Эдвард Бенсон
Up and Down

"A less supreme spirit than Teresa's might have given in, and raised their wages. Instead she hurried their departure, and no whit discouraged, she rose at four in the morning, and baked, and when afternoon came had all ready, and flew upstairs and downstairs, and never was there so good a tea as at Teresa's, nor so quickly served. In three days she had broken the fraternal strike, and the baffled brothers begged to be taken back. Then Teresa, who had been too busy to attend to them before, for she was doing their work in addition to her own, condescended to them, and told them what she really thought of them. She sat in a chair, did Teresa, and loosed her tongue. There was a blistering of paint that day on the balcony, though some said it was only the sun which had caused it…

"Two sad-faced males returned to their work next day, at a stipend of five francs per month less than they had hitherto received. The island, which had watched the crisis with the intensest interest, loudly applauded her spirit, and told the discouraged but repentant labour-party that only a good-hearted sister would have taken them back at all. She had not even smacked them, which she was perfectly capable of doing, in spite of their increasing inches, but perhaps her tongue was even more stinging than the flat of her hand. Great was Teresa of the cake-shop!

"All this I heard, and the best news of all remained to tell, for Vincenzo was even now on his way back from Buenos Ayres. He had made a tremendous hit with the land he had bought last summer, had money enough to pay off the mortgages on his father's farm at Santa Agatha, and he and Teresa would marry at once. Then, alas! Alatri would know Teresa no more, for she would live with her husband on the mainland. Already she had been made a very decent offer for the appurtenances and goodwill of the cake-shop, which, so she told me, she was secretly inclined to accept. But according to the proper ritual of bargaining, she had, of course, refused it, and told Giorgio Stofa that when he had a sensible proposition to make to her, he might call again. Giorgio, a mean man by all accounts, had been seen going to the bank that morning, and Teresa expected him to call again very soon.

"This conversation took place in the cake-shop while all the time she bustled about, now diving into the bake-house to stimulate the industry of Giovanni, now flying up to the balcony to see if Satan's other limb had put flowers on the marble-topped tables. Then, for a moment there was peace, and love looked out of Teresa's eyes.

"'Eh, Signor,' she said. 'Vincenzo will be home, if God wills, by the day of Corpus Domini. What a festa! Dio! What a festa will that be!'

"The serene island days began to unroll themselves again, with long swimmings, long baskings on the beach, long siestas on grilling afternoons, when the whole island lay mute till the evening coolness began, and only the cicalas chirped in the oleanders. Then, as the heat of the day declined, I would often have tea on Teresa's balcony, and on one such afternoon the great news came, and Teresa put into my hand the telegram she had just received from Naples, which told her that Vincenzo's ship had arrived, and that her lover had come back. Business necessary to transact would detain him there for a day, and for another day he must be at Santa Agatha, but on the morning of Corpus Domini he would come to Alatri, by the steamer that arrived at noon…

"'Six years since he went,' said Teresa. 'And oh, Signor, it is but as a day. We shall keep the festa together and see the fireworks… We shall go up into the rockets,' she cried in a sudden kindling of her tongue. 'We shall be golden rain, Vincenzo and I.'

"'And I shall stand below, oh, so far below,' said I, 'and clap my hands, and say "Eccoli!" That is, if I approve of Vincenzo.'

"Teresa put her hands together.

"'Eh! but will Vincenzo approve of me?' she said. 'Will he think I have grown old? Six years! Oh, a long time.'

"'It is to be hoped that Vincenzo will not be a pumpkin,' I remarked. 'Give me the large sort of cake, Teresa. I will carry it up to the Villa.'

"Teresa frowned.

"'The cakes are a little heavy to-day,' she said. 'I had a careless hand. You had better take two small ones, and if you do not like them, you will send back the second. Grazie tante, Signor.'

