XLI
That night they talked things over quietly. Sophy was very gentle with him—almost incredibly generous, he thought. With his permission, she consulted Camenis about the amount of morphia that he ought to have, to "tail off," as he said humbly—in order to get him back to England without too much discomfort from the sciatic pains and the sudden snapping of the habit that he had formed again—albeit to such a moderate extent. Camenis gave his opinion, and Sophy undertook to give her husband the properly diminished doses. Chesney was almost pathetically humble. It hurt her in some subtle nerve to see the big, domineering man, so subdued, so timidly anxious to conciliate her, to redeem himself in her opinion. It was beyond doubt that he had suffered excruciatingly over the boy's illness and his part in it.
"The little chap won't be able to bear the sight of me, I suppose," he had ventured once, and she saw his lips quiver as he said it.
She felt a submerging pity for him.
"Leave that to me," she answered gently. "I've thought of a way.... I think I can manage ... but it will take time, of course."
Another thing that proved to her the depth of his self-humiliation and genuine regret was the fact that he wished to apologise to Amaldi.
"I shall tell him the brute fact," he said, "that I was drunk with that Grappa stuff. He can accept my apology or not, as he chooses."
He wrote the note of apology the morning after their talk.
"Shall I post it or send it by Luigi?" he asked, looking not at her but the letter which he was holding. Sophy thought a moment, then she said:
"We are leaving Wednesday, and I ought to see the Marchesa before I go. Suppose you let me take it! I can leave it with her."
"Do," he said, giving her the letter; then he took her hand in both his. "Thanks, Sophy," he added, under his breath.
Sophy started for Le Vigne about ten o'clock. She took Luigi with her to run the launch—he was fortunately cleverer as a meccanico than as a valet. The sky was coloured like blue morning-glories, and the lake like gentian. Clouds and foam dissolved on the great sheets of blue like snow melting upon flame. But the beauty of the day seemed cruel to Sophy. It was like the laughter of water in sunlight above the place where a ship has foundered. Camenis had happened to mention the fact that Amaldi was in Milan, else she could not have gone for that farewell visit, onerous as she felt it to be.
And even as it was, she shrank from seeing the Marchesa. Had Amaldi told her? Her cheek tingled shame at the thought. But the next instant she felt that she knew him better than that. No; he would not have told any one of that scene which had been so degrading for her.
But when she reached Le Vigne, she found that the Marchesa had gone to Belgirate for the day. Old Carletto seemed deeply sorry for her disappointment.
"Che peccato, signora! Che peccato!" he kept saying, shaking his white head slowly and clicking his tongue. The Signora Marchesa would be so sad, so very sad to miss the signora. Then he brightened up.
"But the Marchesino is here, signora!" he exclaimed. "The Marchesino is very busy in his study ... but he would wish me to disturb him on such an occasion. He will know how to find the Signora Marchesa."
Sophy had started for the darsena again in real panic. She even forgot to leave Cecil's letter with the old butler.
"No—no! Don't disturb the Marchese," she called back. "I desire you not to do it."
As she was speaking, Carletto, who was following her as fast as his bent legs would amble, called out:
"Ma, eccolo! Ecco il Marchesino, signora!"
She hurried on, her head bent, the letter in the pocket of her gown seeming to scorch her fingers. Amaldi overtook her, just before she reached the darsena. They murmured vague greetings. Both were very pale. A trembling had seized Sophy. Everything grew dim before her in that moment. Amaldi, seeing how it was with her, offered her his arm. She took it from the sheer instinct of self-preservation. The ground seemed falling from beneath her feet in slanting jerks.
"You are tired...." he said, speaking with an effort. "There is a seat here ... among these ilex shrubs.... You must rest a moment."
Walking giddily along the unstable, sliding earth, she allowed him to guide her to the old stone seat on the south terrace. The dark foliage screened them from the house. Between them and the blue dazzle of the lake was a low balustrade of stone. Amaldi helped her to the seat, and then went and leaned upon this balustrade.
The faintness passed, and Sophy sat thinking feverishly how she must act. The directness of her nature guided her. She drew the letter from her pocket, and, rising, went towards Amaldi. He turned when he heard her footstep. As he turned, she stopped where she was, holding out the letter to him.
"Marchese," she said, "I had meant to leave this letter with your mother. I was told you were in Milan. It—it is from—my husband.... Wait!" she cried almost imperiously, as she saw the recoil of his whole figure. "You must listen—you must understand. He ... my husband ... has been very ill. This ... this letter is an apology, Marchese—an apology to you."
Amaldi bowed formally, and took the letter. His face was inscrutable. He started to put the envelope unopened into his pocket.
Sophy, flushing deeply, murmured:
"Won't you even read it?"
Amaldi bowed again.
"There is no need," he said. "An apology offered in this manner"—his tone was rather bitter—"I accept without reading."
Sophy stood silent; then her head went down a little.
"I ... I thank you," she whispered.
A quick change came over Amaldi's face; but she was looking down on the flagged walk and did not see it.
"Do you go soon now?" he asked, his voice almost as low as hers.
"Yes ... on Wednesday."
"It will doubtless be long before you come again to Lago Maggiore?"
"Yes."
"Do not forget us ... entirely."
"No."
"You will not be forgotten...."
There was in his voice such an intensity of pain with difficulty subdued that the trembling seized her again despite all her will. He continued:
"This is farewell ... is it not?" he said.
She could not control her voice to answer. She moved her head in assent, her eyes still downcast.
"Then ..." said Amaldi, "will you not look at me—to say farewell?"
She lifted her eyes to his—it cost her much to lift them. But she looked up as he had desired, and it was into his bared soul that she looked. There was an instant's silence; then he spoke.
"It is my whole life that goes with you," he said.
She stood gazing at him as though spellbound. Then she half-lifted her hands like a suppliant. She was as white as her gown. But the flood-gates were open now. Neither of them could stay the flood.
"Yes," he went on, "I love you. I've loved you from the first ... with all my soul, with all my life.... I love you with my soul.... Do you understand?... with my soul...."
He took a step towards her. They were both trembling now.
"If you would trust me ... if you would let me shield you ... with my whole life ... with my love ... with love that is worship ... worship...."
She found her voice at last, and cried out to him as if for mercy:
"No, Amaldi; no! Oh, I implore you!... Stop! It can't be ... it can't be!"
