The young man who entered—not waiting to have his knock answered, but throwing the door wide open before him with an easy air of good-natured authority—this newcomer, was dressed in the uniform of an officer of the King's Guards. As he came into the low smoke-embrowned room he was at once the brightest object there; the firelight caught and flashed upon all manner of resplendent buttons and knots and gold lacings, and on the shining hilt of his sword. His long, glittering spurs rang sharply against the bare stone floor. 'It is the Prince out of the fairy tale, Italia; the fairy Prince,' said little Palmira reathlessly, and stared with her great browneyes, clutching at Italia's hand.
'The Marchese Gasparo! the young master!' old Drea cried out in a loud voice, pulling off his round woollen cap.
They all stood up, even Dino, who strolled away a few steps from the table to the fireplace, where he began fingering a small dusty model of a boat: it had stood in that same place, between two handfuls of shells, as far back as he could remember anything.
'I only came home to-day. I've lost no time in looking you up, old Drea. My mother was not expecting me back so soon, and half the rooms are shut up at the Villa—the house is as musty as a tomb. It was so dull I couldn't stay in after dinner,' the young Marchese said, with a quick, comprehensive glance at the two women present. His open face grew still more frankly bright at the sight of Italia; he took a step forward and doffed his cap, and made her a profound and smiling bow.
'And this is my little playmate, then;thisis the little girl who used to go out with us in the old boat while Drea was teaching me to fish,' he said, looking at her hard.
'Ay, she's grown, she's grown, my little girl has. Per Bacco! it's six years now, or more, since you have seen her; it's no wonder if you find her changed, signor Marchese.'
'I find her—changed!' the young man echoed, smiling. The tone of his voice was arésuméof all unspoken compliments. There could be no doubt of what he thought of this alteration; and Dino, by the fireplace, looked around with a sudden sharp pang of jealousy and wonder.
He had not spoken, but no movement seemed to escape the soldier's quick keen glance.
'What! Dino?—Dino de Rossi? Why, man, what is the matter with you? You look like a thunder-cloud. Aren't you glad to see me home again, then?' the young Marquis asked laughingly, and was pleased to hold out his hand to his old acquaintance and foster-brother, bidding him cheer up and not stand there sulking, 'if it were only out of respect to the signorina's beautiful eyes.'
'Nay, she is no signorina; her name is Italia, at the signor Marchese's service,' old Drea interposed, gravely enough. Young men would be young men; but it would be well if the Marchese Gasparo should recollect the difference, and to be spoken of in this way by one of the 'padroni' brought with it an uneasy sense of incongruity: it was like one of the gods walking upon the earth and claiming human familiarity. Old Drea probably cared more about pleasing his young master than for any other thing in the world unconnected with Italia. He was very susceptible to the influences of education and rank. 'Ay, there are differences between us workingmen just as there are differences between the donkeys; but your cleverest donkey will only think of seven tricks, while his master can think of eight,' he had said to Dino only a day or two before; and the fact that 'the masters' knew best was a quite unquestioned source of comfort and satisfaction to the loyal, simple-hearted old man. All genuine reverence implies a certain poetry of nature; there was a good deal of romantic admiration—the old feeling of the clansman to his chief—mixed up with the affection and respect with which he contemplated his young guest. And Gasparo was well aware of the fact. He liked the old man, too, in his way; above all, he liked to be liked. All pleasant sensations were natural to him, and the simple admiration which surrounded him now was warm and agreeable, like the sunshine. Things had not been made quite so pleasant to him at the Villa. He had found the household unprepared to receive him, the house in disorder, and the old Marchesa, his mother, more grimly logical than complaisant on the subject of his gambling debts. But here, at least, there was no fear of encountering irritating criticism. He was always ready to do a good-natured thingen bon prince; and now, as he took a seat beside the table—it was Drea's chair—and let the old man fill him up a glass of the sour wine, it was impossible altogether to resist the charm and gaiety of his manner. There was something satisfactory and winning in the very tones of his voice, in the glance of his quick smiling eyes, in the firm ready pressure of his hand. When he asked Italia to sing him a song, which he did presently, it was with the air of pleading for some favour.
'The child's ready enough to sing; and proud enough she ought to be to think you should have remembered her voice all these years. But she was always like a little singing bird, when she was no higher than my knee. Lord! how well I can remember it—taking her out with me in the old boat, and she, no bigger than that, sitting on the nets and singing away to herself, soft like, till you could think of nothing else but a summer morning, when the boat is anchored off shore, and the larks are just rising in the meadows. But there! 'tis I am keeping the Captain from his music after all,' old Drea said, with an apologetic laugh.
Italia had taken her guitar from Dino's hands; she took it with a smile and a blush, as she had taken the Captain's pretty speeches, and moved away to the other end of the room. Her voice was the lowest, sweetest contralto. When she began to sing her face grew serious and composed.
'Why does Italia look so unhappy as that? She looks like one of the saints on the cathedral window, as if she were saying her prayers,' Palmira whispered into Lucia's ear. She was awe-struck with admiration of the Captain's sword, which he had taken off before sitting down at the table. 'Do you think, Lucia; do you think he would let me touch it if Italia were to ask him?' she said.
The Captain did not seem in the humour to object to anything. The song—or was it the singer?—had given him far more pleasure than he had expected. He told her so, after a moment's hesitation.
