A woman's anxiety is always awake, always asking. She entreats to know in direct proportion to her dread of the coming knowledge. How could it well be otherwise, while her life is one frail tissue of delicate probabilities, in the midst of which she waits, like a spider in its net, for the possible gifts of fate? And the web may glisten as it will in the sunlight; it makes but a poor shield against a blow.
As Catarina busied herself about her ordinary household work that next morning there were faint new lines of care about her close shut mouth, and the orbits of her eyes were darkened as if with sleeplessness and long watching. But, whatever had troubled her, she made no direct mention of it to Dino,—setting his belated breakfast before him carefully but in silence. It was not until he pushed aside his plate and stood up, reaching mechanically for his hat, ready to go out, that she admitted to herself that if she wanted an explanation she must ask for it; or seemed to notice his movements, and even then it was only to say indifferently,
'Shall you be home to dinner? Or do you mean to stay at Drea's? is that a part of your new arrangements?'
'Nay, but, mother, I am sorry to have given you so much more trouble. The fact is I—I over-slept myself this morning. When I came in last night I was more tired than I knew,' said Dino cheerfully.
'Ay, when you came in! When you did come! It was after ten o'clock when you brought home that blessed child, so worn out with the wind and what not that she fell asleep on my knee, bless her little heart! before I had fairly time to get her clothes off. And after that I sat up for three hours in that chair, Dino. It was striking one by the Duomo clock before I went to bed.'
She turned to the dresser by the wall and began reaching down plate after plate, and looking at each one as she wiped it. 'I had this china before you were born; the signora Marchesa took me with her to choose it—and it was my wedding present from the Villa—sent down by one of the footmen the day after I was married. I was sitting by that window when it was brought in—a great heavy basket that the man could hardly lift upon the table—only your father helped him. And there was never a piece of it broken until you knocked down the saucer the day I asked you to help me with the cups. But it's ungrateful work taking care o' things that just end by being used by others who don't see any difference. There's a plenty o' people in the world have got brighter eyes for looking at their sweethearts with than for looking after their husband's house. Palmira tells me that my boy, my young master, is at home again, Dino?'
'Ay, signor Gasparo's here.'
'And went to see Sor Drea on his very first evening! He used to come to me.Guarda questa! But young men will be young men. And 'tis true that Andrea has sense enough to look after that girl of his. She's givenyouenough encouragement——'
'Mother!' said Dino in his severest voice; a voice which secretly awed her.
He faced around suddenly, and stood looking at her as she moved to and fro.
'Mother! it is not generous, it is not kind, to speak of Italia in that fashion. And you know it hurts me. I love her,' he said, his voice changing. 'Of course I love her. I don't care who knows that I love her. But encouragement! I don't know what you mean. Encouragement from Italia! She has never thought of such a thing; she would not know what you meant——'
'Eh, don't tell me, lad. I've been a girl myself. 'Tis a poor dog that doesn't know when he's wagging his own tail,' cried Catarina bitterly, stooping to wipe the dust off the leg of a chair with the corner of her apron. She made a busy pretence of it for a moment or two, and then her hands dropped helplessly; she stood up and looked at her tall son. 'An' so you love her;—you love that little girl! You never told me of it before, lad.'
'But, mother dear, you never asked me. I always thought you knew it. It was plain enough. And how was I to guess you wanted to be told? I have never even told—her,' the young man said.
'Andshewas to come first? Nay, 'tis but natural. The young birds build new nests. Ah, but, Dino! Dino! I've lost you. I've lost my own boy——'
Her voice broke: she turned abruptly away, and hid her gray head upon her clasped hands.
'But, mother dear,—dearest mother!'
He stood with one hand on her shoulder, looking down at her bowed head with a curiously-blended feeling of distress over her grief and impatience at its unreasonableness: 'Mother! After all, you must have expected it sooner or later: it is but natural——'
'Yes, lad. I know. 'Tis as you say: 'tis natural,' Catarina said meekly; and then she turned her face away again with a sob and a feeling of utter inevitable loneliness. How could the lad understand? He was young, and she was growing old; and to him what was natural was easy, and to her it was hard. That was all the difference.
She swallowed something in her throat, a lump which seemed to choke her, and stood up. 'Poverino! I won't tease you any more: don't be vexed with me, lad,' she said soothingly, looking into his perplexed face with a quivering smile. She put up her hand to brush off an imaginary speck of dust from his coat. 'Nay, 'tis no wonder if people love you. Go, my Dino, go to—her,' she said; and as Dino bent his head and kissed her, 'It's because I am sending him away,' she thought, bitterly enough.
'And how about Monte Nero, mother? The pilgrimage, you know. Italia was asking about it last night,' he said cheerfully, glad to see her beginning to accept things more placidly.
'Ay, lad, I'll think of it; but go now, go. I will not—I cannot—I mean, do as you please. Make all your plans, and I will help you carry them out. It's what I'm good for now, I suppose. I must learn not to stand in your way—and hers.'
'Mother!'
