Before the servant could get to the priest’s lodgings a visitor had applied there for admission, and had been immediately received by Father Rocco himself. This favored guest was a little man, very sprucely and neatly dressed, and oppressively polite in his manner. He bowed when he first sat down, he bowed when he answered the usual inquiries about his health, and he bowed, for the third time, when Father Rocco asked what had brought him from Florence.
“Rather an awkward business,” replied the little man, recovering himself uneasily after his third bow. “The dressmaker, named Nanina, whom you placed under my wife’s protection about a year ago—”
“What of her?” inquired the priest eagerly.
“I regret to say she has left us, with her child-sister, and their very disagreeable dog, that growls at everybody.”
“When did they go?”
“Only yesterday. I came here at once to tell you, as you were so very particular in recommending us to take care of her. It is not our fault that she has gone. My wife was kindness itself to her, and I always treated her like a duchess. I bought dinner-mats of her sister; I even put up with the thieving and growling of the disagreeable dog—”
“Where have they gone to? Have you found out that?”
“I have found out, by application at the passport-office, that they have not left Florence—but what particular part of the city they have removed to, I have not yet had time to discover.”
“And pray why did they leave you, in the first place? Nanina is not a girl to do anything without a reason. She must have had some cause for going away. What was it?”
The little man hesitated, and made a fourth bow.
“You remember your private instructions to my wife and myself, when you first brought Nanina to our house?” he said, looking away rather uneasily while he spoke.
“Yes; you were to watch her, but to take care that she did not suspect you. It was just possible, at that time, that she might try to get back to Pisa without my knowing it; and everything depended on her remaining at Florence. I think, now, that I did wrong to distrust her; but it was of the last importance to provide against all possibilities, and to abstain from putting too much faith in my own good opinion of the girl. For these reasons, I certainly did instruct you to watch her privately. So far you are quite right; and I have nothing to complain of. Go on.”
“You remember,” resumed the little man, “that the first consequence of our following your instructions was a discovery (which we immediately communicated to you) that she was secretly learning to write?”
“Yes; and I also remember sending you word not to show that you knew what she was doing; but to wait and see if she turned her knowledge of writing to account, and took or sent any letters to the post. You informed me, in your regular monthly report, that she nearer did anything of the kind.”
“Never, until three days ago; and then she was traced from her room in my house to the post-office with a letter, which she dropped into the box.”
“And the address of which you discovered before she took it from your house?”
“Unfortunately I did not,” answered the little man, reddening and looking askance at the priest, as if he expected to receive a severe reprimand.
But Father Rocco said nothing. He was thinking. Who could she have written to? If to Fabio, why should she have waited for months and months, after she had learned how to use her pen, before sending him a letter? If not to Fabio, to what other person could she have written?
“I regret not discovering the address—regret it most deeply,” said the little man, with a low bow of apology.
“It is too late for regret,” said Father Rocco, coldly. “Tell me how she came to leave your house; I have not heard that yet. Be as brief as you can. I expect to be called every moment to the bedside of a near and dear relation, who is suffering from severe illness. You shall have all my attention; but you must ask it for as short a time as possible.”
“I will be briefness itself. In the first place, you must know that I have—or rather had—an idle, unscrupulous rascal of an apprentice in my business.”
The priest pursed up his mouth contemptuously.
“In the second place, this same good-for-nothing fellow had the impertinence to fall in love with Nanina.”
Father Rocco started, and listened eagerly.
“But I must do the girl the justice to say that she never gave him the slightest encouragement; and that, whenever he ventured to speak to her, she always quietly but very decidedly repelled him.”
“A good girl!” said Father Rocco. “I always said she was a good girl. It was a mistake on my part ever to have distrusted her.”
“Among the other offenses,” continued the little man, “of which I now find my scoundrel of an apprentice to have been guilty, was the enormity of picking the lock of my desk, and prying into my private papers.”
“You ought not to have had any. Private papers should always be burned papers.”
“They shall be for the future; I will take good care of that.”
“Were any of my letters to you about Nanina among these private papers?”
“Unfortunately they were. Pray, pray excuse my want of caution this time. It shall never happen again.”
“Go on. Such imprudence as yours can never be excused; it can only be provided against for the future. I suppose the apprentice showed my letters to the girl?”
“I infer as much; though why he should do so—”
“Simpleton! Did you not say that he was in love with her (as you term it), and that he got no encouragement?”
“Yes; I said that—and I know it to be true.”
