The Princess of the School by Angela Brazil (first color ebook reader .txt) 📕

anxious to show the guest the glories of the garden. Hand in hand with them, Dulcie inspected the marble fountain whose basin was full of gold and silver fish, the tank where pink water-lilies grew, and the groves of orange trees where the ripe fruit hung like the golden apples of the Hesperides, and Parma violets made clumps of pale purple sweetness beneath.

Remembering that it was early in March, and that bitter winds were probably blowing over Chilcombe and Cheverley, Dulcie was amazed at the warmth of the Sicilian sunshine and the wealth of the flowers. Pink ivy-leaved geraniums trailed from every wall, great white arum lilies opened their stately sheaths; marigolds, salvias, carnations, and other summer flowers were in bloom, and little green lizards basked on the stones, whisking away in great alarm, however, if they were approached.

The general mental atmosphere of the place was genial and restful. Mr. Greville was kindness[228] itself to his young guests, and they had all fallen in love with Carmel's mother. Her charming manners and gaiety were very attractive, and the slight foreign accent with which she spoke English was quite pretty. Lilias, who had before felt almost angry with Carmel for feeling homesick at Cheverley, began at last to understand some of the attractions which held her cousin's heart to Sicily.

"I'd rather have the Chase, of course," she said to Dulcie, "but on the whole Montalesso is a very beautiful spot."

"So beautiful that I shouldn't mind living here all the rest of my life!" said Dulcie, gazing through the vine-festooned window out over the orange groves to where the white snow-capped peak of Etna reared itself against the intense blue of the Sicilian sky.

chapter xvii Sicilian Cousins

The relations, who had assembled to welcome[229] Carmel back, came often to the Casa Bianca, and in quite a short time they and the Ingletons were on terms of intimacy. Ernesto Trapani, a handsome young fellow, slightly older than Everard, was studying at the University of Palermo, in which city Vittore was at school, and the two brothers came home from Saturday to Monday. Douglas Greville, a tall boy of seventeen who had been at school in Paris, also went to the Palermo University for certain classes in chemistry, which would help him afterwards in the conduct of his father's business. The younger children of the various families, Aimée, Tito, and Claude Greville, Rosalia Trapani, and Berta, Gaspare, and Pepino Rosso, had lessons with private governesses, under whose charge they had learnt to chatter Italian, English, and French with the utmost ease.

On the Saturday after the Ingletons' arrival all these young people came over to Casa Bianca,[230] and it was decided to take picnic baskets, and go out in a body to show the guests some of the sights of the neighborhood. So a very gay party started off from the veranda. First they went through long groves of orange and lemon trees, where peasant women, with bright handkerchiefs tied over their heads, were gathering the fruit and packing it carefully in hampers.

"You must simply live on oranges here," said Dulcie, accepting the ripe specimen offered her by Douglas. "Do you know this is the fifth I've had this morning?"

"On the contrary, we hardly ever touch them ourselves," answered Douglas. "I suppose we have so many that we don't care about them here. I used to like them, though, when I was in Paris."

"It would take me a long time to get tired of them," declared Dulcie. "I did not know before what a really ripe orange tastes like. They're absolutely delicious. Why don't we get them like this in England?"

"They wouldn't keep if they were packed ripe, and fruit that ripens on a tree is always much sweeter than when it has been stored."

"Yes, I know: our English apples are like that. I wish I could be here in the autumn to see your peaches and vines! I shan't want to go away from this ripping place. I've never seen anything so lovely in my life!"

[231]Montalesso was indeed in all the glory of its spring charm. Everywhere the almond trees were in flower, and the effect of the masses of lovely lacy blossom against the brilliant blue of the sky was a perfect picture. With the cherry bloom of Japan the almond blossom of Sicily holds equal rank as one of the most beautiful sights in the world. From the height where the young people were walking they could see the sea at Targia Vecchia, and the little red sails of fishing smacks in the harbor, and the flat topped half Moorish houses, each with its clump of orange trees and its veranda of vines. Beyond, a landmark for all the district, was the great glittering peak of Etna. Its lower slopes were clothed with vineyards, and dotted here and there with villages, a second range was forest clad, and its dazzling summit, 10,742 feet above sea-level, lay in the region of the eternal snows. A thin column of smoke issued from the crater, and stretched like a gray ribbon across the sky. Lilias viewed it with some uneasiness.

"I hope there won't be an eruption!" she said nervously.

The boys laughed.

"English people are always so scared at poor old Etna! They imagine the crater is going to turn on fireworks for their entertainment. That smoke is a safety valve, so don't be afraid. The[232] observatory gives warning if anything serious is going to take place."

"And what happens then?"

"Some of the people on the slopes run away in time, and some stay to guard their property. We're quite safe at Montalesso, for we're fifteen miles away, though the clear air makes the peak look so near."

They had left the lemon groves and the almond blossom behind, and were now walking along a grassy table-land where flocks of goats were feeding. The goatherds, picturesque little boys dressed in sheepskin coats and soft felt hats, with brown eyes and thick brown curls, were amusing themselves by playing on reed pipes. They recalled the Idylls of Theocritus, and might almost have been products of the fourth century b. c. instead of the twentieth century a. d. The wild flowers that grew in this plain were gorgeous. There were anemones of all kinds, scarlet, purple, pale pink, and white: irises of many colors, blue pimpernel, yellow salvia, violet grape hyacinths, and clumps of small white narcissus. Above all rose the splendid pale pink blossoms of the asphodel, a striking feature of a Sicilian landscape.