'I— Don't mind me, my Dino. Don't be angry with your old mother, my own boy. It was only a—a surprise. I shall be all right when you come back; for you will come back to dinner, my Dino? I am good for that much: I can take care of you still.'
She followed him to the door, and then went and stood by the open window, shading her eyes from the bright March sun, to watch him as he passed down the street. Perhaps he would turn his head and look up. But no. From that height she could not distinguish his face; she felt a pang of idle regret at the thought; he seemed to get so soon beyond her reach. After a while she went into her son's room, and opened all his drawers, and began to turn over his possessions. She folded an old coat which she found on the back of a chair: she folded it carefully. I am not sure that she did not kiss it. Everything belonging to him with which she had anything to do was kept in the most scrupulous order, and she wanted to find something to mend, some work which she could do for him.
There was a small faded photograph, a portrait of his father, hanging over the young man's bed. She went and looked at it as it hung against the wall, then took it down and stood with it in her hand. It was the likeness of a man who had been in every way a disappointment in her life; but she was not thinking of that now. The faded face looked at her out of the past with its easy confident smile. She only remembered the first year or two after her marriage, and her young husband's kindness to her, and his first pride and pleasure in their boy. 'Ifhehad not gone there would have been some one left to understand,' she thought. Her own personal life seemed ended: she gazed with the strangest pang of regret and companionship at this fading likeness of the dead face she had loved in her youth. What if afterwards he had neglected her? At least he had come to her once of his own accord, for her own sake—and they had been young together.
She felt herself quite alone, this austere and self-contained woman—alone in a world which could never change for the better now; in which each new morning would only bring new deprivations in place of fresh joys.
*****
Dino had dressed himself in workman's clothes that morning. Drea did not expect him yet, but it was just possible there might be something which wanted doing in the boat. It was such a bright fresh morning after the storm; a morning to make young hearts beat lightly and young blood run fast with a quick sense and joy of dear life. But as he turned mechanically down the busy Via Grande he saw nothing of all this. His mother's words, the way in which she had taken it for granted that if he loved Italia, Italia must love him, and how there could be but one possible solution to their lives, all that would have been so natural, so full of hope and radiant happiness last month, last week—last week? only yesterday, only one day ago! And now; oh, the bitter irony of fate! it was he himself who had forged the chain which bound him. He cursed his own folly. Why could he not have been contented? was he not deeply enough involved before then? why could he not have let that last crowning piece of madness alone?
The look of the commonplace crowd around him, the presence of those scores of hurrying, interested, contented, busy men, the very look of the shop windows, all things seemed to conspire together to discredit and ridicule the devoted side, the dramatic side, the only possible side, of his situation. In a world like this—a world of common-sense and convenience and keen enjoyments, a world of sunlight and youth and possibilities, to choose deliberately, at four-and-twenty, to throw away all one's future, all one's love, all one's life in doing—that. Damn it! Even to himself he would never mention that accursed plan, he would never think of it.
He thrust his hands deeper into the great pockets of his rough jacket, and threw up his head defiantly, as he glanced about him. And each house he passed, each soldier, each policeman, each lamp-post even—every visible sign of peace and law and order—seemed a tangible ironical comment on his folly. And why, in God's name, had he done this thing? He remembered so well that evening—it was after their demonstration had been dispersed by the police, and he was hot with a sense of battle, and wild with excitement, with bitter baffled indignation. It had seemed so easy a thing then to pledge away his future. He had done it without consulting Valdez—suddenly, madly, on the desperate impulse of the moment. He had done it in a moment of mental crisis; because he was imaginative, because he believed in the cause, heart and soul, because he had been a fool. And as he said that to himself some old words of Pietro Valdez came back to him with sudden force out of some old forgotten talk of theirs. 'How can any one believe in your highest emotions?' he heard the familiar voice asking him, 'how can you expect any one to believe in your highest emotions if you question them yourself?'
The softest wind blew in his face and he did not feel it, the sunlight rested on him, the sky was blue and white; but he had ceased to look even at the passers-by. He felt like a man awakened from a dream, when a hand touched him, and a voice spoke in his ear, and he looked up and recognised the Marchese Gasparo.
'Hallo, old boy, are you asleep? are you dreaming? what the devil is the matter with you?'
They had met in front of the Giappone, the fashionable restaurant of Leghorn, where Gasparo had been breakfasting with a couple of his friends. The two other men strolled off a few paces and waited, smoking their long thin cigars, and eyeing Dino with a languid curiosity. Gasparo, too, looked at his altered dress with some exclamation of surprise.
'What is the meaning of that new toggery?' he demanded. 'I had to look twice to make sure it was you. What are you up to now, old fellow, eh? Is all that to oblige our good Andrea?' And then, without waiting for an answer: 'See here, Dino, you're the very man I want. But stop a moment. First of all, are you going anywhere in particular?'
'I am going to Drea's,' Dino said.
