Vestigia. Vol. II.

CHAPTER I.

INCIDENTAL

There was a letter waiting at home for Dino. 'It stands there on the dresser; give it to your brother, child. One of Lucia's little nephews brought it, maybe half an hour after you were gone,' Sora Catarina said.

'It was Beppi brought it, Dino. He came with it on his way to school. He likes going to school; I asked him, and he said, "Yes." Mother, why don't I go to school? I wish I went to school,' said Palmira, in a complaining tone.

'School indeed! and a nice place you would find it, bambina mia. Nay, you be content to stay where you are looked after and get plenty to eat. Gesu Maria! 'tis all very well for such as Lucia's nipotini, poor children – 'twill maybe take their minds off their hunger, learning to read. But learning's a poor sauce to empty plates in my opinion.'

'Doesn't Beppi have anything to eat but empty plates?' asked Palmira, opening wide her eyes. She added, after a moment's reflection, 'But you gave him some white bread to-day, mother. I saw you do it.'

'Nay, eat your dinner, child, and talk afterwards. Don't you see your brother is reading?' said Sora Catarina, in a lowered tone, passing her two hands over the little girl's hair under pretence of adjusting her pinafore.

The letter was from Valdez. All the time he had spent in walking home Dino had been thinking of Valdez, planning about him, rehearsing in his own mind the words of some wild appeal which was to free him once for all from the intolerable burden laid upon his life. Last night seemed so far away. He had passed through a whole world of emotion since then. He had put Italia between himself and his promises to those men; he had made himself responsible for her happiness, and it was impossible, even Valdez with all his fanaticism must see that – it was impossible she should be made to suffer for him. Out-of-doors there, looking at Maso's good-natured simple face, with old Drea's cheery voice in his ears, it had somehow seemed such an easy natural thing that matters should arrange themselves. But this note was like a death-warrant. Before he opened it he knew there was no hope: the shadow had closed around him.

There were but three lines:

'I have reason to fear we are watched. Do not try to see, or communicate with, me until you hear again. Be prudent and patient: you will hear in good time. The child who brings this lives in my house, and is a safe messenger.'

There was no signature.

Dino crushed the note up in his hand with an impulse of personal enmity. He turned away from the window and took his seat at the table without a word, but no effort of self-control could keep his lips from turning white, or alter the fixed look of pain about his eyes.

'The letter was from Pietro Valdez, surely? Was it bad news, figliuolo? What has happened, in the name of all the blessed saints!' said Sora Catarina, clasping her hands and looking at him.

He made an effort to smile as he said, 'Nothing, mother; it's nothing. Valdez only writes to say I shall not see him; he will be busy for a day or two.'

'And is it not seeing that man could make your face go the colour of a piece of linen bleaching in the sun? Nay, figliuolo mio, I am not one of those people who think they are seeing through a wall when all the time they are looking at their own reflections in a looking-glass. 'Tis nothing an old man could write you would turn your face that colour.' She lowered her voice. 'Tell me the truth, Dino. You have been having a quarrel with Italia?'

'No, indeed, mother,' said Dino, pushing away his plate and standing up. He could not swallow the food before him. He could see that his mother was not convinced by his denial, but it was easier to leave her under any delusion rather than to submit longer to the worry of a cross-examination. He took refuge in saying, 'I am not well; my head aches. I don't want any dinner. I shall go and lie down.'

'Yes, my Dino, yes. Lie down. Santissima Vergine, that it may not be the fever!' said Sora Catarina, crossing herself devoutly.

She kept going to the door of his room to look at him at intervals all the afternoon. About six o'clock Maso called with a long message from old Drea. The Marchese Gasparo had hired the boat for a three days' trip to Viareggio. If Dino was coming, he was to be ready immediately: the wind was fair, and Drea proposed to start before seven. 'He said I was to tell you the boat would be back on Saturday night, in time for Monte Nero,' Maso concluded, looking carefully into the crown of his hat and shaking it, as though to assure himself that he had forgotten there no part of his commission.

