CHAPTER XVIII
As the quick southern dusk was falling Rinaldo stole to the foot of the "Scala III.," concealed himself behind an open stable door, and waited for Mariuccia. Like all his countrymen, he loved mystery. This innocent conspiracy set his pulses throbbing pleasantly and cleared his brain to crystal acuteness. Besides, he had made an ally of Mariuccia, he had opened his heart to her, and, after her first explosion of suspicion, had been received as a prospective son. The victory over the Professor and his mighty endorser, the Princess, would be mere child's play now, if only Giannella held firm. Although he had the happiness of knowing that she loved him, the young man did not deceive himself into believing that she would hold out forever under such pressure as was being brought to bear on her. The little that he knew of young girls had taught him otherwise; the better the girl, the more attention she would pay to the commands of those whom she considered in authority over her. He could not imagine that his own sisters would not meekly accept the spouses selected for them. Giannella was singularly docile and humble-minded. She had always been accustomed to set her own wishes aside where those of others were in opposition to them, and in his few talks with her he had seen that the Professor's awesome learning and the Princess's power, rank, and goodness, caused the girl to regard those two as more or less anointed arbiters of her destiny. Rinaldo himself had plenty of proper respect for his betters, and was a most loyal son of Church and State (one in those palmy days), but he came of a good old provincial stock, quite as proud in its way as any Cestaldini or Santafede; and moreover his university training and his artistic education had brought him in contact with highly educated and broadminded men, so that his outlook on life was a good deal more modern than Giannella's. She had not realized that she was being cruelly imposed upon, that no past benefits could confer on their donors the right to dispose of her entire future against her own inclinations. If she could be brought to understand that, Rinaldo felt that he would be the master of the situation; but there was no time to lose if Bianchi had really made up his mind to marry her at once.
The young man was revolving these thoughts in his dark corner when the grotesquely stealthy tread of creaking shoes drew him from his hiding-place to find Mariuccia peering round the side of the archway leading to the stairs. With a dramatic gesture she beckoned to him, laid a finger on her lips, and pushed a bit of pasteboard into his hands.
"Giannella found it between two of his books," she whispered. "Heaven send he does not look for it to-morrow."
"How is she this evening?" he inquired in the same tone.
"Only so-so," was the reply; "the Signora Principessa has actually written her a letter—such an honor. But I almost wish she had not."
"Written to Giannella!" he exclaimed. "What had she got to say?"
"Oh, all that she said the other day and more still. She is very sure that Giannella ought to accept. And the poor child, who had been so happy because I told her what we were talking about this morning, has been crying all day. She says that if it is her duty to marry the padrone she will try to fulfill it, but that she will want to throw herself into the Tiber afterwards. It is dreadful. If you can only find this avvocato and get him to make the padrone change his mind, well and good. But otherwise I see no way—"
"I do," said Rinaldo sharply. "Giannella should have more sense. There are wise men, good priests, who will tell her in four words where her duty leads her. But we will try and reconcile everybody first, since you and she wish it. Wait a minute, I will take this man's name and address and then you can put this card back where Giannella found it. Please hold this match for me."
"Oh, make haste. Take care!" she exclaimed as Rinaldo struck a vesta and put it into her fingers. "He may come down. If he sees us talking together there will be more trouble."
Rinaldo had copied the card while she was speaking. Now he returned it to her, saying, as the match spluttered out, "If he does come, I will speak to him, I promise you. I will tell the old meddler to go and get himself fried—and all his best little dead too."
Mariuccia shuddered at the suggestion of this deadliest insult in the Roman's armory. "For the love of charity," she implored, "do nothing so rash. He might hand you over to the police—or even cast the evil eye upon you. I cannot say that anything has ever happened to me—but he does squint dreadfully sometimes, poverino. Run, I hear someone coming."
