The Princess Passes Part 22

The slim figure turned, and I mumbled a "Thank goodness!"

"Little wretch!" I exclaimed heartily, as I joined the couple ahead.

"How could you go off alone like this with a stranger, perhaps a ruffian (he looks it), without leaving any word for me? You deserve to be shaken."

"You wouldn't say he looked a ruffian, if you could see his face. I'm sure he's honest. And as for sending word, I didn't care to disturb you and--your Contessa."

"Hang the--no, of course, I don't mean that. Luckily I was in time to catch you, and----"

"Did the Contessa send you after me, or did----"

"She doesn't know what's become of you. There was no time for politenesses. You gave me some bad moments, little brute. Now, tell me what you're about."

He explained that the peasant (who understood no word of English) was an Italian who had come to Martigny to find work as a road mender, that he had been taken ill and lost his job; that he had tramped back over the St. Bernard to Aosta, near which place he had once lived; that the work he had heard of there was already given to another; and that, walking back to rejoin his family near Martigny, he had found the bag on the Pa.s.s. He had brought it home, and had only just learned the address of the owner, as set forth in the handbills.

"Why didn't he bring the bag to you, and claim the reward?" I asked.

"It is at the house of the priest, and the priest has been away all day, visiting a relative in the country somewhere, who is ill, so this man, Andriolo Stefani, couldn't get the bag. But he came to tell me that it was found, and where it was."

"And he pretends to be guiding you to the house of the priest now?"

"No. I'm going to his house--or rather, the room where he and his wife and children live."

"For goodness' sake, why?"

"Because he's refused to accept the reward for finding the bag."

"By Jove, he must have some deep game. What reason did he give, and what excuse did he make, for dragging you off to his lair? It sounds as if he meant to try and kidnap you for a ransom--(these things do happen, you know)--and there are probably others in it besides himself. I don't believe in the priest, nor the wife and children, nor even in his having found the bag."

"He didn't ask me to go to his house. When I spoke of the reward, he said that he couldn't take it, and though I questioned him, would not tell me why, but was evidently distressed and unhappy. Finally he admitted that it was his wife who would not allow him to accept a reward. She had made him promise that he wouldn't. Then I said that I'd like to talk to her, and might I go with him to his house. He tried to make excuses; he had no house, only one room, not fit for me to visit; and the place was a long way off, outside Martigny Bourg; but I insisted, so at last he gave in. Now, do you still think he's the leader of a band of kidnappers?"

"I don't know what to think. There's evidently something queer. I'll talk to him."

During our hurried conversation, the man had walked on a few steps in advance. I called him back, speaking in Italian. He came at once, and now that we were in the town, where here and there a blur of light made darkness visible, I could see his face distinctly. I had to confess to myself at first glance that it was not the face of a cunning villain,--this worn, weather-beaten countenance, with its hollowed cheeks, and the sad dark eyes, out of which seemed to look all the sorrows of the world.

He had found the bag night before last, he said, between the Cantine de Proz and Bourg St. Pierre. It had been lying in the road, in the _rucksack_, and he judged by the strap that it had been attached to the back of a man, or a mule. While I questioned him further, trying to get some details of description not given in the handbills, he paused. "There is the priest's house," he said. "There is a light in the window now. Perhaps he has come back."

"We will stop and ask for the bag," said I, watching the face of the man. It did not blench, and I began to wonder if, after all, he might not be honest.

The priest, a delightful, white-haired old fellow, himself of the peasant cla.s.s, had returned, and from a locked cupboard in his bare little dining-room study produced the much talked of bag, in its _rucksack_.

The Boy sprang at it eagerly. So secure had he believed it to be on the grey donkey's back, that he had not been in the habit of taking out the key. It was still in the lock, and, the bag standing on the priest's dinner table, the Boy opened it with visible excitement. Then he dived down into the contents, without bringing them into sight, and a bright colour flamed in his cheeks. "Everything is safe," he said, with a long sigh of relief. "I'm thankful."

He turned to the priest, speaking in French--and his French was very good. "I have offered a large reward to the finder of this bag. But the man will not have it. Can you tell me why, _mon pere_?"

