Chapter Fourteen.
There had been a slight, a very slight change in Sylvia since the day when Wilbraham so abruptly announced that he was going to England. She was not quite so confident; once or twice Mrs Brodrick had fancied she was not confident at all. Teresa, blinded by art and sunshine, flung off her cares, and enjoyed herself to the full. Mrs Maxwell, growing slightly bored, began to talk of going on to Syracuse. She said it was because Mrs Brodrick looked pale.
“I shall be so sorry to go myself. It’s a delightful place,” she declared, yawning.
“A rare good hole for Greek coins,” said her husband, “and a lot more coming next week. I want to see them.”
She glanced at him pityingly.
“Ten days more?” pleaded Teresa. “Come, that will carry us over Easter and the processions. Think of a procession in the streets of Taormina!” Mrs Maxwell, who liked to see everything, reflected and agreed.
“But I’m very uncomfortable here,” she added. “I should wish you all to know that Peppina is really no good to me at all. See how she’s done my hair to-day. A perfect fright, in spite of the lessons I showered upon her.”
“Our servants are not quite successful. Nina looks as she looked when she had toothache, and I can’t say more! She is prejudiced against Sicily.”
“They might consider us a little,” said Mrs Maxwell. “But your Nina does serve you faithfully. Now, Peppina would not care what happened to me, so long as she clutched the lire. Why don’t I part with her? Oh, she’s so pleasant, I can’t. She makes up for all Jem’s shortcomings, and they’re many. He always stumps about when I’ve a headache.”
“What’s that?” asked Colonel Maxwell.
“Nothing. I only said if I were weighed against a Greek coin—forged, my dear, that’s the sting of it,” she whispered to Teresa—“I shouldn’t have a chance.”
But her eyes smiled kindly as she looked at her big husband, whom she teased and adored.
Teresa laughed, and went back to get her drawing things. Nina carried them for her, almost the only personal service which the marchesa accepted. She looked so miserable that Teresa began to question her—
“What is the matter, Nina? Have you, perhaps, toothache again?”
“It is an ache here, eccellenza,” said Nina, laying her hand dramatically on her heart. “It is because there are bad people in the world.”
In spite of herself Donna Teresa laughed.
“At that rate I don’t know when the ache will stop. Have you met with any specially bad people at Taormina?”
“Altro!” Nina cried emphatically. “It is an evil place. See here, eccellenza, do not permit the signorina’s Englishman to walk at night. The nights are not wholesome.”
“Not wholesome? You mean dangerous? Ma, che! What absurdity!” She altered her tone a little. “If you are so unhappy away from Rome, I will send you back.”
“What good will that do the Englishman?” asked Nina gloomily. “Send Peppina, that might be better, eccellenza.”
“Peppina!” Teresa laughed again.
She knew that the two disagreed, and thought that Nina was inclined to be hard on the girl. “And why?”
“She is hot-headed, and the air here is not good for that illness.”
“The air? It is perfect.”
“Not at night, eccellenza. It has been known to carry a man off as quickly as if—”
“As if?”
“As if he had had a knife in his heart,” Nina said slowly, in a low whisper, and glancing round. Two men were coming up behind, and she immediately raised her voice to a more cheerful key. “Is it to be the blessed Santa Caterina to-day, eccellenza? Not that I believe she can have anything to say to such ignorant people as these, but it is more lucky to sit where a saint looks down upon you, since she might be obliged to do something for her own credit.”
She talked so persistently all the rest of the way that it was evident she meant to say nothing more on the subject of unwholesome air. Teresa, who knew her prejudices, was quite undisturbed by her hints, and occupied in her drawing. She sat in a little angle of the long street, which the Arabs called El Kasr—so linking it with the Luxor of Egypt—facing the beautiful doorway of Santa Caterina’s Church. The colouring is exquisite, for the wood has been faded by sun and soft winds into a grey blue—the exact shade of Saint Peter’s dome—veined here and there by pink, while high above door and cornice stands a small graceful figure of the saint, leaning on her wheel, and shaded by delicate grasses.
Teresa’s eagerness about whatever interest absorbed her was apt to leave other impressions in the lurch. She was very well content to believe that things were greatly improved between Sylvia and Wilbraham, and that there was no need for her to waste uneasiness in that direction; indeed, she had persuaded herself that her past uneasiness had been born of mere over-anxiety. All along she had ranked the girl’s prettiness unduly high in its effect, but now she was sure that her after qualms were unnecessary. As for Nina’s chatter, that she dismissed with all the Tuesdays and Fridays, hunchbacks and oil-spilling, which haunted the little Viterbo woman’s days. She was, indeed, unusually gay at heart, probably from her out-of-door life in that delicious air, which was now gently sweeping off the almond petals on the hillside.
