The Italians Part 53

"Oh! my beloved!" he cries, in a voice that penetrates her very soul.

"Come to me--here--to a heart all your own!" He springs forward and clasps her in his arms. "Thus--thus let the past perish!" n.o.bili whispers as his lips touch hers. Enrica's head nestles upon his breast. She has once more found her home.

A subdued knock is heard at the door.

"Sangue di Dio!" mutters n.o.bili, disengaging himself from Enrica--"what new torment is this? Is there no peace in this house?

Who is there?"

"It is I, Count n.o.bili." Maestro Guglielmi puts in his hatchet face and glaring teeth. In an instant his piercing eyes have traveled round the room. He has taken in the whole situation--Count n.o.bili in the middle of the floor--flushed--agitated--furious at this interruption; Enrica--revived--conscious--blushing at his side. The investigation is so perfectly satisfactory that Maestro Guglielmi cannot suppress a grin of delight.

"Believe me, Signore Conte," he says, advancing cautiously a step or two forward into the room, a deprecating look on his face--"believe me--this intrusion"--Guglielmi turns to Enrica, grins again palpably, then bows--"is not of my seeking."

"Tell me instantly what brings you here?" demands n.o.bili, advancing.

(n.o.bili would have liked beyond measure to relieve his feelings by kicking him.)

"It is just that"--Guglielmi cannot refrain from another glance round before he proceeds--(yes, they are reconciled, no doubt of it.

The judgeship is his own! Evviva! The ill.u.s.trious personage--so notoriously careful of his subject's morals--who had deigned to interest himself in the marriage, might possibly, at the birth of a son and heir to the Guinigi, add a pension--who knows? At this reflection the lawyer's eyes become altogether unmanageable)--"it is just that," repeats Guglielmi, making a desperate effort to collect himself. "Personally I should have declined it, personally; but the marchesa's commands were absolute: 'You must go yourself, I will permit no deputy.'"

"d.a.m.n the marchesa! Shall I never be rid of the marchesa?"

n.o.bili's aspect is becoming menacing. Maestro Guglielmi is not a man easily daunted; yet once within the room, and the desired evidence obtained, he cannot but feel all the awkwardness of his position.

Greatly as Guglielmi had been tickled at the notion of becoming himself a witness in his own case, to do him justice he would not have volunteered it.

"The marchesa sent me," he stammers, conscious of Count n.o.bili's indignation (with his arms crossed, Count n.o.bili is eying Guglielmi from head to foot). "The marchesa sent me to know--"

n.o.bili unfolds his arms, walks straight up to where Guglielmi is standing, and shakes his fist in his face.

"Do you know, Signore Avvocato, that you are committing an intolerable impertinence? If you do not instantly quit this room, or give me some excellent reason for remaining, you shall very speedily have my opinion of your conduct in a very decided manner."

Count n.o.bili is decidedly dangerous. He glares at Guglielmi like a very devil. Guglielmi falls back. The false smile is upon his lips, but his treacherous eyes express his terror. Guglielmi's combats are only with words, his weapon the pen; otherwise he is powerless.

"Excuse me, Count n.o.bili, excuse me," he stammers. He rubs his hands nervously together and watches n.o.bili, who is following him step by step. "It is not my fault--I give you my word--not my fault. Don't look so, count; you really alarm me. I am here as a man of peace--I entreated the marchesa to retire to rest. I represented to her the peculiar delicacy of the position, but I grieve to say she insisted."

n.o.bili is now close to him; his eyes are gathered upon him more threateningly than ever.

"Remember, sir, you are addressing me in the presence of my wife--be careful."

What a withering look n.o.bili gives Guglielmi as he says this! He can with difficulty keep his hands off him!

"Yes--yes--just so--just so--I applaud your sentiments, Count n.o.bili--most appropriate. Now I will go."

Alarmed as he is, Guglielmi cannot resist one parting glance at Enrica. She is crimson. Then with an expression of infinite relief he retreats to the door walking backward. Guglielmi has a strong conviction that if he turns round Count n.o.bili may kick him, so, keeping his eyes well balanced upon him, he fumbles with his hands behind his back to find the handle of the door. In his confusion he misses it.

"Not for worlds, Signore Conte," says Guglielmi, nervously pa.s.sing his hand up and down the panel in search of the door-handle--"not for worlds would I offend you! Believe me--(maledictions on the door--it is bewitched!)"

Now Guglielmi has it! Safely clutching the handle with both his hands, Guglielmi's courage returns. His mocking eyes look up without blinking into n.o.bili's, fierce and flashing as they are.

