having given me an unselfish husband who trusted me completely, and who could understand what true friends.h.i.+p between man and woman means, and what one owes to a friend. You might so easily have misunderstood, and you are so blessedly understanding. Thank you, dearest, for seeing that it was right of me to go, and for thinking of nothing but that. I feel so proud of you, and so proud to be your wife. Well, I caught the train at Tunis mercifully, and got here at evening. He is frightfully ill. I hardly recognized him.

But his mind is quite clear, though he suffers terribly. He was poisoned by eating some tinned food, and peritonitis has set in. We can't tell yet whether he will live or die. When he saw me come in he gave me such a look of grat.i.tude, although he was writhing with pain, that I couldn't help crying. It made me feel so ashamed of having had any hesitation in my heart about coming away from our home and our happiness. And it was difficult to give it all up, to come out of paradise. That last night I felt as if I simply couldn't leave you, my darling. But I'm glad and thankful I've done it. I have to do everything for him. The doctor's rather an a.s.s, very French and excitable, but he does his best. But I have to see to everything, and be always there to put on the poultices and the ice, and--poor fellow, he does suffer so, but he's awfully brave and determined to live. He says he will live if it's only to prove that I came in time to save him. And yet, when I look at him, I feel as if--but I won't give up hope. The heat here is terrible, and tries him very much now he is so desperately ill, and the flies--but I don't want to bother you with my troubles. They're not very great--only one. Do you guess what that is? I scarcely dare to think of Sicily. Whenever I do I feel such a horrible ache in my heart. It seems to me as if I had not seen your face or touched your hand for centuries, and sometimes--and that's the worst of all--as if I never should again, as if our time together and our love were a beautiful dream, and G.o.d would never allow me to dream it again. That's a little morbid, I know, but I think it's always like that with a great happiness, a happiness that is quite complete. It seems almost a miracle to have had it even for a moment, and one can scarcely believe that one will be allowed to have it again. But, please G.o.d, we will. We'll sit on the terrace again together, and see the stars come out, and--The doctor's come and I must stop. I'll write again almost directly. Good-night, my dearest. Buon riposo. Do you remember when you first heard that?

Somehow, since then I always connect the words with you. I won't send my love, because it's all in Sicily with you. I'll send it instead to Gaspare. Tell him I feel happy that he is with the padrone, because I know how faithful and devoted he is. Tanti saluti a Lucrezia. Oh, Maurice, pray that I may soon be back. You do want me, don't you?

HERMIONE."

Maurice looked up from the letter and met Gaspare's questioning eyes.

"There's something for you," he said.

And he read in Italian Hermione's message. Gaspare beamed with pride and pleasure.

"And the sick signore?" he asked. "Is he better?"

Maurice explained how things were.

"The signora is longing to come back to us," he said.

"Of course she is," said Gaspare, calmly.

Then suddenly he jumped up.

"Signorino," he said. "I am going to write a letter to the signora. She will like to have a letter from me. She will think she is in Sicily."

"And when you have finished, I will write," said Maurice.

"Si, signore."

And Gaspare ran off up the hill towards the cottage, leaving his master alone.

Maurice began to read the letter again, slowly. It made him feel almost as if he were with Hermione. He seemed to see her as he read, and he smiled. How good she was and true, and how enthusiastic! When he had finished the second reading of the letter he laid it down, and put his hands behind his head again, and looked up at the quivering blue. Then he thought of Artois. He remembered his tall figure, his robust limbs, his handsome, powerful face. It was strange to think that he was desperately ill, perhaps dying. Death--what must that be like? How deep the blue looked, as if there were thousands of miles of it, as if it stretched on and on forever! Artois, perhaps, was dying, but he felt as if he could never die, never even be ill. He stretched his body on the warm ground.

The blue seemed to deny the fact of death. He tried to imagine Artois in bed in the heat of Africa, with the flies buzzing round him. Then he looked again at the letter, and reread that part in which Hermione wrote of her duties as sick-nurse.

"I have to see to everything, and be always there to put on the poultices and the ice."

He read those words again and again, and once more he was conscious of a stirring of anger, of revolt, such as he had felt on the night after Hermione's departure when he was alone on the terrace. She was his wife, his woman. What right had she to be tending another man? His imagination began to work quickly now, and he frowned as he looked up at the blue. He forgot all the rest of Hermione's letter, all her love of him and her longing to be back in Sicily with him, and thought only of her friends.h.i.+p for Artois, of her ministrations to Artois. And something within him sickened at the thought of the intimacy between patient and nurse, raged against it, till he felt revengeful. The wild unreasonableness of his feeling did not occur to him now. He hated that his wife should be performing these offices for Artois; he hated that she had chosen to go to him, that she had considered it to be her duty to go.

Had it been only a sense of duty that had called her to Africa?

When he asked himself this question he could not hesitate what answer to give. Even this new jealousy, this jealousy of the Sicilian within him, could not trick him into the belief that Hermione had wanted to leave him.

Yet his feeling of bitterness, of being wronged, persisted and grew.