He wheeled where he stood so that his face was hidden from her. It was the instinctive movement of the body that seeks to hide the bared soul. A moment passed. Then she said brokenly:
"I must go now.... I must go back...."
Now he turned to her again. His face was livid. His lips drew when he spoke.
"You will go back...?" he stammered. "You will go back to that ... that Minotaur?" His teeth ground on the word. It was terrible to see the man, usually so still, so self-controlled, stripped of all reserve.
"I must.... I must ... for my boy's sake. Ah, don't look at me with such eyes!... I can't bear your face ... so different!"
She trembled still more violently, put up her hand to shut out the ghastly, devastated look of his face.
"You go back? You go back to him?" he kept muttering. "Che orrore ... che orrore...." All at once he gripped himself. He said in a strange, level tone: "There is nothing I can do, then. I would give my life ... yet there is nothing ... no way that I can serve you...."
"Amaldi ... Amaldi ..." she murmured. She caught his hand in both her own. "Oh, forgive me...." she said; "dear, dear Amaldi, forgive me!"
He bent and kissed the hands that clasped his.
"There is nothing to forgive," he answered.
It seemed to Sophy afterwards, when she came more to her usual self out there on the glee of blue waters, far from Le Vigne, that they two had been like actors moving through some pantomime, during those last moments. In silence they had walked together to the darsena; in silence he had assisted her into the launch; in silence she had sat watching Luigi start the engine. No other farewell had passed between them. In the moments following that disastrous, tragic crisis, all convention had withered. They had not even a subconscious sense of the mimic civilities due to Luigi's presence. And over Sophy stole that numbness which comes as anodyne to deep natures which have been called on to endure too many and too violent shocks within a short period. For a few moments, there face to face with Amaldi, she had suffered intensely. Now that was past. She felt quiet, and oddly cramped, as though crouching in a little capsule of stillness at the cyclone's heart....
They could not leave on Wednesday as they had expected. Bobby's fever had culminated in a sharp attack of jaundice—the result of fright, Camenis told her. But the little fellow recovered rapidly. Only his nerves seemed still taut from the shock. He would shriek out wildly in his sleep, and no one but his mother could soothe these paroxysms of terror. As he grew stronger, she began to pursue with him the course of which she had hinted to Chesney.
"My darling," she would coax, "dada was only showing you how strong he was ... how safe he could hold you. Why, dada wouldn't hurt his little boy for all the world! He's so strong, so strong! He couldn't let Bobby fall. Don't you see, sweetheart?"
Thus she would coax him by the hour. At last it seemed to "seep" into his little brain. "Dada so st'ong," he would repeat. "Dada show Bobby 'ow st'ong! Good dada ... not dwop Bobby!"
At last Sophy ventured to ask one day:
"Don't you want to see poor dada? He's so afraid his little boy doesn't love him any more?"
But Bobby began to tremble.
"Dada so st'ong...." he pleaded, clinging hard to Sophy's breast. At last, however, he consented to let his father come.
Chesney entered, hesitating—stood near the door. Sophy, who had her arm about Bobby as he lay against the pillows in his crib, beckoned him to come forward.
"Now, now, my little man ... my brave little man...." she murmured in the child's ear, her cheek to his—encouraging, soothing him. Chesney came and got awkwardly on his knees beside the crib. He felt thankful to make himself smaller in the boy's eyes. Timidly he ventured to steal one of his great hands towards the little fist, clutched in Sophy's laces.
"How are you, little man?" he said, "gentling" his voice as to some shy animal. "Won't you say 'how d'ye do' to dada?"
The boy, trying so hard to "be a man," regarded him with wide eyes, and the most touching, wavering smile of courage on the verge of tears. Then he looked with desperate appeal up at his mother. The set, wavering smile grew pale.
"Dada too st'ong...." he said. "Bobby so little...."
Chesney put down his face upon the crib and wept. Sophy knew that he was weeping, though no sound came from him. Then she told Bobby that "poor dada had been very, very ill"—he wasn't "too st'ong" any more. And taking the little unwilling hand in hers, she "poored" his father's bent head with it. Chesney turned his face presently, kissed the little hand, then got up silently and left the room. Sophy went to him, five minutes later, and found him face down on his bed, sobbing like a child. His own nerves had gone completely under the dreadful shocks of the past ten days.
XLII
Bobby's attack of jaundice was soon over. After that glimpse of his father, so gentle and so very kind—kinder than Bobby had ever known him—the boy began to recover with the quick resilience of childhood. By the following Monday he was quite fit to travel, Camenis said.
Physically, Chesney was much better also. Camenis had succeeded in routing the sciatica. A strong tonic had somewhat restored his appetite. Altogether, he felt more fit than he had believed possible under the circumstances. At first, Camenis had wanted him to take hot hip-baths mixed with sea-salt. But here Chesney rebelled. He loathed hot baths. He demanded either a quick, cold tub in the morning, or else his usual swim in the lake. Camenis and he tussled for some hours over this question. Finally, it was agreed by the physician that as this September was such an unusually warm one, Chesney might have a very short swim during the hottest hours of the morning; then, after drying himself, lie and bake in the sun on the scorching pebbles of the shore. Late in the season as it was, he acquired the most beautifully toned mahogany-brown back and chest by this method. He was boyishly proud of this splendid tanning.
"The old boy'll think he's got a nigger-chief to monkey with, this time. Eh—what?" he asked Sophy, turning about before her in his short bathing-trunks that she might see the full glory of his sunburnt torso. She smiled approval, saying that to her he looked more like a well-roasted turkey than a "nigger." And she thought what a boy the big man was, at heart. It seemed pathetic and strange and very nice to her, all at the same time, that he could take such pleasure in such a thing, after all that had passed and was to come.
Sunday evening she spent in having the last things packed away. The dismantled villa looked the picture of sordid cheerlessness, when stripped of all the little touches she had given it. They dined by one, virulent jet of acetylene gas, blazing in an iron loop from the middle of the ceiling.
"By George, this is funereal!" Chesney could not refrain from exclaiming. "Two more meals like this—is it? Well, they'll give me melancholia."
"We needn't have two more," Sophy consoled him. "I've thought it out already. To-morrow morning we can breakfast on the terrace. Then we can go to the Hotel Ghiffa for luncheon. Our boat doesn't leave until three."
