Vestigia. Vol. II.

by George Fleming

GOOD-BYE.

Late that afternoon, as Dino sprang out of the fishing-smack on the stone steps of the landing-place at Leghorn, the first person whom his glance rested on was broad-shouldered Maso sitting on the edge of the quay with his legs and feet dangling over the water. He got up slowly as Dino came nearer, and nodded with cheerful friendliness.

'I know that boat you came in. She's a Bocca d'Arno smack, she is. The man who owns her lives at Pisa.'

'So he does, Maso.'

Dino looked rather anxiously about him. It seemed only too probable that old Drea was making one of that blue-coated group of fishermen who were sitting a dozen paces off on a coil of old ropes, criticising the craft that passed at this leisurely hour of the day, when the nets had already been looked after, and there was time for a pause and the smoking of pipes before the night work began. And Dino did not wish to meet the old man again. He shrank from having to feel once more the altered look of that face; all the old affection felt bruised and sore when he remembered it. He would have turned away now without further speech, but Maso detained him.

'Aren't you coming back to work in the Bella Maria, Dino? She's short-handed now with only Sor Drea and me. 'Twas all we could do to manage the nets this morning. I asked the Padrone if you weren't coming back soon.'

'Ay; and what did he say?' asked Dino, rather eagerly. It would be a comfort still to know that his old friend could speak kindly of him.

Taciturn Maso took off his round cap and scratched his thick, curly hair with an air of consideration. 'Well, I dunno,' he said dubiously. 'He swore at me for being a fool, as far as I can remember. But that wasn't much of an answer—that wasn't. An' yet somehow I didn't seem to miss nothing.'

'But didn't he say anything? Try and remember, Maso; there's a good fellow. Didn't he say: "Oh, Dino is going away," or, "Dino has other business to attend to?" He must have said something, you know.'

'Well, he did swear at me. I told you that already. But, good Lord! some people are never satisfied unless the words come in shoals, like the mackerel when the sharks are driving 'em ashore. An' it's Maso here, and Maso there, till I want to put my head in a bucket o' salt water; I do. That's why I like Italia to speak to me,' he added reflectively. 'She never says too much, and her words are sort o' pretty, like the sea in a calm, when the water is just dozing and making a pleasant noise.'

'Have you seen her?—have you seen Italia to-day, Maso?' asked Dino, his heart beginning to beat faster.

'Oh, ay; that's why I came here to wait for you. I saw your boat; I knew her by the cut of her sails before she was fairly round the point yonder. But I'd ha' brought her in on a shorter tack if I'd had the steering of her—I should.'

'What—what was it Italia wished you to tell me?' asked Dino, making a strong effort to control his impatience and not excite the wonder of the honest, slow-witted young fellow by his side.

'It wasn't so much of a message after all, when I think o' it. I say, Dino, you know Sora Lucia? She lives at the top of that big house in the Via Bianchi.'

'I know—I know.'

'Well, you were to go there, now, this afternoon. Sora Lucia wants to speak to you. That was what Italia told me. She told me twice. But, Lord, I'm not such a stupid as that. I can remember what she says fast enough.'

'Very well, then; I'll go now,' said Dino, feeling rather disappointed. Still it was possible that the little dressmaker might have some message for him. He turned back to inquire of Maso how it was that Italia knew of his return so exactly.

'Nay, how should I know?' retorted Maso reproachfully. 'You don't suppose I asked her, do you?'

He stood on the quay staring after young De Rossi with a look of the most sincere admiration dawning in his big blue eyes. Dino was in some sort of serious scrape, he reflected gravely. Else why didn't he come back to the old boat? And to have time, and opportunity, and invention enough to get into a serious scrape was in itself a distinction in honest Maso's eyes. It was almost like being a gentleman. They got into lots o' trouble, did the Padroni.

'It all comes of his having an eddication,' he pondered enviously, leaning against the parapet and looking at Dino's back.

It was not far to the corner house in the Via Bianchi. Dino went slowly up the many stairs; it was impossible to say what he expected, but his heart beat very fast as he stopped before Lucia's door, and at first he was not sure, he could not tell, if there had been any answer to his knock.

'Avanti, Avanti. Come in; I cannot leave the work,' a woman's voice repeated briskly, and he opened the door. The first glance showed him that the big room was empty of what he most desired. There was no one in it but Lucia, who was standing with her back to him engaged in pressing down the folds of a gown with a hot iron.

'Oh. So that's you, Dino; is it?' she said brusquely, without turning her head.

'I came as soon as I got your message. I have only just returned from Bocca d'Arno, Sora Lucia; and I met Maso on the quay.'