He waited for Dino at the door, and they walked down to the pier together. Gasparo was standing smoking a cigar at the head of the steps under a gas-lamp. He nodded cheerfully to Dino. 'That's right, old fellow. Glad you are coming,' he said. The two men were with him whom Dino had seen at the door of the 'Giappone' that morning.

They seemed to have many friends at Viareggio. The Bella Maria was kept in constant readiness, for there was no telling at what hour a message might not come down from some neighbouring villa, to be followed shortly by a company of pleasure-seekers bound for a sail. On one occasion Dino saw a face he knew among the cloaked and furred figures whom Gasparo was handing so carefully on board.

There was an unsteady wind that afternoon, and the boat was heavily laden: it was some time before Dino could look away from his task of watching the uncertain half-filled sails, but when at last the breeze struck them fully and the Bella Maria ran out of harbour on a long smooth tack, he could not resist his wish to see if he too had been recognised.

The Contessa must have been watching him, for the moment he turned his head their eyes met. He took off his woollen cap hastily, without speaking. She kept her dark eyes fixed steadily upon him for a moment.

'You have taken my advice then? This is wiser than building barricades,' she said in a low voice.

She looked as if she might have added something more, but at that moment Gasparo, who was sitting beside her sheltering her from the sun by holding up her parasol, – Gasparo leaned forward and repeated some remark.

The Contessa laughed. 'You think so, vraiement? It is not my experience. I find it is not only the virtues which require a certain elbow-room in which comfortably to expand. Some people fight against their own selfishness in this world, but mostly they fight the selfishness of their neighbours.'

'And why not? After all, it's other people's selfishness that one objects to,' said Gasparo gaily.

'And that is only out of disinterestedness,' struck in another man, who had not yet spoken. 'You are too severe upon us, Contessa. One never tires of virtue.'

She lifted her delicate eyebrows inquiringly.

'Well – not of other people's virtue: one tires of one's own perhaps.'

'But it's so seldom one has the chance of that,' added Gasparo lightly, pulling with one hand at the fringe of the big parasol. He had distinctly heard what had been said to Dino; but now, as his eye rested upon him, he nodded in a half-careless, half-friendly manner. 'She's going better now. We shall get more wind beyond the breakwater, eh, lad?'

'Yes, sir,' said Dino, putting on his cap again and going forward to coil away a loose rope.

Everything he had noticed in the last day or two made him feel safer about Gasparo. The young Marchese was an excellent sailor; he was absorbed in his present amusement; the two young men had not exchanged a word unconnected with the management of the boat.

Those three last days had seemed to Dino to pass like a dream. After his sedentary habits of life between the four walls of an office, the mere fact of being always out-of-doors and always actively employed would have sufficed to change all his impressions. He was intoxicated with fresh air, with sunlight, and the exhilarating sense of energetic work. 'There's no life like it, lad; no life like it,' old Drea told him more than once. 'Other men may make a better living, I'm not denying it; but to be content with what one gets in this world is to be the master of it. When you're as old as I am you'll find that you can't put one foot in two shoes, boy; it's a good plan to know what you want and be contented with it when you've got it – a rare good plan.'

'If only wanting were enough to get it,' said Dino bitterly.

'Lad, lad! Bisogna dar tempo al tempo– give time time enough to work in. But you youngsters are all alike; you expect to smell fried fish before the nets are even cast into the water.'

'That 'ud be a poor look-out for supper,' observed silent Maso with a grin.

'What! were you listening to what I was saying? Then I'm bound you'll be whistling for a wind before long, my boy; – you know the old saying, when you see a donkey listening it's a sign the weather is changing,' retorted old Drea, shifting his pipe in his mouth and giving vent to a dry chuckle.

But presently, as Maso moved away, Dino looking up found the old man's keenly-inquiring glance fixed full upon him.

'We've known each other a good many years, and each of us knows pretty well what timber the other's boat is built of. Without wasting breath, boy, – is there anything troubling you?'

Dino doubled up his fist and struck one of the rowlocks tighter into its place. 'Oh! every one is more or less troubled,' he said evasively.

