Vestigia Volume I Part 2

'Gesu Maria! Gesu Maria! ah, those men!' sighed Lucia under her breath, and grasped Palmira's shoulder convulsively. The child shook herself free with a contemptuous movement. 'Let me be. What are you afraid of? Look at Italia,' she said quietly, turning her small pale face and great eyes full upon the young girl. De Rossi, too, had turned towards her.

'Perhaps I'd better go now, sir. I am sorry I came in. I am sorry I troubled you,' he began in a formal voice. 'I ought, I suppose, to apologise----'

'Oh, d.a.m.n your apologies!' said Sor Drea, starting up to his feet again, and taking a hasty turn across the room. 'Be a man, can't you?

What is the use of apologising--of--of apologising, _per Bacco!_ for what you are perfectly ready to do again--for what you mean to do again? Apologies!--yes--they're cheap enough in every market;--a good wind to torn sails. I believe in actions myself; in doing your duty by your masters and betters, and not hurting the people who love you,--not in fine gentlemen apologies--d.a.m.n 'em,' said the old man, bringing his knotted hand down heavily upon the table, and glaring from under his s.h.a.ggy eyebrows at Dino with an unspoken world of troubled reproach in his keen old eyes.

There was a moment of silence, and then, 'Father, dear?' said Italia beseechingly, going up to him and slipping her arm about his neck.

'Ay, ay, my little girl. You're a good girl, I know it. A good girl, though I say it as shouldn't. But not even you--you can't think I am going to put up with this sort of nonsense from a youngster like that, a fellow who comes to talk to me of----'

'Who comes to ask advice of his oldest friends. And in your own house, father.'

'Oh, Lord help us!' said old Drea with a groan.

'And if you knew the whole of the story as I know it--I mean why it is that he has lost his place to-day. Stop, Dino. I know it is a secret, but I think it is a secret which I ought to tell my father. If you knew why he was sent away,' said Italia, in her sweet low voice, looking with beaming eyes full of affection from one man to the other.

'It is quite true what Dino told you about the procession, father, but there is more than that. There was another man in Dino's office who joined in the procession too. And they could not find out who it was, and they wanted Dino to tell them his name. And he would not. And that is why he had to leave.'

'There, there. Say no more, child, say no more. I spoke too soon and forgot to listen. My words were like so many kittens that are born in such a hurry they're born blind. No offence, lad. There, shake hands over it. Lord bless you; and so you wouldn't tell 'em that other chap's name--not to save your own place, eh? Ay, that was right, boy, that was right. But Lord, Lord, what a chap that one must be who let you do it.'

'He's a mere boy. He doesn't know any better. And it does not matter so much to me. I was not so anxious to stay--only on my mother's account,' said Dino slowly.

'Ay, she'll be fine and disappointed, she will. She takes things hard, does Sora Catarina. She always did from a girl. Have you told her yet, Dino?'

'Yes,' he said, glancing over at Italia.

'Ay, she'll be disappointed, she will,' the old man repeated slowly, wrinkling his brow, and looking at the fire, while he fumbled absently in the pocket of his pea-jacket for his pipe. 'So you came and told my little girl here all about it, eh, Dino?'

'I told Italia.'

'Yes, and he told me not to repeat it to any one,' added Italia quickly.

'Ay, ay. I'll warrant you he did. Ah, he's young yet is the lad; he's young,' said Drea with a quiet chuckle. 'When you find a woman who keeps a secret for you, my Dino, you may rest pretty certain she's got some of her own to look after. And even then you need not think yours will last her. Ah, they're a queer rigged craft are women, and a secret is the ballast they think first about throwing overboard if there's ever such a capful o' wind to make the sea a bit roughish.

Your mother's the only she-thing in petticoats I've ever seen who can hold her tongue still between her teeth--and even she can only do it by not speaking. They're a queer rigged craft, and no mistake, eh, Sora Lucia? isn't that your experience? You'll have a deal to do with their tempers in the way of your business, I'll be bound.'

'Well, Sor Drea, it's rather like the pins and needles--there are all sorts. And it just makes the difference how much you can pay for them,' said the little woman primly, smoothing down the neat cuff of her sleeve.

'Lucia likes women better than men; they walk about the room without making a noise; and they understand about tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs,' remarked Palmira, with a toss of her head.

'Eh, little one, and who asked _your_ opinion? Little girls should be seen, you know, seen and not heard of--not heard of,' said the old man in a voice of affected rebuke. He put out his hand, and the child came up to him instantly, nestling against his shoulder, and rubbing her thin little cheek on the rough sleeve of his coat. 'I don't mind, I'm not afraid, if you _do_ make a noise,' she said softly in his ear.

