CHAPTER V
A few days later Fra Tommaso found an opportunity of laying Mariuccia's case before the Cardinal. The latter usually paid a short visit to the church in the late afternoon, on his return from the drive which was as much a part of his daily life as the reading of his breviary. His Mass was always said in his private chapel, but he found in the large, quiet church greater space of detachment, an atmosphere rich with the devotion of centuries, and an impersonal companionship very sympathetic to him in the chapels and monuments which had been the silent witnesses of his silent spirit's growth. It was but a few steps from the church to his own door, and the constant presence of his chaplain and servants on all other occasions made the short solitary walk a pleasure in itself.
Fra Tommaso ventured to ask him to come into the dark home of bell ropes and candlesticks and there with many apologies for obtruding such common affairs on his noble attention, explained poor Mariuccia's perplexities and besought the Eminenza's intervention with his illustrious and charitable sister.
The Cardinal listened to him with much attention, disentangled the real facts from the picturesque accompaniments of explanation and gesture in which the sacristan involved them at every turn. When Fra Tommaso mentioned Professor Bianchi, the prelate nodded his head, saying, "Ah, the Signor Professore is known to me. He is a man much respected, also very much occupied. Doubtless he has not had time to think about the little girl. He is not rich, and it is not to be expected that he should bear the charges of her education. I will speak to the Princess and see what can be done."
Fra Tommaso broke out into expressions of devout gratitude, and the Cardinal smiled on him and slipped away. He had a strong feeling of kindness for the cheerful, humble servant of the Fathers, a feeling which, years ago, had been one of acute pity for a brokenhearted boy who had nourished high hopes of entering the Church—open to peasant as to prince if God have bestowed on him the needful gifts—and who had found it impossible to assimilate the required learning. All other requisites of the true vocation were there, singleness of heart, deep humility, fervor and faith. But some congenital defect of brain, unperceived until the intellect attempted to grapple with the difficulties of Latin and theology, barred the way for Tommaso. When this was so apparent that his patient instructors were obliged to give their unfavorable verdict, the shock had almost overcome his reason and his faith. Paolo Cestaldini, then a young priest just ordained, had rescued both. He had kept the boy near him for some time, and had only let him go when he saw that resignation had done its work, when he had enabled Tommaso to realize that the glory of God required service of many grades, and that all the virtues of a religious vocation can be as well acquired, preserved, and practised, in the humblest as in the most illustrious of these.
The result of the conversation under the bell tower was a visit from good Signora Dati, the humble but devoted companion of the Princess and the chief intermediary of her many charities, to Mariuccia, who was quite overcome by such an honor. The Princess had two excellent qualities of the administrator; she spared no trouble and lost no time in learning all that could be learned about a case presented for her consideration; and then she took proper time to decide on her course of action. The immense ramifications of charities in Rome provided answers to almost all the problems connected with the relief of suffering and poverty. The first step was to catalogue the applicant's needs. So Signora Dati was commissioned to find out to what class of society the golden-haired waif on the other side of the courtyard belonged, and also to learn whatever she could of the morals of her defunct parents. The Princess was convinced that heredity played a great part in the drama of development and should be suppressed or fostered according to its character.
The Professor was absent when Mariuccia's visitor climbed the long stairs and rang at the green door. She was a thin, pale little lady, with the eyes of a saint and the mouth of a judge. Her costume gave almost the impression of a conventual habit, with its full black skirt and silk shoulder cape and black lace head covering. This last indicated with delicate precision the exact rank of the wearer, an educated and refined dependent, placed half way between the woman of rank, who could wear a bonnet, and the woman of the people, who must go bare-headed if she would preserve her reputation.