'Ay; but there's a difference, there's a difference, boy. Little worries, Lord bless you! they're everywhere. And they're like a grain o' sand in your eye, no use to any mortal man, out or in. But real trouble's a different thing. I'm not saying there's no use in it, or even that a man ought to hope to escape it; it's only a fool would expect the wind always to be blowing from the same point o' the compass. And a real sorrow – an old sorrow – I've known it to act like ballast. It's heavy; ay; but it trims the boat. There's many a man wouldn't sail so straight about his day's work if there wasn't some dead weight o' that sort at his heart to steady him.'

He was silent for a moment, and then once more he looked with a kindly affectionate glance at the young man's flushed and averted face. 'I'm not asking for more than you want to tell, lad. When a real friend has got two eyes to look at you with, sometimes the best service he can do you is to keep one o' them shut. There's nothing easier than to sail when the right wind's blowing; you'll tell me all about it fast enough when the time comes. Andiamo! corraggio, ragazzo! It's a poor business looking at the sun with a cloudy face.'

He gave a searching look at the horizon, 'We'll be in in half an hour more if the wind holds – we'll have her snug in harbour before sunset. And then, hey! for a clear sky to-morrow and a day at Monte Nero. To-morrow'll be the finest day we've had this week, and I'm glad o't, I'm glad o't. I don't like having my little girl disappointed.' He turned his head towards the sunny semicircle of houses of the distant city. 'She'll be waiting there now to see us come in, che Dio la benedica!'

Dino, too, was secretly preoccupied with the prospect of that approaching meeting. He was the first to see her as they ran the long oars out to pull the boat in across the smooth water of the inner port. He saw her scarlet handkerchief, a spot of colour a long way off beneath the shadow of the bridge. She was standing in the same place as when he had last seen her, and it was like a good omen that he should have been the first to discover her at that distance.

She spoke first of all to her father, but as she put her little hand into his Dino was exquisitely conscious of the quick tremor of joy which made her heart beat at his touch. There was irresistible delight in the mere fact of being near her. And there was no lack of brightness now in the face which turned towards her, or in the voice which wished her 'Good-night!'

'Until to-morrow, Dino,' she said, following him to the foot of the stone steps.

'A domani, cara!'

There was a bright fire and a welcome waiting for him in the old room at home. He stood before the blaze talking for several moments before he crossed the room to look at the shelf above the dresser where the letters were put.

'Are you expecting anything? There are no letters for you, my Dino; no, not even one little letter. Are you sorry? Do you mind?' Palmira asked, rather anxiously.

He stooped to kiss her. 'No, little one. I was only looking. I don't really want it at all,' he said laughingly.

It seemed like another good omen that there should be no news from Valdez.

CHAPTER II.

ON THE WAY UP

The small stone-paved piazza of Monte Nero was crowded with men, women, and children, gathered together for the yearly pilgrimage of the Madonna. On one side of the square a flight of stone steps led up to the door of the church: the heavy leather curtain was rolled up half its length and fastened back to be out of the way of the coming procession; and massive wreaths of flowers and fruit swung from cornice to cornice above the open door. It was too early in the year as yet for many bright-coloured flowers, but the wreaths were white with the bloom of the first almond trees that had blossomed, and long rows of ripe oranges and lemons, threaded like beads upon a cord, were fastened in festoons about the old gray stones. The gold and softest pinky white looked very pretty hanging high up in the afternoon sunlight above the heads of the people.

It wanted a good hour and a half yet to the time appointed for the procession, and the cafe which stood on the opposite side of the square, and the open-air booths which clustered about its lower end, were alike full of eager, laughing, pushing, hungry holiday-making folk. The most correct place to be recognised in by one's friends was, doubtless, at one of those small green tables in the shade in front of the caffettiere's; but for that matter there were people enough everywhere, people all over the place, not to mention the two constant streams, one ascending and one returning, up and down, the worn old steps of the church. These were composed for the most part of women, leading small dressed-up children by the hand. The men were content to wait outside until the church bell itself should put an indisputable end to the little friendly glasses of bitter vermouth and the gossip. They stood about in groups, a sunburned hardy lot of fishermen and sailors, for the Santissima Madonna of Monte Nero is known to be the especial friend and patron of seafaring men; the church is crowded with votive offerings, rude pictures of sinking barks and drowning men, and always, in the corner, the glorified vision of the Virgin descending upon the waters to bless and save. The ceilings of some of the side chapels are completely hidden from view by rows of these representations.

