A Spirit in Prison

by Robert Hichens

As she lay there she cowered under the blow a mutual silence can give, and something woke up in her, something fiery, something surely that could act with violence. It startled her, almost as a stranger rushing into her room would have startled her.

For a moment she thought of her child and her loved friend with a bitterness that was cruel.

How long had they shared their secret? She wondered, and began to consider the recent days, searching their hours for those tiny incidents, those small reticences, avoidances, that to women are revelations. When had she first noticed a slight change in Emile’s manner to her? When had Vere and he first seemed a little more intimate, a little more confidential than before? When had she, Hermione, first felt a little “out of it,” not perfectly at ease with these two dear denizens of her life?

Her mind fastened at once upon the day of the storm. On the night of the storm, when she and Emile had been left alone in the restaurant, she had felt almost afraid of him. But before then, in the afternoon on the island, there had been something. They had not been always at ease. She had been conscious of trying to tide over moments that were almost awkward—once or twice, only once or twice. But that was the day. Her woman’s instinct told her so. That was the day on which Vere had told Emile the secret she had kept from her mother. How excited Vere had been, almost feverishly excited! And Emile had been very strange. When the Marchesino and Vere went out upon the terrace, how restless, how irritable he—

Suddenly Hermione sat up in her bed. The heat, the stillness, the white cage of the mosquito net, the silence had become intolerable to her. She pulled aside the net. Yes, that was better. She felt more free. She would lie down outside the net. But the pillow was hot. She turned it, but its pressure against her cheek almost maddened her, and she got up, went across the room to the wash-stand and bathed her face with cold water. Then she put some eau de Cologne on her forehead, opened a drawer and drew out a fan, went over to an arm-chair near the window and sat down in it.

What had Emile written in the visitors’ book at the Scoglio di Frisio? With a strange abruptness, with a flight that was instinctive as that of a homing pigeon, Hermione’s mind went to that book as to a book of revelation. Just before he wrote he had been feeling acutely—something. She had been aware of that at the time. He had not wanted to write. And then suddenly, almost violently, he had written and had closed the book.

She longed to open that book now, at once, to read what he had written. She felt as if it would tell her very much. There was no reason why she should not read it. The book was one that all might see, was kept to be looked over by any chance visitor. She would go one day, one evening, to the restaurant and see what Emile had written. He would not mind. If she had asked him that night of course he would have shown her the words. But she had not asked him. She had been almost afraid of things that night. She remembered how the wind had blown up the white table-cloth, her cold, momentary shiver of fear, her relief when she had seen Gaspare walking sturdily into the room.

And now, at once, this thought of Gaspare brought to her a sense of relief again, of relief so great, so sharp—piercing down into the very deep of her nature—that by it she was able to measure something, her inward desolation at this moment. Yes, she clung to Gaspare, because he was loyal, because he loved her, because he had loved Maurice—but also because she was terribly alone.

Because he had loved Maurice! Had there been a time, really a time, when she had possessed one who belonged utterly to her, who lived only in and for her? Was that possible? To-day, with the fierceness of one starving, she fastened upon this memory, her memory, hers only, shared by no one, never shared by living or dead. That at least she had, and that could never be taken from her. Even if Vere, her child, slipped from her, if Emile, her friend, whose life she had saved, slipped from her, the memory of her Sicilian was forever hers, the memory of his love, his joy in their mutual life, his last kiss. Long ago she had taken that kiss as a gift made to two—to her and to Vere unborn. To-day, almost savagely, she took it to herself, alone, herself—alone. Hers it was, hers only, no part of it Vere’s.

That she had—her memory, and Gaspare’s loyal, open-hearted devotion. He knew what she had suffered. He loved her as he had loved his dead Padrone. He would always protect her, put her first without hesitation, conceal nothing from her that it was her right—for surely even the humblest, the least selfish, the least grasping, surely all who love have their rights—that it was her right to know.