Giannella was amazed at learning the next morning that she and Mariuccia were to wait on the Princess at ten o'clock. Bianchi called her into the study to give her the message, without any explanation or comment. Mariuccia had followed her to the door and listened attentively at the keyhole, so she had little to learn when the girl came out, grasped her arm excitedly, and dragged her back to the kitchen. There they stood and stared at one another in dumb perplexity. Mariuccia threw up her hands at last and turned away, as if giving the problem up.
Then Giannella broke out in agitated whispers: "What does it mean? She forgets all about us for three years at least—and now, just as she is going away, we are to be sure to go to her at ten o'clock. It must be something very extraordinary. Everything is in a bustle down there; they were packing the traveling carriages already when I went out to Mass. What can she want of us?"
"Better ask Pasquino,"[1]Mariuccia replied with atoss of the head, "I don't know. Perhaps the Princess means to take you to the country with her."
"That is very likely, is it not?" retorted Giannella, her eyes flashing with sudden wrath, "after banishing me from her presence—for nothing—all these years! I wish she had left me alone in the beginning. Why didn't you all let me be a servant, earning my living like other girls, poor like me, and not made miserable by being educated above their wretched station in life? What good did the reading and writing, the designing and embroidery, ever do me? Here I am, a grown woman, still as dependent as a baby or an idiot. No, I am not grateful to the Princess. If she began, she should have finished. I could do for her what dear Signora Dati, of good memory, did—I could write her letters and save her many steps, many annoyances—I could have been useful to her or some other lady. That was what Signora Dati meant for me—she told me so once. But no. The Princess takes a dislike to me, and I am dropped out of sight. I would not take one step for her now. I will not go down this morning."
By this time Giannella's cheeks were flaming and tears of anger were brimming in her eyes. She stood, tense and panting, her hands behind her, the incarnation of sudden revolt. Mariuccia was appalled. The revelation of slow secret suffering would have grieved her to the heart at any other time, but now it was swallowed up in horror at the audacity of the girl's declaration. Not obey the commands of a Cestaldini, of Mariuccia's own Princess, the greatestpersonage in her world except the Holy Father himself! And then, this outburst of black ingratitude, why, it was like Lucifer rebelling against the Divine mandates! The stern old peasant felt that she must conquer this demon of insurrection on the spot. She came and put both her hands on Giannella's shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes. The hands felt heavy as flatirons, but the girl stiffened her shoulders under their weight, and the gray eyes were bright and burning, for all the tears, as they met the angry black ones.
"You sometimes say that I have been like a mother to you," Mariuccia began, her deep masculine tones rumbling like approaching thunder. "Do you know what I would do if I were really your mother? For all that you are long and large, I would take that little stick over there," she pointed to a broomstick in the corner, "and give you a beating you would never forget. That is how we teach obedience and respect in the Castelli. But because you are not my child—though God knows I have loved you as if you were—" The voice choked and a dimness came over the old eyes that still never flinched from their steady, reproachful gaze.
Then Giannella's arms were flung round her neck, and the golden head was buried on her shoulder, and the young heart was weeping out its storm of love and sorrow and remorse against the old one.
"Mariuccia mia," she sobbed, "you have been an angel to me, and I am a wretch, an ingrate, but I love you. It was not true, not a single word. I will doanything you wish, anything—even go down to the Princess."
"What are you about, you females?" cried a sharp voice in the passage. "Do you know that it is half-past nine? Make haste and get ready to go to her Excellency." Then the study door was slammed impatiently. Evidently the master was not in a good temper this morning.
When the two women presented themselves at the Princess's door at five minutes to ten, Giannella was led away alone, and Mariuccia, much against her will, left to wait in the anteroom. All Giannella's rage had evaporated by this time and the old awe, the sense of being dominated by greater powers, stole over her as she followed the attendant through the series of remembered rooms, silent and splendid, darkened to keep out the heat, and pleasantly cool compared with the burning air of the courtyard outside. She recalled her first childish impression that the place must be a church; then, sooner than she expected it, she found herself standing before the Princess in the same old attitude of frightened submission. She knew that she would do whatever was required of her if the regal black-robed woman in the great chair by the table had any commands to issue. She had no particular curiosity now as to what they might prove to be; she only felt the oppressive weight of authority made visible.
But the command, when it came, gave her a most disagreeable shock. The Princess, with the gravity of a judge summing up the case against a prisoner,opened her discourse by stating the facts. An honorable proposal had been made to Giannella by the kind and upright gentleman to whom she already owed so much, and the judge was grieved to learn that it had been met in a most unsuitable spirit. No opening was given to the prisoner in which to express any private opinion, no loophole in the argument permitted escape from the logical conclusion—namely, that a young girl alone in the world was committing a great sin in refusing the protection of a Christian husband. Such a course could only point to one thing, an innate levity of character (the Princess, remembering her former apprehensions about Onorato, looked sternly condemnatory as she said this), a levity which, unchecked, must end in a disastrous downward career. She spoke of the horrible temptations to which needy and unprotected young women are exposed, warned her listener of the abominable designs harbored by men who tried to make poor girls believe that they admired them; contrasted Signor Bianchi's honorable behavior with that of such base deceivers; and finally asked Giannella to contemplate the picture of her own destiny should the Professor, justly incensed at her ingratitude, refuse her in future the shelter of his roof.
The speaker felt that this was not a time to mince matters, and she made her meaning so cruelly clear, that Giannella, who had never had her attention drawn to the degraded aspects of human nature, was overwhelmed with shame and horror, and found it impossible to control the flood of tears which rose to her eyes. The Princess, seeing that she had gained herpoint with the girl, sent for Mariuccia, who had been fuming in the anteroom for three-quarters of an hour. When she made her appearance, Giannella was standing beside the big chair, still weeping bitterly; the Princess was holding her hand quite kindly. The prisoner had repented, and was now to be forgiven in form.
"There is nothing to cry about now, my child," the judge was saying; "you are naturally sorry for having shown yourself so ungrateful and unamiable to the good man who has done so much for you and only asks to do more. But now you understand things better—how exceedingly fortunate it is for you, who have no relations and no dowry, to find an honest Christian husband to protect you from the dangers I have been describing and which would certainly assail you if you were left alone in the world. Now go home and tell Signor Bianchi that you will do your best to be a good wife to him. Believe me, respect is a better foundation for happiness in matrimony than any sentimental affection such as young people sometimes permit themselves to dream of. Heaven will grant you the necessary graces for fulfilling your duty in the married state; and here is a little present"—the Princess picked up a closed envelope from the table and put it into Giannella's hand—"with which you can buy your wedding dress—you had better get a black silk, it will be useful to you afterwards. Now wait outside while I speak with this good woman a moment."