"As you will, I shall bring you good news to-morrow, I hope." And he moved away and was lost in the darkness. Mariuccia drew back into the shadow of the stable and from thence watched Bianchi emerge from the archway. He was enveloped in the double-caped cloak which all the men carried with them after sundown, and held a sheaf of papers in one hand. He stumbled over a stone and the papers flew in every direction. Patiently he stooped and began to gather them up. The instinct of service was too strong for his old domestic. Instantly she was at his side, assisting him deftly.
"Is that you, Mariuccia?" he asked, peering round at her. "Where did you come from? I thought I had left you in the house."
"You think and you think, and you never see anything, Sor Professore," she grumbled. "I came down the stairs behind you. I must get some camomile for Giannella. She has a fever—of those!"
He seemed in a kindlier mood than usual, for he shook his head quite sympathetically and said, "That is bad. I am sorry. But it is the weather, and all that heating food. I warned you before. The young blood is not like ours, my good Mariuccia. It makes itself to fire when the sun is in Leo. Give her less to eat and keep her quiet and she will be well in a few days." And he moved away, looking very like a brigand in his big cloak with one end thrown over his shoulder.
Mariuccia watched him disappear, with an expression of almost omniscient pity. "Sor Carlo mio," she murmured, "you have all the instructions of the holy Aristotle, and you can pull down Latin as I used to pull down the chestnuts at Castel Gandolfo—but you are just a baby in arms when it comes to serious things like food and drink. If I were not with you, you would be dead in a month. Rinaldo thinks he and Giannella will get me to live with them. Not a bit of it. They can take care of each other, the Madonna assisting them, and I will continue to protect this unfortunate man of learning till one of us is taken to San Lorenzo."
The evening was still young and Rinaldo thought he would go and listen to the music in Piazza Colonna for a little, so he made his way thither, guided by the strains of "Semiramide" which were ringing out over the otherwise silent city. Piazza Colonna was the favorite gathering place at this hour for citizens of the better class who were not able to get away to the country; as he turned into the square he saw it was already crowded with groups sitting before the cafés as well as with an ever-moving stream of pedestrians taking leisurely exercise in the open space round the bandstand. He found a seat by one of the little marble-topped tables, ordered the popular "orzata," a milky-looking beverage of almond syrup and iced barley water, and, drawing out his notebook, read over the indications he had copied into it. The name Guglielmo De Sanctis, was a common though quite respectable one; there must be at least a hundred De Sanctises in and around Rome; but the address, a second floor in a fashionable street, denoted that the gentleman in question was doing finely in his business, a fact which, Rinaldo thought, argued well for his character. He decided to call upon him the next morning, and then fell to considering how best to put his rather difficult case.
While the active part of his consciousness was thus employed, the other, the artistic one, was enjoying the charming scene before him. The great square, fronting on the Corso and sloping gently up to the majestic façade of the General Post Office at the farther end, lay under the dark night sky, fringed by a many-ringed circle of lights twinkling and intermingling in a soft golden glow. From the center the sculptured shaft of Marcus Aurelius' triumphal column shot up till its crown was lost in darkness; the fountains near it poured their cool sheets of water, gemmed with borrowed stars, into the marble basins, with a rhythmical splash that made a pleasant under-theme to the full music of the band; and every pause in the music was filled with talk and laughter from the audience, delighted with the unexpected coolness after a stifling day. The women looked charmingly pretty in their embroidered muslins and pale summer silks, and these were diversified by the rather theatrical uniforms of the French officers who, conscious of their exalted mission of protecting the Holy Father, swaggered happily about the city in those days, loving and beloved and blissfully unwitting of history to be.