'To wish our pretty little friend good morning, eh, my Dino? Jove, how pretty that girl looked in the firelight singing! But never mind that. You can do something for me before you go there, can't you? Women are never the worse for being kept waiting; in fact, it does them good, and their hearts get softer with time, just as a peach softens when you leave it for a bit to ripen on the tree. I say, Dino, be a good obliging fellow for once. You are not really in a hurry?'
'No, sir.'
'Benissimo! Then you can go and do an errand for me. I want—— Look here; it's a letter I want carried. Rather an important letter. It's—it's a love-letter, in fact,' said Gasparo, beginning to laugh, 'and I want it taken to the woman with the most beautiful eyes in Leghorn—the most beautiful? well, at least I thought so until yesterday. She is—her name is written on the envelope. But it is not to be taken to her house, you understand? She is at Pancaldi's this morning, at the Stabilimento. Go straight in to the platform where the baths are in summer; you'll find her there, looking at the waves.' He laughed, brushing up his moustache. 'So there you are; and now right about face—march! Why, man, what are you staring at? There's the letter; and I say, Dino, mind you give it to her quietly; just slip it into her hand, you know, as if it were the answer to some commission. Faith! theyarepretty eyes, if they're not so bright as Italia's.'
Dino turned red; he drew his shoulder away from the Marchese's careless touch.
'I—— You must excuse me, sir,' he said roughly. 'Get some one else to carry your letter. I won't go.'
'Hullo!' The Marchese threw back his head. 'Then—oh, go to the devil!' he said, and turned lightly on his heel.
He walked off for a pace or two and stopped, irresolute. It was really very awkward about that letter. He wanted it taken; he could not carry it himself, and to find another trustworthy messenger at a moment's notice—— He turned back.
'I say, old fellow, don't you think this is treating me rather badly? It is not every one whom I'd ask to do this thing for me, but you—why, we've been boys together, you and I.' A smile lighted up his handsome face. 'I'd do as much for you any day, old Dino; for you and your sweetheart.'
Among all the men of his time, the young Marchese, Gasparo Balbi, was one of the most personally attractive. He was the most popular man in his regiment; he fascinated the very orderly who cleaned his boots, and all women and all children loved him. Wherever he went—in a ballroom, or in the streets,—people turned in the same way to look at him. His mere presence was an irresistible argument. When he talked it is possible that what he said was neither particularly fresh nor particularly new, but that did not matter; his silence and his speech were alike persuasive. He had all the qualities of a ruler and leader of men,—strong animal magnetism, an irresistible audacity, an implacable will. He was like one of the English Stuarts in his wonderful faculty of awakening passionate loyalty and enthusiasm in all who came into personal relations with him; perhaps he was still more like them in his power of using his friends, his capacity for charming and—forgetting.
He stood there now smiling in the sunlight, like a young prince whose good pleasure it is to explain when he need only command.
'Come, my Dino; I know you better than you know yourself. Surely you are not going to refuse to do this for me?' he said.
He smiled again as De Rossi went off with the letter. If the Contessa did not like it—well? He thought of her pleasantly, holding, as he did, the easy Italian creed that, if money is the root of all evil, women are at least its flower. Still, if the Contessa did not like it, if by any chance she cared to make herself disagreeable—shecouldget into a rage; that was certain—well? He adjusted his sword belt a little and strolled back to his friends, whistling softly in an undertone.
'Been giving that young fellow a rating, eh, Gasparo? He looked at you at one moment as if he would not be sorry to measure the length of his knife against your ribs,' remarked one of the men who had been waiting for him.
'I was only giving him a commission. He's my foster-brother, by the way, that chap, and would go through fire and water to serve me. So much for your powers of discrimination, my Nello,' said Gasparo carelessly.
He linked his arm in that of his friend, and they lounged slowly away together through the crowded street.
Dino meanwhile was walking down the empty parade, on the farther side of that straggling, weather-beaten row of trees which stands between the Passeggiata and the low sea-wall. It was the same ground which he had trodden the night before in his despair, and now he was being sent over it again to carry a note at Gasparo's bidding. It was as if Fate had determined to ridicule each turn of his fortunes. He was tasting that experience which is common to all people who get into the way of considering their lives from the outside,—dramatically, as it were—the experience of those who, having many gifts, yet lack simplicity. He contemplated and criticised any mental crisis in which he found himself involved until it lost all sense of reality and became asituation. He was, if possible, too clever, too sensitive. He frittered his attention away on the by-play of life. As he walked along in the sunshine of that morning, beside the blue and placid sea, it was still very much of an open question with Dino what realrôlehe was to enact in life; it would depend so much upon whom he met; upon association and circumstance; perhaps chiefly upon some secret pressure of influence; the gift or the curse of some unconscious soul.
He walked slowly, but it was not far to the entrance of the Stabilimento. Two men were lounging in the gateway. One of them looked hard at Dino, at his preoccupied face, and the careless workman's dress.
'Here! Give me your letter and I'll take it in for you,giovane mio, he said good-naturedly.
Dino threw back his head with an involuntary expression of annoyance.
