The Italians Part 40

Pipa, who, next to Adamo and the marchesa, loved Enrica with all the strength of her warm heart, sings all day those unwritten songs of Tuscany that rise and fall with such spontaneous cadence among the vineyards, and in the olive-grounds, that they seem bred in the air--Pipa sings all day for gladness that the signorina is going to marry a rich and handsome gentleman. Marriage, to Pipa's simple mind--especially marriage with money--must bring certain blessings, and crowds of children; she would as soon doubt the seven wounds of the Madonna as doubt this. Pipa has seen Count n.o.bili. She approves of him. His curly auburn hair, so short and crisp; his bold look and gracious smile--not to speak of certain notes he slipped into her hand--have quite conquered her. Besides, had Count n.o.bili not come down, the n.o.ble gentleman, like San Michele, with golden wings behind him, and a terrible lance in his hand, as set forth in a dingy fresco in the church at Corellia--come down and rescued the dear signorina when--oh, horrible!--she had been forgotten in the burning tower?

Pipa's joy develops itself in a vain endeavor to clean the entire villa. With characteristic discernment, she has begun her labors in the upper story, which, being unfurnished, no one ever enters. Pipa has set open all the windows, and thrown back all the blinds; Pipa sweeps and sprinkles, and sweeps again, combating with dust, and fleas and insects innumerable, grown bold by a quiet tenancy of nearly fifty years. While she sweeps, Pipa sings:

"I'll build a house round, round, quite round, For us to live at ease, all three; Father and mother there shall dwell, And my true love with me."

Poor Pipa! It is so pleasant to hear her clear voice caroling overhead like a bird from the open window, and to see her bright face looking out now and then, her gold ear-rings bobbing to and fro--her black rippling hair, and her merry eyes blinded with dust and flue--to swallow a breath of air. Adamo does not work, but Pipa does. If she goes on like this, Pipa may hope to clean the entire floor in a month; of the great sala below, and the other rooms where people live, Pipa does not think. It is not her way to think; she lives by happy, rosy instinct.

Pipa chatters much to Enrica about Count n.o.bili and her marriage when she is not sweeping or spinning. Enrica continually catches sight of her staring at her with open mouth and curious eyes, her head a little on one side the better to observe her.

"Sweet innocent! she knows nothing that is coming on her," Pipa is thinking; and then Pipa winks, and laughs outright--laughs to the empty walls, which echo the laugh back with a hollow sound.

But if any thing lurks there that mocks Pipa's mirth, it is not visible to Pipa's outward eye, so she continues addressing herself to Enrica, who is utterly bewildered by her strange ways.

Pipa cannot bear to think that Enrica never dressed for her betrothed.

"Poverina!" she says to her, "not dress--not dress! What degradation!

Why, when the Gobbina--a little starved hump-backed b.a.s.t.a.r.d--married the blind beggar Gianni at Corellia, for the sake of the pence he got sitting all day shaking his box by the _cafe_--even the Gobbina had a white dress and a wreath--and you, beloved lady, not so much as to care to change your clothes! What must the Signore Conte have thought?

Misera mia! We must all seem pagans to him!" And Pipa's heart smote her sorely, remembering the notes. "Caro Gesu! When you are to be married we must find you something to wear. To be sure, the marchesa's luggage was chiefly burnt in the fire, but one box is left. Out of that box something will come," Pipa feels sure (miracles are nothing to Pipa, who believes in pilgrimages and the evil-eye); she feels sure that it will be so. After much talk with Enrica, who only answers her with a smile, and says absently, looking at the mountains which she does not see--

"Dear Pipa, we will look in the box, as you say."

"But when, signorina?" insists Pipa, and she kisses Enrica's hand, and strokes her dress. "But when?"

"To-morrow," says Enrica, absently. "To-morrow, dear Pipa, not to-day."

"Holy mother!" is Pipa's reply, "it has been 'to-morrow' for four days." "Always to-morrow," mutters Pipa to herself, as she makes the dust fly with her broom; "and the Signore Conte is to return in a week! Always to-morrow. What can I do? Such a disgrace was never known. No bridal dress. No veil. The signorina is too young to understand such things, and the marchesa is not like other ladies, or one might venture to speak to her about it. She would only give me 'accidenti' if I did, and that is so unlucky! To-morrow I must make the signorina search that box. There will be a white dress and a veil. I dreamed so. Good dreams come from heaven. I have had a candle lighted for luck before the Santissima in the market-place, and fresh flowers put into the pots. There will be sure to be a white dress and a veil--the saints will send them to the signorina."

Pipa sweeps and sings. Her children, Angelo and Gigi, are roasting chestnuts under the window outside.

This time she sings a nursery rhyme:

"Little Trot, that trots so gayly, And without legs can walk so bravely!

Trottolin! Trottolino!-- Via! via!"

Pipa, in her motherly heart looking out, blesses little Gigi--a chubby child blackened by the sun--to see him sitting so meek and good beside his brother. Angelo is a naughty boy. Pipa does not love him so well as Gigi. Perhaps this is the reason Angelo is so ill-furnished in point of clothes. His patched and ragged trousers are hitched on with a piece of string. Shirt he has none; only a little dingy waistcoat b.u.t.toned over his chest, on which lies a silver medal of the Madonna.

