So Lucrezia had noticed Gaspare"s strangeness, too, even in the midst of her sorrow!
"Gaspare!" Hermione called.
There was no answer.
"Gaspare!"
She called louder.
"Si, signora!"
The voice came from somewhere behind the house.
"I am going for a walk with Lucrezia. We shall be back at nine. Tell the padrone if he comes."
"Si, signora."
The two women set out without seeing Gaspare. They walked in silence down the mountain-path. Lucrezia held her candle carefully, like one in a procession. She was not sobbing now. There were no tears in her eyes. The companionship and the sympathy of her padrona had given her some courage, some hope, had taken away from her the desolate feeling, the sensation of abandonment which had been torturing her. And then she had an almost blind faith in the Madonna della Rocca. And the padrona was going to pray, too. She was not a Catholic, but she was a lady and she was good.
The Madonna della Rocca must surely be influenced by her pet.i.tion.
So Lucrezia plucked up a little courage. The activity of the walk helped her. She knew the solace of movement. And perhaps, without being conscious of it, she was influenced by the soft beauty of the evening, by the peace of the hills. But as they crossed the ravine they heard the tinkle of bells, and a procession of goats tripped by them, following a boy who was twittering upon a flute. He was playing the tune of the tarantella, that tune which Hermione a.s.sociated with careless joy in the sun. He pa.s.sed down into the shadows of the trees, and gradually the airy rapture of his fluting and the tinkle of the goat-bells died away towards Marechiaro. Then Hermione saw tears rolling down over Lucrezia"s brown cheeks.
"He can"t play it like Sebastiano, signora!" she said.
The little tune had brought back all her sorrow.
"Perhaps we shall soon hear Sebastiano play it again," said Hermione.
They began to climb upward on the far side of the ravine towards the fierce silhouette of the Saracenic castle on the height. Beneath the great crag on which it was perched was the shrine of the Madonna della Rocca. Night was coming now, and the little lamp before the shrine shone gently, throwing a ray of light upon the stones of the path. When they reached it, Lucrezia crossed herself, and they stood together for a moment looking at the faded painting of the Madonna, almost effaced against its rocky background. Within the gla.s.s that sheltered it stood vases of artificial flowers, and on the ledge outside the gla.s.s were two or three bunches of real flowers, placed there by peasants returning to their homes in Castel Vecchio from their labors in the vineyards and the orchards. There were also two branches with cl.u.s.tering, red-gold oranges lying among the flowers. It was a strange, wild place. The precipice of rock, which the castello dominated, leaned slightly forward above the head of the Madonna, as if it meditated overwhelming her. But she smiled gently, as if she had no fear of it, bending down her pale eyes to the child who lay upon her girlish knees. Among the bowlders, the wild cactus showed its spiked leaves, and in the daytime the long black snakes sunned themselves upon the stones.
To Hermione this lonely and faded Madonna, smiling calmly beneath the savagely frowning rock upon which dead men had built long years ago a barbarous fastness, was touching in her solitude. There was something appealing in her frailness, in her thin, anaemic calm. How long had she been here? How long would she remain? She was fading away, as things fade in the night. Yet she had probably endured for years, would still be here for years to come, would be here to receive the wild flowers of peasant children, the prayers of peasant lovers, the adoration of the poor, who, having very little here, put their faith in far-off worlds, where they will have harvests surely without reaping in the heat of the sun, where they will have good wine without laboring in the vineyards, where they will be able to rest without the thought coming to them, "If to-day I rest, to-morrow I shall starve."
As Hermione looked at the painting lit by the little lamp, at the gifts of the flowers and the fruit, she began to feel as if indeed a woman dwelt there, in that niche of the crag, as if a heart were there, a soul to pity, an ear to listen.
Lucrezia knelt down quietly, lit her candle, turned it upside down till the hot wax dripped onto the rock and made a foundation for it, then stuck it upright, crossed herself silently, and began to pray. Her lips moved quickly. The candle-flame flickered for a moment, then burned steadily, sending its thin fire up towards the evening star. After a moment Hermione knelt down beside her.
She had never before prayed at a shrine. It was curious to be kneeling under this savage wall of rock above which the evening star showed itself in the clear heaven of night. She looked at the star and at the Madonna, then at the little bunches of flowers, and at Lucrezia"s candle. These gifts of the poor moved her heart. Poverty giving is beautiful. She thought that, and was almost ashamed of the comfort of her life. She wished she had brought a candle, too. Then she bent her head and began to pray that Sebastiano might remember Lucrezia and return to her. To make her prayer more earnest, she tried to realize Lucrezia"s sorrow by putting herself in Lucrezia"s place, and Maurice in Sebastiano"s. It was such a natural effort as people make every day, every hour. If Maurice had forgotten her in absence, had given his love to another, had not cared to return to her! If she were alone now in Sicily while he was somewhere else, happy with some one else!