'I carry my own messages,' he answered shortly.
'A thousand pardons! Evidently the Signor—the Signor Carpenter, shall I say? or the SignorFacchino?—evidently he wishes to pay for his entrance, then? For let me tell you that Pancaldi's is like the gate of Paradise; you don't go in without a properlasciapassare.'
'Nay, can't you let the fellow alone, Beppi? Can't you see that he is carrying a message? Let him in, you idiot, else we shall have the Padrone himself down upon us,' the other man added in a voice like an intermittent growl. He moved back a step or two, making room for Dino to pass. 'Come in, come in,bel giovane. You need never mind my comrade here; you cannot quarrel with a dog for barking at his own gate.Via,' he said, with a wave of his hand, 'put up your purse, my lad. Save the money to buy your sweetheart a fairing. Nay, if you won't believe me, you can read, I suppose? and there it is written up on the board in front of you,Children and servants, admittance free. And so put up your money, I tell you.'
'And pray who the devil told you that I was a servant?' demanded Dino, thrusting his hand into his pocket and drawing out a crumpled bit of paper. It was the last five-franc note he had in the world; he tossed it contemptuously across the wooden ledge in front of him. 'Pay yourself, and try to know a gentleman the next time you see one, will you?'
'Ah, a fine gentleman, truly,' said the man called Beppi, picking up the note and contemplating it with a sneer.
'Perdio,' added his companion, 'a man with money is a man in the right. So put that in your pipe,amico mio, and smoke it. Ay, money, it's like one's other blood; a man with empty pockets, 'tis but a dead man walking.'
'Oh, that's all very fine, butIlike consistency. A gentleman's a gentleman,Isay. It never was so much of a world to boast of at the best, and when it comes to a new tax upon the wine, and not so much as the prospect of half a day's holiday just to make a feast for the blessed Madonna of Monte Nero,—and common workmen who go about throwing five-franc notes in your face, as if the world had gone mad.Ilike consistency, that's what I say,' retorted Beppi, in a voice which grew gradually lower as he looked from the note between his finger and thumb at Dino's receding figure.
It was scarcely more than a moment before De Rossi had come upon the object of his search. He recognised her immediately; indeed he had often before seen her passing in her carriage, a beautiful impassive figure, wrapped in her costly Russian furs. She was alone now, leaning over the balustrade with her eyes fixed vaguely upon the changing ripples of the sea. At any other moment Dino might have felt a certain timidity in approaching her; but the irritation of that challenge at the gate was still strong upon him. This woman here was only another of those aristocrats whose privileged existences made life intolerable. Was it intolerable by conviction of its injustice, or only by force of contrast?
But he troubled himself with no such inquiry as he went up to her. He lifted his hat: 'Pardon my disturbing you; but I bring a message—a letter—from the Signor Marchese Gasparo Balbi,' he said.
She was a tall young woman, nearly as tall as himself; that was the first thing he noticed. He saw her gloved hand start and shut more closely over the railing of the balcony at the first sound of his voice. But that was the only sign of surprise which she gave. There was not a quiver of perceptible emotion on the pale inscrutable face which she turned so slowly towards him.
'Bene. You may give me the letter. Thanks.'
She held out her gauntleted hand with a gesture of superb indifference, and then, as her dark glance rested for the first time upon Dino, she raised her perfect eyebrows with a slight expression of wonder. She had expected to see Gasparo's soldier servant. She turned her face away from him.
'Madame Helwige!'
A little old woman dressed in black, who had been quietly seated in a sunny corner, reading a Tauchnitz novel under the shade of a large parasol, rose quickly and came forward at this call.
'The Signora Contessa desires——'
'My purse. Yes. I want some money,' the young woman said impatiently. She made no secret of the letter she had received, holding it by one corner, and tapping the top railing with it to the measure of an inaudible tune.
'Then, if I can do nothing more for you, I will go. I have the honour of wishing you good morning,' added Dino quietly, turning away.
'Stop a moment. This lady will give you something for your trouble. Or—stop! Who are you? What is your name?'
'Bernardino de Rossi.'
'Ah. The Marchese Gasparo's foster-brother. That explains. I have heard him mention you: he says you are one of the discontented people,—a radical, a red republican,que sais je, moi? Is it true?' she asked calmly, fixing her large disdainful eyes upon the young man's face.
He bowed gravely. 'Since the Signora Contessa does me the honour to inquire. I am a radical; that is my belief.'
'Really? And you think we are all equal? We are all equally discontented, 'tis true enough;mais après?' She struck the balustrade lightly with her letter. 'Do you see the water beating against that wall of rock, Signor de' Rossi? Twice a day the tide comes in, and before the waves can climb half-way up the cliff, twice a day the tide goes out. 'Tis the same way with the people's anger—ebb and flow. And the greatest storm can only wet the rocks; it can't uproot them. What do you Italians know about such things? But I, I am a Russian, and I know.' She looked out to sea again. 'When the waves beat too fiercely against the shore the rock breaks them,' she said.