'Nay, nay, child. But you should mind. Little girls must mind what is going on about them, else how are they ever to learn their manners before they grow up?' said Sor Drea, still in an admonitory tone, but patting the little face near him as he spoke with a smile which the child understood better than his words. And then he looked about him, 'Well, Dino--Italia, my girl!--and how about our supper? are we not ready for that birthday supper yet?' he said aloud.

Italia had moved away, and was standing beside the window. She was perfectly aware that Dino had followed her there, but some sudden new shyness kept her silent and wondering at herself. She had pushed back the scanty curtain, and stood leaning her forehead against the coolness of the window-pane. Outside all was darkness, and one heard the sound of the breaking waves. It was a rough night, she thought to herself: and tried to say it, but somehow she could not speak: the words stuck in her throat, and would not frame themselves. In that singular moment she seemed to be leading a double life;--the old existence was there, the old safe habit of home and her father's voice heard beside the fire; and here--here was something different, an unknown feeling of oppression--an anguish of self-consciousness, pierced with sudden flashes of a new unfamiliar joy. And yet this was only Dino, whom she had known all her life; Dino, her old tyrant and protector and playfellow----

'You are not angry now? My father did not mean all that he said; he did not mean to be unkind--to you,' she said abruptly, turning her face still farther away and looking out into the blackness.

There was no answer for a moment, and her heart began to beat faster.

'It is--it is a very rough night,' she said in a still lower voice, the words forcing themselves out at last. And then she turned her head slowly towards him.

She did not lift her eyes to his face, but she was aware that he moved.

He had been leaning one arm against the window-frame; her own hands were clasped together and resting upon the ledge. She saw him move his arm--and felt the warm pressure of a strong hand laid upon both of hers. She stood quite still, breathing very softly.

'Italia!'

He was gazing at her with all his soul in his eyes--with a transfigured face which she had never seen before--he spoke in a new voice.

'Italia!' Was it a prayer--a command? The girl s.h.i.+vered from head to foot. She turned very pale, and then, slowly, she lifted up her glorious eyes full of a new resplendent light of joy, and they stood silent for a long, long moment, gazing at one another with the full, serious inquiring look of familiar souls new met in some strange heaven.

'Italia!' said her father's voice again, and she turned to him at once with a simultaneous movement of her whole being. These last moments were not a thing to be thought of now; she put them entirely on one side with a feeling of definite possession; it was something to be remembered and realised later on, when she was alone. She went up now to her father and laid her little hands upon his shoulder caressingly, with something of the sensation of having returned to him from afar.

Her face was a little pale perhaps, but she smiled, and no one noticed her paleness. It is the way with the great crises of our mental experience: they pa.s.s us by in silence. Angels visit us for good or ill; the shadows of night gather deeper, or our dawn grows red with promise--and nothing has taken place which was noticeable even to very affectionate eyes. It is not all insensibility in the lookers-on. At every marriage procession, as at every funeral, there _must_ be some person present whose chief interest lies in the trappings--in the workman-like manner in which the wheels go around a corner, and how the horses carry their heads. And life teaches that, as it teaches patience.

It was some time before anything more was said concerning Dino's prospects. When a man's daily food is the measure of his degree of success in the world, conversation at table means chiefly an interruption. So that it was some time before old Drea pushed away his plate and drew his gla.s.s nearer, rubbing the back of one hand across his lips with a deep-drawn breath of satisfaction, while with the other he fumbled in his pocket for his pipe. It was only a small flask of cheap thin country wine which stood upon the table before him, but he pa.s.sed it over to Dino with an air of simple satisfaction and pride, a cordial and affectionate pleasure in his own hospitality, which might well have softened a harsher beverage.

'Drink, lad. Don't stint yourself. Wine was made for drinking. Lord, 'tis one more reason for not being a woman. Look at Italia there.

You'd think an old sailor's daughter would know better than to care for any water that isn't salt-water, eh, boy? And Sora Lucia, too, sip, sipping, with her head on one side like a fly. But there, she is not to be laughed at, for a pluckier little woman---- Lord, how she did fight that wind! You didn't well know which of you was running away with the other, eh, Lucia? Well, well, after all, a fly kicks as hard as it can----'

'Did Lucia kick? I should have liked to see her,' said the child Palmira, looking up. A smile like her brother's smile lit up with a sudden brightness her pale, small face.

'Indeed, Sor Drea was far too busy thinking of his boat--he knows nothing about what I did,' the little dressmaker retorted briskly, with a toss of her head, which made the black beads glisten. Her face, too, was warmed and dilated by the sense of plenty about her--the wine and fire and supper. Her black eyes shone demurely, the hollow cheeks were flushed, she had lost for the moment something of her habitual air of suppression--an air of decent disappointment with life.

