“Who shall throw the first stone? O, Fanchette, we are all sinners together!”
CHAPTER XXIII.
“IN THE SILENT WOODY PLACES”
Bissy had a lodger—strictly Bissy, be it understood. Grandfather Aquaviva had declined from the first to be mixed up in the affair, or to do more than subordinate, for the occasion, his own domestic authority to that of the self-sufficient imp, who was wiser than an owl in his precocious generation. To Bissy was due the happy thought, the conduct of the negotiations which followed, and the ultimate agreement. He accepted the guest, and any responsibility attaching to him—which, nevertheless, he did not anticipate would be serious. Report, in that detached province of horticulture, dealt mistily with reputations, and Bissy, while having his own clues to the stranger’s identity, had no reason to connect that with any definite scandal. In any case, where ignorance was cash, it was folly to be wise. Let the lodger call himself what he would—il Signor Talé, or by any other mocking pseudonym—the essential consideration was the ducats, of which he was not sparing. For the first time in his life Bissy enjoyed the gratification of realising handsomely on his own native shrewdness. Grandfather, always preoccupied and unsuspecting, was content to laugh, to shrug his shoulders, and secretly to admire the elfish self-importance which had so much worldly foresight in it. He had the same clues to identification as the limb himself, but they lay unnoticed by him. Men and women always passed him by like shadows. They were only to be regarded as coming between the sun and his flower-beds, and the sooner they were gone the better for his content.
As for the guest himself, he had flown upon them, by his own account, from distant battle-fields, arriving errantly in their midst, in a moment, like a fragment of spent shell. It was the happiest of accidents, he declared, which had deposited him where he fell, repose, after that long flight, being the thing of all things which he most needed, together with the opportunity for restful self-communion apart from his fellows. He said this to Bissy, whom he first of all encountered at work in the orange-grove. It seemed some instinct had drawn him there, though of course he was ignorant of the geography of the place. His assurance was astounding, petrifying, but quite captivatingly compelling. What sweeter spot, he declared, could have offered for his purpose than these fragrant ambushes, wherein one might bury and repose oneself as in the dreaming thickets of Avalon. Was it possible that Providence could have knowingly directed his footsteps to this haven of rare comfort, where he might hide himself away deliciously, unsuspected and undisturbed? In that case of a guiding Will, it was conceivable that search might reveal some adjacent bower ready to welcome the wanderer into its hospitable arms. Did the boy know of any such? He would be willing to pay handsomely for the boon of a temporary lodging, however primitive, however homely, which neighboured on these perfumed solitudes.
Bissy, gulping down his wonder in a toad-like obstupefaction, suddenly pricked up his ears at that. There was promise here of a golden salve for the tweaking they had once received; only, it seemed, discretion was to be the order. He betrayed, therefore, no sign of recognition, but then and there he had his inspiration, and acted upon it. There was only their own little house, he said, on the southern limit of the gardens. If the signor fancied he could accommodate himself to such simple quarters, he would go and ask his grandfather if he would be willing to take him in for a time—and, he was careful to add, for such a tempting consideration as the signor had suggested.
The signor was greatly obliged—and greatly amused.
“Despatch, my fine lad,” he said. “I am not going to haggle over the inestimable value of peace and privacy to a war-sick spirit.”
And so it came that il Signor Talé imposed himself charmingly on the oddly contrasted couple—only always, it was understood, as Bissy’s guest. Aquaviva, for his part, affected an entire detachment in the matter, as though he himself were an independent visitor in his own house. But, for all his somewhat caustic reserve, he too was not long in falling under the irresistible spell of the stranger’s personality.
The house—a mere plastered and whitewashed cottage—stood at the extremity of the grounds on the Parma side. Aquaviva, it seemed, believed in that ideal condition of happiness, a lodge in the wilderness. The gardens were the life; the living-place but an insignificant if necessary adjunct to the life. So nature teaches us the right proportions of things. The nest on the rock, the “form” in the grass, the hollow in the tree-trunk—what are these but trifling accessories to possessions which embrace the infinite seas, the open hills, the rolling forests? It is the fit way to regard the values of existence, I am sure. In these days an old railway-carriage and five acres of garden should, it sometimes seems to me, suffice a man for his true proportionate needs.
The house, then, was small; and it was moreover inconvenient and none too clean. It was, after all, only the principal feature in a tiny steading, which included sheds, a miniature fowl-run and a dove-cote. An Indian fig-tree grew untrimmed against its wall; the flags of its yard were broken and moss-grown; a stave of its water-butt was broken, and so on. But it was enough for its purpose, which was to serve as a simple shelter from the elements, a dining and a sleeping place—and now, in its enlarged scope, as a retreat and belvedere.