Then she looked at Dino tranquilly. 'I have heard the Marchese Gasparo speak of you; he takes an interest in you. It would be a pity if you should disappoint him,' she added, and moved away slowly with a careless bend of her head.
Dino stood as she had left him for a long moment, holding his hat in his hand, the wind just ruffling the thick hair on his forehead, gazing fixedly out to sea. He stood like a man under the influence of some spell. Then, as he looked up and caught the curious glance of the Countess' companion fixed full upon him, he hastily replaced his hat and turned away.
Just outside the gate he came upon Valdez with a roll of music in his hand, going about his work. Dino nodded to him; he would not stop to speak. The older man slackened his pace, looking at him rather sadly, as if he were sorry for something, then passed on. Afterwards it struck Dino that they had never happened to pass one another in this silent way before. He stopped, looking down the long street at the old familiar figure. But what had they to say to each other now, even if he should turn and overtake him? Dino was like a man under sentence of death; all the minor obligations of life seemed annulled and suspended; where they clung still it was by force of habit, like the withering tendrils of a vine cut down at the root.
A great impatience of trouble had fallen upon him: he wanted no more emotion, no more effort. There was a clear fortnight, perhaps three weeks, before—before he would be sent to Rome. Well! he wanted that time to himself, and he intended to have it, he intended to be happy. The first great shock of the surprise was over: his nature had already re-adjusted itself to these new conditions with the supple strength of youth. And in this fixed interval of quiet—this interval, which seemed all the longer by very reason of its being fixed,—all the light, joy-loving instincts of his age were alert within him, making music in his heart, like the rapturous song of birds between two storms. The habit of life, its careless young incredulity of the end, had never been more strong upon him; he had never felt more irresponsible; had never looked, perhaps had never been more like his father, than on that morning, as he turned down from the broad sunny Passeggiata towards old Drea's house on the quay.
Seen by daylight, the entrance to Drea's house was not unlike the entrance of a cave. The house itself was in a corner of the canal, flush with the water, below the level of the street, and consisted of two rooms—the long, large entrance room where the table had been laid for the birthday supper, and another much smaller chamber beyond, which belonged to Italia, and was lighted by a very small round window like the port-hole of a ship, which looked out upon the water on the other side of the bridge. The whole place indeed had been originally designed for a Government boat-house and store-house, and was sunk in the thickness of the massive stone pier.
On a sunny morning like this, when the door was thrown wide open, any painter passing that way would have been charmed by the mysterious look of the interior, the dark raftered ceiling, the smoke-embrowned fireplace, above which a row of bright brass plates made round spots of light in the darkness, and then the heavy coils of rope and the spare oars, arranged with all a sailor's habit of neatness, against the whitewashed wall. At dusk, and when the fire was burning, it was like looking at an interior of Rembrandt's to watch the play of light and shadow over the rich ruddy brown tones of the room; but on this particular morning the fire had been allowed to sink to a mere handful of red embers, and the room was full of the fresh smell of the sea air and the brightness of the March sunshine.
At the foot of the stone steps leading down from the street before Drea's door there was a narrow strip of stone pavement, and a floating wooden stage where the boat was moored. In the corner there, where the angle of the great granite buttress made a sheltered spot, was Italia's favourite seat. By sitting well back in the shadow one was entirely out of sight, unless indeed some especially adventurous spirit bethought himself to take the trouble to lean bodily over the parapet of the bridge overhead. But it was too busy a part of Leghorn for much idling: all day long the tramp, tramp of hurrying feet, and the hollow rumbling of the weighted carts rolling towards the lading ships, made a dull, continuous bass, which effectually covered any sound of voices. Italia could sing there by the hour over her work, sure of never being heard, save perhaps by some taciturn weather-beaten fisherman poling his flat-bottomed boat into the quieter water of the canal. It was Drea's own landing-stage, and he was jealous of his rights to it, giving but few boats the privilege of mooring there for an hour. Since the building of the railway, now that the canal has ceased to be of use for the heavier traffic between Leghorn and Pisa, a quieter spot than this could scarcely be imagined. For even the supposititious idler would scarcely be tempted to look this way when, just across the bridge, by leaning over the opposite balustrade, one could look down upon all the hurry and interest of the Old Port, and watch the slow heaving of the anchors, the puffing excitement of the blackened vessels getting up steam, or the continual come-and-go of the little boats among the shipping.
The noise and the hurry passed like an unheeded stream around Italia's sheltered corner. Dino had compared her once to an enchanted princess, and her quaint rooms, with the silent, sunny platform in front of them, to a strip of enchanted ground set apart from the disturbing commonplaces of life. The remembrance of the old fancy brought a smile upon his lips as he ran lightly down the steps that morning. Drea was not there, and the old boat was not at her mooring, but Italia was sitting just where he had expected to find her. She held a book in her hand, but she was not reading, she was looking dreamily at the lazy lapping of the water against the old wooden stage. She wore the same blue cotton dress as on the previous night, but she had taken off her beads and clasp, and tied a scarlet handkerchief about her neck. Her hat was lying on the ground beside her; Dino picked it up, and his first greeting was one of playful reproof.
