The Patriot Part 23

"Here is the person for songs."

Maria raised her head and her face became radiant. "Missipip!" she cried, and slipping down from Barborin's lap, ran to meet Uncle Piero who was coming in. Signora Pasotti rose also, astonished and smiling, and stretched out her arms towards this old and unexpected friend.

"Behold, behold, behold!" she exclaimed, and hastened to greet him.

Maria was calling so loudly for "Missipip, Missipip!" and clinging so tight to Uncle Piero's legs, that, although he did not seem inclined to do so, he was obliged to sit down on the sofa, take the child on his knees, and repeat the old story to her.

Proud shade of the river----

After four or five "Missipips" Signora Pasotti went home, fearing her husband might return. Veronica wished to put the child to bed, but the little one rebelled, and Uncle Piero interfered, saying: "Oh, leave her here a little while longer," and he took her out to the terrace to see if Papa and Mamma were coming.

No boat could be seen coming from Casarico. The little one ordered her uncle to sit down, and then she climbed upon his knee.

"Why did you come?" said she. "There isn't any dinner for you, you know."

"Then you must cook some for me. I came to stay with you."

"Always?"

"Always."

"But really always, always, always?"

"Really always."

Maria became silent and thoughtful, but presently she asked--

"What have you brought me?"

Uncle Piero drew a rubber doll from his pocket. Had Maria known, had she been able to understand how he had gone out to buy that doll for her in great anguish of mind, still smarting from a terrible blow, she would have wept with pity.

"This is an ugly present," said she, recalling others he had brought her. "And if you stay here will you never bring me any more presents?"

"No more presents."

"Go away, Uncle," said she.

He smiled.

And then Maria wanted her uncle to tell her if his uncle had brought him presents when he was a little boy. But, though the thing was inconceivable to Maria, this uncle of her uncle had never existed. Who had brought him presents, then? And had he always been a good little boy? Had he cried much? Her uncle began telling her many tales of his childhood, things that had happened sixty years before, when people wore wigs and pig-tails. He enjoyed talking to his little grand-niece of that far-away time, making her share for a moment the existence of his dead parents, and he spoke with sad gravity, as if the dear ones who had pa.s.sed away had been present, and he were speaking more for them than for her. She fixed her wide-open eyes on his face, and gazed intently at him. Neither he nor she heeded the flight of time, neither he nor she thought of the boat that was coming.

And the boat came. Luisa and Franco drew near, suspecting nothing, and believing the child to be asleep. Franco was the first to perceive Uncle Piero seated under the drooping branches of the pa.s.sion-flower vine with Maria on his knee. He uttered a loud exclamation of surprise, and, followed by Luisa, hastened towards them, fearing something had happened. "You here?" he called as he ran. Luisa, who was very pale, said nothing. Uncle Piero raised his head, and looked at them. They felt at once that he had brought bad news, for they had never seen him so grave.

"_Addio!_ G.o.d bless you!" said he.

"What has happened?" Franco whispered. Uncle Piero motioned to them to withdraw from the terrace to the loggia, whither he followed them. Then the poor old man spread wide his arms as one crucified, and said in a sad but firm voice--

"I am dismissed."

Franco and Luisa stared at him for a moment, dazed. Then Franco burst out: "Oh, Uncle, Uncle!" and fell upon his neck. Seeing her father's action and the expression on her mother's face Maria fell to sobbing.

Luisa tried to pacify her, but she herself, strong woman that she was, felt the tears rising in her throat.

Seated on the sofa in the hall Uncle Piero told them that the Imperial and Royal Delegate of Como had sent for him to tell him that the search which had been carried out in his house at Oria had given painful and unexpected results, but what these results were he had positively refused to state. The Delegate had added that the authorities had at first intended to take legal proceedings against him, but that in consideration of his long and faithful services to the government, it had been decided to remove him from office instead. Uncle Piero had insisted upon knowing the nature of the accusations brought against him, but the Delegate had dismissed him without an answer.

"And what is to be done now?" said Franco.

"What is to be done----" Uncle Piero was silent for a moment, and then p.r.o.nounced that sacramental phrase of unknown origin which he and his fellow _tarocchi_ players were in the habit of repeating when the game was hopelessly lost. "We are done brown, O Queen!"

A long silence ensued, which was finally broken by Luisa, who cast herself upon her uncle's neck, murmuring: "Oh, Uncle, Uncle! I am afraid it is our fault." She was thinking of the grandmother, but Uncle Piero thought she was accusing Franco and herself of some imprudence.

"Listen, my dear friends," said he good-naturedly, but in his tone there was a hidden spirit of reproof, "these discourses are useless. Now that the evil is done we must think of bread. You may count upon this house, upon some modest savings which bring me in about four _svanziche_ a day, and upon two more mouths to feed, mine and Cia's. Let us hope you will not have to feed mine long." Franco and Luisa protested. "Better so, better so!" Uncle Piero exclaimed, waving his arms as if in contempt of unreasonable sentimentality. "Live well, and die in good time. That is the best rule. I have performed the first part, now I must perform the second. Meanwhile send some water to my room, and open my bag. You will find ten meat croquettes, which Signora Carolina dell'Agria insisted upon giving me. You see we are not so badly off, after all!"

Whereupon Uncle Piero rose and went out at the drawing-room door with a firm step, and even when his back was turned, displaying a head and body held erect, and an unruffled serenity like that of an ancient philosopher.

Franco, with knitted brows and arms crossed upon his breast, was standing motionless on the edge of the terrace, and looking towards Cressogno. If at that moment he had had a bundle of Delegates, Commissaries, police-agents, and spies between his teeth, he would have ground them so hard that all these functionaries would have been reduced to pulp.

CHAPTER VI

THE TRUMP CARD APPEARS

"The boat is ready," said Ismaele, coming in unceremoniously, his pipe in his left hand, a lantern in his right.

"What time is it?" Franco asked.

"Half-past eleven."

"And the weather?"

"It is snowing."

"That is good!" Uncle Piero exclaimed ironically, stretching his legs towards the flames of the juniper bush that was crackling in the little fireplace.

In the small parlour, arranged for winter, Luisa, on her knees, was tying a m.u.f.fler round Maria's neck. Franco, holding his wife's cape, stood waiting while the old housekeeper, her bonnet on and her hands buried in her m.u.f.f, was grumbling at her master. "What a man you are!

What are you going to do all alone here at home?"

"I don't need any one when I am asleep," the engineer answered. "Other people may be mad, but I am not. Put my milk and the lamp here."

It was Christmas Eve and the mad idea these otherwise sane people had conceived, the determination which seemed so incomprehensible to Uncle Piero, was to go to the solemn Midnight-Ma.s.s at S. Mamette.

"And that innocent victim also!" said he, glancing at the child.

Franco flushed hotly, and declared that he wished to prepare precious memories for her. He believed this excursion at night, in the boat, on the dark lake, the snow, the crowded and brightly lighted church, the organ, the singing, the holy a.s.sociations of Christmas, would prove to be such. He spoke with heat, perhaps not so much for the uncle as for some one who was silent.

"Yes, yes, yes," said Uncle Piero, as if he had expected this rhetoric, this useless poetry.

"I am going to have some punch, too, you know!" said the child. The uncle smiled. "That is not bad! That will indeed form a precious memory!" Franco frowned at beholding his frail structure of poetical and religious memories thus demolished.