'Indeed, I am very glad, sir. I shall be very glad to sing for you as much as you like, and father pleases,' Italia answered, looking at him with a great deal of kindness and pleasure. Indeed, every instinct of her nature was always prompting her to do some kindness to some one. As she sat there on her low seat, bending over her guitar, the firelight shining full upon her small dark head and flushed cheeks, and on the movement of her little brown wrists, Dino could not turn his gaze away from her. Another man's admiration is a background against which many an ordinary woman has shone clad in unaccustomed graces to her lover's eyes. But in this case Dino wanted no confirming in his devotion: it was only that seeing her there, listening to another man's compliments, had given a slight shock to the sense of unquestioning security which had grown up with him since the very first earliest days of his love. Already he began to look back with some jealous uneasiness at the past years when Italia had seemed as much his, and as much a necessity of his being, as the breath he drew. True, he had never spoken to her about it, at least not in so many definite words; that was partly because she was still so young—only eighteen on this birthday, and partly too that there had seemed no need for vexing his mother beforehand: he had not money enough to marry upon as yet, and his mother was sure to object; she had always discouraged his being so much at Drea's. But now all these considerations seemed to go for nothing, to become futile and irrelevant seen in the light of this new possibility that another man could step in and attempt to carry away his own especial treasure from before his very eyes. Dino had but little of old Andrea's capacity for personal reverence; there was not enough modesty in his own nature for that; so that it did not strike him as so utterly preposterous that a man in the young Marchese's position should fall seriously in love with a fisherman's daughter. On the other hand, there was always a certain doubt lurking at the bottom of his strongest assertions of equality. He had no weight of simple conviction to steady his possession of the theories which attracted him the most. There was always a struggle between his intelligence and his instincts. Things outside and away from his creed of conduct appealed to him. He could not take life simply: there was the exaggeration of effort in his innermost beliefs. He looked at Italia: he looked with almost more than a woman's sensitiveness, to material impressions at the gallant and determined bearing of the man beside her, whose frank and noble beauty was only like an additional distinction—an emphasis of class differences. No devout believer in the divinest rights of kings could have recognised those differences more keenly than Dino did at that moment. For there is nothing ambiguous in the secret language of jealousy: 'And they say—wesay—that one man is as good as another without regard to his rank! I was a fool—a fool,' De Rossi reflected bitterly.
Gasparo seemed to have a talent for seeing everything. He took his cigarette case out of his pocket and asked old Drea for a light; then he said: 'Therearechanges. Why, even the old gardens up there at the Villa seem to have grown smaller. I remember I thought there was no end to them when I was a boy.'
'Ay, there's something in a place, but there's more in the eye that looks at it. And you'll have seen a many fine places since then, sir, and a many fine people, I'll warrant. It's only the little people and the little places in life that don't change much; they're away down at the bottom, in the still water, out o' reach o' the tide. You'll not find much change in us, sir. There's not a question if we're proud and glad to see you back.'
'Oh, if there's any change among you it's not of the kind I'm finding fault with,' the young man said, glancing again at Italia; 'only it makes one feel how much time has passed. Why, you must be getting an old man now yourself, Drea—beginning to think about giving up work and settling down for a bit—while you look out for a husband for Italia. You'll need to find a good fellow. But perhaps you have done that already.'
'Nay, as for that,—the little girl can wait for a bit,—she can wait a bit yet,' her father answered slowly, taking his pipe out of his mouth and knocking the ashes on the table. 'Our girls are not like the young ladies you're accustomed to, sir,—with nothing to do but sit in their chairs while they pick and choose. Gentlefolks—Lord bless you! they've got one paradise here on earth, and, as for the other one, they've got plenty o' money to spend in masses—they've only got to pay for it. But with us 'tis different, you see.' He took up his glass of wine, looked at it thoughtfully for a moment, and then emptied its contents down his throat with a sudden jerk of his wrist. 'And I'd never be one to urge a girl to jump at the first comer,' he said cheerfully, leaning across the narrow table to emphasise his remark. 'No, no, patience never spoilt any man's luck. And the biggest fish—they're often nearest the bottom—they're nearest the bottom, eh, Sora Lucia?'
'Gesu Maria! how shouldIknow?' the little woman murmured hurriedly, with an apologetic look at the young Marchese. 'In my time we did not think these things should be discussed before young—young persons,' she said primly; it would have seemed a familiarity to her if she had used a common expression such as, 'before young girls.'
'Nay, nay, Luciamia, you won't make us swallow that!' retorted Sor Drea, with another chuckle of supreme good humour. 'You won't make us swallow it, my dear. For you'll sooner find an old man without an ache than a young girl without a lover,—eh, signor Marchese? 'Tis the good Lord who made us all, who chose to make us in that way, and where's the harm in speaking of it?' He filled his glass up with a more unsteady hand. 'There's Dino over there looking at me like a black thunder-cloud,—but I suppose I may say what I like about my own daughter in my own house,—eh, boy?'
'I was not contradicting you, Sor Drea,' the young man answered quietly.
'Nay, lad, nay, I meant no malice. But it's a poor sort of business to waste your breath whistling for yesterday's breeze. Cheer up, lad! There's always plenty o' good work to the fore when a man's ready to do it. Ready and cheery,—even the dog can earn his dinner by wagging his tail.'
Gasparo laughed. 'Well, I must be going,' he said, and stood up and put out his hand for his belt and sword. As he was buckling it about him his eye fell upon Palmira's pale intent little face. He sat down again.
'Come here, child,' he said, and held out his hand.
'Go to the gentleman, Palmira. Go and tell him what your name is, like a good little girl, and don't be frightened,' said Lucia hastily, with a general tug at the child's frock.
Palmira looked at her with flashing eyes. 'I am not frightened,' she said indignantly, and went and stood composedly beside Gasparo's knee.
When he asked, 'Shall I show you my sword?' her eyes flashed again. She held her breath, and the colour rose in her thin little cheeks.
'May I touch it?' she asked, and drew one small forefinger carefully across the shining blade. After a moment's consideration, 'Have you killed many giants with it?' she said; 'you know—like the fairy Prince.'
'Ay, hark to that, will you? there's a brave little girl for you!' said old Drea with an inward chuckle, and an irrepressible wink at Dino. 'She'd kill giants, would she? It's her mother all over.'
Gasparo laughed again. 'And what do you know about the fairy Prince?'
'Italia told me. He wore shining clothes, and a sword, and he carried away the Princess from the enchanted tower. And he was beautiful to look at,—like you, Italia said——'
'Palmira!'
'Look here, my small friend,—oh, your name is Palmira, is it? Very well, then; look here, Palmira. Did no body ever explain to you that one is not allowed in this world to repeat what other people say until one is old enough to know better? No? Well, then, remember that. No girl is ever allowed to have her own way until she is old enough to do mischief. And now, look here.' He drew a ring off his finger, a plain band of gold set with a large turquoise. 'Do you think that is pretty?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Very pretty?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Well, then,—under the circumstances,—do you think if we asked Sor Drea, you and I, to let us give it to Italia, because it is her birthday, and because I have not brought her any other present, do you think he would let us do it, Palmira? Here, take the ring and ask him.'