He looked at her with cordial appreciation.
"Clever girl—so we can!" he said. "But, I say"—his face fell—"what about my swim and sun-bath? That would cut me short—lunching at Ghiffa, I mean."
"But there's a capital bathing-shore at the hotel," she reminded him. "You can have your swim there while they prepare luncheon."
About eleven o'clock next morning they sauntered together along the white high-road to Ghiffa.
"You will have a glorious swim...." Sophy said, looking at the lake that drowsed under the faint breath of a listless Tramontana.
"Those sleek, snaky trails on the water mean rain, they tell me," answered Chesney. "I'm in luck to have a sunny day for my last swim."
"Yes," she assented dreamily. "Rain isn't becoming to Italy. She's like a beautiful woman who doesn't know how to cry."
"Sophy! How feminine! Do you know 'how to cry,' pray?"
"No. I haven't the knack at all." She laughed a little. "I make horrid faces.... I can feel myself making them."
"Poor lass!" he said in his abrupt way, suddenly gripped by this idea of her grimacing under sorrow. He had given her such a lot of it—by George! He grasped her hand with a quick gesture, and frown of pain, drawing it through his arm.
"It's to be a clean slate, my girl," he said, looking down at her.
He felt the slight fingers pinch into his arm.
"Yes," she said. "Yes, Cecil." But she looked in front of her face gave him another pang. He was glad that gether, as though the dazzle of the white road and clouds and walls along the way, hurt her eyes.
Chesney fought off a great fog of depression that seemed suddenly to settle down on him.
"'Cheerly! Cheerly!'" he cried, putting a bluff note into his voice that he was far from feeling. "What's it the old chap in The Tempest says?—'Heigh, my hearts! Cheerly, cheerly, my hearts!' That's the 'barbaric yawp' for us, Sophy—eh? Don't you feel it so?"
"Yes.... I do.... I do, Cecil," she responded eagerly. Her grey eyes looked up at him now. The bright bravery of her face gave him another pang. He was glad that their next step brought them to the little Hotel Ghiffa. Sophy ran up to see how Bobby was faring, in the rooms that she had taken till the hour for leaving. She found him clamouring to go down and "p'ay ball wiv mens" in the garden. A game of Boccie was going on there. She sent him down with Rosa to look on. Then she went out again to find Cecil. He met her at the door of the second bedroom. When he saw her, he stepped back into the room and signed her to come. He reached out and shut the door behind her. His face looked strange, all pale under its heavy coat of tan.
"Sophy," he said, "don't think me a sentimental ass—but you've never told me ... in so many words that ... well ... that you forgive me?"
He was gazing at her hungrily, with a look half ashamed, half determined. She went straight to him, and put her arms around him. It was queer how much he appealed to her as Bobby did.
"Oh, I'm so sorry that I've let you feel the need of words!" she said. "But if you want them I'll say them over and over——"
"No...." he stopped her; "I don't want them ... now. Will you...?" His arms held her painfully close. She turned her face to him and he kissed her—almost shyly. Her eyes stung. She put up her hand and pressed his cheek to hers....
"Now I'll go order our luncheon," she said gaily. But he knew well that there was no gaiety in her heart. And as he got out his bathing trunks, and took his bath-sheet on his arm, lines from Verhaeren began again to haunt him:
"Je m'habille des logues de mes jours
Et le bâton de mon orgeuil il plie,
Mes pieds dites commie ils sont lourds
De me porter, de me trainer toujours
Au long le siècle de ma vie...."
Down to the sparkling hem of the lake the sombre voice accompanied him. He stood in a sort of muse, his bare feet wincing from the hot pebbles; then, letting the ripples lave them, he went on musing. And in a sort of dark flare the joyous scene vanished, and he saw smoke-blurred, autumnal London gape before him. Here, too, Verhaeren whispered with gloomy sympathy:
"Gares de suie et de fumée ou du gaz pleure
Ses spleens d'argent lointain vers des chemins d'éclair,
Ou des bêtes d'ennui bâillent à l'heure
Dolente immensément qui tente Westminster."
He had a flash of grim amusement at the idea of "Westminster" used by the Belgian poet to rhyme with "éclair" ... then he flung himself forward into the glittering blue, and began to swim.... After all it was good to be alive no matter what the odds.... Perhaps the knowledge that this was his last swim for many months whetted his appreciation, but he had never felt more jocund a delight in the elastic clasp and purl of living water upon his naked flesh....
Sophy went out on the little terrace before the hotel to wait for his return. She had ordered luncheon served there, and a cameriere was already throwing a fresh tablecloth over one of the iron tables. A late tea-rose nodded from the terrace railing in the languid wind. She went and leaned near it, watching her husband's splendid figure against the flickering, sunlit blue, as he stood those few moments musing, before he plunged forward for his swim. The late, wistful rose, its petals slightly shrivelled at the edges, kept tapping softly against her hand. She stroked it lightly with her finger tips. The Padrone bustled up.
"Con permesso—con permesso, signora," he smiled, unctuously affable. And with a table-knife he detached the rose and presented it, bowing low.
"Grazie," murmured Sophy. She was sorry that the poor, passée rose had been beheaded for her, but very kindly she fastened it in her belt. Then, leaning on the low railing, she watched the fine rhythm of Cecil's arm, as it rose and fell, shearing the blue water. He was only a few yards from shore. He swam in a big semi-circle. Now he was returning. She was glad he was coming back. It seemed to her that he had been long enough in the autumn-chilled water.... But now he seemed to have stopped swimming. Ah, he was treading water. She felt a little vexed with him for lingering—but then, she realised that this was to be his last free, vigorous pleasure for so long. Still, he really should be coming back. She stood up and called him:
"Cecil!... Do come out!"
She could see his face plainly. All at once she gave a startled movement. He was answering her with grimaces ... frightful grimaces. She knew his sardonic ideas of "fun," but this struck her as unnatural ... cruel.
"Don't ... don't...." she cried to him. "You frighten me.... Come back!"
The Padrone had approached again.
"Il signore ama scherzare" (The gentleman likes fun), he observed, smiling. Sophy did not hear him. Half frightened, half indignant, she was staring at the grimacing face. All this had passed within a few seconds. Suddenly Cecil went under—— She held her breath.
"Che Ercole!" (What a Hercules!), observed the Padrone admiringly.
