The Saint Part 25

A note of hidden melancholy rang in her voice, and aroused in Benedetto's heart a sense of sweet pain, which at once turned to fear, so new was it.

"No," said he, "I think not."

Noemi wished, and still did not wish to say she was sorry. She p.r.o.nounced some confused words.

They heard some one in the ante-room. Noemi bowed, and Benedetto doing the same, the interview came to an end, without any further leave taking.

The d.u.c.h.ess also was anxious to speak with Benedetto. She brought her companions, both male and female, with her. No longer young, but still frivolous, half superst.i.tious, half sceptical, egotistical but not heartless, she was devoted to the consumptive daughter of her old coachman, Having heard of the Saint of Jenne and his miracles, she had arranged this excursion, partly for amus.e.m.e.nt, partly to satisfy her curiosity, and she wished to ascertain if it would be wiser to have the Saint come to Rome, or to send the girl to him. At the house of a cardinal, her cousin, she had become acquainted with one of the priests now staying at Jenne, This man, having met her, had given her his own opinion of the Saint, announcing the downfall of his reputation. But, as the d.u.c.h.ess had little confidence in any priest, and was curious to know a man to whom such a romantic past was attributed, and as her companions--one woman in particular--shared her curiosity she resolved, at any cost, to find a means of approaching him.

An elderly, English gentlewoman was of her party; a lady famous for her wealth and her peculiar _toilettes_, for her theosophic and Christian mysticism, metaphysically in love with the Pope and also with the d.u.c.h.ess who laughed at her friends. These friends, on beholding Benedetto in that strange outfit, exchanged glances and smiles which very nearly became giggles; but the elderly Englishwoman forestalling them all const.i.tuted herself their spokeswoman. She said, in bad French, that she was aware she was speaking to a man of culture, that she, with her friends, of both s.e.xes and of all nationalities, was working to unite all Christian Churches under the Pope, reforming Catholicism in certain particulars which were really too absurd, and which no one honestly believed were of any further use, such particulars as ecclesiastical celibacy and the dogma of h.e.l.l. She needed a saint to accomplish these reforms. Benedetto would be that saint, because a spirit (she herself was not a spiritualist, but a friend of hers was), the Spirit of the Countess Blavatzky herself, had revealed this fact.

It was therefore necessary that he should come to Rome, and there his saintly gifts would also enable him to render a service to the d.u.c.h.ess di Civitella, here present. She ended her discourse thus:

_"Nous vous attendons absolument, monsieur! Quittez ce vilain trou!

Quittez-le bientot! Bientot!"_

Having let his stern gaze wander rapidly round the circle of mocking or stolid faces, from the d.u.c.h.ess's _lorgnon_ to the journalist's eye-gla.s.s, Benedetto replied:

_"a l'instant, madame!"_

And he left the room.

He left the room and the house, crossed the square, walking awkwardly in his ill-fitting clothes, and, without looking to right or left, took the road leading down the slope, impelled by his spirit rather than by the weakened powers of his body. He intended to pa.s.s the night under some tree, and, on the morrow, go to Subiaco; from there, with Don Clemente's aid, he would go to Tivoli, where he knew a good old priest, who was in the habit of coming to Santa Scolastica from time to time. He no longer thought of accepting the Selvas' hospitality, which would have been precious to him. His heart was pure and at peace, but he could not forget that the young foreign girl's sweet voice, and the tone of sadness in which she had said "You will not come to Subiaco?" had awakened strange echoes within him, and that in that one second the thought had flashed across his mind: "Had Jeanne been like this, I should not have left her!" The mystics were right; penance and fasting were of no avail. But it had all disappeared now. Only the humiliating sense of a frailty essentially human remained, which, though it may have come forth triumphant from hard trials, may also reappear unexpectedly, and be overthrown by a breath. The little town was deserted. The storm over, the people from Trevi, Filettino, and Vallepietra had started homeward, discussing the events of the morning, the case of doubtful healing, and that in which the healing had not been effected, the warnings which had been swiftly sown by hidden hands against the corrupter of the people, the false Catholic. On leaving the town Benedetto was seen by two or three women of Jenne. The secular garments filled them with amazement; they concluded he had been excommunicated and allowed him to pa.s.s in silence.

A few steps beyond, some one who was running overtook him. It was a slender, fair lad, with blue eyes full of intelligence.

"Are you going to Rome, Signor Maironi?" he said.

"I beg you not to call me by that name!" Benedetto answered, ill-pleased to find that his name, who knows by what means, had been revealed. "I do not yet know whether I go to Rome."

"I shall follow you," the young man said, impulsively.

"You will follow me? But why should you follow me?"

In reply the young man took his hand, and, in spite of Benedetto's resistance and protests, raised it to his lips.

"Why?" said he. "Because I am sick of the world, and could not find G.o.d, and to-day it Seems to me that, through you, I have been born to happiness! Please, please, let me follow you!

"_Caro_ [dear one];" Benedetto replied, greatly moved, "I myself do not know whither I shall go!"

The young man entreated him to say, at least, when he should see him again, and exclaimed, seeing Benedetto really did not know what to answer:

"Oh! I shall see you in Rome! You will surely go to Rome!"