"I cannot tell you, Monsieur. Doubtless he has a reason which seems to him good," answered the priest, who evidently knew that reason, but was pledged not to tell. "He and his family have not been in my parish long, but I believe them to be worthy people. I have been trying to get work for Andriolo, since he has been well again, and able to undertake it, but so far I have not been fortunate."

The Boy took a handful of gold from his pocket. "For the poor of your parish, _mon pere_, if you will be good enough to accept it for them,"

said he, with great charm and simplicity of manner. The old priest flushed with pleasure, saying that he had many poor, and was constantly distressed because he could do so little. This would be a G.o.dsend. I glanced at the Italian, and saw that his weary, dark eyes were fixed with a pa.s.sionate wistfulness upon the gold. This look, his whole appearance, bespoke poverty, yet he had deliberately refused five thousand francs, a fortune to most men of his condition. Now that he was vouched for by the priest, extreme curiosity took the place of suspicion in my mind.

I hid the blue cap of the concierge behind my back, in the priest's house, but the Boy saw it, and saw that I was drenched with rain. I must have been a figure for laughter, but he did not laugh. "You see, I was in a hurry," I excused myself, under a long, comprehending gaze of his. "It's your fault if I look an a.s.s."

"You didn't stop even to go and get a hat," he said. "You came out in the rain just as you were, and you ran--I heard you running, behind me. But--but of course it's because you're kind-hearted. You would have done just the same for anybody. For--the Contessa----"

"Not for the Baronessa, anyhow," said I. "I should have stopped for a mackintosh and even goloshes, had her safety been hanging in the balance."

Then we both laughed, and Stefani, who by this time was showing us the way through the rain to his own home, looked over his shoulder, surprised and self-conscious, as if he feared that we were laughing at him.

On the outskirts of straggling Martigny Bourg, he stopped before a gloomy, grey stone house with four rows of closed wooden shutters, which meant four floors of packed humanity. Even Martigny has its tenements for poor workers, or those who would be workers if they could, and this was one of them.

We followed Andriolo Stefani up four flights of narrow stone stairs, picking our way by testing each step with a cautious foot, since light there was none. Arrived at the top floor, we groped along a pa.s.sage to the back of the house, and our guide opened a door. There was a yellow haze, which meant one candle-flame fighting for its life in the dark, and we waited outside, while the Italian spoke for a moment to someone we could not see. There came a note of protest in a woman's voice, but the man's beat it down with some argument, and then Stefani returned to ask us in.

Two women sat in a room almost bare of furniture, and both tried to rise on our entrance; but one, who was young as years go, had her lap full of little worn shoes, and the other, who looked older than the allotted span, was nursing a wailing baby, half undressed.

I found myself strangely embarra.s.sed with the coa.r.s.e guilt of intrusion. I was suddenly oppressed with self-conscious awkwardness, wishing myself anywhere else, and not knowing what to do or say. In all probability I looked haughty and disagreeable, though I felt humble as a worm. How the Boy felt I have no means of knowing; I can only tell how he acted. One would have thought that he had known these poor people all his life. I lingered near the door, taking notes of the sad picture; the two rough wooden boxes, in which slept three little dark children, all apparently of exactly the same size; the mattress on the floor near by for the parents; the open door leading into a dark garret, where, no doubt, the grandmother crept to sleep; the shelves on the wall, bare save for a few dishes of peasant-made pottery; the pile of dried mud on the tiled floor, which the young mother had been carefully sc.r.a.ping with a knife from the little worn boots in her lap; the rickety, uncovered table, with a bunch of endives on a plate, and a candle guttering in a bottle. This was the picture, redeemed from squalor only by the lithograph of the Virgin on the wall, draped with fresh wild flowers, and its perfect cleanliness; this was the home of the supposed "kidnapper," the man who had refused to accept five thousand francs as a reward.

While I stood, stiff and uncomfortable, the Boy went forward quickly, begging the two women not to rise. "Poor, dear little baby!" he said in Italian, looking down at the dark sc.r.a.p of humanity in the grandmother's arms. "She is ill, isn't she?"