“Well! Was it not his interest, being unable to make any impression on the girl’s fancy, to establish some claim to her gratitude; and try if he could not win her that way? By showing her my letters, he would make her indebted to him for knowing that she was watched in your house. But this is not the matter in question now. You say you infer that she had seen my letters. On what grounds?”
“On the strength of this bit of paper,” answered the little man, ruefully producing a note from his pocket. “She must have had your letters shown to her soon after putting her own letter into the post. For, on the evening of the same day, when I went up into her room, I found that she and her sister and the disagreeable dog had all gone, and observed this note laid on the table.”
Father Rocco took the note, and read these lines:
“I have just discovered that I have been watched and suspected ever since my stay under your roof. It is impossible that I can remain another night in the house of a spy. I go with my sister. We owe you nothing, and we are free to live honestly where we please. If you see Father Rocco, tell him that I can forgive his distrust of me, but that I can never forget it. I, who had full faith in him, had a right to expect that he should have full faith in me. It was always an encouragement to me to think of him as a father and a friend. I have lost that encouragement forever—and it was the last I had left to me!
“NANINA.”
The priest rose from his seat as he handed the note back, and the visitor immediately followed his example.
“We must remedy this misfortune as we best may,” he said, with a sigh. “Are you ready to go back to Florence to-morrow?”
The little man bowed again.
“Find out where she is, and ascertain if she wants for anything, and if she is living in a safe place. Say nothing about me, and make no attempt to induce her to return to your house. Simply let me know what you discover. The poor child has a spirit that no ordinary people would suspect in her. She must be soothed and treated tenderly, and we shall manage her yet. No mistakes, mind, this time! Do just what I tell you, and do no more. Have you anything else to say to me?”
The little man shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.
“Good-night, then,” said the priest.
“Good-night,” said the little man, slipping through the door that was held open for him with the politest alacrity.
“This is vexatious,” said Father Rocco, taking a turn or two in the study after his visitor had gone. “It was bad to have done the child an injustice—it is worse to have been found out. There is nothing for it now but to wait till I know where she is. I like her, and I like that note she left behind her. It is bravely, delicately, and honestly written—a good girl—a very good girl, indeed!”
He walked to the window, breathed the fresh air for a few moments, and quietly dismissed the subject from his mind. When he returned to his table he had no thoughts for any one but his sick niece.
“It seems strange,” he said, “that I have had no message about her yet. Perhaps Luca has heard something. It may be well if I go to the studio at once to find out.”
He took up his hat and went to the door. Just as he opened it, Fabio’s servant confronted him on the thresh old.
“I am sent to summon you to the palace,” said the man. “The doctors have given up all hope.”
Father Rocco turned deadly pale, and drew back a step. “Have you told my brother of this?” he asked.
“I was just on my way to the studio,” answered the servant.
“I will go there instead of you, and break the bad news to him,” said the priest.
They descended the stairs in silence. Just as they were about to separate at the street door, Father Rocco stopped the servant.
“How is the child?” he asked, with such sudden eagerness and impatience, that the man looked quite startled as he answered that the child was perfectly well.
“There is some consolation in that,” said Father Rocco, walking away, and speaking partly to the servant, partly to himself. “My caution has misled me,” he continued, pausing thoughtfully when he was left alone in the roadway. “I should have risked using the mother’s influence sooner to procure the righteous restitution. All hope of compassing it now rests on the life of the child. Infant as she is, her father’s ill-gotten wealth may yet be gathered back to the Church by her hands.”
He proceeded rapidly on his way to the studio, until he reached the river-side and drew close to the bridge which it was necessary to cross in order to get to his brother’s house. Here he stopped abruptly, as if struck by a sudden idea. The moon had just risen, and her light, streaming across the river, fell full upon his face as he stood by the parapet wall that led up to the bridge. He was so lost in thought that he did not hear the conversation of two ladies who were advancing along the pathway close behind him. As they brushed by him, the taller of the two turned round and looked back at his face.
“Father Rocco!” exclaimed the lady, stopping.
“Donna Brigida!” cried the priest, looking surprised at first, but recovering himself directly and bowing with his usual quiet politeness. “Pardon me if I thank you for honoring me by renewing our acquaintance, and then pass on to my brother’s studio. A heavy affliction is likely to befall us, and I go to prepare him for it.”
“You refer to the dangerous illness of your niece?” said Brigida. “I heard of it this evening. Let us hope that your fears are exaggerated, and that we may yet meet under less distressing circumstances. I have no present intention of leaving Pisa for some time, and I shall always be glad to thank Father Rocco for the politeness and consideration which he showed to me, under delicate circumstances, a year ago.”