'Bareheaded in this March sunshine, my Italia?Pazzarella! Your father was right indeed when he said it required two of us to look after you.'
'Dinomio!'
She looked up at him with a wide, dreamy glance, which suddenly grew bright and loving. The hot colour rushed to her cheeks, and she put up her little brown hands as if to hide them, while she laughed and shook her head.
'Marzo pazzo, ah, yes, I know it. But indeed, Dino, this is much more likely to drive me to distraction.' She opened the book on her lap, and turned over half a dozen pages. 'I have really tried to learn it, really. But it is so difficult; you have no idea how difficult it is, Dino.'
'Poor little thing! It is a shame to give it such hard lessons,' said Dino in a caressing tone, looking down at the rough brown hair. He threw himself down on the pavement in the shadow at her feet, and put up his hand for the book.
'Here! let me have a look at it, and see if I can't do something to make it easier for you. What is it? Arithmetic? Oh! but this is what I gave you to do long ago. No wonder you find it difficult; you have had time to forget all my explanations. Let me see now; have you a pencil?'
'Yes; but you can't write with it. I've broken the point.'
'Give it here, then, you helpless baby!'
He took a knife out of his pocket, and picking up the pencil began to sharpen it while she sat watching him, her dark eyes full and bright with such an expression of unquestioning content as one is not accustomed to expect on faces which have outgrown their first childish calm. The water of the canal was as blue that morning as the stainless sky which it reflected, and it seemed almost as still; only now and then the faintest ripple breaking against the step with a weak splash and stir which made the sunbeams sparkle under the wooden platform. Beyond the dark archway of the bridge the white-sailed boats came and went; her glance followed their movement with a vague sense of happy peace. She was realising for the first time the ideal of all loving-natured women: she was feeling her happiness depend upon the will of the man she trusted. When Dino looked up at her inquiringly she started, as if indeed awakened from a dream.
'Have you understood? Is that plain enough? Oh, Italia! Italia! for shame! Is that the way to treat a learned professor? You have not been looking at the book after all,' he said laughing, but shaking his head with mock severity.
The colour rushed back to her cheeks. 'Oh! I am so sorry, Dino; I forgot.'
'Now, if I were your father I should tell you that one does not carry flowers to the mill when what one wants is bread; and the quickest way to become an arithmetician is not to sit watching for the boat. By the way, speaking of the boat, Sor Drea must have gone out early this morning.'
'Yes; he went at daybreak; he woke me up to tell me he was going. He took Maso with him to help with the nets.'
'Ah! I wish I had known,' said Dino quickly.
'Father thought of going for you; then he said you would be tired—you had a hard day yesterday. And Sora Catarina would not know yet of your arrangement; she would have been frightened if you had been fetched away suddenly in the middle of the night.'
She glanced quickly at him, and added, 'I am glad they did not go for you; you look so tired this morning, Dino, as if you had not slept.'
'I did not sleep—much,' he said absently.
He threw his arm up and laid his head against it. His face was almost on a level now with the blue ripple of the water. There was a handful of loose straw floating about among the piles: he watched it come and go as the current sucked in under the landing-stage. What was the good of thinking—of remembering? Why had Italia alluded to last night? Was he never to forget it for five minutes?
He sat up abruptly, brushing the hair out of his eyes; but as he moved she spoke.
'Won't you give me the book now, Dino?' She bent her head down over it: 'I did not mean to vex you; I did not mean to tease you when you are so tired.'
She looked so like a child submitting to some half-understood reproof that Dino could scarcely restrain the impulse of mingled tenderness and adoration which made him long to take her in his arms and kiss her. But he forced himself to answer lightly: 'What nonsense, little one; as if anything you did could vex me!' He looked about him: 'I suppose I ought to be going now. There is no telling when Sor Drea will be in if he has taken the nets; but I wish you would sing to me—just one song before I go.' He took the book away from her and closed it gently. 'After all, you are right; it is better to have music than to do one's lesson on such a morning. Sums are made for different weather, are they not, Italiamia? For days when thelibeccioblows, and one does not mind wasting a whole morning over one terrible bit of multiplication.'
'Oh, but even I am not quite so bad as that,' said Italia quickly. 'I had only just brought out my book when you came; before then I had been talking to the signor Padrone.'
'What!' said Dino, in quite an altered voice. He noticed the change himself, but he could not prevent it; it was all he could do to ask the question quietly, 'Has—has the Marchese Gasparo been here?'
'Surely,' said Italia, looking at him with some surprise; 'he came here about an hour ago to speak about the boat to my father. He wants to take a party of his friends out for a sail.' She added: 'I thought you knew he had been here; he told me he had met you.'
'No, I did not know it,' said Dino, speaking between his teeth.