But she was holding her breath with the man under water. It seemed to her as though he would never come up again. Then she saw him. And still he made those odious grimaces. But now he called something. What was it? Her heart checked. It seemed to her that he cried "Help!" and as he cried it, he went under the second time.
All at once the Padrone gave a howl of terror.
"Ma! s'annega! s'annega!" (He's drowning! He's drowning!), screamed the man.
In an instant the terrace swarmed with shouting people. Sophy rushed blindly for the shore. The crowd, still shouting, pressed after her. The water for yards out was horribly smooth. No object broke its surface.
"Help! Help!" Sophy cried, strangling. She looked for men to plunge at once into the Lake. Not one did so. A voice called: "A chair! Throw him a chair!" She dashed knee-deep into the water. Some one dragged her back. She was struggling with two cowards who dragged her back from that smooth, tranquil expanse under which Cecil was suffocating. A woman threw her arms around her, sobbing, "Poverina! Poverina! E matta...." She fought wildly against the heaving, enveloping breast of this woman.
"Cowards!" she cried. The Italian word came to her, "Vigliacchi! Vigliacchi!" she raged at them, beating the woman's heavy breast with her hands. The woman let her go, but a man caught her arms from behind. In her struggles her long hair came loose and blew back into the man's face, blinding him. Still he grasped her stoutly, though his face was covered with her thick hair, and her frantic movements dragged him inch by inch towards the water that he dreaded. Now there was a chair floating on it ... a little yellow chair that bobbed drolly with the motion of the bright wavelets. And still people shouted, and ran to and fro along the edge of the water, like terriers wildly excited over a flung stick which they are afraid to plunge in and fetch. One or two had rushed off towards Ghiffa, still shouting and gesticulating. Boats had put out from the village. The men in the boats shouted and gesticulated also. When they reached the spot where Chesney had gone down, they leaned over, gazing into the water. They rowed back and forth, stopping every now and then to gaze into the water. Suddenly there rose a cry: "L'è li! L'è li! Vardel!" (There he is! See!) But no one went overboard. It seemed to Sophy that her heart would burst her bosom. She tried to find some terrible word that would rouse them to manhood. But even her voice failed her. It was like trying to cry out in a nightmare. Only a hoarse sound escaped her. Her eyes felt full of blood.
Then suddenly a figure came running, bounding. "Dove? Dove?" (Where? Where?) it called as it pelted down the terrace steps.
It was Peppin, Amaldi's sailor, bare-armed and bare-legged, in blue singlet and canvas trousers rolled to the knee.
Sophy's haggard blood-shot eyes fixed on the half-naked sailor as though he had been God.
The little crowd on shore bristled with pointing arms. "Out there! Just there!" they called in unison.
Sophy tried to cry "Save him!" to Peppin, but her voice only croaked harshly in her throat.
He did not even hear her. He had thrown his whole seaman's consciousness ahead into that clear yet impenetrable water. Even as she tried to call to him, his body, flashing obedience to his thought, shot into the lake with the curved bound of a dolphin. The water leaped up about him as in applause. Here at last was a man.
"Bravo, Marinaio! Bravo! Bravo!" shrieked the craven throng.
Sophy stood still enough now. There was no need to hold her. She stood as though her soul had gone from her and entered the body of the sailor who was swimming strong and straight for the point where Cecil had gone down.
The Padrone, who had seemed paralysed until now, came as suddenly to life as Sophy had turned to stone.
"Il dottore!" he shouted imperiously. "Vaa cercare il dottore!"
Now Peppin had reached the spot about which the boats were gathered. He trod water with head bent low, peering intently into the blue depths. The boats hung near. The boatmen shouted more than ever. They pointed downwards. "L'è lit! L'è lit!" they cried eagerly. All at once the sailor dived. It was as if he turned a somersault in the water. His bare, wet legs flashed up into the sunshine as he plunged.
Long seconds went by ... an eternity of minute-long seconds. Yet through this horror of blank pause, wherein time seemed suspended ... which might have been a day or an æon ... Sophy stood waiting for Peppin to bring her husband back to her. She was sure that Peppin would not come back without him. The primordial woman in her had recognised primordial man in the stout sailor. The feminine at its limit waited on the completion of virility. What she could not do, Peppin was doing. So she waited while cycles seemed to pass. She had lost her sense of time.
A sudden roar went up—from the shore, from the waiting boats. The dark blob of Peppin's head had appeared above water. Then it was submerged again for an instant. But now the boats were closer—arms reached out. He was caught—sustained by those eager arms—he and his burden. Ah!—they were trying to lift what Peppin grasped into a boat—but that huge, flaccid body dragged the boatedge over—down—down to the very water. A mass of clutching hands grasped here, there. Now it was half over the edge—but the boat lay on her side. The great, naked body glistened white like a monstrous fish in the sunlight. Now ... now ... all together!
There was another roar. Then the sailor also was hauled aboard.... The boat pulled for shore....
XLIII
They lifted him out and laid him on the warm beach. The crowd stood aside, respectful and expectant. All eyes turned to Sophy. They were waiting for the thrilling moment when the stone image would spring to life, shriek and cast itself upon her husband's body. There was a hush as in a theatre, just before the eagerly expected catastrophe breaks into a scream or dagger-stroke. But the moment failed of its zest. Slowly, as though moving in its sleep, the tall figure went over to the drowned man, knelt down beside him, laid a white hand on the drenched, sunburnt chest. Then she looked dully up at Peppin, who stood by, honest pity on his rough face, the water that streamed from his clothes making a little patter on the hot pebbles.
"It doesn't beat," she said in English, not heeding that the man could not understand her. "What will you do now...?" she asked. And her eyes still gazed up at the sailor as though he had been God.
The woman with the heavy breast, that Sophy had struck in her frantic efforts to escape, began to sob. The little, yellow wooden chair still bobbed up and down in the sunlight as some current bore it away towards Ghiffa.
Peppin kneeled down, too. He put his square, dark hand, with its broken nails and tattooed wrist, beside the white one.
Then he sprang up and began fiercely talking and gesticulating to the others. He was telling them that they must help him try to revive the Scior. They shrank. It is not considered wise on Lago Maggiore to meddle with a drowned man before the civil authorities come on the scene. One may get involved in all sorts of unpleasantness. Peppin berated them roundly, with good work-a-day oaths. He, too, called them "Vigliacchi." But though most of his angry dialect was but gibberish to Sophy, certain words she understood. And these words acted on her like an elixir of life. The blood flashed into her white face. She sprang to her feet.