The Ingletons ran about in greatest delight, picking handfuls of what were to them beautiful garden flowers.

"It's a moot point whether Proserpine was[233] gathering narcissus or asphodel when Pluto ran away with her," declared Mr. Stacey, offering Lilias a bouquet which a Greek nymph might have been pleased to accept. "I incline to asphodel myself, because of its immortal significance. It gives an added meaning to the myth."

"What is the story exactly?" asked Dulcie. "Do tell it, please!"

"Yes, do!" begged all the children, crowding round Mr. Stacey. "We want to hear your English story!"

"It's not an English one, but a very old Greek one. Shall we rest on this wall while I tell it? Luigia shall come on my knee. Yes, there's room for Pepino too, and Gaspare and Vincent may sit next to me. Well, in the old Golden Age, when the world was young, Ceres, the Goddess of the Harvest, who gave all the fruits of earth to men, had a beautiful daughter named Proserpine, or, as the Greeks called her, Persephone. She made Sicily her place of residence, and she and her nymphs used to delight themselves with its flowery meadows and limpid streams, and beautiful views. One day she and her companions were wandering in the plain of Enna, gathering flowers, when there suddenly appeared the god Pluto, king of Hades, the regions of the dead. Falling in love with beautiful Proserpine, he seized her, and forced her to get into his chariot. She[234] screamed to her maidens, but they could not help her, and Pluto carried her off. With his trident he struck a hole in the ground, so that chariot and horses fell through into Hades, of which place Proserpine became the queen. Now Ceres did not know what had happened to her daughter, and she wandered all over the earth seeking for her. At last she found Proserpine's girdle on the surface of the waters of a fountain where Pluto had struck his hole in the ground, and the nymph Arethusa told her how her daughter had been stolen away. Full of indignation, Ceres went to complain to Jupiter, who promised that Proserpine should be restored if she had taken nothing to eat in the realm of Hades. Unfortunately Proserpine, as she walked in the Elysian fields, had gathered and eaten a pomegranate, which act constituted her a subject of those regions. To pacify Ceres, Jupiter permitted that Proserpine should spend six months of every year with Pluto in Hades, and the other six months with her mother on earth. Each spring Ceres went to the entrance of a great gloomy grotto to meet her daughter, and with her return all the flowers bloomed on earth again. There is a very celebrated picture by Sir Frederick Leighton, called 'The Return of Persephone.' The artist has painted Ceres at the entrance of the grotto with the sunshine behind her, holding out her arms[235] to the lovely daughter whom the god Mercury is bringing back to her out of the darkness.

"The story is one of those old nature myths of which the Greeks were so fond. The time Proserpine spent in Hades symbolized winter, when winds blew cold, and few flowers bloomed, and her return symbolized the advent of spring. It has a deeper meaning, also, to those who look for it, because it is a type of the Resurrection, and shows that our dear ones are not really taken from us, but will come again in more glorious life and beauty. Many of the old Greek myths had this meaning hidden under them, as if they were sent to prepare people for the truth that Christ was to reveal more fully later on. Nearly all early religions began with pure and beautiful conceptions of God, and then trailed down to earth, because their followers were too ignorant to understand. The ancient Egyptians believed in God, and said that one of His attributes was strength. The strongest thing they knew was a bull, so they made colossal statues of bulls in black marble, to show God's strength, but the populace worshipped the statues instead of God himself, and became idolaters. In the same way the ancient Greeks realized that Beauty was part of God's scheme of work, and they came to worship Beauty quite apart from Goodness, forgetting that the two must go together. They[236] imagined their gods and goddesses as magnificent men and women, with superb bodies but no beauty of soul, and as there was nothing uplifting in this religion, it soon died out, as all things die in time, if they don't help us to grow nearer to God. The story of Proserpine is one of the prettiest of the old Greek legends, and I can just imagine her gathering these lovely flowers. I believe we're going on to see her fountain, aren't we, Vittore? She made it with her tears when Pluto carried her off."

The object of the expedition was indeed to see Proserpine's fountain, a clear spring out of which flowed a small river. After walking another mile across the meadows, the party came to this river, where they were able to engage boats to row them up to the fount. It was a unique spot, for the whole of the banks were bordered with an avenue of papyrus, which grew there in greatest profusion. Legend said that it had been planted by an Egyptian princess who brought it from the Nile, and that it grew in no other place in Europe, a statement which was satisfactory enough, though rather difficult to verify. There was much bargaining, after true Sicilian fashion, with the native boatmen, who demanded at least four times what they meant to take, protesting that they would be ruined at the sum Ernesto named to them, and finally, when he pretended to walk[237] away, accepting his offer with enthusiasm. This very necessary preliminary satisfactorily settled, the company was packed into the small boats, about four going in each. In the distribution of the guests occurred the first hitch in the Ingletons' visit. Mr. Stacey suggested that it was advisable to sandwich children and grown-ups, and he and Lilias started in the first "barca" in charge of little Luigia, Vincent, and Pepino. Dulcie and Douglas were responsible for Gaspare, Rosalia, and Nina, while Vittore, and Aimée, Claude, and Bertram went together. Carmel held Tito and Berta each by a hand, and Ernesto helped them all three into a boat. Everard was in the very act of jumping in after them, when Ernesto stopped him.

"Excuse me, Signore, that is my place! There is plenty of room for you in the other boat."

"And surely in this too?" said Everard, flushing with annoyance.

Ernesto shrugged his shoulders.

"Oh, no! You and I are too heavy to be together. Vittore and the