All the radiant sweetness of the day seemed blotted out before him. It was very well for that child there innocently to accept this fiction about the boat; but did not he, Dino, understand Gasparo better? A dozen stories of the handsome Captain's powers of fascination flashed back across him. He thought of the woman to whom he had carried the letter that very morning. The letter! It was a trick to get him out of the way; that was why Gasparo had turned that friendly smiling face upon him, and talked of 'old times,' of 'days when they were boys together,' and all the while he was planning this visit to Italia—damn him!
He forgot all about Italia's presence. With a sudden prophetic feeling he seemed looking straight ahead into the future. He could see exactly what would happen, such an old, old story; and to think that such misery could even come near Italia, his little playfellow, his little girl. If he had only known in time; if he had warned that strange lady when he spoke to her this morning, that would indeed have been fighting Gasparo with his own weapons! And then he remembered the tone of her voice when she spoke to him; to him, a man, not a girl, thrown upon her mercy. 'When the waves beat too fiercely against the shore the rock breaks them,' she said. And he was to go away, he had sworn it, and it was in such hands that he was to leave the future of Italia!
He had been silent so long that she thought him very tired. Perhaps he was depressed, too, about this sudden change in his fortunes. His mother might have been finding fault with him; Italia was always a little afraid of the Sora Catarina, who was associated in her mind with dark reproving looks and a generally grave and joyless view of life. It was always a matter of secret wonder to her when she heard her father allude to the days when Dino's mother had been a young and handsome girl. In her heart Italia could never imagine her looking otherwise than imperious and miserable. It seemed quite probable now that she should be the cause of Dino's look of unhappiness.
'I think you would be pleased to hear one thing,' she said gently. 'Signor Gasparo was talking to me this morning about my father. You know the old Marchese always used to say that he should leave my father something in his will because of the service he did that night when the steamer was wrecked. You know, Dino; when we were children. And Signor Gasparo says that since his father forgot to put it into his will in writing, it makes no difference at all. He is going to speak to the lawyers and to the Signora Marchesa about it, and my father will have the money just the same. It is a great deal of money, three hundred francs, in gold. Father can buy a new boat with it—dear father! Are you not glad, Dino?' She was silent for a moment, and then, for the first time, a shadow came across her face. 'I thought you would be so glad. That was half the pleasure of it,—the telling you,' she said rather wistfully.
'Iamglad,' Dino answered, in a harsh mechanical voice.
And then the blank look of disappointment on the sweet face bending over him struck him like a pang. He sat up, rubbing both hands over his head, and ruffling up his thick curly hair. 'My Italia, you must know without my telling you if I am glad to hear of any good fortune coming to you or to Drea. But you must be patient with me this morning,carina. I have things to vex me; and I am very weary.'
'Poor Dino! It is my fault for tiring you. But I will sing to you now. That will rest you better than anything else,' she said soothingly, gazing down at him with frank loving eyes.
Dino smiled faintly. This sudden reawakening of thought was like the clutch of a physical pain. 'Sing to me with your guitar. That is more formal. It is more like making a stranger of me,' he said, answering her look. As she moved away he shut his eyes, and buried his face again on his folded arm. The last hope was gone. After this what would be the use of warning Drea? The simple loyal-hearted old man was as incapable of tempering his gratitude for a gift, with a criticism of the giver's motives as the veriest child. His little store of wisdom held no formula for such a case. It would be next to impossible to make him believe in any form of treachery connected with the handsome open-handed young master; and, even if it were possible, Dino foresaw only too clearly what would be the first—the immediate result. For had he not pledged himself to care for and protect Italia? And what more natural than that her father should turn to him in this emergency?
He lay so quiet that Italia believed him to be half asleep. She looked down at him two or three times as she sat there tuning her guitar; but as he did not move she did not speak to him. Presently she began to sing.
She sang song after song; odds and ends of old ballads; love-catches such as the peasants sing to themselves while the sheep are grazing; full rythmical snatches of modern Greek she had learned from wandering sailors. She sang softly,a mezza voce, with an exquisite liquid tenderness in her voice, like the lowest notes of a brooding bird.
Once, as there came a sound of dripping oars, she broke off suddenly. A boat passed very near them, and she nodded with a smile to the stout man in the faded uniform who was seated in the bows.
'What is it?' asked Dino, without lifting his head—he too had heard the sharp click of the rowlocks.
'Dino! are you awake? And I thought you were sleeping so sweetly. Did that boat wake you then? It was nothing; only the custom-house men rowing old Captain Piero home to get his dinner. See! there he is still waving his hand to me. I see him every day; he always passes at this hour.'
'But he does not always see you singing a visitor asleep,' said Dino, sitting up rather hastily and looking after the departed boat. 'No, I was not dreaming, my Italia; unless it be a dream to feel one's whole heart and soul full of you.' The words slipped out unintentionally; an instant later he would have given anything to recall them. He felt sure she had taken in their full meaning by the very silence which fell upon her. She sat absolutely motionless; he was sure of it, but he would not trust himself to look at her. He only added, in a tone which he tried to make quite impersonal, 'I am afraid your Captain Piero will only have a poor opinion of my politeness. Do you think we could explain to him that I was not quite so insensible as I seemed?'