'Oh. 'Twas Maso that told you; was it? See there now. And I who always took him for a sort of two-legged sea-calf, with only just sense enough in him to fall in love with Italia.'

'Maso! that fellow!'

'Well, well. I am not talking Latin, am I? Santa Vergine, it would be a fine world if all the men in it were to keep their eyes shut because a certain young man—— Basta. I understand what I mean.'

She nodded her head several times, and took up another iron, holding it carefully near her face to determine the exact degree of heat.

Dino sat and looked at her in silence. The clock ticked loudly on its shelf, and the dozing cat, awakening to the fact of the presence of a visitor, stretched itself two or three times sleepily, and then made a spring and perched itself on the young man's knee. He rubbed the creature's head mechanically until it purred. Then he put it down gently on the ground and stood up.

'I thought you might have something to say to me, Sora Lucia. But if not I will ask you to let me wish you good-bye now. I have not seen my mother yet: and I am going away—I am going to Rome to-morrow.'

'Ah, Rome is a fine city,' said Sora Lucia briskly. Then she bent her head over her work again and added: 'I, too, have business in Rome. I have a cousin there, my own flesh and blood cousin, who has a shop for beads and rosaries and objects of devotion in the Borgo. Not more than a stone's throw from the house of the Holy Father, as one might say. I may be going up to Rome myself one of these days. It seems as if Leghorn wasn't good enough to stay in any more. The whole world's travelling.'

'Dunque, I'll say good-bye without troubling you further, Sora Lucia.'

'Oh, you'll not go without a greeting to the nonna first. She's wonderfully pleased when people remember to say good-bye to her,' said Lucia hastily, putting down her irons with a clatter.

She went to the inner door and opened it.

'Beppi. Run to the grandmother, child, and say that Dino de' Rossi is here and waiting to make her his saluti.—And tell Italia that I want her. Say that I want her; do you understand? These children have not so much head as a pin between 'em all,' she said hastily, coming back to her work with almost a blush upon her thin pale cheek.

Dino looked at her with great agitation. 'Does Italia know—— Sora Lucia, if Italia should not wish to see me——'

'She's not here to see you. She paying me a visit,' said the little dressmaker sharply. 'And not the worst tongue in Leghorn could blame the girl for coming here. It would be a fine thing, indeed, if I had to give up all my friends to please you, Sor Dino! I—Santa pazienza!'

The door opened again and Italia came in, leading by the hand a very old woman, who steadied herself at the door, and dropped Dino a series of small tremulous curtsies.

'I don't remember who the Signore may be, Lucia; but you know who he is. I'm a very old woman now, sir; very old. I don't rightly remember how many years 'tis now that I've been living; but I worked for forty year at the marble works, I did; forty year picking over the rags to pack the marble.'

'There, nonna, come and sit in your own chair by the fire; that's what you like best,' said Lucia, glancing half guiltily at Italia.

The girl did not notice her. She had silently given her hand to Dino as she came in. They stood so for an instant without speaking; then she slowly lifted up her dark eyes. There was no young smile in them now, and her dear pale face had grown rigid and strained. She looked as if all the gladness had been killed within her. Only her voice had not changed; its full clear ring sounded like a mockery now after meeting that look of infinite misery in her eyes.

'I wanted to say good-bye, Dino.'

'Yes.'

'And I wanted to ask you, when you go to Rome, could not little Palmira go with you? Will you take her, Dino? Please take her.'

'Palmira? take that child? But, dear Italia, indeed it would be quite impossible!'

He was surprised into speaking very abruptly.

'Would it? I did not know. But I wish you would,' Italia murmured, looking down at her hands. She added hurriedly, and hardly moving her lips: 'If any one were watching your movements; if they suspected you of anything; it would be safer to have the child.'

'But, dear, I could not take her. It is impossible. Why, for one thing, I have no money. What could I do with the child in Rome?' Dino urged, still speaking with the vehemence of surprise.

She shrank away a little. 'I did not know. I think it could be managed.'

'Italia, Italia, I want to ask you about this work; you always know the right thing to advise one,' said Lucia in a hasty voice, looking up from her ironing.

But when Italia came to her she said nothing, only pushing back the girl's heavy hair, and giving her a little pat on the cheek. 'There, go away, go away, child. You are interrupting me. Go and talk to the nonna.'

The old woman was watching the fire, her eyes following its flickering motion like the eyes of a young child. She said in a quavering voice as Italia laid her hand on her shoulder, 'My knitting, Maria; have you brought me my knitting?'