Signora Dati had become an expert in charity. It was impossible to deceive her as to character and veracity. After half-an-hour's conversation with Mariuccia—conversation during which the latter stood respectfully at a little distance from her interlocutor's chair and gave her story with admirable directness, uncomplicated with legends about Giannella's relations, and with a complete unconsciousness of any merit on her own part—Signora Dati was satisfied on all the points which she had come to investigate. Giannella's parents had been respectable if unfortunate people; they had been duly married; there was apparently no taint of crime or disease to descend to their child. Only one thing more remained to be ascertained—what kind of training in bearing and manners had this good but uneducated woman and her family been able to give the child?
"And now I would like to see the little girl," she said; "will you call her in?"
Mariuccia stamped away into the kitchen and returned, pushing Giannella into the room before her. The child stood still for an instant looking at the visitor. Then she came forward, raised Signora Dati's hand to her fresh young lips, kissed it, and stepped back, looking the lady full in the face with her innocent gray eyes, waiting to be spoken to. The commissioner of charities, whose visit had purposely been unannounced, returned the glance, taking in the smoothly braided hair, the round cheeks and clean dimpled hands, the nicely ironed frock and pinafore, the spotless stockings and strong strap shoes. An immense respect for Mariuccia rose in her heart. What it must have cost the woman to keep the child like this—on four scudi a month! It was heroism—nothing less. And the manners were perfect; that, however, was not so surprising, seeing that all Giannella's life had been spent among the rigidly self-respecting inhabitants of the castelli. It was only in large towns that the poorer classes had become insubordinate and vulgar.
After a few questions and answers, Signora Dati rose to go. Mariuccia accompanied her to the door, and there, Giannella having been sent back to the kitchen, she said that the Princess would consider the question of the child's education and would communicate with her as soon as it had been decided upon. Meanwhile it would be well to preserve silence on the matter, as her Excellency did not care to have her charities noised abroad.
When Mariuccia went back to her interrupted task of preparing the padrone's dinner, Giannella was standing at the window watching a flock of pigeons hovering over a small terrace on the roof of the opposite building. It was on a higher level than the Bianchi apartment, and the parapet shut out any view of what might lie behind it, but the parapet itself was gay with flowers; the deep red carnations that the Romans love hung far over the edge, swaying in the sun and breeze; a little lemon-tree in a green box held up its pale golden fruit among shining leaves; the pigeons whirred about as if in great excitement, while every now and then a dark masculine head bobbed up for a moment above the line of red bricks, and then disappeared again. Giannella had forgotten all about the visitor who had come to decide her fate, and was completely absorbed in the brightness and movement across the way.
Mariuccia came behind her and laid a hand on her shoulder, leaning out to see what so interested the child. Then she smiled, and said, half to herself, "That poor Fra Tommaso! He is at it again, feeding his birds and talking to them as if they were Christians. Shall I tell you something, Giannella? When I took you out to Castel Gandolfo—and you were no longer than that—(she measured half-a-yard on her arm) and as fat as a little calf—I brought back two pigeons in a cage for Fra Tommaso, thinking he would cook and eat them. Figure to yourself piccolina, that he made a little house for them up there on his loggia, and fed them with Indian corn, and now behold, a family! They are his children, those fowls, and he takes as much care of them as I do of you."
"I would like to go up and see them, and get some of the garofoli," Giannella replied wistfully. "Zia Mariuccia, do take me up to Fra Tommaso's loggia."
"What an idea!" Mariuccia exclaimed. "Why, no woman has ever entered that house. It is strict clausura. Only men can go in—the Fathers and their pupils live there. They do not want to see little girls!"
"Are they like the Signor Professore then?" Giannella asked, looking across at the tall conventual building with a shiver of fear. "Is the Signor Professore a padre too?"
"No," said Mariuccia, looking down at the child in amusement. Then she added impressively, "He is a most learned gentleman, and for that reason dislikes noise and disturbance. He was very angry when you knocked over the chair yesterday. You must be more careful, Giannella."