Giannella, too much overcome to say a word, kissed the extended hand and withdrew to digest her misery in the outer room while Mariuccia should receive herown particular scolding. Giannella's world had slipped from under her feet. Even her trust in Rinaldo was shaken. As for speaking of him—her adored, beautiful Rinaldo—to the terrible Princess—she felt that it would have been easier and quite as useful to jump out of the window. Perhaps he was in reality like the wicked men of whose existence she had shudderingly learned; but that was hard to believe. Only that morning he had looked at her with such a light of truth in his dark eyes, had told her so joyfully about the big picture—and then, with such poignant regret, that the purchaser was leaving in a few days and insisted on its being completed, so that every moment of daylight must go to it, and Rinaldo feared he could not even come to Mass till next Sunday. Would Giannella remember to pray for him till then? He would be needing it so badly. And Giannella had laughingly replied that the next day was Sunday, when he must certainly come and pray for himself. And on that they had shaken hands for the first time. It was like sealing a compact. And when his fingers touched hers he had opened his lips as if to speak—and had kept back the words with an evident effort. Oh, she knew what they would have been. But of course he was too honorable to let them pass his lips before he had Mariuccia's sanction. Did Mariuccia dream of anything? Was it possible that she was even now making out some kind of a case for her wretched Giannella against the plausible, desirable, unendurable Professor? What a time she was in there! And then the door opened and Mariuccia came towardsher with averted eyes and a silent shake of the head, and Giannella saw that all was lost. Her only ally had succumbed, like herself. Who were they, poor women of the people, to argue or reason with authority in high places?
They returned home silently, Giannella too sick at heart to discuss the sentence which destiny seemed to have passed upon her, and Mariuccia so angry with everything and everybody that she was ferociously sulky all day. The Professor wisely stayed away till the evening, so as to give the Princess's admonitions time to sink in. When he came back for supper, expecting to find Giannella all submission and repentance, he was curtly informed that she was not well and had been sent to bed. And Mariuccia would not tell him a single word of what had taken place at the interview of the morning. What was more, he caught a glimpse of a magnificent pile of fruit and vegetables on the kitchen table (one of Rinaldo's now constant sendings from the vigna), and when his tray appeared it was disappointingly empty of what he considered his dues of the bounties which his servant's relatives seemed to have been sending her of late with such praiseworthy generosity. This symptom appeared to him most ominous. It could only indicate a most unusual state of things and pointed clearly to open revolt. Well, with the Princess away the worst danger had passed; he argued only good from Giannella's indisposition; she was preparing to meet him in the right spirit, and a few hours must be granted her in which to accustom her mind to the new dispensation.Now for the article on the Cardinal's inestimable fragment.
Giannella herself could scarcely have catalogued her thoughts as she sat the next morning at the window of the workroom; she only knew that she wished to keep out of the padrone's way and that to this inner fortress he never ventured to penetrate. She had a headache and a heartache and felt quite ill enough to justify Mariuccia's statement. She almost hoped, with the delightful audacity of youth, that she was going to die. That appeared to be the shortest and most becoming way out of her troubles.
Just as she had reached this conclusion there was a shadow of wings on the window ledge, and then Themistocles alighted there, his head on one side and an alluring air of hope and mystery in his bearing. Giannella reached down for the little basket of grain which always stood under the work-table, and when she raised her head again the pigeon hopped in and began to peck from her hand. Suddenly she gave a little cry and leaned over to look closer. There was a bit of ribbon under the collar round his neck, and, peeping out from beneath one wing, a minute fold of paper. He had brought her a message from Rinaldo! With trembling fingers she untied the ribbon, and drew forth from its plumed resting-place a three-cornered note, which she opened in a tumult of happiness. The color flushed up to her temples and her eyes shone when she found a leaf of verbena pasted to the paper, and two words written beneath, "Amicizia eterna."
Eternal friendship! That was all he had dared tosay, but how much it meant. Love in the respectful dress of friendship—that meant eternal love. Giannella raised the little leaf to her cheek, smelt its delicate perfume, brought it to her lips and kissed it once, twice, a dozen times. Its fragrance seemed to speak of all happy things, it gave her back her courage, her buoyancy, her very life. Should she answer? Ah no, that would be too bold; besides, there was no word in her vocabulary that would express the delicate ecstacy that filled her heart. Yet she would send something—a leaf of the rose geranium there, sweet as the verbena itself, and meaning, as she remembered from old sentimental friendships at the convent, "Constancy under suffering." There was nothing unmaidenly in that.
Her nimble fingers, still so white and fine, gathered the leaf, folded it in thin paper, and attached it to the ribbon. Themistocles was busily engaged on the Indian corn when she tied it on. Having picked up the last grain he perched for a moment on the window ledge, glanced this way and that, then flung himself off into the quivering sunshot blue of the noon, rose, and flew steadily away over the monastery roof.
"You make me a liar!" exclaimed Mariuccia, coming in a few minutes later and looking at the suddenly recovered invalid with delighted astonishment. "I told the padrone you were ill."
"So I am," replied Giannella, laughing for joy, "too ill to see him to-day. Oh, Mariuccia, if you love me just a little let me stay in here. I cannot wait on the padrone this morning."
"Rest easy, figlia mia, you shall not," the old woman promised. "I told him you were hot and cold, and consumed with fever. You looked like that an hour or two ago, so I shall not get a sore tongue this time."
"It is all true," cried Giannella, "I burn with fever—but it is a good fever. I feel happy—I want to sing."
"Better so," growled the other; "since it seems you must marry him, I am glad you are pleased. It is another thing for me. I cannot say that I am. What has made you change your mind so suddenly? Are you thinking of the silk dress and the confetti?"
All the color left Giannella's face and she gave a little cry. "Madonna mia buona, I had forgotten! Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?" And she covered her eyes with her hands and rocked herself in her chair. She had forgotten—for a few happy moments—all that had gone before—the Princess's manifesto, her own conviction while listening to it that there could be no right action in opposition to so much sense and piety—her remorse for her own selfishness and willfulness, the perception of the duty which stood unbendingly before her.
She rose and paced the narrow room, all her senses at war. Who could help her? Who would tell her which was right and to be obeyed—her own intense repulsion for Bianchi, strengthened a thousandfold by the upspringing of the new love, the first love, all unbaptized as yet, but drawing her with every chord of the spirit, every fiber of the flesh, to her naturalmate? or the fiat of those whom God had placed in authority over her, the Princess, the Professor? She thought of taking her case to her confessor, Padre Anselmo, over there at San Severino; but how could she lay it honestly before the dim-eyed old saint, who seemed already to be hovering so far above earth that he could only see things from above, as the angels see them? How could she bare her heart to him, confess that it had become a shrine of glory where a thousand love lamps burned round one worshiped picture, the picture of a man she had known but a few weeks and who had spoken no word to her or to her natural guardians to show that he meant to ask her in marriage?
She felt that she should die of shame if she had to tell that, for who would ever understand? In days gone by, before she had seen love's face, she had listened, first hopefully and then despondingly, to Mariuccia's prophecies about the good young husband who would come to seek for her. Then, marriage had presented itself as a mere change of state, very slightly connected with the shadowy wooer. She had never read a novel, never spoken with a person in love; the relations of husband and wife had been wrapped for her in the impenetrable veil so strongly insisted on in the Castelli, where girls at that time grew up to womanhood believing what their mothers told them—that the mere breath of man, a kiss or even a sigh, was all that was needed to make a maid a mother. Trusting to this complete impersonality of the married relation, it might have been possible for the Giannella of threemonths earlier to bow her pretty head to fate and accept even Carlo Bianchi as a husband, had authority voiced its mandate then; but now, now the new music, new yet tenderly familiar, was sounding in her ears; life lay before her like an unblown rose that every hour of sunshine was kissing into bloom; a new Giannella had been born, and her every heart-beat cried aloud, "I will live, I will live."