"Before I go"--he bows with affected humility--"will you favor me, count, and you, madame" (Guglielmi is clutching the door-handle tightly, so as to be able to escape at any moment), "by informing me whether you still desire the deed of separation to be prepared for your signature in the morning?"

"Leave the room!" roars Count n.o.bili, stamping furiously on the floor--"leave the room, or, Domine Dio!--"

Maestro Guglielmi had jumped out backward, before Count n.o.bili could finish the sentence.

"Enrica!" cries n.o.bili, turning toward her--he had banged-to the door and locked it--"Enrica, if you love me, let us leave this accursed villa to-night! This is more than I can bear!"

What Enrica replied, or if Enrica ever replied at all, is, and ever will remain, a mystery!

CHAPTER XII.

OH BELLO!

An hour or two has pa.s.sed. A slow and cautious step, accompanied with the tapping of a stick upon the stone flags of the floor, is audible along the narrow pa.s.sage leading from the sala to Pipa's room. It is as dark as pitch. Whoever it is, is afraid of falling, and creeps along cautiously, feeling by the wall.

Pipa, expecting to be summoned to her mistress--Pipa, wondering greatly indeed what Enrica can be about, and why she does not go to bed, when she, the blessed dear, was so faint and tired, and crying--oh, so pitifully!--when she left her--Pipa, leaning against the door-post near the half-open door, dozing like a dog with one eye open in case she should be called--listened and looked out into the pa.s.sage. A figure is standing within the light that streams out from the door, a very well-remembered figure, stout and short--a little bent forward on a stick--with a round, rosy face framed in snowy curls, a world of pleasant wickedness in two twinkling eyes, on which the light strikes, and a mouth puckered up for any mischief.

"Madonna!" cries Pipa, rubbing her eyes--"the cavaliere! How you did frighten me! I cannot bear to hear footsteps about when Adamo is out;" and Pipa gazes up and down into the darkness with an unpleasant consciousness that something ghostly might be watching her.

"Pipa," says the cavaliere, putting his finger to his nose and winking palpably, "hold your tongue, and don't scream when I tell you something. Promise me."

"O Gesu!" cries Pipa in a loud voice, starting back, forgetting his injunction--"is it not about the signorina?"

"Hold your tongue, Pipa, or I will tell you nothing."

Pipa's head is instantly close to the cavaliere's, her face all eagerness.

"Yes, it is about the signorina--the countess. She is gone!"

"Gone!" and Pipa, spite of warning, fairly shouts now "gone!" at which the cavaliere shakes his stick at her, smiling, however, benignly all the time. "Holy mother! gone! O cavaliere! tell me--she is not dead?"

(Ever since Pipa had tended Enrica lying on her bed, so still and cold, it seemed reasonable to her that she might die at any instant, without warning given.)

"Yes, Pipa," answers the cavaliere solemnly, his voice shaking slightly, but he still smiles, though the dew of rising tears is in his merry eyes--"yes, dead--dead to us, my Pipa--I fear dead to us."

Pipa sinks back in speechless horror against the wall, and groans.

"But only to us--(don't be a fool, Pipa)"--this in a parenthesis--"she is gone with her husband."

Pipa rises to her feet and stares at Trenta, at first wildly, then, as little by little the hidden sense comes to her, her rosy lips slowly part and lengthen out until every snowy tooth is visible. Then Pipa covers her face with her ap.r.o.n, and shakes from head to foot in such a fit of laughter, that she has to lean against the wall not to fall down. "Oh h.e.l.lo!" is all she can say. This Pipa repeats at intervals in gasps.

"Come, Pipa, that will do," says the cavaliere, poking at her with his stick--"I must get back before I am missed--no one must know it till morning--least of all the marchesa and Guglielmi. They are shut up together. The marchesa says she will sit up all night. But Count n.o.bili and his wife are gone--really gone. Fra Pacifico managed it. He got hold of Adamo, who was running round the house with a loaded gun, all the dogs after him. Take care of Adamo when he comes back to-night, Pipa. He is fastening up the dogs, and feeding them, and taking care of poor Argo, who is badly hurt. He is quite mad, Adamo.

I never saw a man so wild. He would not come in. He said the marchesa had told him to shoot some one. He swore he would do it yet. He nearly fought with Fra Pacifico when he forced him in. Adamo is quite mad.

Tell him nothing to-night; he is not safe."

Pipa has now let down her ap.r.o.n. Her bright olive-complexioned face beams in one broad smile, like the full moon at harvest. She is still shaking, and at intervals gives little spasmodic giggles.

"Leave Adamo to me" (another giggle); "I will manage him" (another).