The humming stream of humanity passed and re-passed before Rinaldo's eyes, momentarily eclipsing the pearl and silver of the fountains and then parting to let it shine forth again. Overhead the sky was a dome of shadows; neither moon nor star shot a ray through the darkness which, with the sudden cooling of the air, presaged some portentous change of weather. Rinaldo was taking in all the attractions of the scene, but such spectacles meant to him very much what they do to the rest of his countrymen—pleasant accessories of existence, but too familiar to merit any special attention, except from luckless foreigners who, of course, coming from sad lands where the sun never shone, where the grapes did not grow, where there were no pretty women to admire, no saints to invoke and no feastdays to enjoy, naturally went mad with delight on finding themselves in a country provided with these necessaries of life, and talked a lot of nonsense about Italy and the Italians, unconscious that the latter epithet is one which every Roman indignantly rejects. "Italy" ceases with the frontiers of Tuscany, which have the honor of bordering on the papal states themselves, the setting of the city which is the jewel of the world. To the south, below her feet, as it were, comes the "Regno," the kingdom of the two Sicilies, in due subordination. All is—or rather was in Rinaldo's day—as it should be, and as it undoubtedly would be for ever and ever. All this the benighted foreigner could not be expected to understand, and he was forgiven his ignorance in consideration of the welcome addition to public and private revenues furnished by his lavish expenditure. Rinaldo Goffi in particular had much reason to bless him as an easily satisfied patron of the arts, for most of his pretty genre pictures, not very original but pleasantly delicate in color and correct in drawing, found their way to other lands. He had just put the last touches to the venerable prelate who was going to supply him and Giannella with furniture, and was calculating how soon it would be safe to have him packed for shipment.
"Day after to-morrow, perhaps, if it does not rain," he was thinking, when a young man detached himself from the crowd and bore down upon him with the alertness of a dog recognizing its master. It was little Peppino Sacchetti, who, with his bright eyes, dark complexion and quick movements, always suggested the appearance of a black-and-tan terrier in gay tail-wagging mood.
"How goes it, Nalduccio?" he inquired as he dragged a chair close to that of his friend. "I was looking for you, my son. I have not seen you for days. Have you been finishing his Eminence—or preparing a cup of coffee[2] for the old gentleman who gave you such a turn that Friday?"
"Both, Peppino," Rinaldo replied, "but the coffee is only a mora dose, and the most saintly of cardinals would endorse the prescription."
"You will have to put it by to cool, then," Peppino declared; "we are all going to be wanted very shortly. The river is out on the Prati,[3] and if I am not mistaken, Ripetta will be a canal before the end of the week."
"But it has hardly rained yet," Rinaldo objected, looking up at the sky; "and I was hoping it would hold off for a day or two longer to let my picture dry."
"You should have spoken to Santa Ribiana[4] about it," said Peppino. "It seems to be all arranged now. The Senate sent us word to hold ourselves and our boats in readiness for a call at any moment. It has been raining in the hills, and Tiber and Anio are both over their banks for miles. They may flood the campagna to Ostia if they like—one is so thankful for this coolness."
"There won't be much coolness for us if the boats are called out," Rinaldo remarked with a wry face. "Do you remember the last flood? We worked for twenty-four hours on end. I began to have some sympathy for the poor devils of convicts at the galleys."
Peppino laughed at his friend's dismay. "It all amuses me," he said; "one saw such funny sights. I shall never forget that poor priest floating down the Corso to his church with his feet in buckets. Do you remember how well he balanced himself with his umbrella? And the old woman who called to us from a window to take her daughter-in-law away and drown her? They had been quarrelling like two furies, and the daughter-in-law came behind her and tried to pitch her out! How we laughed!"
Rinaldo smiled at the recollection; then he rose to go. "There is one thing I must do to-morrow morning," he said, "whatever happens; so I shall not be available for any boat work before midday. I think you are mistaken, Peppino. It is not going to rain here to-night, and I do not believe there will be much of a flood unless it does. In any case, of course I shall be ready to do my share, but please manage not to have me sent for before noon."
"What is this tremendously important business?" Peppino asked. "Perhaps I could help you with it." But Rinaldo slipped off into the crowd. The only way to keep a secret from Peppino was to run away from him. He had no reticences about his own affairs and possessed a marvelously successful curiosity concerning those of others.