Italia put down her guitar and stood up. She gave one rapid glance at Dino, and turned very pale. 'The Signor Marchese is too kind, father. Indeed, I do not want the ring. It is—it is too beautiful for me. I should lose it.'
'Nay,' said Drea simply, 'since the signor Marchese wishes to give it to you, child——' He turned the bauble over curiously upon the curved and hardened palm of his hand. 'Craving your pardon, signor Gasparo, but is it gold?'
Gasparo put his hand up to his mouth and twisted his moustache to conceal a smile. 'Certainly,' he said.
'Real gold?Diamine! it is not often that I've handled it. And that little blue thing there in the middle, has that got a name of its own?'
''Tis a turquoise. They are said to bring good luck and happiness,' the young man said carelessly enough. And then he looked with a certain reproach at Italia. 'If I had known I might have found you something that would have pleased you better——'
'No one ever made me a present before. I—Father knows that I am not used to them,' the girl said shyly. She took Palmira's hand in hers, and began stroking the little fingers.
'Nay, take it, my little girl, take it. And put it away in some safe place. Keep it to be married with. 'Twill be so much money saved when we come to think of your wedding. And 'twill be a fine thing to remember—when you've got children of your own—that you were married with a gold ring off our young master's own finger. It was very kind of you to think of it, sir; it's not every one would ha' thought of anything so kind. You must excuse my little girl if she didn't seem to thank you properly. It's only that she is not used to being made so much of; it's not that she's ungrateful or lacking in her duty.'
He spoke with a simple earnestness which was not devoid of dignity.
'I like old Drea. He's such a good old boy. There's not a more honest old fellow in Leghorn,' Gasparo said cordially, a few moments later, as the two young men came out into the cold night air together. 'The devil take that wind if it is not beginning to blow alibeccio! That child will be blown over the steps if you don't look after her. Been out in Drea's boat much this winter, Dino?'
'No, sir.'
'Too rough, eh? Yet I remember you used to beat me at managing a boat when we were little chaps together.Che diavolo! how time flies! It seems only yesterday—until one looks at that girl in there. There's a beauty if you like. What eyes! and did you ever notice how she smiles with 'em?'
Palmira felt her brother's fingers closing with a sudden thrill upon her own. He did not answer for nearly a minute. 'If you are speaking of Italia, sir——'
Gasparo burst into a wild laugh. 'Oh, no! How could you think it? I was speaking of the other woman, of course. Maria—Lucia—what's her name? Your little dressmaking friend with the beads. How she did look at me,per Bacco! you would have thought I was in league with the very devil himself.'
'The women are not accustomed to your manner, sir. You must be indulgent enough to make allowances for our ignorance. No doubt when they have found out how much your kind interest is worth——'
'Look here, my good fellow. You're my foster-brother and all that. And my mother is very fond of yours—by the way you must tell Sora Catarina to come up and see me at the Villa. But as for noticing anything which you may choose to say—why, my good Dino, you are really asking too much of me! There! Don't lose your temper—and don't swear. It's not the child's fault—is it, my dear? And so good-night to you, little one; and here's something to buy yourself sugar-plums with. Good-night!Au revoir, friend Dino!'
He turned abruptly on his heel and strode off down the street without waiting for an answer, the wild stormy moonlight shining full upon his handsome face. He walked on, humming an air from the new opera, and then, 'Poor devil!' he said aloud, and smiled with an easy insolent amusement.
Before her brother could speak Palmira had flung the silver coin upon the pavement. 'I don't want it; I won't have it,' she said passionately. 'I would not keep it, not—not if Italia told me to!'
She clasped both her small cold hands about one of Dino's. 'Why did he speak like that? and why did he laugh at you? He is not like the fairy Prince at all—he is like some wicked enchanter who has come to spoil everything. Oh, I liked him so; and now I wish he had never come!' she said. 'Oh, Dino, I wish he had never come!'
And at the door of their house she still clung to her brother. 'Must you go to the club to-night? Can't you wait for some other night? Won't you come upstairs with me? Must you go?' she asked wistfully.
Dino looked down at the small earnest face and patted her cheek. 'Good-night, little one. Run along upstairs. You ought to have been in bed hours ago. Do you know what time it is, and what the mother will say to you?'
'But, Dino, are you going?'
He glanced out at the dark street. 'Yes.'
'Dino, I want to whisper to you.'
He laughed. 'You little torment,' he said, but he bent his head obediently.
'Dino, does Italia know about your going there—about the club?'
She felt him give a sudden start at the question. 'What do you mean?' he asked roughly.
'I know that every time you go there you come back looking so angry—oh, so angry! And mother cries while you are away. I've seen her when she thought I was asleep. And, Dino,' she laid her little cheek against his, 'Italia told me to take care of you. "Take good care of Dino," that was the last thing she said to me to-night. And I said I would. I wonder if I ought to let you go there?' the child said gravely.
'Did Italia say that?' He drew a long breath, and then stooped down and kissed her. 'There, run along now. There's a good child.'
He stood waiting at the foot of the stairs till the sound of the small footsteps had stopped at an upper landing, and a shrill childish voice was heard calling out, 'I'm here. Take care of yourself, my Dino!'
Then he went out again into the street.
The wind, which blew so freshly in from sea across the open space of the parade, was moaning like a wild thing, trapped and caged, in the narrow streets behind the Duomo, towards which Dino was now taking his way, with a mind full of doubt and rage and suspicion. Italia—God bless her!—at least her last words had been of him. But to think of her now was also to remember the young Marchese's look at her, the poor child! as she took his ring: his laugh as he had turned away by the quay. The remembered sound of that laughter made Dino clench his teeth and break out into some wild bitter imprecation. 'I am like Palmira,' he said to himself scoffingly. 'I can't even hate him, and he knows it. I too wish he had never come back, because—because I liked him so!'