"The news that Vincenzo was to arrive by the midday boat on Corpus Domini, spread through the town, and all Teresa's family and friends were down at the Marina to give him welcome. A heavy boat-load of visitors was expected, and the little pier was cleared of loungers, so that the disembarkation in small boats from the steamer might, be unimpeded. But by special permission Teresa was given access to the landing-steps, so that she might be the first to meet her lover, even as he set foot on the shore, and there, bare-headed and twinkling with all her festa finery, she waited for him. In the first boat-load that put off from the steamer he came, standing in the prow, and waving to her, while she stood with clasped hands and her heart eager with love. He was the first to spring ashore, leaping across to the steps before the boat had come alongside, and with a great cry, jubilant and young, he caught Teresa to him, and for a supreme moment they stood there, clasped in each other's arms. And then he seemed to fall from her and collapsed suddenly on the quay, and lay there writhing… The cholera that was prevalent in Naples had him in his grip, and in two hours he was dead…"

Francis sat silent a little after the end of his story.

"So now you know," he said, "why for fourteen years Teresa of the cake-shop has never gone down to the Marina."

That night, when the thud and reverberation of the fireworks began down on the Marina, Francis and I went into the town to see them from above. The Piazza was deserted, for all Alatri had gone down to the port to take part in this procession and explosion in honour of San Costanzo, so that he might make intercession and send rain to the parched island, and we went out on to the broad paved platform which overlooks the Marina. This, too, seemed to be deserted, and perched on the railing that surrounds it, we watched the golden streaks of the ascending rockets, and their flowering into many-coloured fires. At this distance the reports reached the ear some seconds after their burstings; their plumes of flame had vanished before their echoes flapped in the cliffs of Monte Gennaro. The moon was not yet risen, and their splendour burned brilliantly against the dark background of the star-sown sky. By and by a whole sheaf of them went up together, and afterwards a detonating bomb showed that the exhibition was over. And then we saw that we were not alone, for in the dark at the far end of the railings a black figure was watching. She turned and came towards us, and I saw who it was.

"You have been looking at the fireworks, Teresa?" said Francis.

"Sissignor. They have been very good. San Costanzo should send us rain after that. But who knows? It is God's will, after all."

"Surely. And how goes it?"

She smiled at him with that sweet patient face, out of which fourteen years ago all joy and fire died.

"The cake-shop?" she said. "Oh, it prospers. It always prospers. I am trying a new recipe to-morrow – a meringue."

"And you – you yourself?" he asked.

"I? I am always well. But often I am tired of waiting. Pazienza! Shall I send some of the new meringues up to the Villa, if they turn out well, Signor?"

Francis had an inexplicable longing that evening to play chess, and as he despises the sort of chess I play with the same completeness as I despise parsnips, I left him with someone less contemptible at the café, and strolled up to the Villa again alone, going along the paved way that overlooks the sea to the south. High up was hung an amazing planet, and I felt rather glad I was no astronomer, and knew not which it was, for the noblest of names would have been unworthy of that celestial jewel. As if it had been a moon, the reflection of its splendour made a golden path across the sea, and posturing in its light, I found that it actually cast a vague shadow of me against a whitewashed wall. To the east the rim of the hill, where is situated the wireless station, was beginning to stand out very black against a dove-coloured sky, and before I had reached the steep steps that lead past the garden wall, the rim of the full moon had cut the hill-top, dimming the stars around it, and swiftly ascending, a golden bubble in the waters of the firmament, it had shot up clear of the horizon and refashioned the world again in ivory and black. All the gamut of colours was dipped anew; blues were translated into a velvety grey, so too were greens, and though the eye could see the difference, it was impossible to say what the difference was. Simply what we call blue by daylight became some kind of grey; what we call green a totally distinct kind of grey and blacker than the darkest shadow of the stone-pine was the shouting scarlet of the geraniums. No painter (pace the Whistlerians) has ever so faintly suggested the magic of moon-colouring, and small blame to him, since the tone of it cannot be rendered in pictures that are seen in the daylight. But if you take the picture of a sunny day, and look at it in moonlight, you will see, not a daylight picture, but a moonlight scene. The same thing holds with daylight scents and night-scents, and the fragrance of the verbena by the house wall was not only dimmer in quality, but different in tone. It was recognizable but different, ghost-like, disembodied without the smack of the sun in it.