Monte Nero itself can hardly be said to deserve its name of a mountain, being nothing in fact but a high grass-grown hill, rising behind the city of Leghorn and commanding a superb view of the sea. Near the top the country presents the appearance of a succession of grassy downs, across which a narrow path takes a short cut from the winding carriage road to the summit, and at this particular moment Lucia and Italia were walking hand in hand along this pathway, while Dino followed on the grass at Italia's side. The old people had remained in the carretella with Palmira.

'I don't think much of your plan of chartering a ship to get out before the voyage is half over, children. But do as you like, ragazzi, do as you like. What, you too, Lucia? Nay, I gave you credit for more sense than that, my woman. You'll not find Sora Catarina here getting out of a comfortable carriage to walk up a devil of a hill.'

'But Lucia is perfectly right. Some one must go with Italia. It would not look well if she were to be met walking alone with a young man,' interposed Sora Catarina very decidedly.

'E – e – h, buon anima mia, the scandal would be bigger than the sin.'

Catarina looked at him a little scornfully. 'You were different once; long ago. I wonder if there is anything that you would really trouble yourself about now, Andrea?'

'Well, there's my little girl. There isn't much else, I suppose,' said Drea good-naturedly. 'You know the saying we have, we sailors, – a wide shoe and a full belly, and take the storms as they come. That's my way of thinking.'

'Ah,' murmured Catarina, drawing her shawl more closely about her.

They had been young together, these two. Catarina could remember a time when to be alone with her, as now, would have been the measure of happiness to the hopeful, ardent young lover whom the slow years had changed into this weather-beaten old man. To a woman's eyes there is always an atmosphere of youth left about any man who has made love to her, no matter how the years have passed since then. And it made no difference to her secret feeling of reproachfulness that she herself had perhaps much to answer for in this general lowering of Andrea's estimate of life. A woman betrays and remembers where a man betrays and forgets. And at that particular moment faithfulness seemed to Catarina to sum up all the virtues.

In autumn the morning freshness of the wood lingers late: there is something of the coolness of the dawn in the pine shadows long after the fruitful warmth has fallen upon the fields. And in some natures, growing old, there is left somewhat of this same touch of virginal freshness and charm. I think it is oftenest the case with women who have been unhappy in their youth – who have missed the placid midsummer fruition of content. They bear in their hearts an eternal unsatisfied belief in the spring.

She looked at Italia and Dino walking away across the sunny grass slopes: it seemed not so many years since she too had been walking there, going on the same errand to the same old church. She watched them with eyes grown bitter with a dreary sense of loss: it was like watching the mocking phantom of her own youth.

But to them the day seemed lengthening out into uncounted hours of pleasure. The sky was cloudless. The spring wind blowing over their faces held a magic of its own. 'Come and walk on the grass, Sora Lucia. Never mind the path – there is no place in the world like these downs. The air changes as it blows over the grass; it is like some one breathing; like a breath that comes and goes,' said Dino, taking off his hat and turning to face the wind. 'Look at the sea now. How far it is below us,' said Italia, stopping too and looking back.

'What a sea-bird it is,' he said, meeting her eyes with a smile of happy confidence. 'What would you do if you had to live inland, Italia?'

'Oh, I could not do it. I should stifle. I am always thirsty where I cannot hear the sound of the waves.'

'How can you possibly tell where you may have to live, figlia mia? It is true one does not go away from one's own town if one can help it, but a girl before she is married is like a bit of thistle-down, who can tell which way the wind will blow her?' asked Lucia in her subdued voice. She, too, was dressed for the festa, and her neat black gown contrasted with the blue and scarlet of the girl's holiday dress, much in the same fashion as her thin face, with its unvarying look of decent disappointment, served as a background for the young radiance of the face by her side. 'How can you tell whom your father will wish you to marry? It might be some one who came from a long way off, – like Dino's friend, the Signor Valdez, who lodges in our house. He comes from a country where they do not speak Italian, for all he looks so like a Christian.'