To Mariuccia's amazement the child flung herself against her and broke out into wild entreaty. "Zia Mariuccia, do please take me back to Mamma Candida! It makes me so sad to be so quiet all the time. Mamma Candida never scolded about the noise unless there was quarreling—and I want Annetta and Richetto and the dog and the pigs and the donkey—so much! Oh, do take me back!" Her little mouth was quivering with earnestness and her eyes were brimming with tears which she kept back bravely. The loneliness and confinement of the dull apartment, the terror of the padrone, and Mariuccia's silent, undemonstrative ways, were becoming more than the child could bear. Her heart was breaking for the cheery, populous house in the olive orchard, where something was always happening, where out-of-doors freedom and a tribe of children and animals provided playground and playmates day in, day out.
Her cry brought pain to the staunch heart of the woman. She had not realized that the child could be unhappy while she herself was straining every nerve to assure her welfare. Then, with a sigh, she accepted the fact. Of course it was dull and sad for the little thing here. Who was she, old Mariuccia, to take the place of busy, smiling Candida, of the laughing, chattering boys and girls who had been as brothers and sisters to Giannella? She remembered that even as a grown woman, a confirmed spinster of twenty, she had wept some bitter tears when she realized that she had left her "paese," with all its friendliness and freedom, to live shut up in narrow rooms in the city among strangers. So she sat down and took Giannella on her knee and spoke with unusual gentleness.
"Listen, cocca mia. It is not possible to take you back to Mamma Candida any more, to stay, though if you are good you shall go to see her some day. You know you are a signorina, and your poor papa of good memory would not have wished you to be brought up as a contadina. The good God has caused each one to be born in the position where he can best save his soul. Annetta and Richetto and the others must work among the olives and the grapes, and take care of the animals—that is their destiny, and they will be happy, but it is not yours. You must go to school and learn to read and write, and keep your hands clean for fine embroidery and other things that ladies may work at. And I think soon you will go to a beautiful school where there are most instructed nuns who will teach you all this, and also many other children of your own age with whom you can play and study. Thus you will be happy, and by-and-by—"
"Yes, by-and-by? Oh, please go on!" Giannella exclaimed, her eyes shining at the prospect suddenly unfolded to her.
Mariuccia looked up at the blue Roman sky, so near and kind in the clearness of noonday. Yes, by-and-by? What possible future lay before the forsaken child for whom she was so obstinately preserving the privileges of gentle birth? "By-and-by? Hé Giannella, I must not tell you everything at once. Arciprete!" as the midday gun boomed its signal from Sant' Angelo and every bell in the city began to ring. "Run and lay the cloth for the padrone while I get the soup and the bollito off the fire. Poveretta me, the soup is like water. But if that blessed man will only let me buy half-a-pound of meat for it, what am I to do? To think that a man of his instruction can stay hungry with his pockets full of money. What a vice is avarice! Libera nos Domine!"
Mariuccia need really not have prayed against that temptation, though she had often gone hungry of late when there were still a few coppers in the corner of her handkerchief. La Giannella had a fine appetite—and at that age who could have let the child remain unsatisfied?
Another week passed, and when Signora Dati came to say that on the following day Mariuccia was to bring Giannella to kiss the hand of the Princess, after which she herself would conduct her to a convent of Sisters of Charity on the other side of the river, where the little girl would be received as a boarder, and would have every benefit of education, as well as fine air. The convent, she explained, was really a villa, and the Sisters the kindest and best of instructors. Mariuccia was too overjoyed to speak, until she remembered that for such a school a certain outfit would be necessary; but Signora Dati informed her that the Excellency, out of her great kindness of heart, had provided for this, and that Mariuccia must repay her in prayers for her intentions, and Giannella, the chief beneficiary, by the same, coupled with model conduct and great application to her studies. They were to come to the Princess's apartment at ten o'clock punctually.