As he walked on his mind was full of remembrances of their old days together, when he and Gasparo had been playmates, companions, and always with that difference between them. They had quarrelled scores of times before now, and yet the old charm had never lost its power: Dino was always ready to be brought back by a look, a word, the first word of apology or regret. Regret! was it not enough for him to feel that his dear old comrade counted upon him, wanted him still, despite all his newer friends? 'I let him whistle me back at his good pleasure, like a woman, like a dog,' he told himself moodily, and even as he said it he felt in his heart that he would let himself be called back again. Nor was he the only one: there was not one human being out of all the little circle which made up his world who did not in some degree conspire to pet and spoil the young Marchese. 'I'm a hundred times cleverer than he is,' Dino reflected for the hundredth time. 'Ay, and better read, better educated. I can feel and understand a thousand things, books, ideas, emotions, which are so many dead letters to him. And what does it all amount to? What good is it? At four-and-twenty I'm dependant on old Drea's good-nature for a chance of earning my living by doing a common sailor's work, whilehe—— Why, if he were to change places with me here to-night, by to-morrow he would be the most popular man in Leghorn. Fortune is as much at his beck and call as any of the rest of us. And now there's Italia——'
He thought how she too would recognise the prestige of the young soldier's successes, and in what a different spirit! How often in their long talks together had they arrived at the same conclusions, but by what divergent ways? What was careless ease in her, in Dino was pure recklessness: on the one side was the freedom of unconcern, and opposed to it the freedom of desperation. And how could it well be otherwise? He was sensitive, imaginative, unlucky. And he took life hard. He could never make her understand his view of it; it was not in her temperament to understand it. 'While the sun is shining itcan'tbe dark; and she lives in the sunshine—my darling!' he thought, with a sudden revulsion, a rush of tender feeling. And she had bid the child 'take care of Dino.' He smiled to himself as he crossed over, out of the moonlight, into the great shadow of the cathedral wall.
Thecaféto which he was going, and where his club met, stood at the corner of two of the narrowest streets, a small, low room, lighted from the ceiling by a row of gas jets in the form of a cross. On three sides, against the wall, were large mirrors in tarnished frames; a narrow divan covered with faded red velvet ran all around the room, and in front of this was ranged a series of small marble-topped tables; three or four men were seated there, drinking coffee and playing a game of dominoes.
There was nothing at first sight to distinguish the place from any other establishment of the same rank and kind. It was a shabby second-rate café, of the stereotyped pattern; and even the police did not take much interest in it, although it was true that the landlord professed republican—or at least liberal—political sentiments. But in a seaport town that was to be expected; and if Jack ashore preferred drinking his glass of vermouth with the conviction that all men are free and equal—so long as they can pay for what they are consuming—why, it was not to be wondered at if the owner of a small public-house could be found to agree with him. The 'Cross of Savoy' was shrewdly suspected to be the headquarters of one of the branch Societies belonging to the great net-work of the Circoli Barsanti. But then, again, these said Circoli, founded early in the '70's, to commemorate the name of a certain Sergeant Barsanti, accused, whether falsely or not, of having caused the death of his commanding officer during a trifling mutiny in the barracks at Padua, and himself accordingly tried and sentenced and shot; these very Circoli, were they not existing under Government permission, if not patronage? And if Government chose to ignore the fact that some freak of popular opinion had made of the murdered sergeant a popular hero and martyr, with a name that was useful to conjure by—in a word, if the authorities saw fit to connive at the existence of these breathing-holes, these safety-valves, so to speak, of the public discontent, how in the name of common-sense were the Leghorn police to be justified in interfering? And what, in direct consequence, could be more assured than the peace of mind and general prosperity and safety of Signor Prospero Neri—respectable householder and landlord—actually seated at one of his own tables, drinking some of his own coffee with an air of confidence in, and enjoyment of, the beverage which was more than equivalent to a testimonial?
Master Prospero's peace of mind was naturally a matter of some importance in his own estimation; and yet—such a difference can be obtained in the final result by so small a change of the point of sight—within a few yards of his complacent head, in an inner room divided from the café proper by a swinging door, painted over with cupids and arabesques, a discussion was going on at that very moment which would have filled that worthy host with horror and dismay.
Three men were seated in that inner sanctum about a small round table; above their heads a gas jet, turned up too high, flared unnoticed in the draught; there were glasses on the table before them, and a dingy carafe of water, and a pack of cards. But they had not been playing. Their attitude seemed chiefly one of expectation.
After a longer silence than had hitherto fallen upon them—a silence during which the wind was distinctly audible, rattling at the window-shutters, and they could hear an occasional laugh and the click of glasses in the outer room,—'Who was it made the appointment with him? Was it you, Pietro Valdez?' asked the oldest man present. He spoke slowly, and with a strong German accent.
The man addressed looked up from his occupation of rubbing his moistened finger around the brim of his glass and thereby producing a series of minor musical notes. 'Ay,' he said; 'I told him.'
And then, after a pause, 'I'll answer for the lad,' he added slowly.
'Do you mean for his coming to-night,—or altogether?' the German asked abruptly, fixing a pair of piercing light blue eyes upon his interlocutor.
Valdez picked up his empty glass; looked into it; then put it down with a sudden movement upon the table.
'I mean—altogether,' he said gravely.
The other two men exchanged glances.
'Per Bacco!Iwouldn't do it! no, not for my own flesh and blood brother,—not I!' cried the third man present, bringing the open palm of his hand lightly down upon the table before him. It was noticeable that they all three moved and spoke with a certain caution and in the quietest tones possible. 'Iwould not do it. I wouldn't answer for——'
The German checked his rising voice with a look. 'I have taken note of what you are prepared to do, friend Valdez. Youareprepared?' he added sharply, with another searching glance.
Pietro Valdez lifted his melancholy eyes from the table before him and stared the speaker straight in the face. Then his head dropped again, and he shrugged his shoulders wearily: 'I am prepared—yes. But I look like joking, don't I? It is so probable that I should select this occasion for a jest!'
'I ask your pardon, signor Valdez. I will make a note of what you have said.'
'Ay, notes, notes. ButIsee nothing done,' broke in little Pierantoni irrepressibly. 'It is all very well to say the people can wait.Santa Pazienza!the peoplehavewaited. They are getting tired of waiting now. Once, the lower down you ground them the better they submitted. We know all that—at Naples. But it's a mistake to grind a man, or a people, down too far;—'tis so easy to grind all the humanity out of them and leave only the beast. And some beasts have teeth, and object to being baited.'