FOOTNOTE:[1]The mutilated statue which served as a gazette of public opinion. All lampoons, caricatures, etc. were pasted on the pedestal in the night, and there was generally a little crowd gathered round it in the morning. The questions were affixed to another torso called Marforio, near by, and "Pasquino" displayed the answers.
[1]The mutilated statue which served as a gazette of public opinion. All lampoons, caricatures, etc. were pasted on the pedestal in the night, and there was generally a little crowd gathered round it in the morning. The questions were affixed to another torso called Marforio, near by, and "Pasquino" displayed the answers.
[1]The mutilated statue which served as a gazette of public opinion. All lampoons, caricatures, etc. were pasted on the pedestal in the night, and there was generally a little crowd gathered round it in the morning. The questions were affixed to another torso called Marforio, near by, and "Pasquino" displayed the answers.
For two days Rinaldo adhered to his resolution of spending all the daylight hours at his easel, but by the third morning his depression was so great that he resolved to resume the good habit of going to early Mass. He had made one or two trespassing excursions to Fra Tommaso's loggia in the hope of catching a glimpse of Giannella at her window; but her place was empty and there was a strange air of deadness, of unnatural orderliness about the few details of the room which came within his line of vision. At once a thousand fears assailed him. Was she ill? Had she gone away? Had his diffident little greeting brought trouble upon her? He had been wildly happy over her mute answer to it, but now he began to ponder as to whether it had not some hidden meaning which he, unversed in flower language, had perhaps not understood. He must find out at once. Very likely Sora Amalia could tell him. Women set store by these pretty mysteries, and although he could hardly imagine the stout mistress of the dairy as sending a love letter in flowers to its red-faced master, yet she had been young once, and probably very sentimental. He had heard that sentimental people were usually inclined to grow fat. He would run down and ask her, very guardedly of course, whether she could help him. And then he might get sometidings of Giannella; she and Mariuccia called there almost every day for one thing or another.
So when evening drew on and the sun was sinking, a ball of smoldering fire, behind heavy clouds in the west, Rinaldo said good-night to the pink-cheeked cardinal and descended to the shop, where darkness would have reigned already but for one smoky lamp. The heat inside was suffocating, and Sora Amalia, as she put things in order for the night, mopped her heated face with the corner of a long-suffering apron which seemed to have been applied to many and alien uses during the day. The good woman brightened up at the sight of a customer so late and bustled about joyfully to get the eggs and cheese which Rinaldo made the pretext for his visit.
"The signorino does his own cooking?" she inquired; "that must be a great trouble. It is all to his advantage in one way, of course, since he would never get such miraculously fresh stuff as this at a trattoria. But it must make many steps, much work—and in this hot weather too."
"It saves me four hot walks a day," Rinaldo replied, "and also much money. Those trattori are all brigands. They have an art, most diabolical, of dressing up coarse food in disguising sauces and giving it grand names. It is like a veglione in carnival—you never know what is really under the mask. I am sure I have many a time eaten goat's flesh and paid for lamb."
"Of course you have," said Sora Amaliasympathetically. "Poverino! What you want is a nice clever little wife to see to things for you. Has your good Signora Mamma not chosen one for you yet?"
"My Signora Mamma is a long way off," Rinaldo answered, "and, to tell you a secret, I mean to choose a wife for myself. How does one go about it, Sora Amalia? I am shy, and dreadfully afraid of making some young lady very angry by my stupidity. How did Sor Augusto begin when he wanted to make love to you?"
Sora Amalia crossed her arms over her ample bosom and meditated for a moment. "I am trying to remember," she said; "ah yes—he was in the pork trade in those days, and he sent me a paper of sausages. They were a cream! I ate them all, and, capperi, but I was ill afterwards!" She chuckled at the recollection.
This was a long way off from the language of flowers. Rinaldo tried another opening. "How sweet your carnations smell," he remarked, pulling one out of the glass and dangling it before his nose. "Garofoli—what does the name mean, I wonder?"
"Married happiness," she replied promptly. "Are you looking for numbers to play in the lotto?"
He caught at the idea. "Why yes, that is just what I do want. I thought of a little ambo for next Saturday."
"Benone, here is the book," and she pulled a ragged volume out from under the counter and held it close to the light. "I will find them for you. Here is the place. Garofolo, 81, you had better write it down."Rinaldo gravely produced a pencil and scribbled on his cuff. "Now," she went on, "what is the second object?"
"I will have another flower," he said, "a geranium leaf blew on to my loggia this morning. Can you find the number for that?"
"Oh yes, here it is on the same page—geranium, 29—odd numbers both. You will draw something, signorino."
"That which is to be, will be," he replied, "but has this one a bad meaning? That might bring me ill-luck."
Sora Amalia turned to an index at the end of the worn evangel of fortune and ran her finger down a list. "I don't know that you would call it bad exactly," she informed him, "but to me it smells of misfortune. 'Constancy under suffering.'"
"Madonna mia!" cried the young man with such distress in his voice that the woman looked up in surprise. He had changed color and was leaning heavily with both hands on the counter. His adviser hastened to comfort him.
"Come! come," she said soothingly, "do not let yourself be agitated. We will choose something else for you. Sora Rosa's chair broke down with her this morning and she went plump into a basket of cherries. A marmalade it was, when she got up! I will find the number for chair."
"No, no, I will not play in the lottery this week, Sora Amalia," and Rinaldo drew the book from her hand. "Listen, there is something else I want to askyou. Did Sora Mariuccia come in this morning? I am wondering whether she got the fruit I told my vignarolo to take her yesterday. That poor man is of a stupidity sometimes."
"She said nothing about it to me," replied Sora Amalia, falling into the trap at once; "she seemed in a great hurry and pretty cross too. I asked her what was the matter, and she said Giannella was ill—oh, nothing serious, just the effect of the scirocco. Do not alarm yourself, signorino. Listen to a fool and I will tell you something." She leaned over and whispered in his ear, "It is probably a disease of the heart, and there is an easy remedy for it."
She looked so serious that Rinaldo caught her hand and cried:
"Tell me, what is it? I would walk a hundred miles to get it for her. What is the remedy?"
"A pound of sausages!" Sora Amalia broke into a peal of laughter. But Rinaldo fled, leaving his purchases behind him.
The next morning he came down to the church and hung about the street a little while in the hope of seeing Mariuccia, but she did not appear, and he climbed back to his studio and began work with a heavy heart. Later in the day he felt that he must have news of Giannella, and, reflecting that he had a perfect right to go and ask for them, even from the Professor himself, went boldly to the Palazzo Santafede and stood once more before the green door, this time with a beating heart and a certain hesitation as to ringing the bell. The notion of encountering the master ofthe house was extremely repellent to him. Yet that was precisely what happened, for as he put his hand out towards the bell, the door opened and Bianchi emerged in a hurry, nearly knocking down the new arrival. As each started back with protests and apologies, their eyes met, and Rinaldo felt himself again possessed by the rampant antipathy he had experienced on his first view of the Professor. No reason is asked or given for such impressions in Rome. "Sympathy," "Antipathy," these terms cover everything, and to fight against the sentiments they inspire is equal to flying in the face of Providence. So the two men glared at each other for a moment, the usual conventionalities arrested on their lips. Then Bianchi inquired coldly, "What can I do to serve you?"