'Grannie always calls Italia Maria,' observed the small Beppi in an explanatory manner to Dino. 'She says Maria do this, Maria do that, and all the while she's speaking to Italia.'

'It was my mother's name,' said Lucia, nodding her head. 'She's dead these twenty years, the saints have her soul! but the nonna doesn't remember.'

Italia was kneeling before the purblind old dame, picking up the dropped stitches in a coarse woollen stocking. 'Now it will do nicely, dear nonna,' she said in her clear grave voice; and the grandmother laid her trembling hand upon the girl's thick hair and stroked it; 'You were always a good child, Maria; always. Now Lucia there she never married, an' there's many a thing she doesn't understand,—many a thing,—many a thing.'

'Italia, will you fetch me the body of this dress? I left it in the other room on the table,' said Lucia suddenly. She waited till the girl had passed through the open door, then she hurriedly turned and looked at Dino: 'Go—go and help her find it!'

He went straight up to the girl and caught both her hands in his.

'My dear, my love, if there was anything I could do or say to comfort you. I would give my life—my life! to undo the harm that I have done to you, Italia.'

'Oh no,' she said hastily, and disengaged her hands and bent her head over Lucia's work. 'Dino.'

'Yes, dear.

'I wanted to ask you. There is just one thing.' She bent her face until it nearly touched the table. 'They tell me so, and I cannot contradict it,' she murmured; her sweet lips contracted and grew pale.

'What is it, dear? Tell me. Tell me, Italia.'

'Ah, there is no other woman whom you care for, then, at Rome?' Her voice was scarcely audible, and she turned her head from side to side without looking at him.

'Italia!'

He caught hold of her hands again, and forced her to meet his glance. 'Upon my honour—no! There is no other woman for me in all the world but you. And I love you, Italia,—I love you, I love you,' Dino said.

She bent her head a little. 'I did not know.' Then, still without looking at him, 'Now—I shall not be so unhappy, my Dino.'

Sora Lucia came as far as the doorway and looked in. 'You have found the bodice, Italia? Well, well, there is no hurry for it, none at all.'

'I'm coming, Lucia—directly.'

She clasped both her hands together, and held them out mutely.

'Italia,' he said, seizing them, 'I must ask you this. Is it true about Maso? would your father make you marry him? For God's sake tell me!'

'I can't grieve my father,' she said faintly; 'he has only me. But—Dino'—her eyes seemed to pierce his very heart as she looked at him—'oh, my poor Dino!' she said. And she stooped and gathered up the scattered pieces of work from the table, and left him standing there alone in the room.

He could never remember what happened after then until he found himself out in the street, walking towards home through the still spring twilight.

But the next day, just as the Roman train was starting, a woman dressed very neatly in black, and holding a child by the hand, came running along the platform, looking in at the windows of the third-class carriages. It was Sora Lucia with little Palmira; they had scarcely time to secure their seats in Dino's compartment before the train started.

'You may well be surprised to see us; you may well look astonished, Sor Dino,' the little dressmaker began nervously, as the engine puffed out of the station.

'But, oh, Dino, Dino, it was Italia's plan!' broke in little Palmira, clapping her hands ecstatically. 'And she asked mother to let me go with Lucia, only mother wouldn't tell you because it was to be a secret. And Italia said that Lucia would have to go and see her cousin, and you would take me to look at the wolf, Dino. Dino, will you take me to look at the wolf?'

'What does this mean?' the young man demanded rather impatiently, fixing his eyes on Lucia, who only tossed her head, affecting to be absorbed in examining the fastening of the window.

'And, Dino, Italia sold her ring in a shop, her beautiful new gold ring that the Signor Marchese gave her on her birthday. She sold it to get the money to send us, because Lucia had to go and see her cousins, who have a shop in the Borgo,' continued little Palmira in an awe-struck voice. She had never seen Dino look so strangely; his face was quite white, and he did not seem at all pleased to see them. The prospect of feeding the wolf grew fainter at every minute, and Palmira's small pale cheeks began to flush ominously.

'There, there, little one. Don't cry. There's a good little girl,' said Dino hastily, and patting her kindly on the head.

He lowered his voice and turned to Lucia. 'Was this Italia's own idea? Did no one suggest it to her?' he asked anxiously.

'Nay, if you want to know so many things about Italia, Sor Dino, 'tis a pity you could not stay in Leghorn long enough to ask her the questions yourself. But you prefer leaving the people who care for you to dry their own eyes and look after their own concerns. Well, well, it's the way of the world apparently. And you take your own responsibility. After all, one's actions belong to oneself; you can't have other people's babies,' said Sora Lucia dryly. And she continued to look out of the carriage window till they were well on their way to Rome.