The next morning fulfilled his prophecy and broke in sheets of rain. Rinaldo, however, set out manfully and arrived at Signor De Sanctis's door precisely at ten o'clock. He sent in his card—a thing of beauty penned with many flourishes by his own hand—requesting the favor of an interview on a matter of urgent importance. The lawyer received him coolly enough, for Rinaldo in his second best clothes and soaked boots did not look like a money-bringing client. The coolness froze to hostility when the young man, in all good faith, disclosed the object of his visit. Would Signor De Sanctis tell him anything of the business which had brought him to call on Professor Bianchi, and in what way was the Signorina Brockmann connected with it?
De Sanctis leaned back in his chair and eyed Rinaldo with scorn. Did Signor—he glanced contemptuously at the card on the table—ah, Goffi, Signor Goffi, imagine that the affairs of clients were to be revealed to unknown inquirers? Who did the visitor take him for that he should venture to insult him with such a request?
Rinaldo saw that he had begun at the wrong end of the skein. He hastened to assure the incensed gentleman that nothing was further from his thoughts than such transgression; that the delicacy and honor of the distinguished avvocato De Sanctis were so well known that only to him, of all the legal lights in Rome, would it be possible to confide what he was about to relate; and he added that he was equally sure that no one else could explain the extraordinary and mysterious change which had come over Bianchi and which was afflicting his family and friends so deeply.
De Sanctis began to look interested; his suspicion that Rinaldo was illicitly trying to ascertain the figure of the young lady's dowry was allayed by the importance given to the Professor.
"But what is this afflicting change?" he asked. "Signor Bianchi has the reputation of being a man of fixed habits and entire absorption in his studies. Do you mean that his mind is affected? If so, you must consult a physician. I am not an alienist."
Then Rinaldo set himself to relate the facts, and very absurd they sounded. Here was an elderly devotee of archæological science who had, with many protests, permitted an orphan girl to live under his roof. More he had never done; some little earnings from her embroidery, and the charity of Signor Bianchi's kind-hearted cook had supplied all the rest. Beyond giving her an order as he would to any servant, Signor Bianchi had hardly ever spoken to Giannella, who was the best and most beautiful girl in Rome.
Too much excited to notice De Sanctis's amused smile at this outburst of admiration, Rinaldo went on: "Behold, when she is nearly twenty-one, a certain distinguished lawyer calls upon the Professor and discourses with him at length. Before Ave Maria the next day Signor Bianchi has found out that Giannella is good, that Giannella is pretty, that Giannella cooks polpetti divinely, that Mariuccia really ought to buy her a new dress. There is another visit or two from the distinguished lawyer—and the Professor, who loves money so much that it is like drawing blood to get a few pauls from him for his own food, offers Mariuccia five baiocchi a day for Giannella's board. And when Mariuccia, who is already "stranissima," worried to death with all these new caprices, tells him to go to the devil with his five baiocchi, why then, then, my dear sir, he says he is going to marry, marry Giannella, who has lived on his own servant's charity and has not a scudo in the world! Explain to me, Signor Avvocato, the conduct of this maniac! As the only friend of those two poor distracted women, I have a right to ask you."
De Sanctis stared at Rinaldo incredulously for several seconds after he had ceased speaking. Then, to the young man's amazement, he burst into peals of laughter. Tears of merriment were running down his cheeks before he regained sufficient self-control to speak. Then he looked at Rinaldo (who was red with anger) and managed to say, "And is that really all you know? You are not playing a joke on me?"
"A joke?" cried the artist hotly; "if there is one you are alone in the enjoyment of it. I see no subject for laughter in these distressing facts. Yes, that is all I know, except—"
"Except?" asked De Sanctis, with a fine return to his professional manner.