With these words she courtesied deferentially, and moved away to rejoin her friend. The priest observed that Mademoiselle Virginie lingered rather near, as if anxious to catch a few words of the conversation between Brigida and himself. Seeing this, he, in his turn, listened as the two women slowly walked away together, and heard the Italian say to her companion: “Virginie, I will lay you the price of a new dress that Fabio d’Ascoli marries again.”
Father Rocco started when she said those words, as if he had trodden on fire.
“My thought!” he whispered nervously to himself. “My thought at the moment when she spoke to me! Marry again? Another wife, over whom I should have no influence! Other children, whose education would not be confided to me! What would become, then, of the restitution that I have hoped for, wrought for, prayed for?”
He stopped, and looked fixedly at the sky above him. The bridge was deserted. His black figure rose up erect, motionless, and spectral, with the white still light falling solemnly all around it. Standing so for some minutes, his first movement was to drop his hand angrily on the parapet of the bridge. He then turned round slowly in the direction by which the two women had walked away.
“Donna Brigida,” he said, “I will lay you the price of fifty new dresses that Fabio d’Ascoli never marries again!”
He set his face once more toward the studio, and walked on without stopping until he arrived at the master-sculptor’s door.
“Marry again?” he thought to himself, as he rang the bell. “Donna Brigida, was your first failure not enough for you? Are you going to try a second time?”
Luca Lomi himself opened the door. He drew Father Rocco hurriedly into the studio toward a single lamp burning on a stand near the partition between the two rooms.
“Have you heard anything of our poor child?” he asked. “Tell me the truth! tell me the truth at once!”
“Hush! compose yourself. I have heard,” said Father Rocco, in low, mournful tones.
Luca tightened his hold on the priest’s arm, and looked into his face with breathless, speechless eagerness.
“Compose yourself,” repeated Father Rocco. “Compose yourself to hear the worst. My poor Luca, the doctors have given up all hope.”
Luca dropped his brother’s arm with a groan of despair. “Oh, Maddalena! my child—my only child!”
Reiterating these words again and again, he leaned his head against the partition and burst into tears. Sordid and coarse as his nature was, he really loved his daughter. All the heart he had was in his statues and in her.
After the first burst of his grief was exhausted, he was recalled to himself by a sensation as if some change had taken place in the lighting of the studio. He looked up directly, and dimly discerned the priest standing far down at the end of the room nearest the door, with the lamp in his hand, eagerly looking at something.
“Rocco!” he exclaimed, “Rocco, why have you taken the lamp away? What are you doing there?”
There was no movement and no answer. Luca advanced a step or two, and called again. “Rocco, what are you doing there?”
The priest heard this time, and came suddenly toward his brother, with the lamp in his hand—so suddenly that Luca started.
“What is it?” he asked, in astonishment. “Gracious God, Rocco, how pale you are!”
Still the priest never said a word. He put the lamp down on the nearest table. Luca observed that his hand shook. He had never seen his brother violently agitated before. When Rocco had announced, but a few minutes ago, that Maddalena’s life was despaired of, it was in a voice which, though sorrowful, was perfectly calm. What was the meaning of this sudden panic—this strange, silent terror?
The priest observed that his brother was looking at him earnestly. “Come!” he said in a faint whisper, “come to her bedside: we have no time to lose. Get your hat, and leave it to me to put out the lamp.”
He hurriedly extinguished the light while he spoke. They went down the studio side by side toward the door. The moonlight streamed through the window full on the place where the priest had been standing alone with the lamp in his hand. As they passed it, Luca felt his brother tremble, and saw him turn away his head.
. . . . . . . .
Two hours later, Fabio d’Ascoli and his wife were separated in this world forever; and the servants of the palace were anticipating in whispers the order of their mistress’s funeral procession to the burial-ground of the Campo Santo.
About eight months after the Countess d’Ascoli had been laid in her grave in the Campo Santo, two reports were circulated through the gay world of Pisa, which excited curiosity and awakened expectation everywhere.
The first report announced that a grand masked ball was to be given at the Melani Palace, to celebrate the day on which the heir of the house attained his majority. All the friends of the family were delighted at the prospect of this festival; for the old Marquis Melani had the reputation of being one of the most hospitable, and, at the same time, one of the most eccentric men in Pisa. Every one expected, therefore, that he would secure for the entertainment of his guests, if he really gave the ball, the most whimsical novelties in the way of masks, dances, and amusements generally, that had ever been seen.
