‘Priest!’ laughed Orsino. ‘Sophist!’
‘Anything you like,’ answered Ippolito, swinging round on the piano-stool and striking a chord. ‘All the same, I hope you may marry her, and have no bad consequences to deal with, and I will help you if I can.’
‘Thank you,’ said Orsino; but his voice was drowned by a burst of loud and intricate music, as Ippolito’s white fingers flew over the piano while he stared at the ceiling, his head thrown back, his cigar sticking up from between his teeth, he himself apparently unaware of what his hands were doing, and merely listening to the music.
Orsino was momentarily cheered and encouraged by all his brother had said, but the situation was not materially improved thereby. It was, indeed, almost as bad as it could be, and an older and wiser man than Orsino would have expected that something must occur before long, either to improve it, or to cut it short at once and for ever, for the simple reason that it could neither last, as it stood, nor be made more difficult by anything which could happen.
CHAPTER XIX
WHEN ORSINO AND Ippolito reached Camaldoli everything seemed to be quiet, and San Giacinto himself was greatly encouraged by the turn matters had taken. During the first day or two after Orsino’s departure there had still been considerable curiosity among the people of Santa Vittoria, and more than once San Giacinto had made little speeches, in his direct manner, to the peasants and villagers who hung about in the neighbourhood of the big old house. But after that he had not been disturbed, and everything appeared to be progressing favourably. The year was one of abundance, the orange crop, which in Sicily is all gathered before May, had turned out well, the grapes promised an abundant vintage, and even the olives had blossomed plentifully, though it was still too early to make accurate predictions about the oil. On the whole the prospects for the year were unusually satisfactory, and San Giacinto congratulated himself on having chanced to buy the place in a good year. In an agricultural country like that part of Sicily, the temper of the people is profoundly affected by the harvest.
The outlaws had not been heard of in the neighbourhood since Ferdinando Pagliuca’s death. They were said to be in the region about Noto, at some distance from Camaldoli, towards the south-west. San Giacinto was surprised at not having even received an anonymous letter from one of Ferdinando’s friends. He did not suppose that the present pacific state of things could last for ever, but he had been prepared to meet with a great deal more opposition in what he did.
On the other hand, he was hindered at every step by small difficulties which always seemed to be perfectly natural. If he wished to build a bit of wall, he found it impossible to obtain stone or quicklime, though there were plenty of masons professing themselves ready to work. He pointed to a quantity of slaked lime drying in a deep tank near the gate of Santa Vittoria.
‘Eh,’ said the head mason, shaking his head, ‘that belongs to the mayor, and he will not sell it.’
And, in fact, the mayor flatly refused to part with a single hodful of the lime, saying that he himself was going to repair his house.
The masons said that by and by it could be got from the lime-burners, who had sold their last burning to a man in Randazzo. Stone was to be had for the quarrying, in the black lands above Camaldoli, but there were no quarrymen in Santa Vittoria, and the gang of them that lived higher up Etna had taken a large contract.
‘Patience,’ said the head mason, gravely. ‘In time you will have all you want.’
As the bit of wall was not a very important matter, San Giacinto did not care to go to the expense of bringing material from a great distance, and decided to wait. Meanwhile he hired certain men from Bronte to come and clear out all the bush and scrub from among the trees. They came without tools. He gave them tools that belonged to the tenants of Camaldoli, the same which the latter had lent him on the first day to make a clearing close to the house. The Bronte men worked for two hours and then came out of the brush and sat down quietly in the sun.
‘The tools are not good for anything,’ they said gravely. ‘We cannot work with them.’
‘What is the matter with them?’ asked San Giacinto.
‘They are dull. They would not cut strings.’
‘Take them away and have them ground,’ said San Giacinto.
‘Are there knife-grinders in this country?’ asked the men. ‘Where are they? No. They come, they stay a day, perhaps two days, and they go away.’
