Giannella

by Mrs. Hugh Fraser

CHAPTER XIV

Giannella was amazed at learning the next morning that she and Mariuccia were to wait on the Princess at ten o'clock. Bianchi called her into the study to give her the message, without any explanation or comment. Mariuccia had followed her to the door and listened attentively at the keyhole, so she had little to learn when the girl came out, grasped her arm excitedly, and dragged her back to the kitchen. There they stood and stared at one another in dumb perplexity. Mariuccia threw up her hands at last and turned away, as if giving the problem up.

Then Giannella broke out in agitated whispers: "What does it mean? She forgets all about us for three years at least—and now, just as she is going away, we are to be sure to go to her at ten o'clock. It must be something very extraordinary. Everything is in a bustle down there; they were packing the traveling carriages already when I went out to Mass. What can she want of us?"

"Better ask Pasquino,"[1] Mariuccia replied with a toss of the head, "I don't know. Perhaps the Princess means to take you to the country with her."

"That is very likely, is it not?" retorted Giannella, her eyes flashing with sudden wrath, "after banishing me from her presence—for nothing—all these years! I wish she had left me alone in the beginning. Why didn't you all let me be a servant, earning my living like other girls, poor like me, and not made miserable by being educated above their wretched station in life? What good did the reading and writing, the designing and embroidery, ever do me? Here I am, a grown woman, still as dependent as a baby or an idiot. No, I am not grateful to the Princess. If she began, she should have finished. I could do for her what dear Signora Dati, of good memory, did—I could write her letters and save her many steps, many annoyances—I could have been useful to her or some other lady. That was what Signora Dati meant for me—she told me so once. But no. The Princess takes a dislike to me, and I am dropped out of sight. I would not take one step for her now. I will not go down this morning."

By this time Giannella's cheeks were flaming and tears of anger were brimming in her eyes. She stood, tense and panting, her hands behind her, the incarnation of sudden revolt. Mariuccia was appalled. The revelation of slow secret suffering would have grieved her to the heart at any other time, but now it was swallowed up in horror at the audacity of the girl's declaration. Not obey the commands of a Cestaldini, of Mariuccia's own Princess, the greatest personage in her world except the Holy Father himself! And then, this outburst of black ingratitude, why, it was like Lucifer rebelling against the Divine mandates! The stern old peasant felt that she must conquer this demon of insurrection on the spot. She came and put both her hands on Giannella's shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes. The hands felt heavy as flatirons, but the girl stiffened her shoulders under their weight, and the gray eyes were bright and burning, for all the tears, as they met the angry black ones.

"You sometimes say that I have been like a mother to you," Mariuccia began, her deep masculine tones rumbling like approaching thunder. "Do you know what I would do if I were really your mother? For all that you are long and large, I would take that little stick over there," she pointed to a broomstick in the corner, "and give you a beating you would never forget. That is how we teach obedience and respect in the Castelli. But because you are not my child—though God knows I have loved you as if you were—" The voice choked and a dimness came over the old eyes that still never flinched from their steady, reproachful gaze.

Then Giannella's arms were flung round her neck, and the golden head was buried on her shoulder, and the young heart was weeping out its storm of love and sorrow and remorse against the old one.

"Mariuccia mia," she sobbed, "you have been an angel to me, and I am a wretch, an ingrate, but I love you. It was not true, not a single word. I will do anything you wish, anything—even go down to the Princess."

"What are you about, you females?" cried a sharp voice in the passage. "Do you know that it is half-past nine? Make haste and get ready to go to her Excellency." Then the study door was slammed impatiently. Evidently the master was not in a good temper this morning.

When the two women presented themselves at the Princess's door at five minutes to ten, Giannella was led away alone, and Mariuccia, much against her will, left to wait in the anteroom. All Giannella's rage had evaporated by this time and the old awe, the sense of being dominated by greater powers, stole over her as she followed the attendant through the series of remembered rooms, silent and splendid, darkened to keep out the heat, and pleasantly cool compared with the burning air of the courtyard outside. She recalled her first childish impression that the place must be a church; then, sooner than she expected it, she found herself standing before the Princess in the same old attitude of frightened submission. She knew that she would do whatever was required of her if the regal black-robed woman in the great chair by the table had any commands to issue. She had no particular curiosity now as to what they might prove to be; she only felt the oppressive weight of authority made visible.

But the command, when it came, gave her a most disagreeable shock. The Princess, with the gravity of a judge summing up the case against a prisoner, opened her discourse by stating the facts. An honorable proposal had been made to Giannella by the kind and upright gentleman to whom she already owed so much, and the judge was grieved to learn that it had been met in a most unsuitable spirit. No opening was given to the prisoner in which to express any private opinion, no loophole in the argument permitted escape from the logical conclusion—namely, that a young girl alone in the world was committing a great sin in refusing the protection of a Christian husband. Such a course could only point to one thing, an innate levity of character (the Princess, remembering her former apprehensions about Onorato, looked sternly condemnatory as she said this), a levity which, unchecked, must end in a disastrous downward career. She spoke of the horrible temptations to which needy and unprotected young women are exposed, warned her listener of the abominable designs harbored by men who tried to make poor girls believe that they admired them; contrasted Signor Bianchi's honorable behavior with that of such base deceivers; and finally asked Giannella to contemplate the picture of her own destiny should the Professor, justly incensed at her ingratitude, refuse her in future the shelter of his roof.