The second report was, that the rich widower, Fabio d’Ascoli, was on the point of returning to Pisa, after having improved his health and spirits by traveling in foreign countries; and that he might be expected to appear again in society, for the first time since the death of his wife, at the masked ball which was to be given in the Melani Palace. This announcement excited special interest among the young ladies of Pisa. Fabio had only reached his thirtieth year; and it was universally agreed that his return to society in his native city could indicate nothing more certainly than his desire to find a second mother for his infant child. All the single ladies would now have been ready to bet, as confidently as Brigida had offered to bet eight months before, that Fabio d’Ascoli would marry again.
For once in a way, report turned out to be true, in both the cases just mentioned. Invitations were actually issued from the Melani Palace, and Fabio returned from abroad to his home on the Arno.
In settling all the arrangements connected with his masked ball, the Marquis Melani showed that he was determined not only to deserve, but to increase, his reputation for oddity. He invented the most extravagant disguises, to be worn by some of his more intimate friends; he arranged grotesque dances, to be performed at stated periods of the evening by professional buffoons, hired from Florence. He composed a toy symphony, which included solos on every noisy plaything at that time manufactured for children’s use. And not content with thus avoiding the beaten track in preparing the entertainments at the ball, he determined also to show decided originality, even in selecting the attendants who were to wait on the company. Other people in his rank of life were accustomed to employ their own and hired footmen for this purpose; the marquis resolved that his attendants should be composed of young women only; that two of his rooms should be fitted up as Arcadian bowers; and that all the prettiest girls in Pisa should be placed in them to preside over the refreshments, dressed, in accordance with the mock classical taste of the period, as shepherdesses of the time of Virgil.
The only defect of this brilliantly new idea was the difficulty of executing it. The marquis had expressly ordered that not fewer than thirty shepherdesses were to be engaged—fifteen for each bower. It would have been easy to find double this number in Pisa, if beauty had been the only quality required in the attendant damsels. But it was also absolutely necessary, for the security of the marquis’s gold and silver plate, that the shepherdesses should possess, besides good looks, the very homely recommendation of a fair character. This last qualification proved, it is sad to say, to be the one small merit which the majority of the ladies willing to accept engagements at the palace did not possess. Day after day passed on; and the marquis’s steward only found more and more difficulty in obtaining the appointed number of trustworthy beauties. At last his resources failed him altogether; and he appeared in his master’s presence about a week before the night of the ball, to make the humiliating acknowledgment that he was entirely at his wits’ end. The total number of fair shepherdesses with fair characters whom he had been able to engage amounted only to twenty-three.
“Nonsense!” cried the marquis, irritably, as soon as the steward had made his confession. “I told you to get thirty girls, and thirty I mean to have. What’s the use of shaking your head when all their dresses are ordered? Thirty tunics, thirty wreaths, thirty pairs of sandals and silk stockings, thirty crooks, you scoundrel—and you have the impudence to offer me only twenty-three hands to hold them. Not a word! I won’t hear a word! Get me my thirty girls, or lose your place.” The marquis roared out this last terrible sentence at the top of his voice, and pointed peremptorily to the door.
The steward knew his master too well to remonstrate. He took his hat and cane, and went out. It was useless to look through the ranks of rejected volunteers again; there was not the slightest hope in that quarter. The only chance left was to call on all his friends in Pisa who had daughters out at service, and to try what he could accomplish, by bribery and persuasion, that way.
After a whole day occupied in solicitations, promises, and patient smoothing down of innumerable difficulties, the result of his efforts in the new direction was an accession of six more shepherdesses. This brought him on bravely from twenty-three to twenty-nine, and left him, at last, with only one anxiety—where was he now to find shepherdess number thirty?
He mentally asked himself that important question, as he entered a shady by-street in the neighborhood of the Campo Santo, on his way back to the Melani Palace. Sauntering slowly along in the middle of the road, and fanning himself with his handkerchief after the oppressive exertions of the day, he passed a young girl who was standing at the street door of one of the houses, apparently waiting for somebody to join her before she entered the building.
“Body of Bacchus!” exclaimed the steward (using one of those old Pagan ejaculations which survive in Italy even to the present day), “there stands the prettiest girl I have seen yet. If she would only be shepherdess number thirty, I should go home to supper with my mind at ease. I’ll ask her, at any rate. Nothing can be lost by asking, and everything may be gained. Stop, my dear,” he continued, seeing the girl turn to go into the house as he approached her. “Don’t be afraid of me. I am steward to the Marquis Melani, and well known in Pisa as an eminently respectable man. I have something to say to you which may be greatly for your benefit. Don’t look surprised; I am coming to the point at once. Do you want to earn a little money? honestly, of course. You don’t look as if you were very rich, child.”