Angelo's arms are bare, his face mahogany-color, his head a hopeless tangle of colorless hair. But Angelo has a pair of eyes that dance, and a broad, red-lipped mouth, out of which two rows of white teeth shine like pearls. Angelo has just burnt his fingers picking a chestnut out of the ashes. He turns very red, but he is too proud to cry. Angelo's hands and feet are so hard he does not feel the pointed rocks that break the turf in the forest, nor does he fear the young snakes, as plenty as lizards, in the warm nooks. All yesterday Angelo had run up and down to look for chestnuts, on his naked feet. He dared not mount into the trees, for that would be stealing; but he leaped, and skipped, and slid when a russet-coated chestnut caught his eye.

Gigi was with him, trusted to his care by Pipa, with many abjurations and terrible threats of future punishment should he ill-use him.

Ah! if Pipa knew!--if Pipa had only seen little Gigi lonely in the woods, and heard his roars for help! Angelo, having found Gigi troublesome, had tied him by a twisted cord of gra.s.s to the trunk of an ancient chestnut. Gigi was trepanned into this thralldom by a heap of flowers artful Angelo had brought him--purple crocuses and cyclamens, and Canterbury bells, and gaudy pea-stalks, all thrown before the child. Gigi, in his little torn petticoat, had swallowed the bait, and flung himself upon the bright blossoms, grasping them in his dirty fingers. Presently the delighted babe turned his eyes upon cunning Angelo standing behind him, showing his white teeth. Satisfied that Angelo was there, Gigi buried himself among the flowers. He crowed to them in his baby way, and flung them here and there. Gigi would run and catch them, too; but suddenly he felt something which stopped him. It was a gra.s.s cord which Angelo had secretly woven standing behind Gigi--then had made it fast round Gigi's waist and knotted it to a tree. A cloud came over Gigi's jolly little face--a momentary cloud--when he found he could not run after the flowers.

But it soon pa.s.sed away, and he squatted down upon the gra.s.s (the inveigled child), and again clutched the tempting blossoms. Then his little eyes peered round for Angelo to play with him. Alas!--Angelo was gone!

Gigi sobbed a little to himself silently, but the treacherous flowers had still power to console him; at least, he could tear them to pieces. But by-and-by when the sun mounted high over the tops of the forest-clad mountains, and poured down its burning rays, swallowing up all the shade and glittering like flame on every leaf, Gigi grew hot and weary. He was very empty, too; it was just the time that Pipa fed him. His stomach craved for food. He craved for Pipa, too, for home, for the soft pressure of Pipa's ample bosom, where he lay so snug.

Gigi looked round. He did not sob now, but set up a hideous roar, the big tears coursing down his fat cheeks, marking their course by furrows in the dirt and grime. The wood echoed to Gigi's roars. He roared for mammy, for daddy (Angelo Gigi cannot say, it is too long a word). He kicked away the flowers with his pretty dimpled feet, the false flowers that had betrayed him. The babe cannot reason, but instinct tells him that those painted leaves have wronged him. They are faded now, and lie soiled and crumpled, the ghosts of what they were. Again Gigi tries to rise and run, but he is drawn roughly down by the gra.s.s rope. He tries to tear it asunder, in vain; Angelo had taken care of that. At last, hoa.r.s.e and weary, Gigi subsided into terrible sobs, that heave his little breast. Sobbing thus, with pouting lips and heavy eyes, he waits his fate.

It comes with Angelo!--Angelo, leaping downward through the checkered glades, his pockets stuffed with chestnuts. Like an angel with healing in his wings, Angelo comes to Gigi. When he spies him out, Gigi rises, unsteady on his little feet--rises up, forgetting all, and clasps his hands. When Angelo comes near, and stands beside him, Gigi flings his chubby arms about his neck, and nestles to him.

Angelo, when he sees Gigi's disfigured face and sodden eyes, feels his conscience p.r.i.c.k him. With his pockets full of chestnuts he pities Gigi; he kisses him, he takes him up, and bears him in his arms quickly toward home. The happy child closes his weary eyes, and falls asleep on Angelo's shoulder. Pipa, when she sees Angelo return--so careful of his little brother--praises him, and gives him a new-baked cake. Gigi can tell no tales, and Angelo is silent.

While Pipa sweeps and sings, Angelo and Gigi are roasting these very chestnuts on a heap of ashes under the window outside. Enrica sat near them--a little apart--on a low wall, that bordered the summit of the cliff. The zone of mighty mountains rose sharp and clear before her.

It seemed to her as if she had only to stretch out her hand to touch them. The morning lights rested on them with a fresh glory; the crisp air, laden with a scent of herbs, came circling round, and stirred the curls upon her pretty head. Enrica wore the same quaintly-cut dress, that swept upon the ground, as when n.o.bili was there. She had no other. All had been burnt in the fire. Sitting there, she plucked the moss that grew upon the wall, and watched it as it dropped into the abyss. This was shrouded in deepest shadow. The rush of the distant river in the valley below was audible. Enrica raised her head and listened. That river flowed round the walls of Lucca. n.o.bili was there. Happy river! Oh, that it would bear her to him on its frothy current!--Surely her life-path lay straight before her now!--straight into paradise! Not a stone is on that path; not a rise, not a fall.