The speaker felt that this was not a time to mince matters, and she made her meaning so cruelly clear, that Giannella, who had never had her attention drawn to the degraded aspects of human nature, was overwhelmed with shame and horror, and found it impossible to control the flood of tears which rose to her eyes. The Princess, seeing that she had gained her point with the girl, sent for Mariuccia, who had been fuming in the anteroom for three-quarters of an hour. When she made her appearance, Giannella was standing beside the big chair, still weeping bitterly; the Princess was holding her hand quite kindly. The prisoner had repented, and was now to be forgiven in form.

"There is nothing to cry about now, my child," the judge was saying; "you are naturally sorry for having shown yourself so ungrateful and unamiable to the good man who has done so much for you and only asks to do more. But now you understand things better—how exceedingly fortunate it is for you, who have no relations and no dowry, to find an honest Christian husband to protect you from the dangers I have been describing and which would certainly assail you if you were left alone in the world. Now go home and tell Signor Bianchi that you will do your best to be a good wife to him. Believe me, respect is a better foundation for happiness in matrimony than any sentimental affection such as young people sometimes permit themselves to dream of. Heaven will grant you the necessary graces for fulfilling your duty in the married state; and here is a little present"—the Princess picked up a closed envelope from the table and put it into Giannella's hand—"with which you can buy your wedding dress—you had better get a black silk, it will be useful to you afterwards. Now wait outside while I speak with this good woman a moment."

Giannella, too much overcome to say a word, kissed the extended hand and withdrew to digest her misery in the outer room while Mariuccia should receive her own particular scolding. Giannella's world had slipped from under her feet. Even her trust in Rinaldo was shaken. As for speaking of him—her adored, beautiful Rinaldo—to the terrible Princess—she felt that it would have been easier and quite as useful to jump out of the window. Perhaps he was in reality like the wicked men of whose existence she had shudderingly learned; but that was hard to believe. Only that morning he had looked at her with such a light of truth in his dark eyes, had told her so joyfully about the big picture—and then, with such poignant regret, that the purchaser was leaving in a few days and insisted on its being completed, so that every moment of daylight must go to it, and Rinaldo feared he could not even come to Mass till next Sunday. Would Giannella remember to pray for him till then? He would be needing it so badly. And Giannella had laughingly replied that the next day was Sunday, when he must certainly come and pray for himself. And on that they had shaken hands for the first time. It was like sealing a compact. And when his fingers touched hers he had opened his lips as if to speak—and had kept back the words with an evident effort. Oh, she knew what they would have been. But of course he was too honorable to let them pass his lips before he had Mariuccia's sanction. Did Mariuccia dream of anything? Was it possible that she was even now making out some kind of a case for her wretched Giannella against the plausible, desirable, unendurable Professor? What a time she was in there! And then the door opened and Mariuccia came towards her with averted eyes and a silent shake of the head, and Giannella saw that all was lost. Her only ally had succumbed, like herself. Who were they, poor women of the people, to argue or reason with authority in high places?

They returned home silently, Giannella too sick at heart to discuss the sentence which destiny seemed to have passed upon her, and Mariuccia so angry with everything and everybody that she was ferociously sulky all day. The Professor wisely stayed away till the evening, so as to give the Princess's admonitions time to sink in. When he came back for supper, expecting to find Giannella all submission and repentance, he was curtly informed that she was not well and had been sent to bed. And Mariuccia would not tell him a single word of what had taken place at the interview of the morning. What was more, he caught a glimpse of a magnificent pile of fruit and vegetables on the kitchen table (one of Rinaldo's now constant sendings from the vigna), and when his tray appeared it was disappointingly empty of what he considered his dues of the bounties which his servant's relatives seemed to have been sending her of late with such praiseworthy generosity. This symptom appeared to him most ominous. It could only indicate a most unusual state of things and pointed clearly to open revolt. Well, with the Princess away the worst danger had passed; he argued only good from Giannella's indisposition; she was preparing to meet him in the right spirit, and a few hours must be granted her in which to accustom her mind to the new dispensation. Now for the article on the Cardinal's inestimable fragment.

Giannella herself could scarcely have catalogued her thoughts as she sat the next morning at the window of the workroom; she only knew that she wished to keep out of the padrone's way and that to this inner fortress he never ventured to penetrate. She had a headache and a heartache and felt quite ill enough to justify Mariuccia's statement. She almost hoped, with the delightful audacity of youth, that she was going to die. That appeared to be the shortest and most becoming way out of her troubles.