"If you will so far favor me, sir," Rinaldo replied, "I would wish to ask after the Signorina Giannella. I hear with deep regret that she is unwell."
A slow flush rose to the Professor's cheeks. Who was this good-looking, well-dressed young man, and what possible right had he to be interested in Giannella's health? What had been going on, that he should even know her name? A storm of suspicion and anger swept over him at the discovery of what could be nothing but some love intrigue, hidden from him by the women with abominable cunning. His gorge rose so that he could hardly reply with any show of self-restraint.
"I ought to be much obliged for this kind interest in a member of my family"—Bianchi had fairly good manners as a rule, but he could not keep a sneerout of his tone—"especially as I have not the honor of knowing your respected name." He paused, and Rinaldo, too angry to speak, drew a card from his pocket and held it out with a stiff bow. The other took it without glancing at it and continued, "I really cannot understand why the young lady's health should concern a total stranger. Perhaps you will be so kind as to explain?"
He was still standing in the open doorway, and the impertinence of not asking the visitor to enter was too much for Rinaldo's hot little temper. "I explain nothing to persons wanting in common civility," he retorted; "I should like to speak with Sora Mariuccia."
For an answer the Professor stepped back into the passage and slammed the door. Poor Giannella, lying on her bed at the other end of the house, gave a cry of alarm and pressed her hands to her aching temples. Mariuccia came down the passage to scold her bad boy. "Have you got no heart, padrone? Have I not told you that Giannella has fever, that she must be kept quiet? And there you go, slamming the door as if you wanted to bring these old walls down on our heads. Have a little consideration for that poor sick child."
"Sick, indeed," snarled Bianchi, worked up to a frenzy by his new suspicions; "don't tell lies. There is nothing the matter with her but temper—and overeating. You give her too much meat, and that young blood makes itself into fire at this season. And you spoil her and humor her, till she thinks she is the mistress of the house already. I'll teach her better soon, and you too, and if you don't care about the lessonyou can go and find another master. Do you understand?"
And he flung off into his study, slamming the door, this time with vicious satisfaction.
Mariuccia shook her fist at it. "I knew this was coming," she muttered. "You want to marry Giannella, so that she shall cook and wash and patch for you gratis, and be starved to death into the bargain. And I, who have served you twenty years and have saved you hundreds of scudi, besides nursing you when you were ill and telling everybody, for the honor of the house, fine Christian lies about your being such a good master—I am to be turned out on the pavement to go and beg for new service in my old age. No, Professore mio bello, that is not going to happen. Rest easy, my son, you will not marry a new cook and you will not get rid of the old one. Leave it to me."
Giannella was really ailing now; the improvement which had surprised Mariuccia had been short-lived. The summer was long and oppressive and the scirocco had hung over the city for weeks past, stifling and heavy, an invisible pall shutting off all freshness and sucking the life out of man and beast. The older people felt it less, but to the young it was a horrible trial; little children blanched and faded away; boys and girls moved listlessly and wearily; and to those in the full tide of their youthful vitality it was like a poison absorbed with every breath. Giannella, the child of northerners, had not the yielding wiriness of the Latin constitution. She fought against lassitude and ratedherself for idleness when, in the hot hours of the day, while three-quarters of the population was wisely taking its siesta, she tried task after task and dropped them all, from sheer fatigue. And now the troubles at home, the mysterious persecutions of the padrone, Mariuccia's only too natural breakdowns of temper—all these irritations on the one hand, and on the other the disturbing happiness of first love and the fear that it ought to be renounced—these things were too much for the white northern rose set to achieve its growth in the hot south, and Giannella broke down. Fever and its attendant demon, headache, had fastened upon her; for one day she lay in the dark back room, and then, feeling that she should go crazy there, she begged Mariuccia to make up a bed for her in the little workroom where at any rate the window admitted something to breathe. So Mariuccia settled her comfortably, closed the venetians and left her to herself, only looking in from time to time to bring her a sip of lemonade or turn her crumpled pillow. The summer fever was a familiar ill, and the old woman knew just what to do for it. It would pass—she had no anxiety on that score. Her whole mind was turned to something else, the discovery of some means by which to cure her padrone of the mad caprice which was destroying the peace of the household and would inevitably break up the household itself unless something were done to snap the spell.
For a spell it was, an "incanto," a cursed enchantment, cast by that stranger who had visited him some time ago but who now came no more. Yes, she hadbeen right in fastening the blame of it on him. Again she counted the days and weeks, with all the difficulty that besets the uneducated in any attempt at accuracy, and assured herself that she had not been mistaken. It was just two days after his first visit that the padrone had discovered that Giannella cooked polpetti so beautifully—that was the beginning of his symptoms. Yes, the strange lawyer had brought the trouble (managgia to him and the best of his little dead); he had woven the spell and, according to all the canons of black magic, he alone must remove it. The only other cure would be an exorcism in form, and Mariuccia doubted whether the master in his present naughty state of mind would admit the priest and acolyte into the house, much less stand still to be sprinkled with holy water and have the prayers said over him.
So the stranger must be found and coaxed or bribed or terrorized into undoing his work. Mariuccia had no personal fear of him and no doubts of her success, could she only lay her hand upon him. If Domine Dio would but keep His Hand on her head so that she should not choke with rage before she had said her say, that say would open the lawyer's eyes to the punishments awaiting the servants of the Fiend. Cipicchia! She would describe his future and that of all his descendants, as well as the present torture of his ancestors for his misdoing, in terms so scorching that the boldest miscreant's courage must give way under them. All the splendidly vivid descriptions of hell that she had listened to in church when some Passionist Father was invited topreach repentance during Lent had been stored up in her memory, clear and sequent, as it is only possible for spoken words to be stored in minds which have always depended on oral instruction alone. Each grizzly, terrifying detail was as much a fact to Mariuccia as the visible surroundings of her daily life.
"Oh, give him to me, Madonna mia bella," she prayed, "and I will teach him something for the good of his soul, besides obtaining the cure of my poor padroncino! Tell me a little—is it his fault? How should he, good pacific man, with his blind eyes that never seem to see anything but his books and his stones—how should he recognize the emissary of Satan, in that nice frock coat too, and with such pleasant manners? That young man would have deceived anybody except an angel or a saint. Now, if I find him, I will light a candle of three pounds' weight—think of that, how grand it will look—over there at your altar in San Severino! I will indeed, if I have to go without food for a week to buy it."
Having made this heroic promise, Mariuccia felt better. She would be shown the way—who ever appealed to the Mother of Mercy in vain? And as she went cheerily about the humble tasks which made the sum of her life, a light came to her. She and Giannella must have a man to help them, a man who could go about in the streets and public places and seek out their enemy for them, as they themselves could not possibly do. And the man was there. Who but that kind, clever Signorino Goffi, who spoke so amiably, so condescendingly, not only to Giannella—smallwonder in that, she was the prettiest bit of sugar in Rome—but to poor old Mariuccia Botti, who was little accustomed to courtesy and attention and had not made a new friend in twenty years.
