A Spirit in Prison Part 41

"Go, Vere," said Hermione.

The Marchesino shut the door and stood by it, bending and looking doubtful.

"I will stay here with the Marchese. I am really too old to face such a tempest, and the Marchese has no coat. He simply can't go."

"But, Signora, it does not matter! I am ready."

"Impossible. Your clothes would be ruined. Go along, Vere! Turn up your collar."

She spoke almost as if to a boy, and like a gay boy Vere obeyed her and slipped out to Gaspare.

"You really won't come, Madre?"

"No. But--tell me if you see the light."

The girl nodded, and the door moved into its place, shutting out the wind.

Then the Marchesino sat down and looked at his damp patent-leather boots.

He really could not comprehend these English ladies. That Vere was greatly attracted by him he thoroughly believed. How could it be otherwise? Her liveliness he considered direct encouragement. And then she had gone out to the terrace after dinner, leaving her mother. That was to make him follow her, of course. She wanted to be alone with him. In a Neapolitan girl such conduct would have been a declaration.

A Neapolitan mother would not have allowed them to sit together on the terrace without a chaperon. But the English mother had deliberately remained within and had kept Caro Emilio with her. What could such conduct mean, if not that the Signorina was in love with him, the Marchesino, and that the Signorina's mamma was perfectly willing for him to make love to her child?

And yet--and yet?

There was something in Vere that puzzled him, that had kept him strangely discreet upon the terrace, that made him silent and thoughtful now. Had she been a typical English girl he might have discerned something of the truth of her. But Vere was lively, daring, pa.s.sionate, and not without some traces of half-humorous and wholly innocent coquetry. She was not at all what the Neapolitan calls "a lump of snow to cool the wine." In her innocence there was fire. That was what confused the Marchesino.

He stared at the cabin door by which Vere had gone out, and his round eyes became almost pathetic for a moment. Then it occurred to him that perhaps this exit was a second ruse, like Vere's departure to the terrace, and he made a movement as if to go out and brave the storm. But Hermione stopped him decisively.

"No, Marchese," she said, "really I cannot let you expose yourself to the rain and the sea in that airy costume. I might be your mother."

"Signora, but you--"

"No, compliments apart, I really might be, and you must let me use a mother's authority. Till we reach the island stay here and make the best of me."

Hermione had touched the right note. Metaphorically, the Marchesino cast himself at her feet. With a gallant a.s.sumption of undivided adoration he burst into conversation, and, though his eyes often wandered to the blurred gla.s.s, against which pressed and swayed a blackness that told of those outside, his sense of his duty as a host gradually prevailed, and he and Hermione were soon talking quite cheerfully together.

Vere had forgotten him as utterly as she had forgotten Naples, swallowed up by the night. Just then only the sea, the night, Gaspare, and the two sailors who were managing the launch were real to her--besides herself.

For a moment even her mother had ceased to exist in her consciousness.

As the sea swept the deck of the little craft it swept her mind clear to make more room for itself.

She stood by Gaspare, touching him, and clinging on, as he did, to the rail. Impenetrably black was the night. Only here and there, at distances she could not begin to judge of, shone vaguely lights that seemed to dance and fade and reappear like marsh lights in a world of mist. Were they on sea or land? She could not tell and did not ask. The sailors doubtless knew, but she respected them and their duty too much to speak to them, though she had given them a smile as she came out to join them, and had received two admiring salutes in reply. Gaspare, too, had smiled at her with a pleasure which swiftly conquered the faint reproach in his eloquent eyes. He liked his Padroncina's courage, liked the sailors of the Signor Marchese to see it. He was soaked to the skin, but he, too, was enjoying the adventure, a rare one on this summer sea, which had slept through so many shining days and starry nights like a "bambino in dolce letargo."

To-night it was awake, and woke up others, Vere's nature and his.

"Where is the island, Gaspare?" cried Vere through the wind to him.

"Chi lo sa, Signorina."

He waved one hand to the blackness before them.

"It must be there."

She strained her eyes, then looked away towards where the land must be.

At a long distance across the leaping foam she saw one light. As the boat rose and sank on the crests and into the hollows of the waves the light shone and faded, shone and faded. She guessed it to be a light at the Antico Giuseppone. Despite the head wind and the waves that met them the launch travelled bravely, and soon the light was gone. She told herself that it must have been at the Giuseppone, and that now they had got beyond the point, and were opposite to the harbor of the Villa Rosebery. But no lights greeted them from the White Palazzo in the wood, or from the smaller white house low down beside the sea. And again she looked straight forward.

Now she was intent on San Francesco. She was thinking of him, of the Pool, of the island. And she thrilled with joy at the thought of the wonderful wildness of her home. As they drew on towards it the waves were bigger, the wind was stronger. Even on calm nights there was always a breeze when one had pa.s.sed the Giuseppone going towards Ischia, and beyond the island there was sometimes quite a lively sea. What would it be to-night? Her heart cried out for a crescendo. Within her, at that moment, was a desire like the motorist's for speed. More! more! More wind! More sea! More uproar from the elements!

And San Francesco all alone in this terrific blackness! Had he not been dashed from his pedestal by the waves? Was the light at his feet still burning?

"Il Santo!" she said to Gaspare.

He bent his head till it was close to her lips.

"Il Santo! What has become of him, Gaspare?"

"He will be there, Signorina."

So Gaspare, too, held to the belief of the seamen of the Bay. He had confidence in the obedience of the sea, this sea that roared around them like a tyrant. Suddenly she had no doubt. It would be so. The saint would be untouched. The light would still be burning. She looked for it.

And now she remembered her mother. She must tell her mother directly she saw it. But all was blackness still.

And the launch seemed weary, like a live thing whose strength is ebbing, who strains and pants and struggles gallantly, not losing heart but losing physical force. Surely it was going slower. She laid one hand upon the cabin roof as if in encouragement. Her heart was with the launch, as the seaman's is with his boat when it resists, surely for his sake consciously, the a.s.sault of the great sea.

"Coraggio!"

She was murmuring the word. Gaspare looked at her. And the word was in his eyes as it should be in all eyes that look at youth. And the launch strove on.

"Coraggio! Coraggio!"

The spray was in her face. Her hair was wet with the rain. Her French frock--that was probably ruined! But she knew that she had never felt more happy. And now--it was like a miracle! Suddenly out of the darkness a second darkness shaped itself, a darkness that she knew--the island.

And almost simultaneously there shone out a little steady light.

"Ecco il Santo!"

"Ecco! Ecco!"

Vere called out: "Madre! Madre!"

She bent down.

"Madre! The light is burning."

The sailors, too, bent down, right down to the water. They caught at it with their hands, Gaspare, too. Vere understood, and, kneeling on the gunwale, firmly in Gaspare's grasp, she joined in their action.

She sprinkled the boat with the acqua benedetta and made the sign of the cross.

CHAPTER XIV