"I will help you! Show me!" she cried. "Io.... Io...." (I—I) she kept repeating, striking her breast sharply to show him what she meant. She caught the sailor's hand in hers and drew him towards Chesney. She pointed to the drowned man, and then to herself and Peppin. In her broken Italian—stammering with eagerness—she urged the sailor to let her help revive her husband.
He understood, but he was at a loss. He knew that she could not assist in the violent measures that were necessary. The drowned man must first of all be made to disgorge the water that he had swallowed. This poor Sciora could not help him. He stood bewildered while Sophy held his hand, pouring out her eager, broken words.... And as he stood there, at his wit's end, a new cry went up:
"Il dottore! Il dottore!"
The doctor, whose name was Morelli, had a way with him that Peppin thoroughly approved. He ordered the curious throng to keep back, in so sharp a tone of authority that he was actually obeyed. Then he spoke to Sophy, very gently, but in the same authoritative manner. He told her that she must leave him to take at once the necessary measures for reviving her husband.
"I implore you to return to the hotel, signora," he said earnestly. "It will not be well for you to remain here."
Sophy rose at once, but her eyes fastened on Peppin's face.
"Will you stay with him, too?" she asked.
"Si! Si! Sciora!" he answered eagerly. "Starò" (I will stay).
The Padrone came up and offered her his arm. The fat, kind-hearted woman also came up, though her great bust still ached from Sophy's frenzied blows.
"Cara signora," she pleaded humbly, "allow me to accompany you."
Between the Padrone and this kindly soul Sophy went obediently back to the hotel.
Tilda and Rosa had both gone for a walk with Bobby along the high-road. Tilda had missed one of the smaller bags, and wished to see if it had been left by mistake with Luigi. So the two women had gone back to Villa Bianca, and were there when the accident happened. Not until Morelli and Peppin had been at work together over Chesney for twenty minutes did they return with Luigi, who, on hearing the terrible news, ran straight to help resuscitate his master. All the women in the hotel gathered round Rosa. She yielded Bobby to one of them, and began to sob and strike her breast and forehead in despair.
Tilda, her round face blotched with pallor, went straight to her lady. She found Sophy standing by a window that overlooked the shore.
"Oh, Mrs. Chesney!" faltered the girl, beginning to tremble. "May I stay with you?"
"No ... please...." said her mistress without turning. The girl went out obediently, and sat crouched in a chair near the door. Some women stole up and began whispering gruesome details to her. She listened half-unwilling, half-fascinated. The insatiable craving of the lower classes for "le frisson" made her listen, but she hated herself for doing it, and them for telling her so eagerly. The fat woman, whom Sophy had not permitted to remain with her, and to whose care Rosa had given Bobby, took the boy to her room and fed him bonbons, eating some herself to encourage him, and turning aside every now and then to cry again over the poor tousin whose Babbo had just been drowned, and who was so innocently gay over this unexpected feast of sweetmeats.
And Sophy, all alone at her window in the bleak hotel bedroom, stood and gazed at the little group on the beach, where Morelli, Peppin, and Luigi were striving to restore her husband to life. The first rigorous methods having been used, they had moved him to the shadow of some trees and spread blankets under and over him—only his head and the upper part of his chest were now exposed. And on either side knelt the sailor and the doctor. They had each grasped one of the massive arms, and regularly, with a machine-like motion, they lifted these arms up above the prone head, then down again—up—then down again. So powerful did the huge man look, even thus outstretched upon the ground, that it seemed to Sophy as though with his naked, herculean arms, he were bending the two men back and forth—back and forth. She would not believe that he was dead. It was as if, should she allow herself for a moment to believe it, he would really die. It was as if his life depended on her will to believe in it. It was impossible—that thus, in the sunlight, within a few yards of shore, within the sound of her voice, with his midday-meal preparing for him, his clothes awaiting him on the warm beach—that thus in a moment—in the twinkling of an eye—he should be dead....
Up and down—up and down waved the massive arms, white and gleaming in the glare from sky and water. Another figure joined the group. Sophy recognised Tibaldo, the gardener's boy from Villa Bianca. The doctor said something, turning his head sharply. Then she saw Luigi turn back the blankets, and Tibaldo take up a bottle that had been standing near. He poured stuff from this bottle into Luigi's hands, then into his own. They began rubbing the naked man vigorously. The doctor and Peppin paused a moment. She saw Morelli mop his face with his handkerchief, and Peppin sling the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. A change was made. Now it was Luigi and Tibaldo who were moving the great arms up and down, while Peppin and Morelli rubbed the outstretched body vigorously....
All at once, without any warning, she could not see them any longer. All that she could see was an endless reach of gleeful, bright blue water, and floating on it, bobbing drolly, a small, yellow chair. Then she saw nothing—then dark clouds that coiled and swam. She did not regain consciousness for five hours. When she came to herself again, she was lying on the bed with Tilda kneeling at her feet, rubbing them. A man's face was bending over her—the face of Doctor Morelli. The Venetian blinds were closed, making a strange green light in the room ... it seemed to be under water. She struggled to rise, feeling suffocated—feeling as though she, too, were drowning. She heard Morelli take a breath as of relief. Tilda had put down her face upon the bedclothes.
"How is he?... How is my husband?" she managed to stammer.
She felt the girl sobbing against her feet.
"Coraggio, signora.... Coraggio...." murmured the doctor. Then she knew. He was dead. She sank again into merciful depths of unconsciousness.
This time, when she recovered, it was into the tender, lustrous eyes of the Marchesa Amaldi that she looked up. As soon as Peppin had brought the news to Le Vigne, the Marchesa had set out for Ghiffa. Amaldi was away on a walking tour in the Carpathians. He had left very suddenly. The Marchesa divined that it was his feeling for Sophy that had caused him to leave so abruptly. She applauded him in her heart while she ached, mother-like, for his unhappiness. Now came this horrible disaster. She was glad that Marco was away. Sheer pity might have stripped him too bare before her, in spite of his powerful reserve. And with the sense of his hopeless, unfortunate love adding to her own passion of pity for this young creature widowed in so horrible a way, the Marchesa gathered Sophy as it were into the very shrine of mother-tenderness. Never again after that were things quite the same between them. Never again could the Marchesa look on Sophy only as a charming woman whom her son unfortunately loved; never again could Sophy forget, that on the heart of Marco's mother she had lain in that tragic hour.