Mrs Maxwell was very much disappointed by the processions in Holy Week. After waiting for days, as she said, to see them, she had expected something better than a few white-hooded men straggling before the baldacchino. Yet the Duomo, empty of interest as it is—except to those who penetrate to the embroideries in the sacristy—lends itself picturesquely to effect, with its fine doorways and its red marble steps. And on Good Friday, as she, Sylvia, and Wilbraham waited in a little piazza just inside an inner gate, Teresa saw something which she will never forget.
A church stands on one side, facing Etna and the many-coloured sea. Here the procession began to gather, and out of the church and down the steps was borne an inexpressibly scarred and forbidding-looking dead Christ on his bier. Through the gate it was carried towards the Duomo, while down a steep and stony lane the Madonna, high uplifted, came to join her divine Son. So far, though interesting, there was nothing very striking or impressive in the scene, but when the procession crept out again from the shadow of the Duomo, and, making its way back, wound slowly along the whole length of Taormina, it was different. The narrowness of the street, with its balconies and leaning figures, the white-draped, white-hooded men, the multitude of moving twinkling lights, the flashes here and there of colour, the priests in their vestments, the swaying baldacchino—smote home, overpowered sordid details. Teresa looked at it with wet eyes.
Wilbraham was standing mutely next her; Sylvia, full of exclamations, beyond him. Suddenly Teresa became aware that one of the hooded figures had turned his head towards them. There was no more than a slit for the eyes, yet she knew without seeing that some gaze, fierce and menacing, burnt behind the hood. So sure was she, that she spoke impetuously to Wilbraham when the figure had passed—
“Did you see? Who was it?”
“Some fellow who means to know me again,” he said after a momentary pause.
“No. It was some one who hated you,” she answered with a trembling voice. Nina’s words, “a knife in the heart,” came driving back, and moved her strangely.
His head whirled. In unconscious excitement she had pressed a little closely to him, her sleeve brushed his. He was forced to guard his voice, lest it should betray joy that his possible danger should have so moved her. Sylvia spoke twice and he did not hear.
“Thank you,” he said in a low voice. “Thank you.”
Something of strained repression in his voice startled her. She looked at him in sudden dismay, and the revelation was so impossible, so astounding, that it for the instant left her dazed. She felt as if a cold hand had been laid upon her heart. The next moment the consciousness of Sylvia gave her back herself. Had she seen? Did she know? It was of Sylvia that she must think, it was Sylvia whom she must protect, it was to her she spoke very gently—
“I’m going back now, and you will come when you like.” Amazement, not emotion, had shaken her, and, afraid lest he should think she was in any degree sharing his, she looked coolly in his face. “Don’t let Sylvia overtire herself,” she said. “That would be much more serious than for a man to stare at us behind his hood.”
But, as she walked swiftly along the white road, fear and amazement at her discovery swept over her again. The odiousness of the situation appalled her. She raged against herself, beginning to realise her folly in trying to bolster up Wilbraham’s short-lived love. She had put Sylvia in the best positions, hidden the emptiness of the girl’s mind by her own quickness, been kind to Wilbraham for her sister’s sake until now, now—
Mrs Brodrick was startled by Teresa, white-faced and shaken, appearing suddenly in her room.
“Granny,” she began breathlessly and flinging herself by her side, “things are going very badly indeed.”
And their eyes met, full of understanding.
“It had to come,” said Mrs Brodrick with a sigh.
“But not this. Nothing so wretched as this! I don’t think I can tell you,” she went on, flinging her head back and staring dismally at her grandmother. Mrs Brodrick met her look without a vestige of the surprise she expected.
“Poor Teresa!” she said, laying her hand on hers. “Has he been making love to you instead of to Sylvia? What has he done?”
There was a certain relief in not having to explain the first miserable discovery, and she told her tale in short gasps which ended in a half-laugh of contempt.
“Nina was so odd in her warnings,” she explained, “that although I did not mind them at the time, when I saw that man glaring I was seized with terror. Something—of course it was a ridiculous fancy—made me think it was Cesare. And, granny,—I shall never forgive myself!—I was frightened, and I suppose he thought I cared for him. But how could he! How could he!”
“It had to come,” Mrs Brodrick repeated, but a perplexed frown gathered on her forehead, for she was trying to think what would come next. “Put yourself out of your thoughts, dear,” she added after a moment’s pause. “It does not much matter what has brought the climax. What matters a great deal is the effect upon—Sylvia. She—she does not see so quickly as some girls would.”
“I know, and I know that I am to blame,” said Donna Teresa very humbly. “I will do anything you think best. Must she be told?” she suggested hesitatingly. “It takes so little to make her happy!”
“There are two to make happy,” answered her grandmother, smiling sadly.
