O moon!—all this anguish and sorrow!
Thou know'st why I suffer so—
Oh! send him me back from Maremma,
Where he goes, and I must not go!
The man sang the little song carelessly, commonly, without a thought of the words, interrupting himself every now and then to sharpen his scythe, and then beginning again. To Eleanor it seemed the natural voice of the morning; one more, echo of the cry of universal parting, now for a day, now for a season, now for ever—which fills the world.
* * * * *
She was too restless to enjoy the loggia and the view, too restless to go back to bed. She pushed back the door between her and Lucy, only to see that Lucy was still fast asleep. But there were voices and stops downstairs. The farm-people had been abroad for hours.
She made a preliminary toilette, took her hat, and stole downstairs. As she opened the outer door the children caught sight of her and came crowding round, large-eyed, their fingers in their mouths. She turned towards the chapel and the little cloister that she remembered. The children gave a shout and swooped back into the convent. And when she reached the chapel door, there they were on her skirts again, a big boy brandishing the key.
Eleanor took it and parleyed with them. They were to go away and leave her alone—quite alone. Then when she came back they should have soldi. The children nodded shrewdly, withdrew in a swarm to the corner of the cloister, and watched events.
Eleanor entered. From some high lunette windows the cool early sunlight came creeping and playing into the little whitewashed place. On either hand two cinque-cento frescoes had been rescued from the whitewash. They shone like delicate flowers on the rough, yellowish-white of the walls; on one side a martyrdom of St. Catharine, on the other a Crucifixion. Their pale blues and lilacs, their sharp pure greens and thin crimsons, made subtle harmony with the general lightness and cleanness of the abandoned chapel. A poor little altar with a few tawdry furnishings at the further end, a confessional box falling to pieces with age, and a few chairs—these were all that it contained besides.
Eleanor sank kneeling beside one of the chairs. As she looked round her, physical weakness and the concentration of all thought on one subject and one person made her for the moment the victim of an illusion so strong that it was almost an 'apparition of the living.'
Manisty stood before her, in the rough tweed suit he had worn in November, one hand, holding his hat, upon his hip, his curly head thrown back, his eyes just turning from the picture to meet hers; eyes always eagerly confident, whether their owner pronounced on the affinities of a picture or the fate of a country.
'School of Pinturicchio certainly!—but local work. Same hand—don't you think so?—as in that smaller chapel in the cathedral. Eleanor! you remember?'