The Call of the Blood - Page 38/317

And Maurice was in it, too, and Hermione and her love for him and his for

her.

Gaspare did not move. He loved the "Pastorale" almost without knowing

that he loved it. It reminded him of the festa of Natale, when, as a

child, dressed in a long, white garment, he had carried a blazing torch

of straw down the steps of the church of San Pancrazio before the canopy

that sheltered the Bambino. It was a part of his life, as his mother

was, and Tito the donkey, and the vineyards, the sea, the sun. It pleased

him to hear it, and to feel that his padrona from a far country loved it,

and his isle, his "Paese" in which it sounded. So, though he had been

impatient to reach the Casa del Prete and enjoy the reward of praise

which he considered was his due for his forethought and his labors, he

stood very still by Tito, with his great, brown eyes fixed, and the

donkey switch drooping in the hand that hung at his side.

And Hermione for a moment gave herself entirely to her dream.

She had carried out the plan which she had made. She and Maurice Delarey

had been married quietly, early one morning in London, and had caught the

boat-train at Victoria, and travelled through to Sicily without stopping

on the way to rest. She wanted to plunge Maurice in the south at once,

not to lead him slowly, step by step, towards it. And so, after three

nights in the train, they had opened their eyes to the quiet sea near

Reggio, to the clustering houses under the mountains of Messina, to the

high-prowed fishermen's boats painted blue and yellow, to the coast-line

which wound away from the straits till it stole out to that almost

phantasmal point where Siracusa lies, to the slope of Etna, to the orange

gardens and the olives, and the great, dry water courses like giant

highways leading up into the mountains. And from the train they had come

up here into the recesses of the hills to hear their welcome of the

"Pastorale." It was a contrast to make a dream, the roar of ceaseless

travel melting into this radiant silence, this inmost heart of peace.

They had rushed through great cities to this old land of mountains and of

legends, and up there on the height from which the droning music dropped

to them through the sunshine was their home, the solitary house which was

to shelter their true marriage.

Delarey was almost confused by it all. Half dazed by the noise of the

journey, he was now half dazed by the wonder of the quiet as he stood

near Gaspare and listened to Sebastiano's music, and looked upward to the

white terrace wall.