Yes, she would tell him all about it, and he, so instructed, so intelligent, would certainly do what was required. Here was the answer to her prayer already. She would take the rest for granted and buy that candle to-morrow. The blessed Madonna would not let a poor old woman beat her in generosity—spend all that money in vain. That would hardly be delicate, and delicacy, the most exquisite consideration for the feelings of others, was, as Mariuccia knew, one of the Divine characteristics, and could always be counted upon, if poor mortals were only willing to do their part.
Giannella was not the only person who was suffering from the effects of the scirocco. Across the way good Fra Tommaso was weighed down by unaccustomed spiritual depression hitherto unknown to his cheerful nature. He did not ascribe it to the weather, but to the small progress he was making towards the saintliness which the Cardinal, thirty years before, had pointed out to him as his goal. Padre Anselmo had done the same every week since then; and Fra Tommaso confessed to himself, with many misgivings, that he was woefully far away from it still. Twice lately he had lost his temper with the schoolboy who served the first Mass; this morning he had been so carried away as to box the youngster's ears for trying to trip him up as he came out of the sacristy; also he had had more distractions than usual of late, and only last Saturday had made up his mind that he would break the bonds which held him to the world at one blow—and not look at a single face in the church. This had been hard work indeed, but he had succeeded in keeping his eyes on the ground as he went about his duties, and had not even looked up when somebody knocked over a chair. Still he was very unhappy, and when the midday gun boomed from Sant' Angelo found it hard to put much spirit into his bell-ringing. That blessed fellow over at SantaEulalia would have it all his own way to-day, for Fra Tommaso's arms ached, and his peals trailed off into silence while all the other belfries were clanging with sound. As they ceased he heard his rival still ding-donging it across the river, and it was with a dreadful sense of deficiency and defeat that he closed the church and climbed the long flights to his loggia.
As he emerged from the semi-darkness of the stairs into the blaze of light and heat on the roof he sank down in the strip of shade by the doorstep of his room and leaned back, weary and breathless, against the lintel. How hot and sweet the "basilica" was smelling there in its box on the parapet, and how pleasantly the perfume mingled with that of the cabbage soup simmering confidentially on the charcoal inside the room! Ah, it was pleasant up here; the world and its temptations lay six flights below; no distractions could climb as high as this, thank Heaven.
His pigeons came fluttering down from the eaves to welcome him, and hopped about, anxiously waiting for their largesse of corn. He was about to rise and fetch it when he glanced up and saw that one of the number had not joined the rest, but perched on a flower-pot with averted head as if in a fit of bad temper. Fra Tommaso feared it must be ailing and, getting up stiffly, prepared to capture it. As he moved, the others gathered eagerly round his feet, their burnished plumage giving out splendid glints of purple and green in the sun. The old man bent down to them laughing. "Patience, patience, you gluttonous ones," he said, "you shall have it all in good time."
Then he rubbed his eyes and looked at them again. All the seven were there, yes, seven. He looked up at the parapet, and there, viciously pulling a grand red carnation to pieces, sat an eighth, an audacious stranger who evidently intended to make himself at home.
Out came Fra Tommaso's head from the strip of shade, the sun causing him to blink painfully and showing the deep lines on his dark old face and the greenish seams of his worn robe. With outstretched hand he cautiously approached his visitor; but the caution was thrown away, for the strange bird landed on his shoulder and began playfully pecking at his grizzled hair, murmuring soft little sounds as if to entreat his indulgence. It made no resistance when he lifted it off to see it closer, but as he did so, his fingers came in contact with metal, with ribbon—what was this? He almost let the creature go in his amazement, when he discovered that it wore a tiny silver collar and that a ribbon, slender as a thread, was attached to the collar and passed under one wing. With shaking hand he pulled at the silk, and then almost reeled in surprise, for out came a fold of paper with writing showing through its thin tissue. Holy Saints preserve us! What portent was this?
His first impulse was one of fear. He moved a step to hurl the uncanny creature over the parapet; then curiosity overpowered him. He must see what was written on the paper. He knew that he should have no more peace of mind unless he did. Clumsily he got the missive free and opened it with knotty fingers thathad never handled a love letter before. All was dim till he pulled out his horn spectacles and fixed them on his nose; then, careless of the sun that was beating on his bare head, deaf to the cries of his faithful retainers clamoring for food, he read this surprising message:
"Angel of my heart, for three days I have not seen thy beautiful face. I expire of anguish. I consume with torment. When shall I behold thee again? Ah, let it be soon, or I shall throw myself into the river. I cannot support existence parted from thee. Thine for all eternity.R."
"Angel of my heart, for three days I have not seen thy beautiful face. I expire of anguish. I consume with torment. When shall I behold thee again? Ah, let it be soon, or I shall throw myself into the river. I cannot support existence parted from thee. Thine for all eternity.
R."
Now indeed Fra Tommaso's head reeled and he had to put out a hand to the parapet to keep himself from falling. He nearly knocked over the cherished lemon-tree, and as he bumped against it was aware of the unknown bird perched on a branch, gazing at him with a wicked, knowing gleam in its bright eyes. The sacristan recoiled in horror. What demon was this, assailing him in his old age with lures which he had bravely renounced in his distant youth? No other thought occurred to him than that he had been singled out for supernatural trial by the powers of darkness; as soon as he could collect his senses he breathed a fervent prayer to dear Saint Anthony of the many temptations to preserve him from yielding a hair's-breadth to their wiles.
This was instantly effectual, for the unblessed visitor suddenly spread its wings, rose up into the air andfluttered away over the roof. Fra Tommaso breathed more easily for a moment; then he realized that he still retained the missive of evil in his hand. Ah, it must be destroyed at once. In his haste to reach the fire he stumbled over the uneven bricks, startling his own innocent pigeons so that they scurried away from under his feet. Once inside his room he almost ran to the square of bricks in the corner where the charcoal was burning in one opening, lifted off the earthenware pot with its cabbage soup bubbling so appetizingly, and dropped the communication of the Fiend among the coals. Then, as if fearing that it would fly out in his face, he replaced the pot firmly. He had conquered the first assault of the enemy at one blow, but he felt that he must be on the alert for the next attack.
Exhausted with so many emotions, he sat down, wiping his face, to collect his thoughts. What dreadful sin or weakness had he fallen into of late? What inner traitor had opened his heart's door to the adversary? Poor Fra Tommaso was conscious of having battled rather manfully against his besetting sin, his love of watching the congregation, of weaving his own little stories about the bright young faces and the tired old ones, his sympathy for the widow who always cried a little at Mass, and even for the pretty, naughty girl who had actually passed a note from her prayer-book into the hand of the young man who paused for a moment beside her chair. He had tried not to wonder what could be the matter over there with Giannella, that the blinds of her workroom window, whence she had often waved a smiling greetingto her old friend the sacristan, should be tightly closed—and that neither she nor Mariuccia should have come to the church for some days. He was sure he had been faithful to last Saturday's resolve to keep his eyes on the ground as he came and went. Last Saturday, and this was Tuesday. Three days. The period mentioned in that wicked letter!