'I don't know,' said Italia, rising and laying down the guitar. She moved away a few steps and stood leaning against the gray buttress, her scarlet neck handkerchief making a vivid spot of colour there like a flower.
'I can see—I think I can see my father's boat,' she said, bending forward and taking hold of the edge of the bridge's arch.
'Take care!'
Dino got up and went and stood beside her.
'Don't lean too far forward, dear. Is that Drea's boat? What eyes you have, my Italia! See, the wind is against her; she will have to come in on another tack.'
The patched sail bent and dipped as he spoke. The boat seemed gliding away from them.
He looked down at her. They were standing so close together now he could see the quick rise and fall of her breath; the stirring of the wind in her roughened hair; the quivering shadow where the long lashes rested on her cheek.
One hand hung loosely by her side. He barely touched it, with fingers that trembled.
'Italia!'
What were resolutions or remembrance? All the world had faded away; there were no living presences now but himself and this girl beside him, and that far-off winged boat moving slowly towards them across the shining water. 'My Italia?' She turned a radiant face towards him. The momentary shyness which had made her leave her place was gone now; there was only left a deep look of rapture in the dark loving eyes.
'Yes, Dino. Youdolove me. I know it,' she said simply. She did not change her expectant attitude; but she moved her hand until the little brown fingers clasped his.
They stood so for fully a minute without speaking, their eyes fixed on the approaching boat. 'And you love me too, Italia? You will say that you love me?' Dino said in a half whisper. He had not meant to say this. He had resolved not to say it; but what was the good of prudence now? The patched sail was drawing nearer; there was only this one moment left in which fearfully to snatch at perfect joy. He held his breath lest she should delay to speak.
But Italia answered him with grave simplicity. There was not the shadow of a doubt in her heart, not a cloud upon her heaven of content. Perhaps they had never been farther apart, these two, in all their sensations, than at this first moment of supreme understanding.
'I do love you,' she said, in her clear full voice. And then at the sound of her own words she started; Dino felt the movement of her fingers in his; her eyes filled with happy tears, and the colour swept in a quick wave over her pale face and throat. 'I think I have always loved you—after my father—always, since I was a little girl, my Dino,' she said softly.
'Only—after your father, Italia?'
She hesitated; but he had asked his question an instant too late, for now the wind had really caught the flapping sail of theBella Maria; they could see the quick movement of old Drea's hand on the tiller, and hear his voice calling out an order to Maso. In another moment the two men had brought the old brown boat cleverly alongside. Dino made a quick catch at the rope that was flung to him; there was a momentary struggle of strong-armed Maso with the heavy sail.
'Well, lad,' said Drea, standing up at his place by the helm and looking about him. 'Well, my little girl!'
'Was it a good morning's work, father?'
'Mah! ... I've seen worse days, child, I've seen worse days. Mind what you are about with those nets, you Maso! That's right, lad; give him a hand. We wanted another man with us, but I've seen worse hauls for all that. You'll be ready to go out with us to-night, eh, Dino?'
'Yes, Sor Drea.'
'Ay, ay. You'd have come with us this morning fast enough, I'm thinking, but the girl there wouldn't hear of my sending for you. "He has had a hard day; he will be so tired, father," she said. Tired!Santissima Vergine!and she a sailor's daughter!' The old man chuckled, straightening his back and rubbing his stiffened shoulder joints. 'But, bless you, they're all alike, and even one's own daughter is a woman. Women! they'll pray all day for rain, and be frightened the first minute they see a cloud in the sky.—You'll get your dinner here, Maso.'
Maso, a broad-backed young fellow in a blue jacket, looked up from the wet heap of nets with a smile which showed all his white teeth. 'Ay, Sor Drea.'
'And I must be off home,' said Dino, looking at Italia.
'Ay, lad. You'll stay another time likely. There won't be too much dinner to-day for three of us,' the fisherman said simply, 'and Maso has earned his share. The chestnut is for the man who takes its shell off: that's my way o' thinking.'
'I could not stop in any case; thanking you kindly all the same, Sor Drea. I told my mother I'd be back to dinner. By the way, I was to ask you if it is all settled about our going up there?' he nodded in the direction of Monte Nero.
'Ay, ay. 'Tis settled for Sunday fast enough. Sora Catarina has only to get herself ready. We might have had worse luck, Maso; we might have had worse luck. 'Twas stiffish work with only two of us,' old Drea said, sitting down on the edge of the platform with his feet in the boat to light his pipe. 'Mah! ... che volete? There's nothing like the day after a storm for finding out the colour o' the bottom o' things. There's good in every wind that blows, lad, for a man who knows how to set his sail.'
He thrust a heap of the wet shining fish aside with his foot.
'When there's not so many o' the big there's more o' the little. You know what I'm always telling you. The Devil himself,con rispetto parlando, the Devil himself has a curly tail.'