The old man laughed good-humouredly. 'Hark to her--hark to the child, will you? Ay, quick and sharp, and down on you before you know where you are. She's her mother's own daughter--in all but looks. She was always a tall girl, was Catarina, and a step and an eye like a queen, an eye that went through you. But never you mind, Lucia; 'tis better to be the head of an eel than the tail of the biggest sturgeon, to my way of thinking. Ay, do your best in this world as you find it, and if any one else can do better, why, let 'em show you how 'tis done.

That's my way of thinking. And now----' he leaned back, thrusting both hands into his trousers pockets and s.h.i.+fting his pipe to the other corner of his mouth. 'And now about this business of yours, lad?'

Dino looked up with a start from his occupation of drawing patterns upon the table with a little heap of breadcrumbs. 'I wanted to ask your advice about that,' he began doubtfully.

'Well, ask it. Advice costs no headache, boy. You may borrow another man's compa.s.s to steer by even when he can't lend you the wind. Stop a bit, though. We'll begin with the beginning, by your leave.' His face, which time and exposure to the weather had so stiffened and tanned that it had grown well-nigh impossible to detect any of the slighter changes of expression upon it, his face looked as rigid and impa.s.sive as a piece of wood. 'It's really all over with you now at your office? no chance of making it up again with the masters? they wouldn't take you back again, eh?'

'Why, as for that,' said Dino hastily, 'I would not go back if they all came here together, in a body, to ask me.' He looked across the table at Italia. 'I am an eel's head too, sir,--like Lucia there,' he said smiling. 'I've been a sturgeon's tail long enough. I'm tired of being wagged when I'd rather be quiet.'

'And so you want to show your teeth, you young rascal!' called out Drea, with another great laugh, and filling up his gla.s.s. 'Nay, lad, but it is a pity you were not bred for a sailor. You've a good notion of your own, too, about handling a boat. But your mother would never have heard of it, not she. Bless you! she's been up too much to the Villa to see the old Marchesa--by her leave and meaning no offence--to listen to reason. That's the way with women: they want a bit of every s.h.i.+ning thing they see. And nothing's too good for them. It's my belief they'd use diamonds to fasten up their sleeves with if they could get at 'em, and think nothing of it.'

'I know we should want to begin by fastening up yours, father,' said Italia in her soft gentle way. Her glance met Dino's as she spoke, and she looked down again with smiling lips and cheeks grown suddenly red.

'Your mother was always a proud woman, always,' the old man went on meditatively, staring at the blue rings of smoke curling up from his pipe. 'She took life hard. And she meant to make a gentleman of you from the first. She was proud; that is why she married your father.

And she did not want you down on our level. She meant to make a gentleman of you, you see----'

'A fine gentleman!' Dino burst out eagerly. 'Sor Drea, is this fair?

Have I ever had, have I ever wanted, other friends than you? I don't know what you mean by talking about different levels; but Italia knows--you ought to know--if I have ever done anything to deserve to have this said to me. Why, all the happiness I have ever had in my life I have had here,' he said, with a quick comprehensive glance around him at the old familiar walls. All the a.s.sociations of his boyhood seemed lurking in those shadowy corners. 'I can understand that you are not particularly well satisfied with me now. I'm not particularly well satisfied with myself. It's not a brilliant look-out for the future. But why shouldn't I work as well as another man? They never found any fault with my work in that infernal office. Why, even the head clerk there--Sor Checco--he hates me--if he owned a donkey he would call it Dino for the pleasure of kicking it; but even he could never find fault. There's plenty to be done. My mother, now, her one idea is to go up to the Villa to talk to the Marchesa----'

'Ay, 'tis a good plan--a good plan. Look there, now! I should never have thought of that. But she has a head on her shoulders, has your mother,' the old man said admiringly, clapping the palm of his hand down heavily upon the table. 'Fill up, boy, fill up, and we'll drink good luck to her going. That's right and as it should be. For one works for the masters here as one prays to the saints in Heaven, and they know best what's wanted in both places. Lord bless you! if one had to stop to discuss matters with 'em, there'd be no time left to work in. That's my way of thinking. _Commando, chi pol e obidisca chi deve_. 'Twould be a poor way of travelling if all the crew wanted to steer.'

'Why, as to that----' began Dino, pus.h.i.+ng away his gla.s.s impatiently.

'Look here, Sor Drea. You were speaking of my father a moment ago. I was very fond of my father----'

'Ay, lad,'

'You never knew him well. You never understood him.'