San Giacinto looked at the men thoughtfully a moment, then turned on his heel and left them to their own devices. He began to understand. The men neither wished to refuse to work for him, nor dared to do the work they undertook, when its execution would in any way improve the defensive conditions of Camaldoli. San Giacinto came back when the men were gone, with two or three of the soldiers, took a hatchet himself, and leading the way proceeded to cut away the thorns and brambles, systematically clearing the ground so as to leave no cover under which an armed man could approach the house unnoticed. He regularly devoted a part of each day to the work, until it was finished.
As soon as Ferdinando’s body had been removed, there had been no difficulty in getting men to work indoors, and by the time Orsino arrived, considerable improvements had been effected. But the men would not have begun work in a house where an unburied dead person was still lying.
The three Saracinesca strolled up to Santa Vittoria late in the afternoon, San Giacinto and Orsino carrying their rifles, while Ippolito walked along with his hands behind him, just catching up his little silk mantle, staring hard at all the new sights of the road, and mentally wondering what sort of instrument he should find in the little church.
The place was a mere village without any mediæval wall, though there was a sort of archway at the principal entrance which was generally called the gate. Just beyond the shoulder of the mountain, away from Camaldoli, and about fifty yards from this gateway of the village, was a little white church with a tiled roof. It had a modern look, as though it had been lately restored. Then the village straggled down the rough descent towards the shallow valley beyond, having its own church in the little market-place. It was distinctly clean, having decently-paved streets and solid stone houses with massive mullions, and iron balconies painted red. There were a few small shops of the kind always seen in Italian villages. The apothecary’s was in the market-place, the general shop was in the main street, opposite a wine-seller’s, the telegraph office — a very recent innovation — was over against the chemist’s and was worked by the postmaster, and in what had once been a small convent, further on, at the outskirts of the town, the carabineers were lodged. At San Giacinto’s request, fifty men of the line infantry had been quartered in the village within the last few days, the order having been telegraphed from Rome on Orsino’s representations to the Minister of the Interior. The people treated the men and their two young officers civilly, but secretly resented their presence.
Nowadays, every Italian village has a walled cemetery at some distance from it. The burial-ground of Santa Vittoria overlooked Camaldoli; being situated a quarter of a mile from the little white church and on the other side of the hill, so that it was out of sight of the village. It was a grimly bare place. Four walls, six feet high, of rough tufo and unplastered, enclosed four or five acres of land. A painted iron gate opened upon the road, and against the opposite wall, inside, was built a small mortuary chapel. The cemetery had not been long in use, and there were not more than a score of black crosses sticking in the earth to mark as many graves. There was no pretence at cultivation. The clods were heaped up symmetrically at each grave, and a little rough grass grew on some of them. There was not a tree, nor a flower, nor a creeper to relieve the dusty dreariness of it, and the road itself was not more dry and arid. The little grass that grew had pushed itself up just in the gateway, where few feet ever passed, and everyone knows what a desolate look a grass-grown entrance gives to any place, even to a churchyard. There were low, round curbstones on each side of the gate.
/> The three gentlemen strolled slowly up the hill in the warm afternoon sunshine, talking as they came. Ippolito was a little ahead of the others, for he was light on his feet, and walked easily.
‘That is the cemetery,’ observed San Giacinto to Orsino, pointing at the hill. ‘That is where they buried your friend Ferdinando Corleone on the day you left. I suppose they will put up a monument to him.’
‘His brothers will not,’ answered Orsino. ‘They disown all connexion with him.’
‘Amiable race!’ laughed San Giacinto. ‘There is a figure like a monument sitting outside the gate,’ he added. ‘Do you see it?’
‘It is a woman in black,’ said Orsino. ‘She is sitting on something by the roadside.’
They were still a long way off, but both had good eyes.
‘She is probably resting and sitting on her bundle,’ observed San Giacinto.
‘She is sitting on a stone, — on one of the curbstones,’ said Ippolito. ‘She has her head bent down.’