He got up and sat down again, holding his hands straight out before him and shaking his ten hooked fingers with a gesture as if he were sowing corn. 'If you shoot at the Czar of all the Russias—well, 'tis a kind of logic. You pit one autocrat against the other: Death against the Imperial Will: and the best man wins. And there's no more unanswerable argument than a rifle ball. It was our lords and masters taught us that long ago—at the Paris barricades. I say, if you shoot the Czar you prove nothing new. But to fire at a popular Prince—— To take a man at the apex of his power, in the midst of his people, to teach him that there's no popularity, no moderation, no amount of good nature, or good intentions, or good luck even, that can alter the eternal justice of things—— That's not stabbing at a King: it's putting your knife into the Institution; cutting the throat of royalty itself—and not merely royalty as a political institution, but royalty as a symbol of social inequality. Is it vengeance? I protest that it is no more an act of vengeance than the sentence of a judge. Have we not tried them, these Kings?Cristo Santo!have we not tried 'em and found 'em wanting? Is it a murder? do you call it murder when a man shoots down a bandit—an outlaw—with a price upon his head? And theyareoutlaws,' he added with a short laugh. 'Ay, and they wear their crowns for a purpose. 'Tis a shining target at the least——'
'Bene.' The German contemplated him for a moment with an air of faint amusement; then rose slowly from his place at table and moved with a cat-like step towards the door. He stooped his shaggy head and looked long and deliberately through the keyhole at the various occupants of the adjoining room. 'Bene. 'Tis all safe. But eloquence like our Pierantoni's is apt to attract—crowds,' he said, looking up again with a sudden peculiarly simple and artless smile.
The little Neapolitan leaned half-way across the table, his black eyes flashing. 'Per Cristo!—you suspect some one? some—traitor?'
'Traitors? 'tis a word you are fond of using, you Italians. I look at things differently. Why should we expect a new experience in life from that of other men? A man lives with his enemies; if he is lucky, he may meet with his friends.' He looked at Valdez as he spoke: he was always looking at Valdez, who bore his scrutiny with the most unaffected unconcern. 'As for suspecting, I suspect,—every one,' he said. 'It is my business to suspect. And for convenience sake I begin with the suspicion of our worthy landlord.' And, with a quick side-glance, he added lightly, 'Valdez, you see, our friend Valdez does not answer forhim.'
'Nay,' said Valdez slowly, 'I say nothing for or against him. He is one of those men in whom necessity is the mother of virtue. He'll walk straight enough if you watch him carefully. He won't run off the line so long as there are no corners.'
At this the German made some inarticulate sound of assent, and for a time again relapsed into silence. Finally, as some neighbouring clock struck the hour of eleven, he looked up with another grunt. 'This place closes in half an hour. The young man is not coming,' he said.
'He will come,' Valdez repeated calmly.
'Per Bacco!if he doesn't——'
But even as Pierantoni opened his lips to speak the gaily-painted door behind him opened quickly and softly, and was as softly shut.
'Am I late?' asked Dino, looking all about him.
There was more curiosity than excitement in the expression of his face.
'I thought you told me it was to be an especially important sort of meeting? Why, where are the others? There's no one here!' he said, in a hurried aside to Valdez as he drew up a chair and took his place at the table beside his friend. Pierantoni's face he knew by sight already, but he gazed at the stranger present with considerable interest and wonder, noting each personal peculiarity of his appearance, his careless dress, his broad shoulders and large very white hands; he wore a large and valuable ring upon one of them, and there was an ugly scar, the red mark of an old wound, across his wrist. Dino could not keep his eyes from it. He had always longed to see this man. The German leaned back quietly in his chair.
'Your name is Bernardino de Rossi. You are Livornese by birth,—twenty-four years old. You have belonged to this Society for nearly three years, having been introduced and vouched for by Signor Pietro Valdez, here present. And for the last four years—for the last five years, if I mistake not,' he hesitated for an instant and appeared to consult his memory, 'you have held a position in the Telegraph Office of Leghorn. I believe I am right in all these particulars?'
'Perfectly right. It is nearly five years. I was nineteen when I went into the office,' said Dino promptly, though not without a little inward astonishment. What had this meeting then to do with him? and why had Valdez not spoken more clearly? But he was soon to know.
'And three weeks ago a slight disturbance—a regretable disturbance—connected with a small demonstration in favour of General Garibaldi, took place. The procession was dispersed by the police, but not before you had been recognised as being implicated in it. In consequence of this, and partly, also, because of your refusing to give up the name of one of your fellow-clerks who was known to have been there with you, you were unfortunately dismissed from your post this morning. I say unfortunately because, for some few weeks at all events, you will now be placed under police surveillance. You should have been more careful, sir!' the speaker concluded brusquely.
This man had the power of assuming at will an indescribable air of ease and authority. All traces of his former manner of lounging good-nature had vanished. His voice even was changed. He spoke now with the clearness and rapidity of a man accustomed to undisputed command. 'You should have been more careful, sir. You have lessened your chance of being useful.'
Dino felt himself going red and white by turns.
'There was no other choice, your—your—sir! I mean,' he said after a moment. 'The man you speak of—he's no friend of mine—depended upon my holding my tongue. I was bound as a gentleman not to betray him.'
'The Society has nothing to do with your being, or not being, a gentleman, sir!' the great man interrupted sharply, and looking at Dino with not unkindly eyes. 'You will attend to what I say, if you please, as at present you are merely wasting my time in this matter.' He glanced across at Valdez, and then tapped the table before him thoughtfully with his finger-tips: it was the hand on which he wore his great signet ring, and the brilliants which surrounded it glittered oddly enough among the heaps of tobacco ash and burnt-out matches which littered the mean little table.
'H—m,' he said thoughtfully; and turning his eyes abruptly upon De Rossi, 'You know who I am?' he demanded. 'Ah—I see you do. Well, that simplifies matters. You will understand how it is that I am giving you these orders. I suppose there is no need of my reminding you of the new—the special engagements you entered into on the day following the littleémeutewe have spoken of——?'
'Ah!' said Dino, suddenly straightening himself upon his chair.
Valdez lifted his eyes quickly, then let them drop again. The lad was beginning to understand.
'You and one other man placed yourselves on that occasion on the Society's list of volunteers. I don't know how much you meant by doing so, but that's not my affair. You would not have been accepted if you had not been considered a fit person—and properly vouched for. It seemed hardly probable at the time that any very especial service would be demanded from you, but of course you took your chance of that. I have known men wait for years and years without getting such a chance; but you are to be congratulated, young man, you are more fortunate than they.'