The terrible conviction was forced upon him that his tempter was some member of the congregation who had noticed his refusal to look around and, aided by the powers of darkness, was taking means to shake his resolution. "For three days I have not seen thy beautiful face." There was not a mirror in the whole of the San Severino establishment, and Fra Tommaso had not seen his own face for some thirty years. He put up his hand and felt it in a wondering way. It seemed very rough and stubbly; the pious barber who shaved him for nothing only called on Saturday evenings. Surely none but the Father of Lies could tell him that it was beautiful!
Well, that enemy could be subdued. He rose wearily; the first weapon to employ being self-denial, Fra Tommaso sternly removed his dinner from the fire and put it out of sight in the cupboard. Then, instead of taking his siesta, he went down and set about cleaning one or two corners of the church with such good will that his broom dislodged clouds of dust and sent them flying about him till the stray sunbeams caught them in the air and turned them into a hundred floating aureoles above his good grayhead. Perhaps they were reflections of some real and lovely halo stored up for the single of heart.
* * * * * * * * *
Twelve hours later Rome lay sleeping under the August moon, sleeping in a flood of silver that spread and broadened as the perfect orb swung slowly up till it marked its zenith in the faint yet living argent of the sky. The stars seemed to withdraw from its path, their delicate, infinite myriads weaving ethereal veils of moving silver arc above arc, in the measureless spaces beyond, like immortal spirits watching the progress of some incarnate loveliness through a world apart from theirs, a world holding it by an unseen yet inseverable tie to its splendid tangibilities of marble palaces and leaping fountains and deep old gardens full of oleander fragrances and cypress shades.
Rain had fallen in the hills, and with the full of the moon had come a cool breeze from the west; before it the miasmas of the scirocco broke up and fled. In the midnight silence the wind blew softly over the seven hills, singing little songs of health and freshness near at hand. On Fra Tommaso's loggia the carnations were reaching out to the coolness, the little lemon-tree was spreading each leaf like a shining spearhead in the calm, unscorching light; and between the carnations and the lemon-tree a young man stood bareheaded, leaning over the parapet and gazing with sorrowful eyes at a closed window in the palace wall across the way.
Rinaldo had passed the most wretched day of his life; every hour of it had been a drawn-out purgatory. This was the third of his trial, for he had had no news of Giannella since the Saturday morning when Sora Amalia had told him that she was ill. What was happening behind those impenetrable walls? Was his beloved suffering, dying perhaps, longing for a word from him, and wondering that she received none, that he did not come to her? How could he? Twice each day he had rung at the green door in the hope of learning something; and each time the little shutter behind the grating had been withdrawn, two fierce spectacled eyes had identified him from between the bars—and then the shutter was pushed sharply into place and the guardian of the house had retreated and closed another door within. The Professor had evidently forbidden Mariuccia to answer the bell, and Rinaldo could think of no means of communicating with her. As a forlorn hope he had despatched Themistocles with an impassioned letter, and Themistocles, evil fowl, had stayed away many hours, got rid of his message—and returned with no answer. Giannella must be ill indeed if she could not send him one little word to show that she was alive, was thinking of her faithful Rinaldo. Perhaps, he told himself, his sudden declaration of love, the adorable thing unnamed till now, had frightened or offended her. But in that case surely she would have sent it back. No, he was sure that she had received it, and almost sure that she was even now holding it in her fast-chilling hand orpressing it feebly to her dying lips! Death is forever on duty in the antechamber of youth's picturesque imagination; the slightest accent of sorrow calls him up, and he seems to put his head in at the door and say, "Here I am, my dear. Use me as you like. Is it for yourself? Then it shall be all flowers and elegies and lovely memories for your mourning friends. Oh, it is for your best beloved? I see. I can manage that too, and leave you a hero and a martyr, bravely carrying a broken heart to an early grave at your lost one's side."
And youth bows its head and weeps in ecstatic pain on the henchman's indulgent shoulder, and then says, "Another time, good friend," and then flies back, a thousand times deeper in love with living, to kind, familiar life, strengthened and sane once more.
Rinaldo's heart had been drawing him all day to the point when he could at least feel near to Giannella, Fra Tommaso's loggia. In the cool midnight, when he could count on the owner's heaviest sleep, he stole thither and stood with outstretched hands, praying to the closed window that barred in his dream of happiness. The breeze played comfortably on his brow, the bath of moonlight calmed his fretted nerves; he hardly knew whether the moisture in his eyes were tears or the dewy benedictions of the night. "Giannella, Giannella, flower of my soul," he murmured, "speak to me, dream of me. I am here, my heart calls you—come, come."
There was a sound across the way, the click of a receding bolt, the stealthy scraping of wood on stone.Then a shutter swung open, and out of the dark rough frame, like a flower breaking in snow from its rejected sheath, Giannella leaned out, a vision of whiteness mantled in falling gold, and raised her lovely face to the sky.
A cry broke from her lover's lips and startled her. She shook back her hair and straightened herself, resting both hands on the sill as her gaze explored the night, traveling slowly up to the higher level opposite. Then a cry of terrified joy rang out in the stillness, for she thought she saw a spirit—Rinaldo's.
The next moment she knew it was her lover, in the flesh, though how he came to be standing there seemed a secret between him and some kind archangel—for a word came to her across the dividing depth, a word so pulsing with passion that only living lips could have given it utterance, "Amore mio, amore mio!"
Rinaldo's hands were stretched out as if he would lift her over the abyss to his side. They two were alone in the world of the night; above them hung the gentle moon in calm, encouraging splendor; all barriers save that of the narrow empty space were left far below, and what was space to them? Each could hear the other's voice, see the other's eyes, and there was none between them. What more could the delicate young love desire as yet?
"Rinaldo, is it you?" came the tremulous, happy tones. "O my soul, I die of joy. It seemed as if I should never see you again."
"I have died a thousand deaths, Giannella," he answered. "They told me you were ill—I could not get to you. O Heaven give me wings. Call, call, my heart's love, and your sister angels will bring you over to me."
"To 'clausura?'" she replied. "Figlio mio, you stand on such holy ground that its guardians would chase the angels away, if they were sisters of mine. How did you get there? Is it safe for you? Oh, take care. If anything should happen to you—" She leaned further out and he could see all the tender anxiety in her eyes.
"How I came?" he repeated. "Cuore mio, I have been here so often watching for you as you came and went past that window—my feet would find the way in the dark, I think."
"But it is Fra Tommaso's loggia," she persisted. "I am afraid for you! The Fathers will be so angry if they find you there. They might send you to prison, and I should die of grief. Oh, go back now. I am frightened. Where is Fra Tommaso?"
"Sound asleep, in there," Rinaldo replied, laughing and pointing over his shoulder to the tightly closed door of the one room. "Have no fears, he is snoring sublimely. Do you think such a night as this was made for snuffy old sacristans? No, indeed. All the lovers in paradise are on our side, keeping him quiet so that we may speak at last. Tell me, my beautiful angel, do you love me?"