"In a week I will return," n.o.bili had said. In a week. And his eyes had rested upon her as he spoke the words in a mist of love. Enrica's face was pale and almost stern, and her blue eyes had strange lights and shadows in them. How came it that, since he had left her, the world had grown so old and gray?--that all the impulse of her nature, the quick ebb and flow of youth and hope, was stilled and faded out, and all her thoughts absorbed into a dreadful longing? She could not tell, nor could she tell what ailed her; but she felt that she was changed. She tried to listen to the prattle of the two children--to Pipa singing above:

"Come out! come out!

Never despair!

Father and mother and sweetheart, All will be there!"

Enrica could not listen. It was the dark abyss below that drew her toward its silent bosom. She hung over the wall, her eyes measuring its depths. What ailed her? Was she smitten mad by the wild tumult of joy that had swept over her as she stood hand-in-hand with n.o.bili? Or was she on the eve of some crisis?--a crisis of life and death? Oh!

why had n.o.bili left her? When would he return? She could not tell. All she knew was, that in the streaming sunlight of this wondrous morning, when earth and heaven were as fair as on the first creation-day, without him all was dark, sad, and dreary.

CHAPTER II.

A STORM AT THE VILLA.

A footstep was heard upon the gravel. The dogs shut up in the cave scratched furiously, then barked loudly. Following the footsteps a bareheaded peasant appeared, his red shirt open, showing his sunburnt chest. He ran up to the open door, a letter in his hand. Seeing Enrica sitting on the low wall, he stopped and made her a rustic bow.

"Who are you?" Enrica asked, her heart beating wildly.

"Ill.u.s.trissima," and the man bowed again, "I am Giacomo--Giacomo protected by his reverence Fra Pacifico. You have heard of Giacomo?"

Enrica shook her head impatiently.

"Surely you are the Signorina Enrica?"

"Yes, I am."

"Then this letter is for you." And Giacomo stepped up and gave it into her outstretched hand. "I was to tell the ill.u.s.trissima that the letter had come express from Lucca to Fra Pacifico. Fra Pacifico could not bring it down himself, because the wife of the baker Pietro is ill, and he is nursing her."

Enrica took the letter, then stared at Giacomo so fixedly, before he turned to go, it haunted him many days after, for fear the signorina had given him the evil-eye.

Enrica held the letter in her hand. She gazed at it (standing on the spot where she had taken it, midway between the door and the low wall, a glint of sunshine striking upon her hair, turning it to threads of gold) in silent ecstasy. It was n.o.bili's first letter to her. His name was in the corner, his monogram on the seal. The letter came to her in her loneliness like n.o.bili's visible presence. Ah! who does not recall the rapture of a first love-letter!--the tangible a.s.surance it brings that our lover is still our own--the hungry eye that runs over every line traced by that dear hand--the oft-repeated words his voice has spoken stamped on the page--the hidden sense--the half-dropped sentences--all echoing within us as note to note in chords of music!

Enrica's eyes wandered over the address, "To the n.o.ble Signorina Enrica Guinigi, Corellia," as if each word had been some wonder. She dwelt upon every crooked line and twist, each tail and flourish, that n.o.bili's hand had traced. She pressed the letter to her lips, then laid it upon her lap and gazed at it, eking out every second of suspense to its utmost limit. Suddenly a burning curiosity possessed her to know when he would come. With a gasp that almost stopped her breath she tore the cover open. The paper shook so violently in her unsteady hand that the lines seemed to run up and down and dance.

She could distinguish nothing. She pressed her hand to her forehead, steadied herself, then read:

ENRICA: When this comes to you I am gone from you forever. You have betrayed me--how much I do not care to know. Perhaps I think you less guilty than you are. Of all women, my heart clung to you. I loved you as men only love once in their lives. For the sake of that love, I will still screen you all I can. But it is known in Lucca that Count Marescotti was your accepted lover when you promised yourself to me.

Also, that Count Marescotti refused to marry you when you were offered by the Marchesa Guinigi. From this knowledge I cannot screen you.

G.o.d is my witness, I go, not desiring by my presence or my words to reproach you further. But, as a man who prizes the honor of his house and home, I cannot marry you. Tell the marchesa I shall keep my word to her, although I break the marriage-contract. She will find the money placed as she desired.

MARIO n.o.bILI.

"PALAZZO n.o.bILI, LUCCA."

Little by little Enrica read the whole, sentence by sentence. At first the full horror of the words was veiled. They came to her in a dazed, stupid way. A mist gathered about her. There was a buzzing in her ears that deadened her brain. She forced herself to read over the letter again. Then her heart stood still with terror--her cheeks burned--her head reeled. A deadly cold came over her. Of all within that letter she understood nothing but the words, "I am gone from you forever."