Just as she had reached this conclusion there was a shadow of wings on the window ledge, and then Themistocles alighted there, his head on one side and an alluring air of hope and mystery in his bearing. Giannella reached down for the little basket of grain which always stood under the work-table, and when she raised her head again the pigeon hopped in and began to peck from her hand. Suddenly she gave a little cry and leaned over to look closer. There was a bit of ribbon under the collar round his neck, and, peeping out from beneath one wing, a minute fold of paper. He had brought her a message from Rinaldo! With trembling fingers she untied the ribbon, and drew forth from its plumed resting-place a three-cornered note, which she opened in a tumult of happiness. The color flushed up to her temples and her eyes shone when she found a leaf of verbena pasted to the paper, and two words written beneath, "Amicizia eterna."

Eternal friendship! That was all he had dared to say, but how much it meant. Love in the respectful dress of friendship—that meant eternal love. Giannella raised the little leaf to her cheek, smelt its delicate perfume, brought it to her lips and kissed it once, twice, a dozen times. Its fragrance seemed to speak of all happy things, it gave her back her courage, her buoyancy, her very life. Should she answer? Ah no, that would be too bold; besides, there was no word in her vocabulary that would express the delicate ecstacy that filled her heart. Yet she would send something—a leaf of the rose geranium there, sweet as the verbena itself, and meaning, as she remembered from old sentimental friendships at the convent, "Constancy under suffering." There was nothing unmaidenly in that.

Her nimble fingers, still so white and fine, gathered the leaf, folded it in thin paper, and attached it to the ribbon. Themistocles was busily engaged on the Indian corn when she tied it on. Having picked up the last grain he perched for a moment on the window ledge, glanced this way and that, then flung himself off into the quivering sunshot blue of the noon, rose, and flew steadily away over the monastery roof.

"You make me a liar!" exclaimed Mariuccia, coming in a few minutes later and looking at the suddenly recovered invalid with delighted astonishment. "I told the padrone you were ill."

"So I am," replied Giannella, laughing for joy, "too ill to see him to-day. Oh, Mariuccia, if you love me just a little let me stay in here. I cannot wait on the padrone this morning."

"Rest easy, figlia mia, you shall not," the old woman promised. "I told him you were hot and cold, and consumed with fever. You looked like that an hour or two ago, so I shall not get a sore tongue this time."

"It is all true," cried Giannella, "I burn with fever—but it is a good fever. I feel happy—I want to sing."

"Better so," growled the other; "since it seems you must marry him, I am glad you are pleased. It is another thing for me. I cannot say that I am. What has made you change your mind so suddenly? Are you thinking of the silk dress and the confetti?"

All the color left Giannella's face and she gave a little cry. "Madonna mia buona, I had forgotten! Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?" And she covered her eyes with her hands and rocked herself in her chair. She had forgotten—for a few happy moments—all that had gone before—the Princess's manifesto, her own conviction while listening to it that there could be no right action in opposition to so much sense and piety—her remorse for her own selfishness and willfulness, the perception of the duty which stood unbendingly before her.

She rose and paced the narrow room, all her senses at war. Who could help her? Who would tell her which was right and to be obeyed—her own intense repulsion for Bianchi, strengthened a thousandfold by the upspringing of the new love, the first love, all unbaptized as yet, but drawing her with every chord of the spirit, every fiber of the flesh, to her natural mate? or the fiat of those whom God had placed in authority over her, the Princess, the Professor? She thought of taking her case to her confessor, Padre Anselmo, over there at San Severino; but how could she lay it honestly before the dim-eyed old saint, who seemed already to be hovering so far above earth that he could only see things from above, as the angels see them? How could she bare her heart to him, confess that it had become a shrine of glory where a thousand love lamps burned round one worshiped picture, the picture of a man she had known but a few weeks and who had spoken no word to her or to her natural guardians to show that he meant to ask her in marriage?

She felt that she should die of shame if she had to tell that, for who would ever understand? In days gone by, before she had seen love's face, she had listened, first hopefully and then despondingly, to Mariuccia's prophecies about the good young husband who would come to seek for her. Then, marriage had presented itself as a mere change of state, very slightly connected with the shadowy wooer. She had never read a novel, never spoken with a person in love; the relations of husband and wife had been wrapped for her in the impenetrable veil so strongly insisted on in the Castelli, where girls at that time grew up to womanhood believing what their mothers told them—that the mere breath of man, a kiss or even a sigh, was all that was needed to make a maid a mother. Trusting to this complete impersonality of the married relation, it might have been possible for the Giannella of three months earlier to bow her pretty head to fate and accept even Carlo Bianchi as a husband, had authority voiced its mandate then; but now, now the new music, new yet tenderly familiar, was sounding in her ears; life lay before her like an unblown rose that every hour of sunshine was kissing into bloom; a new Giannella had been born, and her every heart-beat cried aloud, "I will live, I will live."