The beautiful angel did not answer in words, but held out her arms with a gesture of such truetenderness that Rinaldo's heart seemed to leap across the gulf and nestle in them.
"I knew it," came his enraptured cry. "You are for me, core of my heart. Oh, but we shall be happy, happy."
"Ah, Rinaldo," she replied, her face changing, "there are too many obstacles—you do not know—they are trying to make me marry the Professor."
"They? Who?" he asked fiercely. "Tell me their names—then leave them to me."
"It is he, Bianchi, and the Princess. She said it was my duty. But it is not." She straightened up with sudden energy. "I know now, thank God, I know. But there is much trouble, Mariuccia wants to tell you about it, to ask you to help us. You will see—you are so clever—you will understand what should be done."
"Why do anything, my dear, except walk over to San Severino with Mariuccia and ask one of the Fathers to marry us? The home is ready, I hunger for you. Leave everything behind and come."
"No," she replied gravely, "that is not the way. We must leave no bad feeling behind to make other people miserable. He is the padrone, he has let me live here for years—he has never been unkind—till lately, and Mariuccia thinks some evil person has cast a spell over him. We must make him see reason, and the Princess must understand too. She was very good to me once. It would seem a piece of treason to just run away like that—it would not bring us happiness, Rinaldo mio."
"You shall have it your own way, bene mio," he said, "but promise me one thing. When we have done all we can to make them understand, when it is explained to them that we love each other, that I am a galantuómo, that I give you what they have never given you, a happy home, such as the best, sweetest girl in the world should have—the appartamentino is of a prettiness—and so cheap—then, if they still oppose us, you will say, 'Arrivederci, signori miei. It is now finished. I take the liberty of sending you some confetti, for I espouse Rinaldo Goffi without another moment's delay.' Will you promise me that, Giannella?"
"Oh yes," she laughed back, "if Signor Goffi still wants me. Does he know that I have no dowry, no family, no pretty clothes to wear when he takes me out for a walk—that I am nearly twenty-one, and as stupid as a cabbage? Has he considered all these tribulations?"
"If you say another word I shall jump across the street into your room," he declared; "love will carry me over quite safely. And how Mariuccia will scold when she finds me there."
"Audacious one, you grow indiscreet," said Giannella. "To-morrow morning Mariuccia will look for you after the first Mass. Oh, I am so much better. I shall not be ill any more. You have cured me, dear, enlightened doctor. So to-morrow be sure to come to the church in time. I shall not be there, she will not let me go out so soon, but she will tell you everything. Now go, go, beloved, we have talked toolong. Even the moon is getting tired of listening to us, see, she veils her face. Good-night, good-night!"
A little cloud had drifted up from the west, shadowing the silvery air to gray, but Rinaldo saw Giannella lean forward and blow him a kiss. Then she resolutely drew the blind into place; he heard the bolt click, and turned to depart. Only just in time, for he became aware that Fra Tommaso was moving in his room. The next instant Rinaldo was over the dividing wall and racing for his own terrace through the ups and downs of the little city on the roof. Then the sacristan's door opened with a rusty creak and the old man, still dazed with sleep, came out and looked about him. The paleness of dawn was in the east, his pigeons stirred and scratched in their cote, and he went and drove them in again with sharp taps.
"Unmannerly fowls that you are," he grumbled, "what have you been making such a disturbance about? I could have sworn someone was talking here. Silly ones, it is only three o'clock. We can all go back to bed for an hour."
Mariuccia, having decided on her course of action, had confided to Giannella her intention of appealing to Signorino Goffi. She would look for him in church in the morning, and if he was not there, she would find him out at the top of Sora Amalia's house. Did not Giannella think that a fine idea? The padrone had managed to enlist the most excellent Princess on his side (Mariuccia had by this time concluded that the Princess's verdict was given upon insufficient information, and might be combated without impiety); well, she and Giannella would also find a defender, and he at any rate should labor under no misapprehension as to the true state of affairs. Then, closing the window so as to admit no breath of the night air, which the Romans look upon as fatal, she set all the doors open and retired to her cave beyond the kitchen on the other side of the passage.
Giannella had waited until the sound of her deep breathing came regularly through the darkness. Then, panting for air, she had gently closed her door and opened her window. Better malaria than asphyxia, she thought.
When she crept back to bed after her talk with Rinaldo it seemed as if the little room was full oflight and sweet music. Oh, God was good, life was divine. No one in the world had ever been so happy as she! Long she lay awake, going over every word her lover had spoken, remembering every glance of his eyes, every expression of his face which told her that he was all hers, forever and ever. When at last she fell asleep, the chill airs of dawn were wandering through the blind, and its first light showed her resting as peacefully as a child, heartache and fever gone together, the round cheeks smooth as rose leaves, the baby gold of the hair flung wide over the pillow and half veiling the young white hands that lay crossed on her breast.
So Mariuccia found her when she stole in before going out to the church, and an exultant pride in her Giannella's loveliness rose in her heart and brought a little moisture to her faithful old eyes. "Madonna mia," she whispered, "were you more beautiful when Monsignore Gabriele came and knelt before you and said, 'Ave gratia plena?' Oh, you must indeed have had her poor mother under your mantle when she bore this flower! Poverina, she never lived to rejoice over her, but that was just as well, since she would not have known how to bring her up. But there are heretics and heretics, eh, Madonne mia bella? And that poor little thing knew no better, did she? She kissed your picture and the crucifix when I held them to her lips, and she died for her baby—and as for Signor Brockmann, good man, he never refused a paoletto to the Cappuccino when he came to beg—and this angel has prayed for her parents' souls eversince she could speak—oh, they may say what they like, Mother of Mercy, but you will see to it that she finds her poor papa and mamma in paradise. I am quite sure of that."
Softly she went out locked the door and took away the key, for was not the unfortunate padrone, possessed of demons and no longer responsible for his actions, sleeping at the other end of the house? She crossed herself as she passed his door, and then, catching up her big umbrella, for the morning was cloudy, she hurried off to San Severino, where Fra Tommaso was ringing with a will for the first Mass.
Rinaldo descended a few minutes later and hastened to the side chapel, where he found Mariuccia already ensconced in her accustomed place. She was saying her rosary with great fervor. Once she turned to the young man with a look of tremendous meaning, and as soon as the last Gospel was ended rose from her knees and strode towards the door. Rinaldo followed and found her waiting for him in the outer court where he and Giannella had learned to know one another. The fountain was splashing rather sadly under a threatening sky; a drop or two of rain fell, blotching the flags; the beggars looked singularly depressed, and altogether the air was somewhat tragedy laden.
"Where can we speak as two alone?" the old woman asked wheeling round and facing the artist. Her black eyes were snapping under the colored handkerchief she had thrown over her head on entering the church, and her iron-gray hair was crinkling morefiercely than usual round her low, dark forehead. She was evidently in fighting mood and Rinaldo hailed the symptoms joyfully. Between them they would make an end of all this rubbish about impossible marriages and imaginary obligations. He could have fought the world single-handed this morning.
At Mariuccia's question he glanced up sideways at the distant balustrade of his terrace, the spot whence he had first caught sight of Giannella. "Well, Sora Mariuccia," he said, "if you will be so complaisant as to climb ninety-three steps, we can discourse with much tranquillity in my studio up there. We shall have the place all to ourselves, at least."