“I am very poor, and very much in want of some honest work to do,” answered the girl, sadly.
“Then we shall suit each other to a nicety; for I have work of the pleasantest kind to give you, and plenty of money to pay for it. But before we say anything more about that, suppose you tell me first something about yourself—who you are, and so forth. You know who I am already.”
“I am only a poor work-girl, and my name is Nanina. I have nothing more, sir, to say about myself than that.”
“Do you belong to Pisa?”
“Yes, sir—at least, I did. But I have been away for some time. I was a year at Florence, employed in needlework.”
“All by yourself?”
“No, sir, with my little sister. I was waiting for her when you came up.”
“Have you never done anything else but needlework? never been out at service?”
“Yes, sir. For the last eight months I have had a situation to wait on a lady at Florence, and my sister (who is turned eleven, sir, and can make herself very useful) was allowed to help in the nursery.”
“How came you to leave this situation?”
“The lady and her family were going to Rome, sir. They would have taken me with them, but they could not take my sister. We are alone in the world, and we never have been parted from each other, and never shall be—so I was obliged to leave the situation.”
“And here you are, back at Pisa—with nothing to do, I suppose?”
“Nothing yet, sir. We only came back yesterday.”
“Only yesterday! You are a lucky girl, let me tell you, to have met with me. I suppose you have somebody in the town who can speak to your character?”
“The landlady of this house can, sir.”
“And who is she, pray?”
“Marta Angrisani, sir.”
“What! the well-known sick-nurse? You could not possibly have a better recommendation, child. I remember her being employed at the Melani Palace at the time of the marquis’s last attack of gout; but I never knew that she kept a lodging-house.”
“She and her daughter, sir, have owned this house longer than I can recollect. My sister and I have lived in it since I was quite a little child, and I had hoped we might be able to live here again. But the top room we used to have is taken, and the room to let lower down is far more, I am afraid, than we can afford.”
“How much is it?”
Nanina mentioned the weekly rent of the room in fear and trembling. The steward burst out laughing.
“Suppose I offered you money enough to be able to take that room for a whole year at once?” he said.
Nanina looked at him in speechless amazement.
“Suppose I offered you that?” continued the steward. “And suppose I only ask you in return to put on a fine dress and serve refreshments in a beautiful room to the company at the Marquis Melani’s grand ball? What should you say to that?”
Nanina said nothing. She drew back a step or two, and looked more bewildered than before.
“You must have heard of the ball,” said the steward, pompously; “the poorest people in Pisa have heard of it. It is the talk of the whole city.”
Still Nanina made no answer. To have replied truthfully, she must have confessed that “the talk of the whole city” had now no interest for her. The last news from Pisa that had appealed to her sympathies was the news of the Countess d’Ascoli’s death, and of Fabio’s departure to travel in foreign countries. Since then she had heard nothing more of him. She was as ignorant of his return to his native city as of all the reports connected with the marquis’s ball. Something in her own heart—some feeling which she had neither the desire nor the capacity to analyze—had brought her back to Pisa and to the old home which now connected itself with her tenderest recollections. Believing that Fabio was still absent, she felt that no ill motive could now be attributed to her return; and she had not been able to resist the temptation of revisiting the scene that had been associated with the first great happiness as well as with the first great sorrow of her life. Among all the poor people of Pisa, she was perhaps the very last whose curiosity could be awakened, or whose attention could be attracted by the rumor of gayeties at the Melani Palace.
But she could not confess all this; she could only listen with great humility and no small surprise, while the steward, in compassion for her ignorance, and with the hope of tempting her into accepting his offered engagement, described the arrangements of the approaching festival, and dwelt fondly on the magnificence of the Arcadian bowers, and the beauty of the shepherdesses’ tunics. As soon as he had done, Nanina ventured on the confession that she should feel rather nervous in a grand dress that did not belong to her, and that she doubted very much her own capability of waiting properly on the great people at the ball. The steward, however, would hear of no objections, and called peremptorily for Marta Angrisani to make the necessary statement as to Nanina’s character. While this formality was being complied with to the steward’s perfect satisfaction, La Biondella came in, unaccompanied on this occasion by the usual companion of all her walks, the learned poodle Scarammuccia.
“This is Nanina’s sister,” said the good-natured sick-nurse, taking the first opportunity of introducing La Biondella to the great marquis’s great man. “A very good, industrious little girl; and very clever at plaiting dinner-mats, in case his excellency should ever want any. What have you done with the dog, my dear?”
