Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  I suddenly felt an intense curiosity to know whether this was Francis walking up and down in the dark, or rather an intense desire to satisfy myself that it was not. The switch of the electric light was just inside the door, and even as my hand fumbled for it I still heard the steps quite close to me. Next moment the studio leaped into light as I pressed the switch, and I looked eagerly up and down it. There was no one there, though half a second before I had heard the footsteps quite close to me.

  I stood there a moment, not conscious of fear, though I knew that for some reason my heart was creaking in my throat, and that I felt an odd prickly sensation on my head. But my paramount feeling was curiosity as to who or what it was that went walking here, my paramount consciousness that, though I could see no one, and the steps had ceased, there was someone close to me all the time, watching me not unkindly. But beyond doubt, for all visible presence, the studio was empty, and I knew that the search which I now carried out, visiting the darker corners, and going on to the balcony outside, from which there was no external communication further, was all in vain. Whatever it was that I, like Pasqualino and Seraphina, had heard, it was not a thing that hid itself. It was there, waiting for us to perceive it, waiting for the withdrawal of the shutter that separates the unseen world from the seen. The shutter had been partly withdrawn, for I had heard it; I had also the strong sense of its presence. But I had no conception as to what it was, except that I felt it was no evil or malignant thing.

  I went back to my room, and, oddly enough, directly after so curious an experience, I found myself able to concentrate on Mrs. Hancock again without the slightest difficulty, and spent an absorbed hour. Then I heard the garden gate open, there were steps on the stairs, and a moment afterwards Francis came up. I told him what had happened, exactly as I have set it down. He asked a few slightly scornful questions, and then proceeded to tell me how he had lost his king’s bishop. I could not ask scornful questions about that, but it seemed very careless of him.

  The very next morning there turned up information which seems to my mind (a mind which Francis occasionally describes as credulous) to bear upon the watcher and walker in the studio, and it happened in this wise. Ten days before, the careful Seraphina had collected certain table-cloths, sheets and socks that needed darning, and with a view to having them thoroughly well done, and with, I make no doubt, another motive as well in her superstitious mind, had given the job to Donna Margherita, a very ancient lady, but nimble with her needle, to whom we are all very polite. Even Francis (though he has admirable manners with everybody) goes out of his way to be civil to Donna Margherita, and no one, who is at all prudent, will fail to give her a “Good day” if he passes her in the street. But if the wayfarer sees Donna Margherita coming in his direction, and thinks she has not yet seen him, he will, if he is prudent, turn round and walk in another direction. I have known Francis to do that on some paltry excuse (and he says I have a credulous mind!), but his real reason is that though he would not admit it, he is aware that Donna Margherita has the evil eye. Consequently we islanders must not vex her or be other than scrupulously civil to her, though we keep out of her way if we can, and when we must pass her it is wise to make the sign of the Cross surreptitiously. We do not talk about her much, for it is as well not to get near the confines of dangerous things; but before now Pasqualino has told me of various occurrences which to his mind put it beyond all doubt that Donna Margherita has the jettatura. There was the affair of his uncle’s fig-tree: he had been foolish and said sharp things to her because her goat strayed into his vineyard. And Donna Margherita just looked at the fig-tree which grows by his gate, and said: “You have a fine fig-tree there; there will be plenty of fruit this summer.” Within a fortnight all the crop of little half-ripe figs dropped off. There was her landlord who threatened to turn her out unless her quarter’s overdue rent was paid the same evening. Was it paid? Not a bit of it; but the very same day the landlord’s kitchen roof fell in.... There is no end to such evidence, and so when ten days ago Donna Margherita asked Seraphina if there was not any mending for her to do, it is no wonder (especially since she is so neat with her needle) that Seraphina gave her our lacerated linen.