"Except this," the other continued, "that when Giannella refused his proposal with horror—Domine Dio, had she not reason?—Bianchi went to the Signora Principessa Santafede and persuaded her to take his side. And she sent for Giannella and Mariuccia and preached them each such a sermon that neither found a word to say, and Giannella has cried herself into a fever and says she was born to misfortune, and that if it is her destiny to marry Bianchi she will do her duty like a Christian and die of despair afterwards. Oh, Signor Avvocato, excuse me, but I cannot even think of it. If you have a heart, save us from all this misery."
Rinaldo's head went down on the table and he sobbed like a Latin and a child—which mean the same thing, very often.
De Sanctis reached over and patted his shoulder consolingly. He was quite convinced now of the young man's good faith, and also of the Professor's perfidy. "Do not afflict yourself, Signor Goffi," he said; "the affair is quite simple. Bianchi is not mad. On the contrary, he is very clever indeed. And the young lady shall marry"—he smiled quizzingly as Rinaldo suddenly raised his head—"shall marry a fine honest young man who is desperately in love with her. I am right, am I not? Are you sure, quite sure, that you want a wife who has not a scudo in the world, who will come to her wedding in the clothes that a poor old servant has given her? It is a serious thing, a wife—there is the future to think of—and, excuse my indiscreetness—you are perhaps not a rich man."
"No," cried Rinaldo, "I am not, thank God. I have had no money to hoard, to worship, to cause my heart to dry up while I am still alive. But I have all the money I need to give that beautiful angel a home and happiness, and also to reward the best Christian I ever knew for her goodness to her. I have my art, my health, a little vigna outside the gates, and I will work for those two women as long as I live, I swear it to you, Signor De Sanctis! And may God abandon me and Our Lady refuse to intercede for me if I break my word!"
"Bravo," said De Sanctis; "and now I fear I must ask you to excuse me, for I have much to do to-day. If you will condescend to return—let me see—the day after to-morrow, I may perhaps have some consoling news for you."
"You are very good," replied Rinaldo; "you will see Bianchi, you will bring him to reason? If he withdraws his proposal the Princess can have no more to say, and it is the scruple about opposing her which is causing the chief trouble. But I fear the Professor will not be easy to argue with."
"I shall have no difficulty with him," De Sanctis declared; "leave him to me. And meanwhile if you have the opportunity, try, on your part, to make the young lady understand that in this matter her destiny need not involve either martyrdom or suicide. These girls! Oh, you are taking the whole thing too seriously, Signor Goffi. They really enjoy a bit of tragedy if only they can play the saint to an admiring audience while they are acting it."
"Giannella has no silly fancies of that kind," Rinaldo replied hotly. "Mariuccia tells me she never considered the thing for a moment until that meddlesome old Princess undertook to poke her nose into matters she knew nothing about. Could you not see her first, Signor Avvocato, and make her change her mind? It would be easier to convince her than Bianchi."
De Sanctis had bounded in his chair at Rinaldo's audacious words. Now he turned on him angrily, saying, "I must insist that you speak of the most excellent Princess with proper respect. You will please to remember that she is a very noble and pious lady, whom I often have the honor to serve. Only Christian benevolence has led her to interest herself in the Signorina Brockmann's establishment in life. From her point of view—and being, as I perceive she was, in ignorance of certain facts—a marriage with Bianchi must have appeared most advantageous for the girl. I take it that nothing was told her of your intentions in regard to the latter? No, of course not! That would have been too much to expect of 'two poor distracted women.' Well then, you see that they themselves left the Princess uninformed of an important aspect of the affair. If she condescends to remember the incident the next time she sends for me, all shall be explained to her; but she will probably have forgotten all about it before she returns from Santafede. Persons in her rank of life have many weighty matters to occupy their minds." De Sanctis swelled with importance as he spoke, and Rinaldo accepted the snubbing and henceforth believed that the lawyer was the chief repository of the great lady's confidence. "And so have I!" De Sanctis exclaimed, glancing at his watch. "Santa Pazienza! An hour and a half have I been giving to your love affairs, my young friend. Now I must turn to serious things. Accidenti! The rain has it in mind to drown us all."