“I couldn’t get him past the pork butcher’s, three streets off,” replied La Biondella. “He would sit down and look at the sausages. I am more than half afraid he means to steal some of them.”
“A very pretty child,” said the steward, patting La Biondella on the cheek. “We ought to have her at the hall. If his excellency should want a Cupid, or a youthful nymph, or anything small and light in that way, I shall come back and let you know. In the meantime, Nanina, consider yourself Shepherdess Number Thirty, and come to the housekeeper’s room at the palace to try on your dress to-morrow. Nonsense! don’t talk to me about being afraid and awkward. All you’re wanted to do is to look pretty; and your glass must have told you you could do that long ago. Remember the rent of the room, my dear, and don’t stand in your light and your sister’s. Does the little girl like sweetmeats? Of course she does! Well, I promise you a whole box of sugar-plums to take home for her, if you will come and wait at the ball.”
“Oh, go to the ball, Nanina; go to the ball!” cried La Biondella, clapping her hands.
“Of course she will go to the ball,” said the nurse. “She would be mad to throw away such an excellent chance.”
Nanina looked perplexed. She hesitated a little, then drew Marta Angrisani away into a corner, and whispered this question to her:
“Do you think there will be any priests at the palace where the marquis lives?”
“Heavens, child, what a thing to ask!” returned the nurse. “Priests at a masked ball! You might as well expect to find Turks performing high mass in the cathedral. But supposing you did meet with priests at the palace, what then?”
“Nothing,” said Nanina, constrainedly. She turned pale, and walked away as she spoke. Her great dread, in returning to Pisa, was the dread of meeting with Father Rocco again. She had never forgotten her first discovery at Florence of his distrust of her. The bare thought of seeing him any more, after her faith in him had been shaken forever, made her feel faint and sick at heart.
“To-morrow, in the housekeeper’s room,” said the steward, putting on his hat, “you will find your new dress all ready for you.”
Nanina courtesied, and ventured on no more objections. The prospect of securing a home for a whole year to come among people whom she knew, reconciled her—influenced as she was also by Marta Angrisani’s advice, and by her sister’s anxiety for the promised present—to brave the trial of appearing at the ball.
“What a comfort to have it all settled at last,” said the steward, as soon as he was out again in the street. “We shall see what the marquis says now. If he doesn’t apologize for calling me a scoundrel the moment he sets eyes on Number Thirty, he is the most ungrateful nobleman that ever existed.”
Arriving in front of the palace, the steward found workmen engaged in planning the external decorations and illuminations for the night of the ball. A little crowd had already assembled to see the ladders raised and the scaffoldings put up. He observed among them, standing near the outskirts of the throng, a lady who attracted his attention (he was an ardent admirer of the fair sex) by the beauty and symmetry of her figure. While he lingered for a moment to look at her, a shaggy poodle-dog (licking his chops, as if he had just had something to eat) trotted by, stopped suddenly close to the lady, sniffed suspiciously for an instant, and then began to growl at her without the slightest apparent provocation. The steward advancing politely with his stick to drive the dog away, saw the lady start, and heard her exclaim to herself amazedly:
“You here, you beast! Can Nanina have come back to Pisa?”
This last exclamation gave the steward, as a gallant man, an excuse for speaking to the elegant stranger.
“Excuse me, madam,” he said, “but I heard you mention the name of Nanina. May I ask whether you mean a pretty little work-girl who lives near the Campo Santo?”
“The same,” said the lady, looking very much surprised and interested immediately.
“It may be a gratification to you, madam, to know that she has just returned to Pisa,” continued the steward, politely; “and, moreover, that she is in a fair way to rise in the world. I have just engaged her to wait at the marquis’s grand ball, and I need hardly say, under those circumstances, that if she plays her cards properly her fortune is made.”
The lady bowed, looked at her informant very intently and thoughtfully for a moment, then suddenly walked away without uttering a word.
“A curious woman,” thought the steward, entering the palace. “I must ask Number Thirty about her to-morrow.”
The death of Maddalena d’Ascoli produced a complete change in the lives of her father and her uncle. After the first shock of the bereavement was over, Luca Lomi declared that it would be impossible for him to work in his studio again—for some time to come at least—after the death of the beloved daughter, with whom every corner of it was now so sadly and closely associated. He accordingly accepted an engagement to assist in restoring several newly discovered works of ancient sculpture at Naples, and set forth for that city, leaving the care of his work-rooms at Pisa entirely to his brother.
