"It was when I was in Africa!"
She went to the window and leaned out into the night over the misty sea.
Her lips moved. She was repeating to herself again and again:
"To-morrow I"ll go to Mergellina! To-morrow I"ll go to Mergellina!"
CHAPTER x.x.xV
Hermione did not sleep at all that night. When the dawn came she got up and looked out over the sea. The mist had vanished with the darkness.
The vaporous heat was replaced by a delicate freshness that embraced the South as dew embraces a rose. On the as yet pale waters, full of varying shades of gray, slate color, ethereal mauve, very faint pink and white, were dotted many fishing-boats. Hermione looked at them with her tired eyes. Ruffo"s boat was no doubt among them. There was one only a few hundred yards beyond the rocks from which Vere sometimes bathed. Perhaps that was his.
Ruffo"s boat! Ruffo!
She put her elbows on the sill of the window and rested her face in her hands.
Her eyes felt very dry, like sand she thought, and her mind felt dry too, as if insomnia was withering it up. She opened her lips to breathe in the salt freshness of the morning.
Upon Anacapri a woolly white cloud lay lightly. The distant coast, where dreams Sorrento, was becoming clearer every moment.
Often and often in the summer-time had Hermione been invaded by the radiant cheerfulness of the Bay of Naples. She knew no sea that had its special gift of magical gayety and stirring hopefulness, its laughing Pagan appeal to all the light things of the soul. It woke even the weary heart to holiday when, in the summer, it glittered and danced in the sun, whispering or calling with a tender or bold vivacity along its lovely coast.
Out of this morning beauty, refined and exquisitely gentle, would rise presently that livelier Pagan spirit. It was not hers. She was no Pagan.
But she had loved it, and she had, or thought she had, been able to understand it.
All that was long ago.
Now, as she leaned out, her soul felt old and haggard, and the contact with the youth and freshness of the morning emphasized its inability to be influenced any more by youthful wonders, by the graciousness and inspiration that are the gifts of dawn.
Was that Ruffo"s boat?
Her mind was dwelling on Ruffo, but mechanically, heavily, like a thing with feet of lead, unable to lift itself once it had dropped down upon a surface.
All the night her brain had been busy. Now it did not slumber, but it brooded, like the mist that had so lately left the sea. It brooded upon the thought of Ruffo.
The light grew. Over the mountains the sky spread scarlet banners.
The sea took, with a quiet readiness that was happily submissive, its burnished gift of gold. The gray was lost in gold.
And Hermione watched, and drank in the delicate air, but caught nothing of the delicate spirit of the dawn.
Presently the boat that lay not far beyond the rocks moved. A little black figure stood up in it, swayed to and fro, plying tiny oars. The boat diminished. It was leaving the fishing-ground. It was going towards Mergellina.
"To-day I am going to Mergellina."
Hermione said that to herself as she watched the boat till it disappeared in the shining gold that was making a rapture of the sea.
She said it, but the words seemed to have little meaning, the fact which they conveyed to be unimportant to her.
And she leaned out of the window, with a weary and inexpressive face, while the gold spread ever more widely over the sea, and the Pagan spirit surely stirred from its brief repose to greet the brilliant day.
Presently she became aware of a boat approaching the island from the direction of Mergellina. She saw it first when it was a long distance off, and watched it idly as it drew near. It looked black against the gold, till it was off the Villa Pantano. But then, or soon after, she saw that it was white. It was making straight for the island, propelled by vigorous arms.
Now she thought it looked like one of the island boats. Could Vere have got up and gone out so early with Gaspare?
She drew back, lifted her face from her hands, and stood straight up against the curtain of the window. In a moment she heard the sound of oars in the water, and saw that the boat was from the island, and that Gaspare was in it alone. He looked up, saw her, and raised his cap, but with a rather reluctant gesture that scarcely indicated satisfaction or a happy readiness to greet her. She hesitated, then called out to him.
"Good-morning, Gaspare."
"Good-morning, Signora."
"How early you are up!"
"And you, too, Signora."
"Couldn"t you sleep?"
"Signora, I never want much sleep."
"Where have you been?"
"I have been for a row, Signora."
He lifted his cap again and began to row in. The boat disappeared into the Saint"s Pool.
"He has been to Mergellina."
The mind of Hermione was awake again. The sight of Gaspare had lifted those feet of lead. Once more she was in flight.
Arabs can often read the thoughts of those whom they know. In many Sicilians there is some Arab blood, and sometimes Hermione had felt that Gaspare knew well intentions of hers which she had never hinted to him.
Now she was sure that in the night he had divined her determination to go to Mergellina, to see the mother of Ruffo, to ask her for the truth which Gaspare had refused to tell. He had divined this, and he had gone to Mergellina before her. Why?
She was fully roused now. She felt like one in a conflict. Was there, then, to be a battle between herself and Gaspare, a battle over this hidden truth?
Now she felt that it was vital to her to know this truth. Yet when her mind, or her tormented heart, was surely on the verge of its statement, was--or seemed to be--about to say to her, "Perhaps it is--that!" or "It is--that!" something within her, housed deep down in her, refused to listen, refused to hear, revolted from--what it did not acknowledge the existence of.
Paradox alone could hint the condition of her mind just then. She was in the thrall of fear, but, had she been questioned, would not have allowed that she was afraid.
Afterwards she never rightly knew what was the truth of her during this period of her life.
There was to be a conflict between her and Gaspare.
She came from the window, took a bath, and dressed. When she had finished she looked in the gla.s.s. Her face was calm, but set and grim.
She had not known she could look like that. She hated her face, her expression, and she came away from the gla.s.s feeling almost afraid of herself.
At breakfast she and Vere always met. The table was laid out-of-doors in the little garden or on the terrace if the weather was fine, in the dining-room if it was bad. This morning Hermione saw the glimmer of the white cloth near the fig-tree. She wondered if Vere was there, and longed to plead a headache and to have her coffee in her bedroom.
Nevertheless, she went down resolved to govern herself.
In the garden she found Giulia smiling and putting down the silver coffee-pot in quite a bower of roses. Vere was not visible.