There was a dingy carafe standing in its little saucer on the centre of the table. Dino reached over and poured himself out a glass of water; he swallowed it down at a gulp. Then he leaned deliberately back in his chair. He had turned very pale, and his eyes were shining.
'What is there to be done, sir? I'm ready,' he said quietly.
The German looked at him grimly enough for a moment, and then for the first time his face relaxed into its wonderful child-like smile.
'Schön,' he said approvingly. Then, with a sudden reassumption of his former manner, 'Have you any present means of support? What are you going to do with yourself at once?' he demanded.
Dino told him.
'Very well then. For the next fortnight you will go about your work in the boats, and you will be careful to give cause of suspicion to no one. You observe that I sayto no one. If you have a—amädchenwhom you fancy yourself in love with, you will remember that the Society does not admit of rivals. At the end of the fortnight you will be sent to Rome, means being provided for your journey. And in the meantime you will not show yourself again at this club. Whatever orders you may need will reach you through Signor Valdez.'
There was a moment's pause. 'And—and what am I to do in Rome when I get there?' Dino asked presently. His lips had turned dry again: he found a certain difficulty in speaking.
'You will leave Leghorn on the 11th or 12th of next month. On the 13th of April His Majesty, King Humbert, will hold a grand review of his troops in the new quarter of the Macao, near the railway station. The Queen will be present at the ceremony with the court and the young Prince. The King will appear riding at the head of his staff. You will take up your place in the crowd at the corner nearest the Royal carnages. His Majesty will pass you twice—coming and going; the second time he passes——'
They had all drawn nearer the small table as he went on speaking in lower and lower tones; and now the four faces were very close together.
'And then?' Dino tried to say, but his lips only moved. He had no voice in which to frame the words.
'Signor Valdez is nearest to you. Tell him, Valdez,' the German said peremptorily, and threw himself back in his chair.
And then Dino felt Valdez's warm breath in his ear. He heard certain words which, for a moment, seemed to convey no meaning. He looked straight across the room at the foolish painted door through which he had entered. He felt thirsty again—that intolerable thirst! and the gas flickered and made a curious sound—like a whistle; and—and——
He stood up suddenly in his place, and stared at the three impassive faces before him. They were all watching him.
'My God!' he said in a broken whisper; 'great God!you want me to assassinate the King!'
In less than half an hour he had left the place. Valdez accompanied him as far as the café door, but there, with scarcely the exchange of a word, they parted.
'Are you not going home, lad? Go home and get some sleep,' the elder man said, speaking in a tone of great kindness and friendliness. And yes, Dino admitted, he was tired. And with that they separated: but he would not go home yet. With the instinct of one born and brought up by the sea, it was to the sea he turned, naturally and unconsciously, as another man might have turned to an open window. He walked fast until he reached the low parapet which runs along the embankment of the public walk; but, once there, his pace slackened. The night was growing quiet; the wind had fallen perceptibly with the setting of the moon. There were many clouds still, but broken and moving; and clear dark spaces of the sky where the stars sparkled frostily. Below, the water was still restlessly leaping and falling beneath the low sea-wall, a dark unquiet surface crossed with long pale streaks of foam. He walked up and down, slowly, by the edge of a clump of ilex trees, his hands in his pockets, his head a little bent, in the attitude of a man who is thinking intently. Now and then, at the louder splash of some wave which broke higher than its fellows, he lifted up his face automatically and looked about him with a blank, confused stare. In truth he was feeling little more than an overwhelming sense of confusion; nothing seemed real, within or without; he was only conscious that all was changed around him, and he could not realise the blow.
Dino's strongest personal impressions, all his most treasured boyish remembrances, were in some way connected with his father, who had died young, and when the boy was not more than twelve or thirteen years of age. Any one else remembering Olinto de Rossi—had there indeed been any one left in the very least likely to speak of him—any other person would, in all probability, have summed him up briefly as a handsome, fickle, enthusiastic young man, who—having begun life with a tolerable fortune, a persuasive tongue, a singularly equable and lovable temper, and an absolute incapacity for denying himself the smallest satisfaction—had ended by dying miserably of consumption at thirty-five; having in the interval married; spent all his money; and earned for himself some measure of local notoriety as a sort of popular demagogue, a speaker and leader at democratic meetings.
Chance having thrown him, while very young, among men of determined political sympathies, he had insensibly acquired so many of their opinions, which he afterwards retailed and amplified with so much natural ingenuity and eloquence, as to have earned no slight fame for himself as a radical patriot of extreme views. In point of fact, he had taken to speech-making in the first place, almost by accident, and as he would have taken to drink, or to gambling, or to any other form of excitement which appealed to his pleasure-giving, pleasure-loving, nature. And having once begun to taste the sweets of popularity, he was fascinated by them; he required no especial convictions, the applause and admiration he received were quite enough to determine his vocation.
But it was not to be supposed that a reputation obtained in this manner could last for ever, or indeed for very long. Before many years had passed there had come a sensible diminution in the number and the fervour of De Rossi's political adherents. The elder men of his party had long since ceased to take serious notice of his impassioned prophecies; and now even the editors of the fiercest socialistic papers—the compiler ofIl Luciferoof Ancona, and the gentleman who was responsible for the appearance of the LeghornThief—even they had begun to fight shy of their old and brilliant contributor. By the time little Dino was old enough to become his father's companion, following him about from meeting to meeting with undoubting, enthusiastic admiration and love, it is probable that the faith and awe the elder De Rossi excited in his little listener was very nearly the sum total of the credence he received.
On the whole, this defection did not depress him seriously. Perhaps he never thoroughly believed in it, or that he had in any way deserved it; one's own account of one's motives, and the way they strike a friend, often bearing much the same relation to each other as a photograph does to a portrait. Each represents the same individual; but one is fact; the other may be a poem. And from first to last Dino saw nothing but the poem; his father treating him throughout with a gentleness, a pride in his clever boy, and an amount of expansive affection, which cost him nothing, and which bound the lad to him with a more than common reverence and love. As for his wife, for Dino's mother, she was by nature a silent woman, who did not need to express all that she thought; and this, Olinto sometimes reflected, was perhaps fortunate: the view other people take of the less admirable consequences of our actions being apt to strike one as morbid. After all, her husband was never positively unkind to her. He had never purposely deceived her. He was simply an ordinary man; selfish, good-humoured, eager for any new amusement; a creature of fine moments and detestable habits. And, after all, when his wife had married him it was because she wanted to do so; because nothing else could or would satisfy her. If she had made a mistake, well! perhaps he too had had his illusions. And it is the law of life—a woman loves what she can evoke, but what shemarriesin a man is not his best, but his average, self.
