Vestigia Volume Ii Part 9

There was a long silence between them, then he asked abruptly:

'Will your father come back here to fetch you?'

'Yes, dear.'

She had been sitting quite still, watching with saddest eyes the dimpling motion of the water. But his speaking seemed to recall her to herself; she sighed heavily, and stooping, picked up her fallen handkerchief, and knotted it about her throat. Then she pushed her loosened hair back from her temples, smoothing it down with the palms of both hands in a way which was familiar to her: he had watched her do it a hundred times before. She looked up at him, and their eyes met in a long solemn gaze of unspeakable pity and love.

After a moment he took her hand in his very gently and raised it to his lips.

'My good, good little Italia.'

They sat in silence, like two children, holding each other's hands.

After what seemed a long time there was the sound of oars in the distance, and then the shadowy outline of Drea's boat. Dino drew her gently to him. 'It is good-bye, child, G.o.d keep you,' he said huskily.

Their lips met in a kiss which held the very pa.s.sion of loss.

In another moment he had stepped from the buoy into his own boat. He went to meet Andrea.

'I have been with Italia. If you like I will listen to anything you have to say to me. But not here. I will follow you to your house,' he said.

He followed at a little distance across the tranquil bay.

CHAPTER VIII.

A LAST CHANCE.

Drea did not speak until they stood all three in the shelter of the familiar low-ceilinged room. Then he said, 'I should like to be alone with Dino.'

He waited until Italia had closed the door of the inner chamber behind her. He waited, standing in the firelight, his powerful knotted hands hanging loosely beside him; his gray head bowed upon his breast. All the fire had gone out of the old man; he looked broken-down.

Presently he spoke.

'I did not expect to see you here again, but perhaps it's as well--it's as well.'

He stopped, and fumbled in his pocket for his old pipe. He lighted it automatically, and there was something in the action which seemed to make him feel more like himself.

'I've been troubled, lad; sore troubled,' he said, not looking at Dino, but staring straight before him at the blazing wood upon the hearth.

'Sore troubled. It's like a storm out of a clear sky. First you, lad; first you, and then the young master. I counted upon you to help me take care of the little girl, Dino.'

He spoke with long pauses between his words.

'Your father was my friend once, an' I trusted him, an' he betrayed me.

I never told you before; it didn't seem fair-like; but he betrayed me.

He thought to take everything for himself. But you can't get happiness i' this world without doing something for it; it isn't enough to be willing to rob others. There's no cheap way o' cheating Heaven, lad; a man can't buy Heaven at half-price.'

He sat still for a few minutes breathing heavily. Then he rose, and, taking up the candle, he crossed the room, and unlocked the door of a small cupboard, in which Dino had always known him to keep his few valuables; his certificate from the captain of the shipwrecked steamer; his dead wife's silver-mounted rosary, and whatever money he happened to possess. He returned holding in his hand the embroidered portfolio full of banknotes which Gasparo had left with Italia.

'Some o' it has to be taken back to the young master. But there's three hundred francs in there, lad, o' my very own. I earned it fairly; and the old master always meant it to be mine. Three hundred francs! It's a deal o' money that. I don't know as I ever saw so much money together before.'

He smoothed the folded notes with eager trembling fingers.

'It's all yours, lad; all of it. Take it and pay off these men as have got the hold on you. It's a deal o' money that--three hundred francs.

More than a man could put by in five years' saving. I never could save nothing myself. They'd do many things for that, they would. You can pay 'em off easy.'

And then, as Dino made not the smallest movement to grasp the proffered money, 'Here, take it, boy,' he repeated, trying to thrust the little roll of notes into the young man's clenched hand. 'Take it; it'll be more than made up to me if you are good to my little girl.'

It was impossible to make him understand that the money could make no difference.

'It's three hundred lire, that's what it is. Three hundred lire,' he said doggedly; 'and I earned it, fair, that night o' the wreck. I never thought then it would have to go to pay off rascals; but I'd do more than that, I would, to please the little girl.'

But at last Dino's persistent refusal roused the old man to something more like anger. 'If you won't, you won't. It 'ud have been more above-board to have said it from the beginning.--If you must drown yourself, at least drown yourself i' the deep sea. That's my way o'

thinking.--You could talk there all night; it's easy work talking.

_Colla lingua in bocca si va a Roma_--a man can get as far as Rome if he has a tongue in his mouth. But it proves nothing; it proves nothing.'

He pushed the bank-notes across the table, flattening them out under his strong fist. 'There 'tis. And now take it or leave it, for there 'tis before you. You can choose.'

Dino rose and reached his hat. 'There are many things you will understand better later on, Sor Drea,' he said simply. Then he looked all about the room. 'I'll not see this again. And I've been very happy here. If ever the time should come when you think you judged me harshly, you'll be glad to remember that, perhaps,--that I thanked you and wished you well at the very last.'

And then as the old man still sat silent, with bowed head, 'Will you shake hands with me before I go, Sor Drea?' Dino said, coming nearer.

He looked very n.o.ble at that moment standing there, with the firelight shining full upon his young resolute face.

But Andrea never lifted up his eyes.

'The devil teaches a man how to do things but not how to hide 'em. I thought you was an honest lad at one time, Dino,--I did,' he said bitterly; and let him go without another word.

Drea sat there for a long time after he heard that closing of the outer door. By and by Italia re-entered the room. She came and went softly, busying herself with the preparation of her father's supper. Presently she came near the fire and knelt before it, screening her face with her outspread fingers from the blaze while she watched the boiling water in the kettle out of which she would presently make the coffee.

She was observing her father furtively under shelter of her fingers, and before long she turned a little and rested her cheek against his knee.

'You must be tired, father, and hungry. And you have let your pipe go out; poor father!' she said in a deep tone of loving anxiety.

'Ay, child.'

Andrea shifted the pipe slowly to his other hand and laid his disengaged fingers fondly upon the girl's thick hair.

There was a silence between them while the water bubbled and hissed upon the hearth. But as Italia stooped to lift the saucepan Drea checked her. He said:

'I've done what I could, child; what I could.'

'Yes, father.'

'_His_ father was the same sort before him. I never told you, but Sora Catarina there, she was my sweetheart once, when we were all young together. And his father was my friend, and he took her away from me.

And I was fond of her then, I was.'