The Patriot Part 43

The table moved and once more began to knock.

"Yes!" exclaimed Gilardoni, his face radiant. "I inquired mentally if you should go, and the table has answered 'yes.' Now you yourself must ask aloud."

Five or six minutes pa.s.sed before the table began to move. In answer to Luisa's question: "Shall I go?" there came first thirteen, then fourteen knocks. The answer was "no."

The professor turned pale, and Luisa questioned him with her eyes. He was silent for some time, and then said with a sigh:

"Perhaps it was not Maria. Perhaps it was a lying spirit."

"And how can we find out?" Luisa inquired anxiously.

"We cannot find out. It is impossible."

"Then how about the other communications? Is there never any certainty?"

"Never."

She lapsed into terrified silence. Then presently she murmured: "It was bound to end thus. This also was to be taken from me."

She rested her forehead upon the table. The candle light fell upon her hair, upon her arms and hands. She was motionless, nothing moved in the room save the little flickering flame of the candle. Another little flame, the last light of hope and of comfort, was dying out in this poor head which had gone down before the onslaught of a bitter and invincible doubt. What could Gilardoni do or say? He saw that Ester's wish would soon be gratified, but not by his means. Three or four minutes later they heard Ester's voice, and steps on the floor below. Luisa rose slowly.

"Let us go," said she.

"Perhaps we should pray," Gilardoni observed without rising. "Perhaps we should ask the spirits if they confess Christ."

"No, no, no!" Luisa exclaimed in an undertone, at the same time protesting with a hostile gesture. The professor silently took up the candle.

On her way back to Oria Luisa went up to the gate of the cemetery.

Resting her forehead against it she sent a stifled good-bye towards Maria's grave, then she went down the hill again. On reaching the church-place she crossed over to the parapet and gazed down upon the lake sleeping in the shadow. She stood there some time, letting her thoughts roam at will. Placing her elbows on the parapet, she leaned forward and rested her face upon her hands, still gazing at the water, the water that had taken Maria. Her thoughts were beginning to take a definite shape, not within her, but down there in the water. She contemplated this shape. To die, to end it all! She was familiar with the thought, she had seen it once before when gazing into the water thus, long ago, before the experiments with the professor began. After that it had disappeared. But now it had returned again. It was a sweet and merciful thought, full of rest, of self-surrender, and of peace. It was good to gaze upon it now that her faith in the spirits was gone also. To die, to end it all! On that former occasion the image of her old uncle had been strong in helping to dispel the fascination. Now it was not so strong. Since Maria's death Uncle Piero had lapsed into a state of almost complete silence which Luisa believed to be the beginning of the apathy of old age. She did not understand that in the old man's soul profound disapproval was mingled with grief, nor did she understand how great was his aversion to these daily and repeated visits to the cemetery, the flowers, the mysterious journeys to Casarico, and above all, how he regretted her complete abandonment of the church. If she had not been so engrossed in her dead child she might have understood her uncle better, at least on this last point, the church, for now the silent old man himself went to Ma.s.s oftener than before, his heart returning to the religion of his father and mother, which, heretofore, he had practised coldly, from habit, and out of respect for family traditions. It seemed to Luisa that he had grown very dull, and that if only his personal needs were attended to, he would be quite content. Cia was there to attend to his comforts, and the means that had sufficed for three would be more than sufficient for two. Luisa thought she saw the water rise a hand's breadth. And Franco? Franco would be in despair, would mourn for a few years, and then he would be happier than ever. Franco knew the secret of speedy consolation. The water seemed to rise another hand's breadth.

At the same moment in which she had approached the parapet, Franco, pa.s.sing the church of S. Francesco di Paolo in Via di Po, had seen lights and heard the organ. He went in. Hardly had he said a short prayer when the one dominant thought took possession of him once more; the sound of the organ became the noise of trumpets and drums, the clash of arms; and while a hymn of peace was rising from the altar, he, in imagination, was furiously charging the enemy. Suddenly he saw before his mind's eye the image of Luisa, pale, and dressed in mourning. He began to think of her, to pray for her with intense fervour.

Then, standing there on the church-place of Oria, she turned cold and was filled with dread, while the tempting thought gradually vanished.