The young marchesa flung up her head haughtily.
“He! I do not think of him!”
“Then you do not really blame yourself, for it is he whom you have injured.”
“Oh,” cried Teresa with an angry light in her eyes, “I shall never forgive him!”
Mrs Brodrick took no notice.
“It always comes back to one fact,” she said presently. “I suppose you or I will have to speak to poor Sylvia.”
Teresa sprang up, and began to walk about the room.
“What can we say?” she asked, stopping. “Not everything?”
“No, certainly. You mustn’t come into it. We must tell her that—that we think there has been a mistake. That perhaps she should give him back his word—”
“Tell her she ought,” Teresa broke in drearily. “Sylvia is so good, she will do anything she thinks she ought. Why is it the good people who always have to suffer? Little Sylvia! And I meant her to be so happy! Granny, be very, very kind to her. Must it be to-day?”
“No,” said Mrs Brodrick, considering. “Let us wait a day.”
“Till Monday.”
“Well—till Monday. Perhaps he will speak. Perhaps something will come to her. Do you think that man was really Cesare?”
“What do I care if it was?”
But in spite of her indifference her grandmother, without mentioning the incident, asked Mrs Maxwell whether Peppina’s lover was in Taormina.
“I wonder?” returned Mrs Maxwell meditatively. “She broke a scent bottle this morning—I believe he is.”
Peppina, however, asked casually where her lover now was, swore with so much detail that her Cesare, poor fellow, was in Rome, working on the Avanti staff; that her sister had seen him the day before and had heard from him how he had been obliged to have the doctor for Angelo, the poor cripple, and the doctor had said it was good broth the creature wanted—but how could Cesare, with his wages, get good broth?—that Mrs Maxwell melted into conviction and five lire.
No one thought of asking Nina, and no one except she was aware that on that same night Peppina was leaning over a wall, under a golden moon, talking to a man whose movements were very like those of Cesare. She was pressing something into his hand.
“Diamine,” she was saying, “and why not, when I tell you I have more than I want?”
“But how, how? That is my question. You do not ask for it?” he added suddenly, his anger rising.
“And if I did, what is that to you?” she retorted, swinging away. “But I do not. They raise my wages.”
“Again?” said Cesare, still suspicious. “Per Bacco, and for what?”
“For what? For nothing. I tell you they fling their money, they have so much. To me, or to others, what does it matter? And so long as you want it and do not waste it on—the Cianchetti, for instance—”
Her breath came shortly; but Cesare, who had grown used to these hints, for which indeed Nina only was responsible, took no notice, and as her moods changed quickly and she was impressionable the soft stillness of the night calmed her.
“Cesare mio, what are you going to do? Do not be rash. There is danger with these cold-blooded English,” she went on, speaking very tenderly.
“I am not afraid. There is no danger here. And if there were, I do not know that I care. Now or then, what does it matter? But I am not afraid. I have friends.”
She swayed towards him whispering a word in his ear, and the next moment his hand was on her lips, and roughly.
“Mother of Heaven,” he exclaimed, “be quiet! I will not have you speak of that, do you hear? I will not!”
She pushed away his hand and laughed.
“You and the lizards. There is no other to be the wiser.”
He stood silent for some minutes, presently reverting to what she had said—
“They fling their money, do they? And on Monday I went to the Bianchis’ house—you know the Bianchi?”
She nodded.
“Livia is ill—the little white one who always suffers, always! But now she is worse. I tell you she has nothing. She lies on the floor and moans till your heart swells. They took her to the hospital, the one at Sant’ Onofrio—”
Peppina nodded again.
“The Bambino Gesu, yes.”
“And they shut the door in their faces. There was room, but no money. They are good women, I do not blame them. But no money. And these, these fling theirs here, there, where they will, while we die.” He went on gloomily, “We shall change all that before we have done.”
“Eh,” said the girl happily, “and then you will be rich in your turn.”
She closed her eyes, lapping herself in delicious thoughts of how she would have a dress which should outshine the Cianchetti’s wildest attempts, and plenty of good things to eat without working for them. Cesare was clever. But he must not be imprudent. And she did not mean to ask him what was in his mind. She could forgive him anything except love for the Cianchetti.
Perhaps Cesare had not heard her last words. His worn and eager eyes looked out over the almond-trees to where dark Etna lay stretched along the land. There were things he saw in the night of which he never spoke to Peppina; often a haunting girl’s face changing from laughter into sudden terrible reproach. He did not regret his deed. He looked upon himself as a righteous executioner despising ordered law, and believing that he and others of his own way of thinking were bound to execute judgment where it was called for. But his belief did not shut out the face, and he had now a curious thought that any other eyes looking out of the darkness would be more bearable than hers, so long—so long as they were not a woman’s.