‘He sees better than either of us,’ said Orsino, with a laugh. ‘I wonder why nobody ever expects a priest to do anything particularly well except pray? Ippolito can walk as well as we can, he sees better, he could probably beat either of us with a pistol or a rifle if he tried, and I am sure he is far more clever in fifty ways than I am. Yet everyone in the family takes it for granted that he is no better than a girl at anything that men do. He was quite right about the woman. She is bending over — her face must be almost touching her knees. It is a strange attitude.’
‘Probably some woman who has a relation buried in the cemetery — her child perhaps,’ suggested Ippolito. ‘She stops at the gate to say a prayer when she goes by.’
‘Then she would kneel, I should think,’ answered Orsino.
Almost unconsciously they all three quickened their pace a little, though the hill grew steeper just there. As they drew near, the outline of the woman in black became distinct against the dark tufo wall behind her, for the sunlight fell full upon her where she sat. It was a beautiful outline, too, full of expression and simple tragedy. She sat very low, on the round curbstone, one small foot thrust forward and leading the folds of the loose black skirt, both white hands clasped about the higher knee, towards which the covered head bent low, so that the face could not be seen at all. Not a line nor fold stirred as the three men came up to her.
Orsino recognised Concetta, though he could not see her features. Her exceptional grace betrayed itself unmistakably, and he should have known anywhere the white hands that had been lifted up to him when he had stood at the window in the grey dawn. But he said nothing about it to San Giacinto, for he understood her grief, and he could not have spoken of her without being heard by her just then.
But Ippolito went up to her, before his brother could hinder him. She was a lonely and unhappy creature, and he was one of those really charitable people who cannot pass by any suffering without trying to help it. He stood still beside her.
‘What is your trouble?’ he asked gently. ‘Can anyone help you?’
She did not move at first, but a voice of pain came with slow accents from under the black shawl that fell over her face, almost to her knee.
‘God alone can help the dead,’ it answered.
‘But you are alive, my child,’ said Ippolito, bending down a little.
The covered head moved slowly from side to side, denying.
‘Who are you, that speak of life?’ asked the sorrowful young voice. ‘Are you the Angel of the Resurrection? Go in peace, with Our Lady, for I am dead.’
Ippolito thought that she must be mad, and that it might be better to leave her alone. His brother and cousin had gone on, up the road, and were waiting for him at a little distance.
‘May you find peace and comfort,’ said the young priest, quietly, and he moved away.
But he turned to look back at her, for she seemed the saddest woman he had ever seen, and her voice was the saddest he had ever heard. Something in his own speech had stirred her a little, for when he looked again she had raised her head, and was lifting the black shawl so that she could see him. She was about to speak, and he stopped where he was, two paces from her, surprised by her extraordinary beauty and unnatural pallor.
‘Who are you?’ she asked slowly. ‘You are a stranger.’
‘I am Ippolito Saracinesca, a priest,’ answered the young man.
At the name, she started, and her sad eyes opened wide. Then she saw the other two men standing in the road a little way off. Slowly, and with perfect grace, she rose from her low seat.
‘And those two — there — who are they?’ she asked.
‘They are also Saracinesca,’ said Ippolito. ‘The one is my brother, the other is my cousin. We are three of the same name.’
He answered her question quite naturally, but he felt sure that she was mad. By this time San Giacinto was growing impatient, and he began to move a few steps nearer to call Ippolito. But the latter found it hard to turn away from the deep eyes and the pale face before him.
‘Then there were three of you,’ said Concetta, in a tone in which scorn sharpened grief. ‘It is no wonder that you killed him between you.’
‘Whom?’ asked Ippolito, very much surprised at the new turn of her speech.