"If steps were destined to kill me I should be in San Lorenzo now," she replied, shrugging her shoulders. "Let us go up."
He led the way past the dairy to the side door and his companion followed him up to the top landing without once pausing to take breath. He flung the door open and stood aside to let her pass in, and she was advancing when she suddenly backed against him with a scream of terror. "Madonne mia Santissima, what isthat?"
Rinaldo, supporting her in his arms, looked over her shoulder and broke into uncontrollable laughter. His trusty lay figure was stretched on the floor in horrid disarray, one stiff, discolored arm raised as if protesting against the ravages of Themistocles, who sat on its head, tearing viciously at its mattedlocks. Nothing so corpse-like and ghastly had ever saluted Mariuccia's vision, and she was trying hard not to faint. Suddenly Themistocles flew up with a moth-eaten ringlet in his beak. This was the last stroke. Mariuccia covered her face with her hands and rushed back, moaning, to the head of the stairs. Rinaldo was beside her in a moment, entreating, reassuring, laughing.
"Don't be alarmed," he pleaded, "it is only my mannechino, my model—what I paint from, you know. I should have warned you. Donkey without heart that I am, to give you such a fright! Come, I will show you." He drew her back into the room. "I was in a hurry to get down to the church this morning and knocked the old cripple over and never stopped to pick it up."
She turned her eyes unwillingly on the gruesome object while he bestowed it safely against the wall. Then she found courage to laugh at herself a little and sank, rather exhausted, into the chair of state, which Rinaldo pulled forward for her. She made a strange picture there, a homely sybil in peasant dress, with the strings of red coral round her neck and the gold earrings in her ears. Her brow was knitted with thought, her wrinkled hands grasped the two arms firmly; and behind her, on either side of her majestic old head, the bloated gilt cherubs dimpled and simpered as they had dimpled and simpered for powdered beauties and courtly prelates in days gone by.
Rinaldo, perched on a stool opposite, took in thequaint picture and made a mental note of it for future reference. Now he was in a hurry to get to the business which had brought her there—without letting her perceive that he knew something of it already.
"I am so glad you wish to speak to me," he began. "It is a pleasure to see you here. Is there anything I can do to serve you, my dear Sora Mariuccia?"
"Yes, there is, since you are so kind," she replied; "a very important matter, a thing that is giving us much disquiet, Giannella and me. Indeed, to tell you a secret, signorino, it has really made Giannella ill."
"Is she not better this morning?" he asked unguardedly and with a mysterious smile.
"How did you know she was ill?" Mariuccia's question was sharply put.
He hastened to retrieve his mistake. "Oh, Sora Amalia told me, and I was deeply grieved to hear it. I have been praying for her recovery."
"You are a good boy," said Mariuccia, approvingly, "and your prayers have been answered, for she is certainly better this morning. She was sleeping like an image when I came out. But when she begins to go about the house again, the Signor Professore (who is the best of men you understand, only a little irritable just now) will begin to make trouble—but trouble! Oh, Signorino Rinaldo, there seems no end to it, and what can I do? You will help us, will you not?"
"Only command me, command me," he cried, clasping his hands imploringly. "I would die to serve her—and you," he added hastily.
Mariuccia looked round, then leaned forward and spoke in a stage whisper. "The padrone wants to marry her—in two weeks—and it is I, who have lived with him for twenty years, who tell you this—if he wants to, he will. When the devil gets into him—God forgive me for speaking so of my own master—he is as obstinate as a mule, and, in one manner or another, is sure to get his way. Giannella is a good obedient child, and he persuaded the most excellent Princess to tell her that it was her duty to consent. But if the Princess, who is a most noble Christian, had known half what I know, she would let herself be eaten by wolves before she tried to give him the girl. For he will starve her to death—he cannot help it, that is the way the good God made him, poor man—I know what I am talking about. Oh, what is the matter? Madonna mia, are you going to have a fit?"
For Rinaldo's face had turned alarmingly red, his eyes were half closed and the veins stood out swollen and purple on his temples, which he was hammering with his clenched fists. Mariuccia ran to him and pulled his hands down from his head and shook him violently. Then he seemed to come to himself. The flush ebbed from his face, leaving him of a ghastly paleness, his arms fell at his sides, and he sank, limp and exhausted, into the chair she had just quitted. She hastened to bring him a drink of water, and when he had swallowed it he looked up gratefully saying, "Thank you, I am better now——" He seemed to speak with difficulty."Pray excuse me. I was overcome for a moment. You were telling me—oh, the words will choke me—that Bianchi—is persecuting Giannella—that assassin, that executioner—he—"
"Stop," cried Mariuccia; "you shall not speak of the padrone like that. He is a good man. It is not his fault. You will understand when I tell you how it all happened. Three months ago—"
"Three months," Rinaldo exclaimed; "but why did you not tell me? Do you not know that I adore Giannella? that I do not see the hour to marry her myself?"
"Traitor," thundered the old woman, "have you been daring to make love to her in secret? You whom I took for a galantuómo, a man of honor—a good Christian? Imbecile, donkey that I have been to trust you!"
Her outbreak of righteous wrath was terrifying, and Rinaldo, who, when not angry, was quite a gentle and unwarlike person, quailed under it for a moment, and was half inclined to believe that he had behaved very badly. But only for a moment. He remembered that there had never been the slightest intention of deceiving Mariuccia or anybody else; that it was only because she had stayed at home during the Professor's illness that he had not spoken to her before. How he and Giannella had come to understand each other was their own affair; he would submit to no catechism on that point.
Mariuccia was opening her mouth to speak again, but he held up his hand for silence, and, coming closeto her, looked her squarely in the eyes. "Sora Mariuccia," he said, "your first opinion of me is the right one. I am an honest man and, I hope, a good Christian. I love your Giannella so truly that since I first saw her I have had one thought only, to make her my wife. I have never spoken one word to her which I could not have spoken in church at the foot of the altar with all the saints in paradise listening to me. I was only waiting for an opportunity of opening my heart to you. I consume with love for her—and I know that she loves me. I am not rich, but I can maintain her in all comfort and decorum—though not as she deserves. Would anything in the world be too good for her? No, but I will make her the happiest woman in Rome. I promise you that. And you, dear, kind Sora Mariuccia, you will leave that cataplasm of a Professor and come and live with us, will you not?"
He took both her hands in his, and there was great earnestness in his bright eyes. He looked so true and gentle and handsome that Mariuccia's heart became as melting wax. She threw her arms round his neck and kissed him on both cheeks; then she stood back and looked at him again, laughing and crying at once.
"Figlio mio bello, I see, I understand. You have a heart of gold. Forgive me for that outburst. What would you have? I was frightened for a moment. You see I have kept Giannella like the Bambino Gesú down there in the church, under glass. Till this year she never went out alone except forthe few yards from our door to San Severino and for the marketing close by. She has never spoken to a stranger—except you—she is a flower of candor, her soul is as pure as the wax on the altar. What would you have? The world is bad and I am only a stupid old woman, and I was frightened. But now let us discourse reasonably."