So the next morning Mariuccia, leading Giannella by the hand, was met by Signora Dati and conducted through a long series of somberly gorgeous rooms, such as she had never entered in her life, and finally ushered into the presence of her illustrious patroness. The Princess was still a comparatively young woman, tall and graceful, with a calm, thoughtful face, on which her responsibilities had impressed something like austerity. The weight of her guardianship to Onorato, heir to the great Santafede estates, had come upon her so early as to tinge her incompletely developed character with melancholy, loyally combated by religious principle, it is true, yet potent enough to make her a somewhat exigent and depressing parent for her light-hearted son. Naturally inclined to piety, she had come to feel that only by multiplying good works, by denying herself many little pleasures and luxuries in order to respond to every genuine appeal, could she obtain from Heaven the treasure she coveted, sanctification for her son's soul, happiness and prosperity for his material life. She was even now trying to light on the right wife for him, having already reached the point of overstrained conscientiousness which unconsciously treats Providence as the weaker party to an alliance, a party who will not move a step without powerful co-operation. All this was a little morbid, and might in the end endanger both her own happiness and that of Onorato, but meanwhile was an active agent for good in the affairs of obscure and oppressed people, notably, at this moment, those of Giannella Brockmann and her one friend, Mariuccia Botti.
Giannella was big-eyed with awe when she was led to where the Princess was sitting at a writing-table covered with account-books and works of devotion. On entering the dim and splendid rooms the child had felt inclined to make the sign of the cross and go down on her knees; the space and silence and crimson hangings seemed necessarily to belong to a church. The Princess looked at her without speaking for a moment. Giannella was so pretty, so wholesome and sweet in appearance, that Teresa Santafede experienced a passing regret that she had been denied a little daughter to brighten her lonely life. But this weakly human sentiment was at once suppressed, and when Giannella had kissed her hand the Princess made her a stereotyped speech on the moral advantages she was about to enjoy and the obligation to make the most of them by obedience and zeal. Giannella did not understand more than half of it, but she felt that something very important was happening, and when the Excellency gave her a rosary of white beads, with a very bright silver medal, her eyes danced with pleasure. This wonderful lady seemed as kind as the Madonna and as rich as the Befana, the beneficent witch who walks over the roofs at Epiphany and brings presents to good children.
Then Mariuccia was allowed to express her thanks, which she did very eloquently, and without any shyness at all, feeling more at home in the presence of a Cestaldini, one of the rulers of her clan, than she had ever felt since she left the fortress of all her traditions in the hills. The Princess asked one or two questions which showed that she remembered the family; the hand-kissing was repeated; Signora Dati received some murmured instructions, and the audience was over. Five minutes later Mariuccia stood under the porte cochère and watched Giannella being put into the closed carriage by Signora Dati. There was a glimpse of the round little face and the golden hair behind the glass, the carriage rumbled out, and Mariuccia turned to climb the four flights of stairs to the Professor's apartment. There she applied herself rather vindictively to her work, wondering why the granting of her dearest wish should result in making her feel so cross and lonely.
It was not until three weeks later that Signor Bianchi discovered Giannella's absence. He could not find a certain copy of The Archæological Review and called Mariuccia to look for it, remarking with asperity, "That is what comes of having a child running about the house. You will have to send the little nuisance away if this happens again. Of course she has taken it."
"Signor Professore," said Mariuccia, facing him with square shoulders and a terrific frown, "it is you who are a child. But no, an infant in arms has eyes and ears—you, man of a thousand learnings, are becoming blind and deaf. Giannella left the house three weeks ago. The 'lustrissima Principessa has sent her to a fine school—and may every benediction be hers for her charity. You say the coffee is like water. Mamma mia, I had to put the last of my own into it to give it a color at all. Yours was finished yesterday, and you would not give me the money to buy any more. Now then, here is your purse—in the pocket of your paletot—I must have two pauls at once, or you will get no supper to-night. Come, padroncino, be good. You frighten me—you consume before my eyes. There, I bring you cheese and dried figs. They have cost you nothing—my brother sent them—eat, and I will find your blessed paper for you."
Giannella was gone; the brief enchanting reign of her sunny little presence in the dingy apartment was over; and Mariuccia's other child, the owlish old young man who did not know how to take care of himself, was once more received into grace. She had to mother something.