Now, how did he know that the creature was a "she"? If it were a guess, it was a lucky one, for both women replied together that the little girl had been ailing since yesterday. They could not tell what was the matter. They had hoped that she would be better to-day, but instead, she seemed worse; and with this, a glittering film which had been overspreading the mother's eyes, suddenly dissolved into silently falling rain. There were no sobs, no gaspings from this tired woman, too used to sorrow to rail against it, yet it was plain to see that her heart was breaking. Still, life must go on: and so, while she grieved for a little one she feared to lose, she cleaned the boots of those she hoped to keep.

"Have you called a doctor for her?" asked the Boy.

"The good priest is half a doctor. He came to see the _bambina_."

"What did he say?"

"Oh, Signor, we cannot give her all the things he said she should have, nor can he help us to them, for he has much to do for others, and little to do it with."

"Yet you would not let your husband take the reward I offered for finding my bag. He is out of work, and you are poor; you have four children to feed, and one of them is ill. Why will you not have the money? I have come to ask you that. You see, I _want_ you to have it, for the bag is worth all I've offered and even more to me."

"Ah, Signor, how can I tell you? It was to save my baby I refused."

"Please tell. You need not mind saying anything to me--or to my friend. We are interested and want to help you."

Now the young woman's tears were falling fast, but silently still, as if she knew that her heart-break was unimportant in the great scheme of things, and she wished to make no noise about it. Her lips moved, but no words came.

"She will not speak against me," Stefani said suddenly, "nor will my poor mother. But I will tell you the story. I meant to steal your bag, and sell the gold things and all the valuables that were in it. It was a great temptation, for we had scarce a penny left, and there was no work anywhere. I was tired, tired all through to my heart, Signor, that night on the Pa.s.s, and then I found the bag. I brought it home, and charged Emilia and my mother to say nothing to anyone outside. The children were at school, so they did not see, or they might have lisped out something, and set people talking. The two women begged me to give up the bag, and try for a reward in case one should be offered, but I was desperate. I said that the gold was worth more than anything that would be offered--the gold, and some jewelry in a little box. I knew a man who would buy of me, and I had gone out to find him yesterday, when, as if Heaven had sent a curse upon us for my sin, the _bambina_ was struck down with this illness--a terrible aching of her little head, and a fever. When I came home to take away the things out of the bag, my wife begged me on her knees, for the child's sake, to change my mind; and at last I did, for who can hold out against the prayers of those he loves?

"Quickly, lest I should repent, I carried the bag to our priest, and told him all. He thought as a penance for the sin which had been in my heart, I should take no reward if it were offered, though he did not lay this upon me as a command. Emilia was with him, for, said she, Our Lady will save the baby if we make this great sacrifice. Now you know all the truth."

"And I know that you are good people--better than I would have been in your places--better than anyone I know. There's no credit in keeping straight if one's not tempted to go wrong, is there? I won't offend you by begging that you'll take the reward. I offer you no reward, but I am going to give your children a present, and you are to use it for the comfort of your family. I have enough with me, because, you see, I had to get something ready to-day, in case the reward had to be paid.

Now, it isn't needed for that, so I can use it in this other way. And you have done all that is right, and you would hurt me very much if you refused to let me do what I wish. It is always wrong to hurt people, you know. And you must send me word early to-morrow morning before I go, whether the baby is better. I feel sure, somehow, that she will be."

Then a roll of notes was thrust into one of the little boots, still caked with mud, which the mother kept mechanically in her hand. There was a pat on the shoulder, too, and an instant later the Boy's arm was hooked into mine; I was whisked away with him in as rapid a flight as if he had been a thief, and not a benefactor.

"How much did you give them, young Santa Claus?" I asked, when he had me out in the rain again.

"About one thousand three hundred dollars. I can't stop to calculate it for you in pounds or francs. I'm too excited. Oh, how wet you are, poor Man! And all for me! But wasn't it splendid! And I just know that baby'll be better to-morrow. You see if she isn't."

She was. The news was brought to us early in the morning by a poor man half out of his wits with joy and grat.i.tude.