  Such is the history of Donna Margherita, and so when this morning, as we were breakfasting, her knock came at the garden door, and she entered, Francis jumped up, and called Seraphina from the kitchen to pay for the mending and give Donna Margherita a glass of wine on this hot morning. It was cool and shady under the pergola where we were breakfasting, and as the old lady had a fancy to sit down for a little after her walk, she came along and sat down with us. And, vying with each other in courtesies, Pasqualino brought her a slice of cake, and Seraphina a glass of wine, and then hastily retired from the dangerous neighbourhood, and looked out on the interview with troubled faces from an upper window.

  To judge by her dried-apple cheek, and her gnarled and knotted hands, Donna Margherita might almost number the years with which Alatri credits her, asserting that she is a hundred summers old. Eighty, at any rate, she must be, since she has good recollection of the events of more than seventy years ago, and as she sipped her wine and clinked the soldi Seraphina (grossly overpaying) had given her, she talked amiably enough about our house and her early memories of it.

  “Yes, it’s a fine villa that the Signori have,” she said; “but I can remember it as but a farm-house before additions were made to it. The farm buildings used to lean against it on the north, where later the big room was built by the English artist; byre and cow-house were there, and when I was a little girl a strange thing happened.”

  She mumbled her cake a little in her toothless jaws and proceeded:

  “The farm in those days belonged to Giovanni Stofa, long since dead, and there he lived alone with his son, who is long dead also. One night after the house was shut up, and they sat together before going to bed, there came a noise and a clatter from the cow-house, very curious to hear. Giovanni thought that one of the cows had convulsions and ran out of the house and round by the kitchen, and into the shed where the two cows were stabled. And as he opened the door he was near knocked down, for both of them ran out with hoofs in the air and tails switching. Then, not knowing what should meet his eyes, he turned the lantern that he carried into the cow-house, and there standing in the middle was a strega (witch). But she looked at him not unkindly, and said: ‘I have come to guard the house, and from henceforth I shall always guard it, walking up and down, ever walking up and down.’

  “The strega smiled at him as she spoke, and his knees ceased to tremble, for this was no black visitant.

  “‘Your cattle will not be frightened again,’ she said. ‘Look, even now they come back.’

  “As she spoke, first one and then the other of the cows came into the stable again, and walked right up to where the strega stood, blowing hard through their nostrils. And next moment they lay down close to her, one on each side.

  “‘You will often hear me walking about here,’ said the strega; ‘but have no fear, for I guard the house.’

  “And with that there came just one puff of wind, and Giovanni’s lantern flickered, and lo! when the flame was steady again there was no strega there.”

  Donna Margherita took a sip of wine after her recitation.

  “And does she still walk up and down where the cow-house was?” I asked.

  “Surely; but fat ears cannot hear even the thunder,” quoted Donna Margherita. “And now, Signori, I will be walking. And thanks for the soldi and the cake and the wine.”

  Francis got up too.

  “You are active still, Donna Margherita,” he said.

  Donna Margherita stepped briskly down the path.

  “Eh, yes, Signor,” she said. “I am old but active; I can still do such a day’s work as would surprise you.”

  Francis’s eye and mine met; we were behind her, so that she could not see the exchanged glance. What was in both our minds was the affair of Pasqualino’s uncle’s fig-tree, for
that had certainly been a surprising day’s work. But after she had gone, he alluded again to the steps I had heard in the studio in a far more respectful manner. The fact is, so I made bold to tell him, that he does not like Donna Margherita’s unconscious innuendo that he has fat ears.

