Daphne: An Autumn Pastoral Part 14

"p.r.o.nta!" called a.s.sunta, who was putting the finishing touches on saddle and luncheon basket. "If the Signorina means to climb the Monte Altiera she must start before the sun is high."

On the hillside above Daphne heard, but her feet strayed only more slowly. She was wandering with a face like that of a sky across which thin clouds scud, in the gra.s.s about Hermes' grave. In her hand was the letter of yesterday, and in her eyes the memory of the days before.

"It is all too late," said Daphne, who had learned to talk aloud in this world where no one understood. "The Greeks were right in thinking that our lives are ruled by mocking fate. I wonder what angry G.o.ddess cast forgetfulness upon my mind, so that I forgot to tell Apollo what this letter says."

Daphne looked to the open sky, but it gave no answer, and she paused by the laurel tree with head bent down. Then, with a sudden, wistful little laugh, she held out the letter and fastened it to the laurel, tearing a hole in one corner to let a small bare twig go through. With a blunt pencil she scribbled on it in large letters: "Let Apollo read, if he ever wanders this way."

"He will never find it," said the girl, "and the rain will come and soak it, and it will bleach in the sun. But n.o.body else knows enough to read it, and I shall leave it there on his sacred tree, as my last offering. I suppose there is some saving grace even in the sacrifices that go astray."

Then she descended the hill, climbed upon San Pietro's back, and rode through the gateway.

An hour later, a.s.sunta, going to find a spade in the tool-house, for she was transplanting roses, came upon the Signorina's caller of yesterday standing near the tool-house with something in his hand. The peasant woman's face showed neither awe nor fear; only lively curiosity gleamed in the blinking brown eyes.

"Buon' giorno," said Apollo, exactly as mortals do.

"Buon' giorno, Altezza," returned a.s.sunta.

"Is the Signorina at home?" asked the intruder.

"But no!" cried a.s.sunta. "She has started to climb the very sky to-day, Monte Altiera, and for what I can't make out. It only wears out Bertuccio's shoes and the asinetto's legs."

"Grazia," said Apollo, moving away.

"Does his Highness think that the Signorina resembles her sister, the Contessa?" asked the peasant woman for the sake of a detaining word.

"Not at all," answered the visitor, and he pa.s.sed into the open road.

Then he turned over in his hand the letter which he had taken from the laurel. Though he had read it thee times he hardly understood as yet, and his face was the face of one who sees that the incredible has come to pa.s.s. The letter was made up of fifteen closely written pages, and it told the story of a young clergyman, who, convinced at last that celibacy and the shelter of the Roman priesthood were his true vocation, had, after long prayer and much mediation, decided to flee the snares of the world and to renounce its joys for the sake of bliss the other side of life.

"When you receive this letter, my dear Daphne," wrote Eustace Denton, "I shall have been taken into the brotherhood of Saint Ambrose, for I wish to place myself in a position where there will be no retracing my steps."

The face of the reader on the Roman hills, as it was lifted from the page again to the sunshine, was full of the needless pity of an alien faith.

Along the white road that led up the mountain, and over the gra.s.s-grown path that climbed the higher slopes, trod a solitary traveler. Now his step was swift, as if some invisible spirit of the wind were wafting him on; and again the pace was slow and his head bent, as if some deep thought stayed his speed. There were green slopes above, green slopes below, and the world opened out as he climbed on and up. Out and out sketched the great Campagne, growing wider at each step, with the gray, unbroken lines of aqueduct leading toward Rome and the shining sea beyond.

On a great flat stone far up on the heights sat two motionless figures: below them, partly veiling the lower world, floated a thin mist of cloud.

"This must be Olympus," said Daphne.

"Any mountain is Olympus that touches the sky," answered Apollo.

"Where are the others?" demanded the girl. "Am I not to know your divine friends?"

"Don't you see them?" he asked as in surprise,--"Aphrodite just yonder in violet robe, and Juno, and Hermes with winged feet"--

"I am afraid I am a wee bit blind, being but mortal," answered Daphne.

"I can see nothing but you."

Beside them on the rock, spread out on oak leaves, lay cl.u.s.ters of purple grapes, six black ripe olives, and a little pile of biscotti Inglesi. The girl bent and poured from the curving flask red wine that bubbled in the gla.s.s, then gave it to her companion, saying: "Quick, before Hebe gets here," and the sound of their merriment rung down the hillside.

"Hark!" whispered Daphne. "I hear an echo of the unquenchable laughter of the G.o.ds! They cannot be far away."

From another stone near at hand Bertuccio watched them with eyes that feigned not to see. Bertuccio did not understand English, but he understood everything else. Goodly shares of the nectar and ambrosia of this feast had fallen to his lot, and Bertuccio in his own way was almost as happy as the lovers. In the soft gra.s.s near San Pietro Martire nibbled peacefully, now and then lifting his eyes to see what was going on. Once he brayed. He alone, of all nature, seemed impervious to the joy that had descended upon earth.

It was only an hour since Daphne had been overtaken. Few words had sufficed for understanding, and Bertuccio had looked away.

"My only fear was that I should find you turned into a laurel tree,"

said Apollo. "I shall always be afraid of that."

"Apollo," said Daphne irrelevantly, holding out to him a bunch of purple grapes in the palm of her hand, "there is a practical side to all this. People will have to know, I am afraid. I must write to my sister."

"I have reason to think that the Countess Accolanti will not be displeased," he answered. There was a queer little look about his mouth, but Daphne asked for no explanation.

"There is your father," he suggested.

"Oh!" said Daphne. "He will love you at once. His tastes and mine are very much alike."

The lover-G.o.d smiled, quite satisfied.

"You chose the steepest road of all to-day, little girl," he said. "But it is not half so long nor so hard as the one I expected to climb to find you."

"You are tired!" said Daphne anxiously. "Rest."

Bertuccio was sleeping on his flat rock; San Pietro lay down for a brief, ascetic slumber. The lovers sat side by side, with the mystery of beauty about them: the purple and gold of nearness and distance; bright color of green gra.s.s near, sombre tint of cypress and stone pine afar.

"I shall never really know whether you are a G.o.d or not," said Daphne dreamily.

"A very proper att.i.tude for a woman to have toward her husband," he answered with a smile. "I must try hard to live up to the character.

You will want to live on Olympus, and you really ought, if you are going to wear gowns woven of my sunbeams like the one you had on yesterday. How shall I convince you that Rome must do part of the time? You will want me to make you immortal: that always happens when a maiden marries a G.o.d."

"I think you have done that already," said Daphne.