She tried to recall it, but could not. The water subsided. An inward voice said to her: "What if the professor be mistaken? What if it be not true that the table answered first yes and then no? what if it be not true about the lying spirits?" She drew back from the parapet, and with slow steps, went up to her house.

She found her uncle in the kitchen sitting in the chimney-corner, the tongs in his hand, and his gla.s.s of milk beside him. Cia and Leu were sewing.

"Well," said Uncle Piero, "I have been to the Custom-House. The Receiver is in bed with the jaundice, but I spoke with the _Sedentario_."

"What about, uncle?"

"About Lugano. About your journey to Lugano on the twenty-fifth. He has promised to close an eye and let you pa.s.s."

Luisa was silent, and stood thoughtfully watching the fire. Presently she gave Leu some orders for the next day, and then begged her uncle to come into the parlour with her.

"What for?" said he, with his habitual simplicity, "You can't have any great secrets to tell. Let us stay here where the fire is."

Cia lit a candle. "We will go out," said she.

The uncle made his usual grimace, expressive of compa.s.sion for the weaknesses of others, but remained silent. Draining his gla.s.s of milk, he pa.s.sed it to Luisa. She took the gla.s.s, and said softly: "I have not decided yet."

"What?" the uncle exclaimed sharply. "What is it you have not decided?"

"Whether I shall go to Isola Bella."

"Now what the deuce----?"

Uncle Piero was utterly incapable of grasping such a thing as this.

"And why should you not go?"

She answered calmly, and as if stating a perfectly obvious fact:

"I am afraid I shall not be able to leave Maria."

"Oh, come now!" Uncle Piero exclaimed. "Sit down over there," and he pointed to a bench in the chimney-corner opposite him. Then he said, in that serious, honest voice of his, which seemed to come from his heart:

"My dear Luisa, you have lost your bearings!"

And raising his arms, he uttered a long "Ah!" and then let them fall upon his knees once more.

"Lost your bearings completely!" he repeated. He sat silent for a time, his head bent, while behind his pursed lips there was the rumbling of words in course of formation, which presently burst forth.

"I would never have believed it! It does not seem possible! But when,"

and here he raised his head and looked Luisa straight in the face, "but when we once begin to lose our bearings it is all up with us. And you, my dear, began to lose yours a long time ago."

Luisa shuddered.

"Yes indeed!" Uncle Piero cried in a loud voice. "You began losing yours a long time ago. And now this is what I wish to say to you. Listen. My mother lost children, your mother lost children, I have seen many mothers lose children, but not one of them acted as you act. What can you expect? We are all mortal, and must adapt ourselves to our circ.u.mstances. Other mothers become resigned, but you do not. And this running two, three, and even four times a day to the cemetery! And the flowers, and I know not what all besides! Oh, dear me! And all that foolishness at Casarico with that other poor imbecile, which you think is such a secret, while every one is talking of it, even Cia. Oh, dear me!"

"No, uncle," said Luisa, sadly but calmly. "Don't talk of these things.

You cannot understand them."

"Exactly!" the uncle retorted with all the irony of which he was capable. "I cannot understand! But there is something else. You no longer go to church. I have never mentioned this to you because I have always made it a rule to let people do as they like, but when I see you losing your good sense, losing your common-sense even, the least I can do is to remind you that this is all you do by turning your back on the Almighty. And now this idea of not going to see your husband, under similar circ.u.mstances! It is past belief. Well, well," he said after a short pause, "I will go myself."

"You?" Luisa exclaimed.

"Why not? Yes, I. I had intended to accompany you, but if you will not go I must take the journey alone. I will go and tell your husband that you have lost your head, and that I hope I may soon be called to join poor Maria."

No one had ever heard such bitter words from Uncle Piero's lips. Perhaps it was for that reason, perhaps it was the authority of the man, perhaps it was Maria's name p.r.o.nounced in that way, but at any rate Luisa was conquered.

"I will go," she said, "but you must stay here."

"Most certainly not!" cried Uncle Piero, greatly pleased. "It is forty years since I saw the islands. I must avail myself of this opportunity.

And who knows but what I may enlist in the cavalry?"