  The hot, serene days pursued their relentless course without our experiencing any of the watery benefits we had hoped for from the treat of fireworks that we had given to San Costanzo, for immediately after that improvised festa the falling barometer retraced its downward steps, and the needle stood, steady as if it had been painted there, on the “V” of “Very Dry.” Miss Machonochie’s cistern, so she informed us, had barely a foot of water in it, and she came up to ask if she might borrow a few pailfuls from ours of a morning. “Borrow” was good, since naturally she could not pay it back till the rain came and replenished her store, and the moment the rain came it would be a foolish thing to go carrying pailfuls of water from one house to another when all were plentifully supplied. But she made a great point of putting down exactly how many pailfuls she borrowed, and also made a great point of coming to thank Francis every other afternoon about tea-time for his kindness. She did not care about thanking me, though I had been just as kind as Francis, and eventually, owing to the awful frequency of these visits, we posted Pasqualino on the balcony overlooking the path to give warning (like Brangäene from her tower) of Miss Machonochie’s fell approach, while we had tea, so that we could effect an exit through the kitchen door, and live, like outlaws, in the heather, till Miss Machonochie had left her gratitude behind her. It was not sufficient to instruct Pasqualino to say we were out, for then Miss Machonochie would sit and rest in the garden for a little, or come up to the studio to write a letter of thanks (always to Francis). But with Pasqualino on the balcony, we can sit in peace over tea, till with a broad grin that occasionally explodes into laughter, he comes in to say that the Scotch Signorina’s sunshade is a-bobbing up the path. Then we hastily scald ourselves with tea and go for a walk, for no longer in this dearth of water can the garden be refreshed, but must needs lie waterless, till the rain revisits us.

  To-day we made an expedition up Monte Gennaro, the great crag that rises sheer from the south side of the island in two thousand feet of unscalable cliff. From the west the ascent is a mild, upward path over a stony hill-side, and the more delectable way is on its east side, where a very steep ascent burrows among thick growing scrub of laburnum and arbutus till it reaches the toppling precipices that frown above it. There, squeezing through interstices and fissures, it conducts to a huge grassy upland, unsuspected from below, that sweeps upward to the summit. A pine-tree or two stand sentinel here, but there is little anchorage of soil for trees, and for the most part the hill-side is clothed in long jungle grasses and spaces of sunny broom, the scent of which hangs sweet and heavy in the windless air. Here the dews are thicker, and the heat less intense, and though the rain has been so long withheld, the hill-side is still green and unwithered, and deep among the grasses we saw abundance of the great orange-coloured lilies that we had come to gather. But that task was for the downward journey, and first we ascended to the peak itself. As we climbed, the island dwindled below us, and at last at the summit it had shrunk to a pin’s-head in the girdle of the dim sea, domed with huge blue.

  West, south and north, straight to the high horizon, stretched the untarnished and liquid plain; here and there, like some minute fly walking on a vast sheet of sapphire glass, moved an ocean-going steamer. Eastwards there floated, distant and dreamlike but curiously distinct, the shores and peaks of the mainland, and from it, on this side and that, there swam the rocks of the Siren isles, as if trying to join Alatri, the boldest swimmer of them all. The remoteness and tranquillity of mountain tops lay round us, and curious it was to think that down there, where Naples sparkled along the coast, there moved a crowd of insatiable ant-like folk, busy on infinitesimal things that absorbed and vexed and delighted them. Naples itself was so little; it was as if, in this great emptiness of sea and sky, some minute insect was seen, and one was told that that minute insect swarmed with other minute forms of life. To look at it was to look at a piece of coral, and remember that millions of animalculæ built up the structure that was but a bead in a necklace. And here, lying at ease on the grass, were just two more of the coral-insects that mattered so much to themselves and to each other....

  We slewed round again seawards, and looked over the precipitous southern cliffs. A little draught of wind blew up them, making the grasses at the rim shake and tremble. From below a hawk swooped upwards over the cliff edge, saw us, and fell away again with a rustle of reversed feathers into the air. Round the base of the cliffs the sapphire of the sea was trimmed with brilliant bottle-green, and not the faintest line of foam showed where it met the land. To the left on the island, the town of Alatri, with all its house-roofs and spires, looked as flat as on a map, and on the hill-side above it we could just make out the stone-pine cutting the white façade of the Villa Tiberiana. For a moment that anchored me to earth; but slipping my cable again, I spread myself abroad in the openness and the emptiness. Was I part of it, or it part of me? That did not matter much; we were certainly both part of something else, something of tumultuous energy that whirled the stars on their courses, and was yet the peace that passed understanding....