Being gifted with a perfect, an unalterable good humour, De Rossi accepted his wife's altered opinion of him as he accepted the reduced circumstances of his material life: both were more or less of his own making, and between them they troubled him but very little. His experience of life was a succession of easy contentments. He enjoyed his own emotions. He liked sinning as he liked repenting, and in both phases he was alike sincere—and unreliable. He was capable of the deepest enthusiasms—the tenderest emotions—but he was unable to master his own shifting moods for a week. His facile nature lapsed away from the highest points it reached with the inevitableness of water which seeks its level. He was attractive; he was weak; he was untrustworthy;—and yet he was always attractive. 'The sort of man,' Valdez said of him, 'the sort of man who orders his dog "to come here," and when the beast lies down in a corner,—"Ah, the clever dog! he knew I was going to tell him to do that next!" says my amiable gentleman.'
Before her marriage—-she was five years older than her husband—Catarina had been the confidential maid of the Marchesa Balbi. She had never wholly lost her place at the Villa. When the young heir was born, a month or two after the birth of Dino, she was, at her own earnest entreaty, made thebaliaof the little Marchese. Whenever the family came to Leghorn she was always going up to the Villa; the Marchesa was perpetually sending for her. There was no great mental barrier between the Italian lady and her old servant: both were convent bred, with much the same sort of education—and what hopes and fears had they not shared since then in common! Catarina would stand for hours at the foot of her old mistress' sofa, talking to her in undertones of things which every one else had forgotten. The two women were bound to one another by a whole world of recollected emotions—the night young Gasparo was ill; his first steps; the day he had first moved alone from the arms of his nurse to the arms of his mother,—to each of them these had been events in life.
As the years went by Olinto objected less and less to his wife's frequent absences. 'She is a good woman, my Dino, but hard—hard,' he would say sometimes to his boy—and by the very passion with which the child loved him he could see how much he had inherited of his mother's loyal and serious nature. He began to fear vaguely lest, his boy growing older, he should begin to learn to judge him—and he had grown strangely dependent on that one unhesitating faith.
Things were then in this condition, when one day, Dino being at the time some twelve years old, he was taken by his father to a political banquet, a sort of subscription supper given by one of the clubs to which Olinto had at some time belonged.
Dino never forgot that supper. There had been some objection made to his own presence when he was first taken in; high words exchanged between some of the men present and his father; sneering references, which the child only half understood, to other debts, and former feasts unpaid for. In the midst of the confusion Dino saw his father rise suddenly from his place at the table; he looked about him, waving his hand to command silence: his face was very white.
There was a general outcry of 'Sit down! sit down!'—'It's too early yet!'—'We don't want any more speeches;' and then Dino saw the man who was sitting on his other side lean well forward and put his hand upon his father's shoulder. 'Don't try and talk to them now. Wait till after supper. And—sit down, De Rossi, do. There's a good fellow,' he said. And then, as Olinto yielded mechanically to the pressure, his neighbour drew back, looking kindly enough into Dino's terrified face.
'Don't be frightened, my little fellow. They often make a noise at these suppers. It means—nothing,' he said, with a half contemptuous smile.
Dino looked at him for a moment in silence. Then the boy's face flushed scarlet, and his eyes filled with tears.
'It can't mean anything,' he said desperately. 'My—my father would never have brought me here if he did not mean to pay for it.' But he did not look at his father, who was arguing eagerly across the table with his opposite neighbour, and there was a lump in his throat which seemed to choke him as he spoke.
'What, are you Olinto's little chap? Is De Rossi your father? And what's your name, then? What do you call yourself, my little lad?' the stranger asked good-naturedly.
'My name is Bernardo. But they call me Dino at home,' the boy said, rather huskily.
'Well, then, Dino, my boy, eat your supper, and don't trouble your head about what doesn't concern you. Your share of it shall be paid for, never fear. Now then, what's the matter now? Don't sit and stare at your father. He won't notice you. He's—busy. If you are wise you'll tellmewhat you want,' he repeated, with the same equivocal smile.
There was something in his kind and melancholy face which had won the boy's entire confidence. 'I am afraid, sir—— I don't think my father has got enough money with him,' he said hastily, with burning cheeks and downcast eyes. When he ventured to look up he met his neighbour's glance fixed full upon him with a certain friendly amusement.
'So you are Olinto de Rossi's son,' he said slowly; and Dino wondered to hear him say it, for surely he knew that already. 'Well, well.Per Bacco!if the evolutionists are to be trusted, why, here's a curious experiment of Dame Nature's. Well, look here, my boy, did you ever see me before?'
'No, sir.'
'Did you ever hear your father speak of Pietro Valdez?'
'No, sir.'
'H—m. Well! that's my name. And I spend my time teaching people how to play the guitar, and tuning pianos: that's my trade. So now you know who I am. And I've known your father a good many years now, first and last, a good many years. Just tell him to turn around for a moment. I say, De Rossi—— You look out for yourself; I don't want to crush you, my boy.'
He leaned well forward, and spoke in a low voice to Olinto. Dino was crouching back in his chair: he could not hear what passed between the two men; but half an hour later, and having in the meantime, and at the instigation of his new friend, partaken heartily of his supper, he had the satisfaction of seeing his father carelessly fling a gold piece into the subscription plate, where it lay and glittered obtrusively among the pile of meaner silver coins.
The boy's eyes sparkled with triumph at the sight. He looked up with a frank laugh into the face of his new companion. 'Did you see that, sir?' he asked eagerly, his face all aglow.
'Ay,' Valdez answered almost indifferently. He leaned back on his chair and contemplated the row of faces before him. 'Presently they will begin their fine speechifying. Look here, my boy, I see signs—never mind what they are—but I see symptoms of a coming row. It will be nothing to speak of, I daresay, but all the same I want you to promise me this: If I send you home, I want you to cut away at once without stopping to ask questions, do you see? Now promise me you'll do that, like a good little chap.'
