She led the way out of the room.
Hermione was on the sofa. Before he followed Vere, Artois went up to her and said:
"You are sure you won"t come out with us, my friend? Perhaps the air on the sea would do you good."
"No, thank you, Emile; I really think I had better stay quietly here."
"Very well."
He hesitated for a moment, then he went out and left her. But she had seen a question in his eyes.
When he had gone, Hermione took up a book, and read for a little while, always listening for the sound of oars. She was not sure Vere and Emile would go out in the boat, but she thought they would. If they came out to the open sea beyond the island it was possible that she might hear them. Presently, as she did not hear them, she got up. She wanted to satisfy herself that they were at sea. Going to the window she looked out. But she saw no boat, only the great plain of the radiant waters.
They made her feel alone--why, she did not know then. But it was really something of the same feeling which had come to her long ago during her first visit to Sicily. In the contemplation of beauty she knew the need of love, knew it with an intimacy that was cruel.
She came away from the window and went to the terrace. From there she could not see the boat. Finally she went to the small pavilion that overlooked the Saint"s Pool. Leaning over the parapet, she perceived the little white boat just starting around the cliff towards the Grotto of Virgil. Vere was rowing. Hermione saw her thin figure, so impregnated with the narrow charm of youth, bending backward and forward to the oars, Emile"s big form leaning against the cushions as if at ease. From the dripping oars came twinkling lines of light, that rayed out and spread like the opened sticks of a fan upon the sea. Hugging the sh.o.r.e, the boat slipped out of sight.
"Suppose they had gone forever--gone out of my life!"
Hermione said that to herself. She fancied she still could see the faint commotion in the water that told where the boat had pa.s.sed. Now it was turning into the Grotto of Virgil. She felt sure of that. It was entering the shadows where she had shown to Emile not long ago the very depths of her heart.
How could she have done that? She grew hot as she thought of it. In her new and bitter reserve she hated to think of his possession that could never be taken from him, the knowledge of her hidden despair, her hidden need of love. And by that sensation of hatred of his knowledge she measured the gulf between them. When had come the very first narrow fissure she scarcely knew. But she knew how to-day the gulf had widened.
The permission of hers to Vere to read Emile"s books! And Emile"s authority governing her child, subst.i.tuted surely for hers! The gulf had been made wider by her learning that episode; and the fact that secretly she felt her permission ought never to have been given caused her the more bitterness. Vere had yielded to Emile because he had been in the right. Instinctively her child had known which of the two with whom she had to deal was swayed by an evil mood, and which was thinking rightly, only for her.
Could Vere see into her mother"s heart?
Hermione had a moment of panic. Then she laughed at her folly.
And she thought of Peppina, of that other secret which certainly existed, but which she had never suspected till that day.
The boat was gone, and she knew where. She went back into the house and rang the bell. Giulia came.
"Oh, Giulia," Hermione said, "will you please ask Peppina to come to my sitting-room. I want to speak to her for a moment."
"Si, Signora."
Giulia looked at her Padrona, then added:
"Signora, I am sure I was right. I am sure that girl has the evil eye."
"Giulia, what nonsense! I have told you often that such ideas are silly.
Peppina has no power to do us harm. Poor girl, we ought to pity her."
Giulia"s fat face was very grave and quite unconvinced.
"Signora, since she is here the island is not the same. The Signorina is not the same, you are not the same, the French Signore is not the same.
Even Gaspare is different. One cannot speak with him now. Trouble is with us all, Signora."
Hermione shook her head impatiently. But when Giulia was gone she thought of her words about Gaspare. Words, even the simplest, spoken just before some great moment of a life, some high triumph, or deep catastrophe, stick with resolution in the memory. Lucrezia had once said of Gaspare on the terrace before the Casa del Prete: "One cannot speak with him to-day." That was on the evening of the night on which Maurice"s dead body was found. Often since then Hermione had thought that Gaspare had seemed to have a prevision of the disaster that was approaching.
And now Giulia said of him: "One cannot speak with him now."
The same words. Was Gaspare a stormy petrel?
There came a knock at the door of the sitting-room, to which Hermione had gone to wait for the coming of Peppina.
"Come in."
The door opened and the disfigured girl entered, looking anxious.
"Come in, Peppina. It"s all right. I only want to speak to you for a moment."
Hermione spoke kindly, but Peppina still looked nervous.
"Si, Signora," she murmured.
And she remained standing near the door, looking down.
"Peppina," Hermione said, "I"m going to ask you something, and I want you to tell me the truth without being afraid."
"Si, Signora."
"You remember, when I took you, I told you not to say anything to my daughter, the Signorina, about your past life, your aunt, and--and all you had gone through. Have you said anything?"
Peppina looked more frightened.
"Signora," she began. "Madonna! It was not my fault, it was not my fault!"
She raised her voice, and began to gesticulate.
"Hush, Peppina. Now don"t be afraid of me."
"You are my preserver, Signora! My saint has forgotten me, but you--"
"I will not leave you to the streets. You must trust me. And now tell me--quietly--what have you told the Signorina?"
And presently Peppina was induced to be truthful, and Hermione knew of the outburst in the night, and that "the foreign Signore" had known of it from the moment of its happening.
"The Signorina was so kind, Signora, that I forgot. I told her all!--I told her all--I told her--"
Once Peppina had begun to be truthful she could not stop. She recalled--or seemed to--the very words she had spoken to Vere, all the details of her narration.
"And the foreign Signore? Was he there, too?" Hermione asked, at the end.
"No, Signora. He went away. The Signorina told him to go away and leave us."
Hermione dismissed Peppina quietly.
"Please don"t say anything about this conversation, Peppina," she said, as the agitated girl prepared to go. "Try to obey me this time, will you?"