CHAPTER XII.
OH BELLO!
An hour or two has passed. A slow and cautious step, accompanied with the tapping of a stick upon the stone flags of the floor, is audible along the narrow passage 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 passage. 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 Gesù!" 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 apron, 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 hello!" 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 Nobili 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 apron. 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).
"Why, he might have shot the signorina's husband—the fool!"
This thought steadies Pipa for an instant, but she bursts out again. "Oh hello!"—Pipa gurgles like a stream that cannot stop running; then she breaks off all at once, and listens. "Hush! hush! There is Adamo coming, cavaliere—hush! hush! Make haste and go away. He is coming—Adamo; I hear him on the gravel."
"Say nothing until the morning," whispers the cavaliere. "Give them a fair start. Ha! ha!"
Pipa nods. Her face twitches all over. As Cavaliere Trenta turns to go, Pipa catches him smartly by the shoulder, draws him to her, and speaks into his ear:
"To think the signorina has run away with her own husband! Oh bello!"