'I'll stay with my father, sir. I must stay with my father. And if you please, sir, I'd rather stay, really. I'm not afraid.'
'Now, who ever supposed you were afraid, my little man? But that is not the question. Now, look here—ah!——'
He stopped short. A sudden silence had fallen upon the room. A man near him roared out 'Hush!' and smote the table before him with his clenched fist. For the last time in his life Olinto de Rossi had risen to make a speech.
He had been very quiet all the previous part of the evening; sitting most of the time with his head leaning upon his hand, hardly speaking to any one, not even to his boy. As he rose slowly to his feet a wild burst of ironical applause greeted him from every part of the room, only Valdez sat silent and motionless, staring down at his plate with a moody troubled face. De Rossi stood leaning a little forward; his thin cheeks, which had grown so deadly pale of late, were burning now with vivid spots of red. 'Friends,' he began, 'Gentlemen——' He hesitated for an instant, then burst into wild invective against Church and King and State. 'The State—the State, I tell you, is the very negation of liberty,' he cried, 'and no matter who command, they make all serve. You talk, some of you, of changing the politicalrégime. How will you change it? For what good? If a man among you has a thorn in his foot, will it help him if he change his boots? I tell you, it is the thorn, the thorn itself, that you must get out, wrench out, cut out, if need be. We, the people, how often have we asked our rulers for bread and they have given us a stone? Yet this is scarcely prudent, friends, for a stone is a fair missile. What! will they live on in their princely palaces and offer to us, to the people, the bare right and privilege of labour? Labour! I tell you that God Himself has set His curse upon labour. I—tell—you——'
His voice had failed him suddenly. He put his hand up to his head, staring wildly about him.
'Go on, go on. That's the right sort of stuff. Down with everything. A general mess and scrimmage, and myself dancing on the top of it; that's your real radical programme. That's what you call reform!' a man in the crowd at the foot of the table cried out derisively. There was a general laugh; some indication of a wish to hustle him into silence; some shouts of 'VivaDe Rossi!' The men had all been drinking freely, and were ripe for any mischief.
'I say, De Rossi, get up on your chair, man. We can't hear you,' some one called out again; the suggestion was received with another hoarse roar of approval. Two or three men moved towards the orator as if with the intention of forcing him to adopt this new position.
'For God's sake, can't you let the man alone? Don't you see that he is ill?' cried Valdez, suddenly starting forward.
Some one, more humane than his fellows, had poured De Rossi out a glass of wine. He lifted it to his lips now, facing them all, with flushed face and wild glittering eyes, 'I drink to your health, gentlemen!'
He stood so for a second amidst frantic shouts of applause, with one hand outstretched. To Dino's eyes he looked like some demi-god mastering a whirlwind. And then all of a sudden the brimming glass slipped from his nerveless hand, and was dashed into a thousand pieces. He watched it fall with a half-bewildered laugh; he staggered, and clutched at the table; a sudden red mark discoloured his smiling mouth, and he fell heavily forward, face downwards, without a word or a groan.
He had broken a blood-vessel; he was still insensible as they carried him back to his home through the dark and empty streets; and Dino walked beside the litter and held his father's hand. His wife met them at the door with Palmira, who was then a baby, in her arms. Her face seemed turned to stone as she listened to Valdez's explanations. Only, as they laid her husband gently down upon his bed, and uncovered his face, a quick spasm contracted her rigid mouth, and she stooped and kissed the dying man upon his forehead.
'I knew it would come. It had to come,' she said drearily. And after that she scarcely spoke again, turning away from all consolation, and seeming to find relief only in the few practical cares which were left to her.
And so, like some impatient wave breaking too far from shore, whose troubled existence reaches its climax in but one instant of wasted force, in the midst of a sea where every wave which lifts itself must fall, so Olinto died, and his idle raving was hushed, and his place knew him no more. Of mourners he had few or none; it was only to his boy that he left so much as a memory. That was almost the lad's entire heritage, that and the friendship of Pietro Valdez.
As little Dino grew up every other detail of his life seemed to change about him, as things do change in the lives of people too poor to order their surrounding circumstances. The Marchesa came less and less often to the Villa Balbi; he had lost the familiar companionship of his foster-brother; of his first childish recollections there was only old Drea left, and the dear face of Italia, to illuminate the past. But, whatever else was altered, he had never lost sight of Valdez. Indeed, since that night the man seemed to have taken a strange fancy to the boy; as the years went on those two were always more and more together; an arbitrary friendship, in which one was ever the leader and teacher and guide.
Even to Dino there was always a certain mystery about Valdez, but it was the mystery of pure blankness; there were no secrets about him, chiefly because he seemed to own no history. He never willingly spoke of himself, or alluded to former acquaintances or habits. If he had any one belonging to him, if he had ever been married, no one precisely knew. He never spoke to women, or appeared interested in them. He lived alone, where he had lived for twenty years, in two small rooms in one of the narrowest streets of Leghorn. His wants were few and unchanging, and the money which he earned amply sufficed for them. In his working hours he followed his trade, as he called it, with the sober exactitude and indifference of a machine. He was a Spaniard by birth, and a Protestant by conviction; and he believed in a coming universal republic as he believed in the rising of the sun. After a dozen years of companionship that was the most that Dino knew of him.
*****
As he paced up and down there by the sea, a hundred confused images and impressions came floating back out of that past to Dino. His father's face, and the unforgotten sound of his voice,—Sor Checco, Gasparo, Drea, dear old Valdez, and those men at the café to-night, and the scene this morning at the office, and the scene at the banquet, that other night, long ago,—how long ago it seemed! It was as if some storm-wave breaking over his life and soul had stirred the very depths of old remembrance, until he could scarcely distinguish the actual from the past, the living from the dead. They were all mixed up with the darkness and the wind and the sense of the restless seething water about him.
When he thought of Italia he stopped short. He could not, hewouldnot think of Italia—not then. He could bear nothing further to-night, he told himself, with a curious sense of relief and quiet. The measure was full; he could realise nothing more. And, indeed, beyond great pain as beyond great joy, there is this mysterious region of rest. Great passions end in calm, as the two poles are surrounded by similar spaces of silent, ice-locked sea.