On the master-sculptor’s departure, Father Rocco caused the statues and busts to be carefully enveloped in linen cloths, locked the studio doors, and, to the astonishment of all who knew of his former industry and dexterity as a sculptor, never approached the place again. His clerical duties he performed with the same assiduity as ever; but he went out less than had been his custom hitherto to the houses of his friends. His most regular visits were to the Ascoli Palace, to inquire at the porter’s lodge after the health of Maddalena’s child, who was always reported to be thriving admirably under the care of the best nurses that could be found in Pisa. As for any communications with his polite little friend from Florence, they had ceased months ago. The information—speedily conveyed to him—that Nanina was in the service of one of the most respectable ladies in the city seemed to relieve any anxieties which he might otherwise have felt on her account. He made no attempt to justify himself to her; and only required that his over-courteous little visitor of former days should let him know whenever the girl might happen to leave her new situation.
The admirers of Father Rocco, seeing the alteration in his life, and the increased quietness of his manner, said that, as he was growing older, he was getting more and more above the things of this world. His enemies (for even Father Rocco had them) did not scruple to assert that the change in him was decidedly for the worse, and that he belonged to the order of men who are most to be distrusted when they become most subdued. The priest himself paid no attention either to his eulogists or his depreciators. Nothing disturbed the regularity and discipline of his daily habits; and vigilant Scandal, though she sought often to surprise him, sought always in vain.
Such was Father Rocco’s life from the period of his niece’s death to Fabio’s return to Pisa.
As a matter of course, the priest was one of the first to call at the palace and welcome the young nobleman back. What passed between them at this interview never was precisely known; but it was surmised readily enough that some misunderstanding had taken place, for Father Rocco did not repeat his visit. He made no complaints of Fabio, but simply stated that he had said something, intended for the young man’s good, which had not been received in a right spirit; and that he thought it desirable to avoid the painful chance of any further collision by not presenting himself at the palace again for some little time. People were rather amazed at this. They would have been still more surprised if the subject of the masked ball had not just then occupied all their attention, and prevented their noticing it, by another strange event in connection with the priest. Father Rocco, some weeks after the cessation of his intercourse with Fabio, returned one morning to his old way of life as a sculptor, and opened the long-closed doors of his brother’s studio.
Luca Lomi’s former workmen, discovering this, applied to him immediately for employment; but were informed that their services would not be needed. Visitors called at the studio, but were always sent away again by the disappointing announcement that there was nothing new to show them. So the days passed on until Nanina left her situation and returned to Pisa. This circumstance was duly reported to Father Rocco by his correspondent at Florence; but, whether he was too much occupied among the statues, or whether it was one result of his cautious resolution never to expose himself unnecessarily to so much as the breath of detraction, he made no attempt to see Nanina, or even to justify himself toward her by writing her a letter. All his mornings continued to be spent alone in the studio, and all his afternoons to be occupied by his clerical duties, until the day before the masked ball at the Melani Palace.
Early on that day he covered over the statues, and locked the doors of the work-rooms once more; then returned to his own lodgings, and did not go out again. One or two of his friends who wanted to see him were informed that he was not well enough to be able to receive them. If they had penetrated into his little study, and had seen him, they would have been easily satisfied that this was no mere excuse. They would have noticed that his face was startlingly pale, and that the ordinary composure of his manner was singularly disturbed.
Toward evening this restlessness increased, and his old housekeeper, on pressing him to take some nourishment, was astonished to hear him answer her sharply and irritably, for the first time since she had been in his service. A little later her surprise was increased by his sending her with a note to the Ascoli Palace, and by the quick return of an answer, brought ceremoniously by one of Fabio’s servants. “It is long since he has had any communication with that quarter. Are they going to be friends again?” thought the housekeeper as she took the answer upstairs to her master.
“I feel better to-night,” he said as he read it; “well enough indeed to venture out. If any one inquires for me, tell them that I am gone to the Ascoli Palace.” Saying this, he walked to the door; then returned, and trying the lock of his cabinet, satisfied himself that it was properly secured; then went out.
He found Fabio in one of the large drawing-rooms of the palace, walking irritably backward and forward, with several little notes crumpled together in his hands, and a plain black domino dress for the masquerade of the ensuing night spread out on one of the tables.
“I was just going to write to you,” said the young man, abruptly, “when I received your letter. You offer me a renewal of our friendship, and I accept the offer. I have no doubt those references of yours, when we last met, to the subject of second marriages were well meant, but they irritated me; and, speaking under that irritation, I said words that I had better not have spoken. If I pained you, I am sorry for it. Wait! pardon me for one moment. I have not quite done yet. It seems that you are by no means the only person in Pisa to whom the question of my possibly marrying again appears to have presented itself. Ever since it was known that I intended to renew my intercourse with society at the ball to-morrow night, I have been persecuted by anonymous letters—infamous letters, written from some motive which it is impossible for me to understand. I want your advice on the best means of discovering the writers; and I have also a very important question to ask you. But read one of the letters first yourself; any one will do as a sample of the rest.”
