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.