CHAPTER I.
WAITING AND LONGING.
It was the morning of the fourth day since Count Nobili had left Corellia. All had been very quiet about the house. The marchesa herself took little heed of any thing. She sat much in her own room. She was silent and preoccupied; but she was not displeased. The one dominant passion of her soul—the triumph of the Guinigi name—was now attained. Now she could bear to think of the grand old palace at Lucca, the seigneurial throne, the nuptial-chamber; now she could gaze in peace on the countenance of the great Castruccio. No spoiler would dare to tread these sacred floors. No irreverent hand would presume to handle her ancestral treasures; no vulgar eye would rest on the effigies of her race gathered on these walls. All would now be safe—safe under the protection of wealth, enormous wealth—wealth to guard, to preserve, to possess.
Enrica had been the agent by which all this had been effected, therefore she regarded Enrica at this time with more consideration than she had ever done before. As to any real sentiments of affection, the marchesa was incapable of them—a cold, hard woman from her youth, now vindictive, as well as cold.
The day after the signing of the contract she called Enrica to her. Enrica trod lightly across the stuccoed floor to where her aunt was standing; then she stopped and waited for her to address her. The marchesa took Enrica's hand within her own for some minutes, and silently stroked each rosy finger.
"My child Enrica, are you content?" This question was accompanied by an inquiring look, as if she would read Enrica through and through. A sweet smile of ineffable happiness stole over Enrica's soft face. The marchesa, still holding her hand, uttered something which might almost be called a sigh. "I hope this will last, else—" She broke off abruptly.
Enrica, resenting the implied doubt, disengaged her hand, and drew back from her. The marchesa, not appearing to observe this, continued:
"I had other views for you, Enrica; but, before you knew any thing, you chose a husband for yourself. What do you know about a husband? It is a bad choice."
Again Enrica drew back still farther from her aunt, and lifted up her head as if in remonstrance. But the marchesa was not to be stopped.
"I hate Count Nobili!" she burst out. "I have had my eye upon him ever since he came to Lucca. I know him—you do not. It is possible he may change, but if he does not—"
For the second time the marchesa did not finish the sentence.
"And do you think he loves you?"
As she asked this question she seated herself, and contemplated Enrica with a cynical smile.
"Yes, he loves me. It is you who do not know him!" exclaimed Enrica. "He is so good, so generous, so true; there is no one in the world like him."
How pure Enrica looked, pleading for her lover!—her face thrown out in sharp profile against the dark wall; her short upper lip raised by her eager speech; the dazzling fairness of her complexion; and her soft hair hanging loose about her head and neck.
"I think I do—I think I know him better than you do," the marchesa answered, somewhat absently.
She was struck by Enrica's exceeding beauty, which seemed within the last few days to have suddenly developed and matured.
"The young man appreciates you, too, I do not doubt. I am told he is a lover of beauty."
This was added with a sneer. Enrica grew crimson.
"Well, well," the marchesa went on to say, "it is too late now—the thing is done. But remember I have warned you. You chose Count Nobili, not I. Enrica, I have done my duty to you and to my own name. Now go and tell the cavaliere I want him."
The marchesa was always wanting the cavaliere; she was closeted with him for hours at a time. These conferences all ended in one conclusion—that she was irretrievably ruined. No one knew this better than the marchesa herself; but her haughty reluctance either to accept Count Nobili's money, or to give up Enrica, was the cause of unknown distress to Trenta.
Meanwhile the prospect of the wedding had stirred up every one in the house to a sort of aimless activity. Adamo strode about, his sad, lazy eyes gazing nowhere in particular. Adamo affected to work hard, but in reality he did nothing but sweep the leaves away from the border of the fountain, and remove the débris caused by the fire. Then he would go down and feed the dogs, who, when at home, lived in a sort of cave cut out of the cliff under the tower—Argo, the long-haired mastiff, and Tootsey, the rat-terrier, and Juno, the lurcher, and the useless bull-dog, who grinned horribly—Adamo fed them, then let them out to run at will over the flowers, while he went to his mid-day meal.
Adamo had no soul for flowers, or he could not have done this; he could not have seen a bright, many-eyed balsam, or an amber-leaved zinnia with tufted yellow breast, die miserably on their earthy beds, trampled under the dogs' feet. Even the marchesa, who concerned herself so little with such things, had often hidden him for his carelessness; but Adamo had a way of his own, and by that way he abided, slowly returning to it, spite of argument or remonstrance.
"Domine Dio orders the weather, not I," Adamo said in a grunt to Pipa when his mistress had specially upbraided him for not watering the lemon-trees ranged along the terraces. "Am I expected to give holy oil to the plants as Fra Pacifico does to the sick? Chè! chè! what will be will be!"
So Adamo went to his dinner in all peace; and Argo and his friends knocked down the flowers, and scratched deep holes in the gravel, barking wildly all the time.
The marchesa, sitting in grave confabulation with Cavaliere Trenta, rubbed her white hands as she listened.
There was neither portcullis, nor moat, nor drawbridge to her feudal stronghold at Corellia, but there was big, white Argo. Argo alone would pin any one to the earth.
"Let out the dogs, Adamo," the marchesa would say. "I like to hear them. They are my soldiers—they defend me."
"Yes, padrona," Adamo would reply, stolidly. "Surely the Signora Marchesa wants no other. Argo has the sense of a man when I discourse to him."
So Argo barked and yelped, and tore up and down undisturbed, followed by the pack in full chase after imaginary enemies. Woe betide the calves of any stranger arriving at that period of the day at the villa! They might feel Argo's glistening teeth meeting in them, or be hurled on the ground, for Argo had a nasty trick of clutching stealthily from behind. Woe betide all but Fra Pacifico, who had so often licked him in drawn battles, when the dog had leaped upon him, that now Argo fled at sight of his priestly garments with a howl!
Adamo, who, after his mid-day meal, required tobacco and repose, would not move to save any one's soul, much less his body.
"Argo is a lunatic without me," he would observe, blandly, to Pipa, if roused by a special outburst of barking, the smoke of his pipe curling round his bullet-head the while. "Lunatics, either among men or beasts, are not worth attending to. A sweating horse, a crying woman, and a yelping cur, heed not."
Adamo added many more grave remarks between the puffs of his pipe, turning to Pipa, who sat beside him, distaff in hand, the silver pins, stuck into her glossy plaits, glistening in the sun.
When Adamo ceased he nodded his head like an oracle that had spoken, and dozed, leaning against the wall, until the sun had sunk to rest into a bed of orange and saffron, and the air was cooled by evening dews. Not till then did Adamo rise up to work.
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 Nobili. 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 Nobili not come down, the noble 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 Nobili 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 bastard—married the blind beggar Gianni at Corellia, for the sake of the pence he got sitting all day shaking his box by the café—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 Gesù! 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 buttoned 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 grass 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 grass 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 passed away, and he squatted down upon the grass (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 grass rope. He tries to tear it asunder, in vain; Angelo had taken care of that. At last, hoarse 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 prick 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 Nobili 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. Nobili 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," Nobili 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 Nobili? Or was she on the eve of some crisis?—a crisis of life and death? Oh! why had Nobili 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.