I strolled about for a little, and then having (as usual) writing on hand that should have been done days before, I went reluctantly into the house. I was quite alone in it, for Seraphina had gone home, Pasqualino was down at the Marina taking part in fireworks and festa, and I had left Francis in a stuffy café pondering on gambits. We had dined early by reason of the fireworks, and before going up to my sitting-room to work, I foraged for cake and wine in the kitchen, and carried these upstairs. It was very hot, and I went first into the studio, where I set the windows wide, and next into Francis's room and Pasqualino's, where I did the same. Then I came back to my own room, exactly opposite the studio, and, stripped to shirt and trousers, with door and windows wide, I sat down for an hour's writing.

There is no such incentive to constructive thought as the knowledge that, humanly speaking, interruption is impossible. Seraphina would not return till morning, while festa and chess would undoubtedly detain Pasqualino and Francis for the next couple of hours. I had a luxurious sense of security; should I be so fortunate as to strike the vein I was delving for, I could go on mining there without let or hindrance. Reluctant though I had been to begin, I speedily found myself delightfully engrossed in what I was doing. Probably it did not amount to much, but the illusion in the author's mind, when he tinkers away at his tale, that he is doing something vastly important, is one that is never shaken, even though he continually finds out afterwards that the masterpiece has missed fire again. While he is engaged on his scribbling (given that his pen is in an interpreting frame of mind, and records without too many stumblings the dictation his brain gives it), he is in that Jerusalem that opens its gates of pearl only to the would-be artist, be he painter or poet or writer or sculptor. He is constructing, recording his impressions, and though (I hasten to repeat) they may be totally unworthy of record, he doesn't think so when he is engaged on them, for if he did, he would be conscious of external affairs, his mind would wander, and he would stop. Often, of course, that happens, but there are other blessed occasions when he is engulfed by his own imaginings, and absorbed in the reproduction of them.

It was so with me that night, when I sat quite alone in the silent house, knowing that none could disturb me for a couple of hours to come. Italy, even the fact that I was in Italy, vanished from my mind, and for the sake of the curious, at the risk of egoism, I may mention that I was with Mrs. Hancock in her bedroom in her horrid villa called Arundel, and looking over her jewels with her, to see what she could spare, without missing it, as a wedding present for her daughter. Engaged in that trivial pursuit, I lost conscious touch with everything else.

Quite suddenly a very ordinary noise, though as startling as the ringing of a telephone-bell at my elbow, where there was no telephone, snatched me away from my imaginings. There was a step in the studio just opposite, and I made no doubt that Francis had got home, had come upstairs without my hearing him, and no doubt thinking that I was at work, had passed into the studio. But then, looking at my watch, which lay on the table before me, I saw that it was still only half-past ten, and that I had been at work (and he at chess) for barely half an hour. But there was no reason that I should not go on working for an hour yet, and though my sense of security from interruption was gone, I anchored myself to my page again. But something had snapped; I could not get back into Mrs. Hancock's bedroom again, and after a few feeble sentences, and a corresponding number of impatient erasures, I came to a full stop.

I sat there for some ten minutes more, vainly endeavouring to concentrate again over Mrs. Hancock's jewels, but Francis's steps were in some way strangely disturbing. They passed up the studio, paused and returned, and paused and passed up again. Then, but not till then, there came into my mind the fact that Seraphina and Pasqualino had at different times heard (or thought they heard) footsteps in the studio, and on investigation had found it empty, and I began to wonder, still rather dimly and remotely, whether these were indeed the pacings of Francis up and down the room. My reasonable mind told me that they were, but the recollection of those other occasions became momently more vivid, and I got up to see.

The door of my room and that of the studio were exactly opposite each other, with the width of a narrow passage between them. Both doors were open, and on going into the passage I saw that the studio was dark within. It seemed odd that Francis should walk up and down, as he was still continuing to do, in the dark.

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.