  The days had slipped away. Before the orange lilies, which we gathered that afternoon on Monte Gennaro, were withered, there remained to me but a week more for the present of island life, which flowed on hour by hour in the normal employments that made up the day. But all the small events, the sights and sounds, had to me then, as they have now, a curious distinctness, as when before a storm outlines of hills and houses are sharp and defined, and the details of the landscape are etched vividly in the metallic tenseness of the preceding calm. But, as far as I knew, there were in life generally no threats of approaching storm, no clouds that broke the serenity of the sky. Privately, my friendships and affairs were prosperous, and though by the papers it appeared that politicians were turning anxious eyes to Ireland, where ferment was brewing over Home Rule, I supposed, in the happy-go-lucky way in which the average English citizen goes whistling along, that those whose business it was to attend to such things would see to it. Personally I intended to go back to England for a couple of months, and then return here for the warm golden autumn that often lasts into the early days of December. Established now, in this joint house, “piccolo nido in vasto mar,” I meant to slide back often and for prolonged periods down the golden cord that has always bound me to Italy. But though these days were so soon to be renewed, I found myself clinging to each minute as it passed with a sense that they were numbered; that the sands were running out, and that close behind the serenity of the heavens there lurked the flare of some prodigious judgment. Yet, day by day there was nothing to warrant those ominous presages. I swam to my cache, smoked my cigarette, basked on the beach, and continued weaving the adventures of Mrs. Hancock. The same sense of instability, I found, beset Francis also, and this in spite of the fact that the beleaguerings of Miss Machonochie were suddenly and celestially put a stop to.

  We had strolled down to the Piazza one evening after dinner, and mingled with the crowd that stood watching a great display of thunderstorm that was bursting over the mainland twenty miles away. Above us here was a perfectly clear sky, in which the full moon rode high, and by its light we could see that the whole of the coast was smothered in cloud, out of which broke ten times to the minute flashes of lightning, while the low, remote roar of the thunder, faintly echoed on the cliffs of Monte Gennaro, boomed without ceasing. Then we saw that long streamers of cloud were shooting out of that banked rampart towards us, and we had barely got back to the Villa again before the moon and the stars were obscured, and hot single drops of rain, large as a five-franc piece, steamed and vanished on the warm cement of the terrace.

  All night long the rain fell in sheets, and through the slats of the shutters I saw the inc
essant flashes, while the thunder roared and rattled overhead, and the pipe from the house-roof, that feeds our depleted cistern, gurgled and gulped and swallowed the rain it was thirsting for. Hour after hour the downpour continued, and when morning broke the garden-paths were riddled with water-courses, and the gathered waters gleamed in the cisterns, and Miss Machonochie need “borrow” no more, nor come up about tea-time to thank Francis for his largesse, and hound us from our tea to seek refuge on arid hill-sides. Pasqualino remarked that San Costanzo had been a long time thanking us for the fireworks; did I suppose that —— And as Pasqualino’s remarks about the hierarchy of Heaven are sometimes almost embarrassingly child-like in their reasonableness, I skilfully changed the subject by telling him to measure the water in the cistern.

  But though Francis need no longer be afraid of Miss Machonochie, “the arrow that flieth by day” so constantly transfixing him, and though after prolonged thought he confessed that there was nothing else in life which bothered him, except that in two years’ time Pasqualino would have to go for his military service, and he himself would have to find another servant (which really seemed a trial, the fieriness of which need not be allowed to scorch so soon), he shares my sense of instability and uneasiness, and, like me, cannot in any way account for it. To encourage him and myself on the morning of my departure as we had our last bathe, I was noble enough to let him into the secret of my cache of cigarettes in the seaweed-hung recess in the rock, and together we lit the farewell incense to the Palazzo a mare, sitting on the rock.

  “And there are two left,” said I, “which we will smoke together here the first day that I come back.”

  “Is that a promise?” he said.