Fixing his eyes searchingly on the priest, he handed him one of the notes. Still a little paler than usual, Father Rocco sat down by the nearest lamp, and shading his eyes, read these lines:
“COUNT FABIO—-It is the common talk of Pisa that you are likely, as a young man left with a motherless child, to marry again. Your having accepted an invitation to the Melani Palace gives a color of truth to this report. Widowers who are true to the departed do not go among all the handsomest single women in a city at a masked ball. Reconsider your determination, and remain at home. I know you, and I knew your wife, and I say to you solemnly, avoid temptation, for you must never marry again. Neglect my advice and you will repent it to the end of your life. I have reasons for what I say—serious, fatal reasons, which I cannot divulge. If you would let your wife lie easy in her grave, if you would avoid a terrible warning, go not to the masked ball!”
“I ask you, and I ask any man, if that is not infamous?” exclaimed Fabio, passionately, as the priest handed him back the letter. “An attempt to work on my fears through the memory of my poor dead wife! An insolent assumption that I want to marry again, when I myself have not even so much as thought of the subject at all! What is the secret object of this letter, and of the rest here that resemble it? Whose interest is it to keep me away from the ball? What is the meaning of such a phrase as, ‘If you would let your wife lie easy in her grave’? Have you no advice to give me—no plan to propose for discovering the vile hand that traced these lines? Speak to me! Why, in Heaven’s name, don’t you speak?”
The priest leaned his head on his hand, and, turning his face from the light as if it dazzled his eyes, replied in his lowest and quietest tones:
“I cannot speak till I have had time to think. The mystery of that letter is not to be solved in a moment. There are things in it that are enough to perplex and amaze any man!”
“What things?”
“It is impossible for me to go into details—at least at the present moment.”
“You speak with a strange air of secrecy. Have you nothing definite to say—no advice to give me?”
“I should advise you not to go to the ball.”
“You would! Why?”
“If I gave you my reasons, I am afraid I should only be irritating you to no purpose.”
“Father Rocco, neither your words nor your manner satisfy me. You speak in riddles; and you sit there in the dark with your face hidden from me—”
The priest instantly started up and turned his face to the light.
“I recommend you to control your temper, and to treat me with common courtesy,” he said, in his quietest, firmest tones, looking at Fabio steadily while he spoke.
“We will not prolong this interview,” said the young man, calming himself by an evident effort. “I have one question to ask you, and then no more to say.”
The priest bowed his head, in token that he was ready to listen. He still stood up, calm, pale, and firm, in the full light of the lamp.
“It is just possible,” continued Fabio, “that these letters may refer to some incautious words which my late wife might have spoken. I ask you as her spiritual director, and as a near relation who enjoyed her confidence, if you ever heard her express a wish, in the event of my surviving her, that I should abstain from marrying again?”
“Did she never express such a wish to you?”
“Never. But why do you evade my question by asking me another?”
“It is impossible for me to reply to your question.”
“For what reason?”
“Because it is impossible for me to give answers which must refer, whether they are affirmative or negative, to what I have heard in confession.”
“We have spoken enough,” said Fabio, turning angrily from the priest. “I expected you to help me in clearing up these mysteries, and you do your best to thicken them. What your motives are, what your conduct means, it is impossible for me to know, but I say to you, what I would say in far other terms, if they were here, to the villains who have written these letters—no menaces, no mysteries, no conspiracies, will prevent me from being at the ball to-morrow. I can listen to persuasion, but I scorn threats. There lies my dress for the masquerade; no power on earth shall prevent me from wearing it to-morrow night!” He pointed, as he spoke, to the black domino and half-mask lying on the table.
“No power onearth!” repeated Father Rocco, with a smile, and an emphasis on the last word. “Superstitious still, Count Fabio! Do you suspect the powers of the other world of interfering with mortals at masquerades?”
Fabio started, and, turning from the table, fixed his eyes intently on the priest’s face.
“You suggested just now that we had better not prolong this interview,” said Father Rocco, still smiling. “I think you were right; if we part at once, we may still part friends. You have had my advice not to go to the ball, and you decline following it. I have nothing more to say. Good-night.”
Before Fabio could utter the angry rejoinder that rose to his lips, the door of the room had opened and closed again, and the priest was gone.