Suddenly the wildness of this place where she knelt became terrible to her. She felt the horror of solitude, of approaching darkness. The outlines of the rocks and of the ruined castle looked threatening, alarming. The pale light of the lamp before the shrine and of Lucrezia"s votive candle drew to them not only the fluttering night-moths, but the spirits of desolation and of hollow grief that dwell among the waste places and among the hills. Night seemed no more beneficent, but dreary as a spectre that came to rob the world of all that made it beautiful.
The loneliness of deserted women encompa.s.sed her. Was there any other loneliness comparable to it?
She felt sure that there was not, and she found herself praying not only for Lucrezia, but for all women who were sad because they loved, for all women who were deserted by those whom they loved, or who had lost those whom they loved.
At first she believed that she was addressing her prayer to the Madonna della Rocca, the Blessed Virgin of the Rocks, whose pale image was before her. But presently she knew that her words, the words of her lips and the more pa.s.sionate words of her heart, were going out to a Being before whom the sun burned as a lamp and the moon as a votive taper. She was thinking of women, she was praying for women, but she was no longer praying to a woman. It seemed to her as if she was so ardent a suitor that she pushed past the Holy Mother of G.o.d into the presence of G.o.d Himself. He had created women. He had created the love of women. To Him she would, she must, appeal.
Often she had prayed before, but never as now, never with such pa.s.sion, with such a sensation of personally pleading. The effort of her heart was like the effort of womanhood. It seemed to her--and she had no feeling that this was blasphemous--as if G.o.d knew, understood, everything of the world He had created except perhaps this--the inmost agony some women suffer, as if she, perhaps, could make Him understand this by her prayer.
And she strove to recount this agony, to make it clear to G.o.d.
Was it a presumptuous effort? She did not feel that it was. And now she felt selfless. She was no more thinking of herself, was no longer obliged to concentrate her thoughts and her imagination upon herself and the one she loved best. She had pa.s.sed beyond that, as she had pa.s.sed beyond the Madonna della Rocca. She was the voice and the heart not of a woman, but of woman praying in the night to the G.o.d who had made woman and the night.
From behind a rock Gaspare watched the two praying women. He had not forgotten his padrone"s words, and when Hermione and Lucrezia set off from the cottage he had followed them, faithful to his trust. Intent upon their errand, they had not seen him. His step was light among the stones, and he had kept at a distance. Now he stood still, gazing at them as they prayed.
Gaspare did not believe in priests. Very few Sicilians do. An uncle of his was a priest"s son, and he had other reasons, quite sufficient to his mind, for being incredulous of the sanct.i.ty of those who celebrated the ma.s.s to which he seldom went. But he believed in G.o.d, and he believed superst.i.tiously in the efficacy of the Madonna and in the powers of the saints. Once his little brother had fallen dangerously ill on the festa of San Giorgio, the santo patrono of Castel Vecchio. He had gone to the festa, and had given all his money, five lire, to the saint to heal his brother. Next day the child was well. In misfortune he would probably utter a prayer, or burn a candle, himself. That Lucrezia might think that she had reason to pray he understood, though he doubted whether the Madonna and all the saints could do much for the reclamation of his friend Sebastiano. But why should the padrona kneel there out-of-doors sending up such earnest pet.i.tions? She was not a Catholic. He had never seen her pray before. He looked on with wonder, presently with discomfort, almost with anger. To-night he was what he would himself have called "nervoso," and anything that irritated his already strung-up nerves roused his temper. He was in anxiety about his padrone, and he wanted to be back at the priest"s house, he wanted to see his padrone again at the earliest possible moment. The sight of his padrona committing an unusual action alarmed him. Was she, then, afraid as he was afraid? Did she know, suspect anything? His experience of women was that whenever they were in trouble they went for comfort and advice to the Madonna and the saints.
He grew more and more uneasy. Presently he drew softly a little nearer.
It was getting late. Night had fallen. He must know the result of the padrone"s interview with Salvatore, and he could not leave the padrona.
Well, then--! He crept nearer and nearer till at last he was close to the shrine and could see the Madonna smiling. Then he crossed himself and said, softly:
"Signora!"
Hermione did not hear him. She was wrapped in the pa.s.sion of her prayer.
"Signora!"
He bent forward and touched her on the shoulder. She started, turned her head, and rose to her feet.
"Gaspare!"
She looked startled. This abrupt recall to the world confused her for a moment.
"Gaspare! What is it? The padrone?"
He took off his cap.
"Signora, do you know how late it is?"
"Has the padrone come back?"
Lucrezia was on her feet, too. The tears were in her eyes.
"Scusi, signora!" said Gaspare.
Hermione began to look more natural.
"Has the padrone come back and sent you for us?"
"He did not send me, signora. It was getting dark. I thought it best to come. But I expect he is back. I expect he is waiting for us now."
"You came to guard me?"
She smiled. She liked his watchfulness.
"What"s the time?"
She looked at her watch.
"Why, it is nine already! We must hurry. Come, Lucrezia!"
They went quickly down the path.