'I have not seen old Valdez lately,' Dino began.

If he wished to ask any questions Lucia spared him the trouble.

'He is a kind man that, – the blessed saints reward him,' she said, with a sudden fervour. 'And to think how long it took us to find it out, – and the world is hard enough, God knows, without one shutting one's mouth the days it rains comfits. But, via! we knew he was a stranger from over sea. What would you? when he said "buon giorno" or "felicissima notte" as one passed him on the stairs it was like a bear growling; it did not sound like real Italian. Many and many a day have I gone away to my work with the old nonna locked in our room, and my heart in my mouth, not knowing if it were better to leave her there, with all the children, and not a soul to go near them in case of fire. And me never so much as dreaming of asking Signor Pietro to stop sometimes when he passed the door to give them a look. Ah, he is a good heart, he is. And, as for his never speaking, well, there's evil talking enough in the world, God knows! a man can do worse things with his tongue than keep it quiet. As for those children, they are fairly bewitched; there's that Beppi, he follows Signor Pietro about like his shadow. It's Signor Pietro who pays now for his schooling, and such a bright lad as it is! You should have seen him the other day when Signor Pietro told him first about his going off on a journey. Nothing would content the boy but bringing back his geography book from the school to show the nonna all the places.'

'Does – does Pietro talk of going away, then?' asked Dino, his heart beating faster.

'See that, now! and you such friends. But I always knew that Signor Pietro could keep his own counsel. Perhaps it's a way they have over there in the countries he comes from. Yes, he is going away. To Pisa first, and then perhaps to Rome. He says he wants a holiday, and no wonder. Cose lunghe diventan serpe, – drag a thing out long enough and it becomes like a snake. And it's two years or more since he has had a day's outing from Leghorn.'

They had been sitting down to rest on the short dry turf as she talked, but now, as they rose to climb the last shoulder of the hill, her sharp black eyes were turned scrutinisingly upon Italia. She gave some slight ejaculation of surprise. 'Vergine Santissima! Italia, you have lost your ring – your beautiful ring. What a misfortune! Madonna mia, what a misfortune!

Italia blushed scarlet. 'No, I have not lost it. I did not put it on,' she answered hurriedly. And then, after a moment's consideration, 'Old things are best,' she said in her sweet full voice; 'I did not want a new gift, – I told my father I did not want it. He will keep it for me, he will give it to me to wear when I am married.'

'And you will wear it that day, my Italia?' asked Dino, looking at her and speaking in a very low tone, yielding yet this once more to the perilous delight of saying what he would have said, what he would have had the right to say, if only he could have hoped to escape from all the consequences of his past actions. The instinctive conviction that this proposed journey of Valdez's was in some way connected with the disposal of his own future gave Dino a still more intense longing to grasp at present happiness. He knew that he was acting ungenerously; yet, as the girl turned her face shyly towards him, – her red silk handkerchief tied about her head in peasant fashion made a soft shade about her temples and her little ears, coming down in front in a bright silken fold across her low forehead, hiding all her hair, and giving an almost Oriental look to the dark straight eyebrows and the dark lustrous eyes. The wind and the sun had brought a soft pink colour into her pale oval-shaped cheeks.

She was really looking very beautiful as she said, 'Why make plans for the future, my Dino? Surely we are very happy; we do not want things to change. The old things are the best. Why, even this pilgrimage to-day, – one would always care to come, of course, just to show the Holy Mother that one is grateful, – but it would be so different, it would be so sad, if we were to forget the other years that went before. This is the happiest year of them all, I know, yet I should not like not to have the memory of the times we have been here as little children. I like the old gate there at the top because that is the spot where we have always waited; I could open it myself quite easily, but I like to remember the days when it seemed to me wonderful that you could unfasten the lock. It is like that picture of my father's shipwreck, – you know, Dino, – the ex voto up there in the chapel. When I was a child I believed it had all happened exactly like that. Now I know it was painted by a man who has never even seen my father, but it makes no difference. I could never care for a fine new picture as I do for the old one.'