‘Whom?’ All at once there was something wild in her rising inflexion. ‘You ask of me who it was whom you killed down there in the woods? Of me, Concetta? Of me, his betrothed? Of me, who prayed to your brother, there, that I might be let in, to wash my love’s face with my tears? But if I had known to whom I was praying, there would have been two dead men lying there in the Chapel of Camaldoli — there would have been two black crosses in there, behind the gate — do you see? There it is! The last on the left. No one has died since, but if God were just, the next should be one of you, and the next another, and then another — ah, God! If I had something in these hands—’
She had pointed at Ferdinando’s grave, throwing her arms backwards, while she kept her eyes on Ippolito. Now, with a gesture of the people, as she longed for a weapon, she thrust out her small white fists, tightly clenched, towards the priest’s heart, then opened them suddenly, in a despairing way, and let her arms fall to her sides.
‘Saracinesca, Saracinesca,’ she repeated slowly, her voice sinking; ‘three Saracinesca have made one widow! But one widow may yet make many widows, and many mourning mothers, and the justice of Heaven is not the justice of man.’
San Giacinto and Orsino had gradually approached Ippolito, and now stood beside him, facing the beautiful, wild girl, in her desolation. Grave and thoughtful, the three kinsmen stood side by side.
There was nothing theatrical or unreal in the situation. One of themselves had killed the girl’s betrothed husband, whom she had loved with all her soul. That was the plain fact, and Orsino had never ceased to realise it. Unhesitatingly, and in honourable self-defence, he had done a deed by which many were suffering greatly, and he was brought face to face with them in their grief. Somehow, it seemed unjust to him that the girl should accuse his brother and his cousin of Ferdinando’s death.
As she paused, facing them, breathless with the wave of returning pain, rather than from speaking, Orsino moved forward a little in front of Ippolito.
‘I killed Ferdinando Corleone,’ he said, gravely. ‘Do not accuse us all three, nor curse us all three.’
She turned her great eyes to his face, but her expression did not change. Possibly she did not believe him.
‘The dead see,’ she answered slowly. ‘They know — they know — they see both you and me. And the dead do not forget.’
A flying cloud passed over the sun, and the desolate land was suddenly all black and grey and stony, with the solemn vastness of the mountain behind. Concetta drew her shawl up over her head, as though she were cold, and turned from the three men with a simple dignity, and knelt down on the rough, broken stones, where the blades of coarse grass shot up between, close to the gate, and she clasped her hands to
gether round one of the dusty, painted iron rails.
‘Let us go,’ said San Giacinto’s deep voice. ‘It is better to leave her, poor girl.’
She did not look back at them as they walked quietly up the road. Her eyes were fixed on one point and her lips moved quickly, forming whispered words.
‘Maria Santissima, let there be three black crosses! Mother of God, three black crosses! Mother of Sorrows, three black crosses!’
And over and over again, she repeated the terrible little prayer.
CHAPTER XX
THE THREE MEN entered the village and walked through the main street. The low afternoon sun was shining brightly again, and only the people who lived on the shady side of the street had opened their windows. Many of them had little iron balconies in which quantities of magnificent dark carnations were blooming, planted in long, earthenware, trough-like pots, and hanging down by their long stalks that thrust themselves between the railings. Outside the windows of the poorer houses, too, great bunches of herbs were hung up to dry in the sun, and strings of scarlet peppers had already begun to appear, though it was early for them yet. Later, towards the autumn, the people hang up the canteloup melons of the south, in their rough green and grey rinds, by neatly-made slings of twisted grass, but it was not time for them yet. In some of the houses the people were packing the last of the oranges to be sent down to Piedimonte and thence to Messina for England and America, passing each orange through a wooden ring to measure it, and rejecting those that were much too small or much too large, then wrapping each one separately in tissue paper, while other women packed them neatly in thin deal boxes. The air smelt of them and of the carnations in the balconies, for Santa Vittoria was a clean and sweet village. The cleanliness of the thoroughbred Oriental, a very different being from the filthy Levantine, begins in Sicily, and distinguishes the Sicilians of the hills from the Calabrians and from the Sicilians of such seaport towns as Messina. Moreover there are no beggars in the hill towns.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 896