Selected Stories (9781440673832) by Mark (EDT) E.; Mitchell Forster Page A

‘I will bear you company till the morning.’
    At this his convulsive struggles began again. ‘Oh, please, not that. Anything but that. I will promise to lie still and not to cry more than I can help, if I am left alone.’
    So we laid him on the bed, and drew the sheets over him, and left him sobbing bitterly, and saying: ‘I nearly saw everything, and now I can see nothing at all.’
    We informed the Miss Robinsons of all that had happened, and returned to the dining-room, where we found Signora Scafetti and Gennaro whispering together. Mr Sandbach got pen and paper, and began writing to the English doctor at Naples. I at once drew out the note, and flung it down on the table to Gennaro.
    â€˜Here is your pay,’ I said sternly, for I was thinking of the Thirty Pieces of Silver.
    â€˜Thank you very much, sir,’ said Gennaro, and grabbed it.
    He was going off, when Leyland, whose interest and indifference were always equally misplaced, asked him what Eustace had meant by saying ‘he could not make out men a bit’.
    â€˜I cannot say. Signor Eustazio’ (I was glad to observe a little deference at last) ‘has a subtle brain. He understands many things.’
    â€˜But I heard you say you understood,’ Leyland persisted.
    â€˜I understand, but I cannot explain. I am a poor Italian fisher-lad. Yet, listen: I will try.’ I saw to my alarm that his manner was changing, and tried to stop him. But he sat down on the edge of the table and started off, with some absolutely incoherent remarks.
    â€˜It is sad,’ he observed at last. ‘What has happened is very sad. But what can I do? I am poor. It is not I.’
    I turned away in contempt. Leyland went on asking questions. He wanted to know who it was that Eustace had in his mind when he spoke.
    â€˜That is easy to say,’ Gennaro gravely answered. ‘It is you, it is I. It is all in this house, and many outside it. If he wishes for mirth, we discomfort him. If he asks to be alone, we disturb him. He longed for a friend, and found none for fifteen years. Then he found me, and the first night I—I who have been in the woods and understood things too—betray him to you and send him in to die. But what could I do?’
    â€˜Gently, gently,’ said I.
    â€˜Oh, assuredly he will die. He will lie in the small room all night, and in the morning he will be dead. That I know for certain.’
    â€˜There, that will do,’ said Mr Sandbach. ‘I shall be sitting with him.’
    â€˜Filomena Giusti sat all night with Caterina, but Caterina was dead in the morning. They would not let her out, though I begged, and prayed, and cursed, and beat the door, and climbed the wall. They were ignorant fools, and thought I wished to carry her away. And in the morning she was dead.’
    â€˜What is all this?’ I asked Signora Scafetti.
    â€˜All kinds of stories will get about,’ she replied, ‘and he least of anyone, has reason to repeat them.’
    â€˜And I am alive now,’ he went on, ‘because I had neither parents nor relatives nor friends, so that, when the first night came, I could run through the woods, and climb the rocks, and plunge into the water, until I had accomplished my desire!’
    We heard a cry from Eustace’s room—a faint but steady sound, like the sound of wind in a distant wood heard by one standing in tranquillity.
    â€˜That,’ said Gennaro, ‘was the last noise of Caterina. I was hanging on to her window then, and it blew out past me.’
    And, lifting up his hand, in which my ten lire note was safely packed, he solemnly cursed Mr Sandbach, and Leyland, and myself, and Fate, because Eustace was dying in the upstairs room. Such is the working of the Southern mind; and I verily believe that he would not have moved even then, had not Leyland, that unspeakable idiot, upset the lamp with his elbow. It was a patent self-extinguishing