"Can't you cry, my poor darling?... Can't you cry?" the Marchesa kept murmuring, her beautiful large hand folding Sophy's head to her breast, as it had been the head of a child that she was suckling. But no tears would come. It was as though she were bleeding tears inwardly.
When she was strong enough to rise, she said, whispering:
"I want to go to him."
The Marchesa assisted her to her feet without a word. In silence she led her to the communicating door behind which her husband lay, then stepped aside for her to enter.
Sophy closed the door softly as she went in. It was late at night. Candles burned by the bed, on either side. He lay there immensely, majestically long under the white sheet. Sophy went forward unfalteringly, and kneeling down beside him, lifted back the sheet. Awe filled her at the icy splendour of that face. She had not known how beautiful he was, until thus translated into cream-hued marble. His brow seemed to triumph; on his lips was that austere, secretive smile as of Initiation, that only death can give. It seemed to her that it was not her husband who lay there before her, but a majestic High-priest, dead with the words of some mysterious and awful ritual still on his lips, now sealed with that smile of ultimate initiation.
She bent closer, very reverently, and kissed the thick fair hair, then the wonderful, triumphant brow. She had never before touched the dead. This coldness of what had been so warm made her realise in one sick throe that the imagination of Divinity may be abominable....
Then all at once in the stark silence of the room she became conscious of the ticking of his watch, made resonant by the bare wood of the table on which it had been placed. Like a little metal heart it seemed, continuing the unavailing minutes of the life that had stopped, while it went on. And next to the coldness of the familiar brow, that ticking of the dead man's watch seemed to her the most fearful thing that she had ever known or dreamed of. She sank back on her knees, her hands folded upon the bed, gazing at that loftily indifferent face, listening to the steady pulse of the watch.... She could not bring it all near her. A tragedy had taken place in some far planet, and this was the mysterious painting of it on which she looked. That was not Cecil who lay there in that frozen dignity, Cecil who had been like a flame from the hottest core of life's great furnace ... he could never have lapsed into such seemingly voluntary passionlessness, even in death. Had there been a frown of revolt on his forehead, he would have seemed nearer, more real. Thus, he was not Cecil, but a stranger.... She felt confused, impassive and appalled. She was appalled at what she thought her own heartlessness. But then why should she weep for him, when he lay there with such plenitude of satisfaction and agreement on his forbiddingly beautiful, stranger's face?
She went back after an hour into the next room. Her face looked dull and wild at the same time. The Marchesa, who had lain down on the bed, rose and drew her down beside her, keeping gentle but firm hold of her hand. Sophy submitted obediently. She lay until day without moving, her eyes wide open, fixed on the opposite wall. Now and then the Marchesa would turn her head cautiously to see if by chance she had fallen asleep. But the dark eyes were always wide open, fixed on the bright green wallpaper.
"Poor girl," thought the Marchesa. "Poor Marco ... she loved her husband deeply, in spite of all. There may be brain fever unless I can make her cry in some way."
At dawn Sophy was still stretched there moveless, her eyes on the green wall behind which Cecil lay in cold, aloof content.
Robins began their sweet autumnal piping in the hotel garden. A thought came to the Marchesa. Babies waked with birds. She rose softly, and slipped out into the hall. Rosa and Bobby had been given a room just opposite. The Marchesa entered without knocking. The wisdom of the old nurse in the song was in her heart. As she had thought, the boy was awake. He was sitting up in bed, his short red curls tousled, the sleeves of his blue flannel dressing-gown that came far down over his hands, evidently annoying him, for he tugged at them impatiently. He was trying to make two fiercely moustachioed tin soldiers do battle on the pillow that Rosa had laid before him. Every time that one soldier would almost clash swords with the other, down would come the sleeves like a curtain, extinguishing the warriors.
"Bad teeves!" he was scolding them as the Marchesa entered. "Pias minga a mi" (You don't please me). He had picked up much dialect since coming to the Lake. Rosa, who also waked with the birds, and who, attired in a red flannel petticoat and cotton under-body, was washing her face in a corner of the room, kept murmuring, "Pazienza, tousin, pazienza."
She looked up as the Marchesa entered, horrified to be found by a Sciora in such attire. But the Marchesa did not glance at her. She went straight to Bobby.
He greeted her joyously.
"My 'ady! Take off!" he cried, holding up his muffled hands.
The Marchesa talked with him for about twenty minutes, then she lifted him, all subdued and piteous, into her arms, and carried him to his mother. The sun had now risen and that green light as of watery depths again filled the room.
The Marchesa put the boy down beside Sophy without a word. She did not look at him, but her arm went round him. Bobby snuggled close, then lifted his head and gazed into her white face. He began "pooring" it with his little hand. The Marchesa had turned back the bothersome sleeves. Then he knelt up to see her better.
"Poor dada ... dwownded...." he murmured, caressing her cheek. "Poor muvvah ... all lone...." His lips began to quiver with the sad sound of his own broken words.... "Don't c'y...." he pleaded, big tears bursting from his own eyes.... "Bobby 'tay wiv you.... Bobby tate tare of you.... Don't c'y...."
And with this he began to sob himself as though his little heart would break.
Sophy started from her trance of numbness. She caught the boy to her.... Then her tears came.... Then she remembered Cecil as her young lover ... her husband.... Then he became real to her again, as she clasped his son in her arms and they wept together.
The Marchesa had stolen out.
"Ringrazio Dio!" she said in her heart. She, too, was weeping.
PART II
I
Sophy spent the winter that followed her husband's death in the little cottage at Bonchurch. Her one desire, after Cecil's body had been laid in the Chapel-crypt at Dynehurst, was to return "to her own land and her own people." But Bellamy had warned her against an autumn crossing for Bobby, and the sudden change to a severer climate. At first she could not bring herself to walk or ride—the sight of blue water sparkling in the sun was so dreadful to her. And it grew to be almost an hallucination that, whenever she looked on it, she saw also a yellow chair, bobbing drolly to the motion of the waves. Little by little she dominated this aversion from the sea. Had it been a lake near which Bonchurch lay, she could not have borne it. But here, after two months, she began to ride daily, and gradually grew strong again.
It was on a lovely day in June when she reached the little country station of Sweet-Waters. The chuckle of Sweet-Water creek, that just here made a special music among crowding stones, rose dearly familiar. And there—there were her Mountains! Tears shut them out for a moment. Before she could see them clearly again, Charlotte's arms were round her. They clung together speechless.
"Oh!" murmured Sophy at last, her face buried in Charlotte's neck. "Oh, Chartie ... how you smell of home!"
This made them both laugh. But they were crying, too. The sisters loved each other as twins sometimes do, though they were not twins. Charlotte was eight years older than Sophy. And there, in the broad afternoon sunlight, Sophy again buried her face in her sister's neck to savour the sweet "home" fragrance.
Then she put Bobby in Charlotte's arms. Now Charlotte was afraid to speak. She pressed the boy to her in silence. At last she said:
"He has your eyes, darling," adding: "I've a new boy to show you, too, you know."
The long, grave shadows of late afternoon, in which there was no sadness, only the serene beauty of sleep, lay over the rolling fields through which the sisters drove homeward, hand in hand. Each native tree and wild-flower went to Sophy's heart. She so loved this friendly, smiling country, that almost she believed it "loved her back again," as children say. The silver-poplars along the road glittered whitely in a soft breeze. The sky changed to sheeted gold above the bluish mountains. As they turned in at the lawn of Sweet-Waters, the old box-shrubs scraped against the carriage in a way that meant home, and only home. Nowhere else in the world were box-trees set so close together on a driveway, that carriages could not pass without being brushed by the stiff leaves.
Sophy smiled, catching at a sprig as they passed, and Charlotte, also smiling, said:
"Yes. Joe is still promising me to clip them properly."
The old red-brick of the house now glowed on them between the boughs of tulip-trees and horse-chestnuts. They passed the clump of great acacia trees, where stood the round, green tables, covered with pots of pink and white geraniums. Sophy recalled that day when the London window-boxes had brought this memory of home. Now she was here. Home was reality—London the memory.
Judge Macon came down the front steps and took her in his arms as though she had been in truth his sister. He was much moved. Somehow to see her in the dull black of widow's weeds struck him as unnatural. Like most men, he hated "mourning." It hurt him to see her brightness thus quenched with crêpe.
"Doggone it, Chartie," he said to his wife that night when they were alone, "get that black off of our Sophy as soon as you can. For the Lord's sake, get some of it off right away. A human being can't go through a Virginia summer draped like a hearse!"
Charlotte said:
"Oh, Joe, don't talk so gruesomely. She'll wear white I'm sure—poor darling."
Then she went to his shoulder and cried frankly.
"I hate it as much as you do," she said. "It almost makes me 'lose my religion' to think of Sophy's being a widow. Don't you know how we—how every one—always thought of Sophy as being brilliant and happy?"
"Yes, yes; so we did, so we did," he soothed her. Then he added soberly:
"But those are just the people who seem to attract misfortune ... like lightning-rods," he concluded quaintly.
As soon as they had reached the house, Charlotte took Sophy upstairs to show her the nursery she had arranged for Bobby, and the old nursery just across the hall, that she and Sophy used to share together, and which was now to be her sister's bedroom. Even then Charlotte had ventured to suggest timidly:
"Won't you change to something cooler, dear?"
She longed to see Sophy in white blouse and duck skirt as in old days. She opened a closet door, suggestively. "There are some of your summer things hanging here just as they used to. Mammy Nan did them up for you herself."
Sophy stood with her arm about Charlotte's waist, looking at the freshly laundered, white skirts that she had worn as a girl. They seemed like ghosts to her, gleaming there in the dim closet—phantoms of her dead self—of that joyous, exultant, "cock-sure" girl that had been herself and could never come to life again. A new sadness came over her like the sadness with which we look on the garments of the dead.
"No—I don't think I'll change, Chartie," she said gently. "This gown I have on is really cool."
And she picked up a fold of her thin, crêpe skirt that Charlotte might see for herself. She did not realise that it was the blackness of her dress that Charlotte wanted changed. She was so used to wearing black now that she felt more at ease in it. It had become a sort of uniform. She was one of the army of sorrow. To wear its prescribed black made her feel less conspicuous. The repellent custom of "mourning" has this illogical consolation for its adherents.
But her sadness faded as she looked round the familiar room. The very smell of it was the same. A scent of India matting and beeswax, and the Russia leather of her sets of Shakespeare and Chaucer. She went from object to object, touching them lovingly. Colour had come to her face. Her grey eyes shone dark. She stood at the foot of the green bed with its painted birds-of-Paradise, now but faint blurs of gold and crimson, looking lovingly at its fluted pillow-slips and coverlet of old, white "honey-comb."
"What happy dreams we've dreamed there, Chartie!" she murmured. "We were such happy things."
Charlotte called from the window for Mammy Nan to bring the youngest of her three sons to see "Miss Sophy." This was William Taliaferro, usually called "Winks," Bobby's senior by three months. Jack and Joey were still out somewhere on the farm. Winks had his mother's yellow-hazel eyes, dark curls, and decision of character. He accepted Sophy for an aunt, after some solemn pondering, and allowed her to take him in her arms. She bore him across the hall to "make friends" with his new cousin. It was delightful to see the two youngsters "taking stock" of each other. Like two young cockerels they stood, fronting each other, heads down, thumbs home to the hilt in red mouths, hackles ready to rise at the least sign—round eyes fixed on round eyes. Bobby was the first to remove a glistening thumb. His delicious little grin shone forth.
"Bobby boy!" he announced. "P'ay sogers!"
Winks considered a second longer. Then he, too, removed his thumb.
"Mh-mh," he assented, and allowed Bobby to take him by the hand. They trotted off like brothers born, to play with the tin soldiers that Rosa had already unpacked.
"Che amorini!" sighed she, looking after them with clasped hands. She did not ask more of life than two such bambini to adore. Rosa's was the true mother-heart. Whether born of her own flesh or of another's, children were all in all to her.
Though Sophy felt so dusty from her journey, she would not take the time for a tub, from these first, wondrous hours of homecoming. She longed to be out in the old grounds. Charlotte left her at last, to "see about supper." How the familiar phrase warmed Sophy's heart! She peeped again into the nursery before going down. She had worried a little as to how Rosa would "get on" with the darkies. She need not have done so. She found the dear old negress and the Lombard peasant woman sitting side by side. Rosa looked up as she entered, and patted Mammy Nan's rather embarrassed, satiny-brown face.
"Ees goo-ood," she cooed. "La Mora e molto buona ... molto simpatica."
To hear Mammy Nan called "the Moor" made Sophy smile. She stood there smiling at them.
"Rosa's a mighty nice woman, Mammy," she said, slipping easily into the vernacular.
"She sho' do 'pear so," agreed Mammy Nan, amiable but nervous. It seemed so very peculiar to her to have a strange "white 'ooman" patting her cheek and calling her "Cara," when her name was Ann.
II
Sophy went out, while Charlotte "saw about supper," and wandered alone but not lonely through the grounds. It was "sundown," as they say in Virginia. All the west was gold above the darkling violet of the mountains. She went along one of the old brick walks towards the garden. From the stable the scent of horses and fresh straw blew towards her, mingling with the perfume of the June roses. This, too, meant home. The stable was at the foot of the garden. Ever since she could remember, when the wind was due west, the scent of "horse" had mingled with the scent of flowers.
The garden lay in terraces connected by flights of wooden steps. She sat down on the first flight, between two damask-rose trees, and watched the swallows wheeling to nest against the dim gold of the sky. A great bush of calacanthus spread at her feet. She gathered some of the little, hard, maroon-coloured blossoms, and put them inside the breast of her gown. They would only give out their full sweetness thus warmed. Their perfume of strawberries-in-the-sun and fresh vanilla was the very essence of "home." The tank-tonk of cowbells sounded along the meadow field. The cows, just milked, were grazing leisurely again. Frogs crooned softly from the mill-pond. A screech-owl trilled.
The soft, fluctuant ebb and flow of blowing foliage—like an aerial surge playing along skyey strands—came to her from the lawn above. She turned and lay at full length in the warm grass—breast to breast with the earth of home. Her heart beat strong and warm against it—her lips pressed it. And a strange, tender, universal thrill such as she had never known, ran through her as she thus clasped and kissed the soil from which she had sprung, and to which she would one day return....
And suddenly it seemed to her that the greatest gift the gods could send her would be the wish to write again. Ah, if she, the poet that was her truest self, could only rise again! It was not a "resurrection" but a "risorgimento" that she longed for. The word came to her with its memory of Amaldi. But he seemed now only like one of the sad phantoms in her phantasmal past. Nothing, not even the lost spirit of poetry, seemed to her so unreal as her past, leaning secure as she now did on the warm earth of home.
"Risorgo.... I rise again...." she murmured, pulling the purple-headed meadow-grass from its close sheath, and nibbling the yellow-white waxen stalks absently. That was a home-taste! She stopped thinking more serious thoughts, to smile down at the nibbled stalk in her hand. "You taste of childhood...." she said to the blade of grass. Then she rose to her feet. Charlotte was calling her. As she went towards the house she mused:
"If I ever write another book of verse, I shall call it 'Risorgimento.'"
For the next two years, winter and summer, Sophy remained at Sweet-Waters. She felt herself a rich woman in these days, for Gerald had insisted on continuing the allowance that he had made Cecil, to her and Cecil's son. This allowance she found to be two thousand pounds a year. Now that she had become a widow with a son to care for, she grew thrifty. During these two years at Sweet-Waters, Judge Macon invested for her every penny of her allowance, with the exception of four hundred pounds a year. This sum, together with her own income of one thousand dollars, enabled her to share the expenses of the household and provide comfortably for herself and Bobby in all other respects. She remembered that at any moment Gerald might marry, and the allowance cease. She knew, of course, that in case Gerald died without issue, Bobby would succeed to the title. About the property, whether it were all entailed or only a part of it, she did not know. She had been quite happy to find that under the English Guardianship of Infants Act, 1886, she, the mother, was sole guardian of her son, as Cecil had appointed no other. One of her greatest trials, after the first shock of her husband's death, had been the dread that Lady Wychcote might have some control over Bobby. It was with bitter reluctance that his grandmother parted with him. She had exacted a promise from Sophy that she would not allow too long a time to elapse before bringing him back to England. "Five years ... I must have five years all to myself," Sophy had answered. It seemed to her that, even in five years' time, she would not be able to come to Dynehurst without horror.
"Do you propose to make an American of Cecil's son?" Lady Wychcote had asked bitterly.
"No. I realise that Bobby must be educated in England. But he will only be seven years old in five years from now. I am not so unreasonable as you think me. If I am to live to take care of him I must go home for a time," Sophy had answered.
The quiet magic of that first homecoming held through the years that followed. If a rose could "shut and be a bud again" it would feel much as Sophy felt during those tranquil years at Sweet-Waters.
Her nephews adored her. She had "a way" with boys. When she went to ride, they usually scuttled along on their ponies, one at either rein. Her "guard of honour" she called them. Joey, the eldest, went to school in winter, but Charlotte taught Jack herself—he was only eight. And he used to make Joey glum with envy during the holidays by telling him of how, in the autumn evenings, Aunt Sophy and he (Jack) would roast chestnuts together before tea—while she told him "Jim hummers of fairy stories."
Sophy read a good deal, but nothing that could touch her too nearly. She was afraid of stirring the deeper self that seemed so sound asleep.
It was odd how bits of her own girlish verse had kept haunting her ever since her return. One she often thought of at this time:
"Frailly partitioned is the Inn of Life:
I will go very softly, lest perchance
I rouse the traveller Sorrow...."
During the autumn of her first year at Sweet-Waters a strange quickening came to her spirit. It came swift and sudden, without warning, as such things always come. "Whereas I was blind, now I see," said the man restored to sight by miracle. Whereas Sophy's creative will had been dead within her, now it lived. It was like the immemorially old and ever new mystery of conception. Her mind was with child—in a supreme, sweet pang it revealed itself. The triumphant blue of an October sky glowed through her window. It was ablaze with silver cloud-sails. Sophy knelt gazing up at this splendour, and within her all was splendour—a glory of thanksgiving—a glory of conscious fertility. The majestic blue of the sky seemed to her like God manifest.