Benedetto smiled:

"In Rome? And how will you find me there?"

The lad answered that he would certainly be talked of in Rome, that every one would know where to find him.

"If it be G.o.d's will!" said Benedetto, with an affectionate gesture of farewell.

The lad detained him a moment, holding his hand.

"I am a Lombard also," said he. "I am Alberti, from Milan. Do not forget me!"

And his intense gaze followed Benedetto until he disappeared at a bend of the mule-path.

At sight of the cross with its great arms, rising on the brow of the hill, Benedetto suddenly shuddered with emotion, and was obliged to stop. When he once more started forward he was seized with giddiness.

Swaying, he stepped aside a few yards, leaving the way free for pa.s.sers-by, and sank upon the gra.s.s, In a hollow of the field. Then, closing his eyes, he realised that this was no pa.s.sing disturbance, but something far more serious. He did not become entirely unconscious, but he lost the sense of hearing and of touch, his memory, and all account of time. When he first recovered his senses, the feeling on the backs of his hands, of the coa.r.s.e cloth, different from that of his usual habit, filled him with a curiosity, rather amused than troubled, concerning his own ident.i.ty. He felt his breast, the b.u.t.tons, the b.u.t.ton-holes, without understanding. He thought. A boy from Jenne, who pa.s.sed near him in the field, ran to the town and reported excitedly that the Saint was lying dead on the gra.s.s, near the cross.

Benedetto reflected, with that shade of cloudy reason which governs us when we sleep and when we first awake. These were not his clothes. They were Piero Maironi's clothes. He was still Piero Maironi. This thought terrified him, and he recovered his senses completely. He rose to a sitting posture, looked at himself, looked about him at the field and the hills, veiled in the shades of evening. At sight of the great cross, his mind regained its composure. He felt ill, very ill. He tried to rise to his feet, but found it difficult to do so. Directing his steps towards the mulepath, he asked himself what he should do in that condition. Some one coming swiftly down the path from Jenne stopped before him; he heard the exclamation: "Oh! my G.o.d! it is you!" He recognised the voice of the woman who had spoken so pa.s.sionately to him while the storm was raging. She alone of all those at Jenne who had heard the boy's story had come to him. The others had either not believed or not wished to believe. She had come running, and mad with grief. Now she had stopped suddenly, and stood speechless, not two steps from him. He, not suspecting she had come on his account, wished her good-night and pa.s.sed on. She did not return his salutation, for, after the first moment of joy, she was distressed to see him walk with such difficulty, and she did not dare to follow him. She saw him stop and speak to a man riding a mule, who was coming up. She rushed forward to hear what was said. The man was a muleteer, sent by the Selvas to look for Benedetto. The Selvas, with two mules for the ladies, had left Jenne soon after him, thinking to overtake him on the hillside. Reaching the Anio without having seen him, they questioned a pa.s.ser-by coming from Sublaco. He could give them no news of Benedetto. Noemi, who was to take the last train for Tivoli, went on with Giovanni, hiding her disappointment. The muleteer had been sent back to Jenne to look for Benedetto, and to fetch a parasol which had been forgotten at the inn.

Maria was awaiting his return among the rocks of the Infernillo. The young school-mistress heard Benedetto ask the muleteer to bring him a little water from Jenne, for the sake of charity. The two men were still talking, but she sped away, without waiting to hear more.

After a brief consultation with the muleteer, Benedetto had consented to ride down to where Signora Selva was waiting. Left alone, he seated himself near the cross, and waited for the man to return with the water and the parasol. The crescent moon was rising, gilding the bright sky, above the hills of Arcinazzo; the evening was warm and breathless.

Benedetto felt his temples throb and burn; his breath came quick and short, but he suffered no pain. The sweet-scented gra.s.s of the field, the scattered trees, the great shadowy hills, all, to him, was alive, was filled with religion; all was sweet with a mystery of adoring love which bent even the crescent moon towards the heights in the opalescent sky. Don Giuseppe Flores whispered in his heart that it would be sweet to die thus with the day, praying in unison with the innocent things.

Hurried steps were heard in the direction of Jenne. They stopped a short distance from him. A little girl came towards Benedetto, timidly offered him a bottle of water and a gla.s.s, and then turned and fled. Benedetto, astonished, called her to him. She came slowly, shyly, and did not answer when he asked her name, her parents' name. A voice said:

"She is the innkeeper's child."

Benedetto recognised the voice and the person also, though the moonlight was pale; she had remained at a distance, prompted by the same sense of delicacy which had moved her to bring the child with her.

"I thank you," said he. She came a little nearer, holding the child by the hand, and asked softly:

"Do you know the priests have been talking to the dead man's mother? Do you know the woman now accuses you of killing her son?"

Benedetto replied with some severity in his tone:

"Why do you tell me this?"

She saw she had displeased him by repeating this accusation, and exclaimed in distress;

"Oh! forgive me!"

Presently she added:

"May I ask you a question?"

"Speak."

"Shall you never return to Jenne?"

"Never."

The woman was silent. They could hear steps approaching in the distance; it was the muleteer and his mule. She said in a lower tone: