The brave figure she presented at these stages! How all Mulberry stood dazzled as she passed, splendid in the time-honoured costume of the Neapolitan balia! Tradition demanded a deep-plaited vesture of blue silk or crimson satin, which could be hired of any midwife. Bridget always rejoiced when her employer said crimson satin, for that was her favourite as well as Signor Tomato’s. But there were other points of the outfit that gave her little delight. These were the smoothing and shining with pomatum of her crow-black hair, and the sweetening of it with cologne; a gilded comb in her topknot, and pendent therefrom long broad ribbons to match her gown; rosettes in her ears, silver or pearly beads wound in double strings circling her ample neck; rings galore on her chubby fingers. And the skirt! Short enough to show her insteps, white-stockinged in low-cut shoes. Seen from a distance, moving not without pride across Paradise Park, she resembled a huge macaw or other bird of tropical plumage.
Bridget in balia array.
“Troth, it’s the divvil’s own ghinny I am now, and no misthake,” she had told herself more than once when a new engagement found her in balia array. “Phat they’d be sayin’ at home to the loikes iv me I don’ knaw, and may I niver hear. Musha, mother darlint, did y’ iver drame they’d make a daygoe iv yer colleen Biddy? Niver moind, it’s an honest pinny I’m layin’ up agin the rainy day whin there’s not a cint comin’ to the bank.”
But the rainy days had been too many, and the fruits of those golden times were always eaten up. Since the loss of the Great Imperial Company’s ship the tide of prejudice had submerged Signor Tomato. People would not go to him even to exchange a ten-lire note for American coin. Public sentiment vented itself also against the Jack Tar, that steadfast emblem of the bank’s steamship connection which had stood at the door day and night for half a decade. The hand of juvenile Mulberry had ever been against the old sailor, but now he was an infuriating mark, an object of fiercest hatred to the relatives and friends of the passengers who lost their tin pans and mattresses. Passing by, they would draw their knives and slash at his neck, or thrust the point at his heart. Every night brought fresh attacks upon his weather-beaten person with axes and clubs until the banker found his silent partner’s occiput lying in the gutter one morning. This was the last fragment of the head that he had been losing for weeks. Signor Tomato took the incident as an omen of blackest import. An hour later he said to Bridget:
“Guess ees-a come de end-a now. Doan’ know what ees-a goin’ do everybodee. All-a black, so black. What-a good I am? Tell-a me dat. Tink I’m better goin’ put myself off de Bridge. I’m do it, you bet, if I’m not-a love you and lil Pat and Mike and Biddy.”
“That’ll do ye, now,” said Bridget, putting her arm around the little man, who pulled at a black pipe. “That’ll do ye, Dominick Tomah-toe. Off the Bridge is ut? Not while yer own wife’s here to kape hould iv yer coat-tails. Phat’s that sayin’ ye have about the clouds with the silver insides? Sure, I know it in Eetalyun when I hear it, but I can’t say it in English. Phat is it, annyhow?”
He shook his head gravely. “To-day I not-a tink of proverbi. My poor wife, you not-a know how moocha granda troub’ have your Domenico.”
“Arrah, do I not? Mebbe it’s mesilf that knows betther than ye. But don’t be talkin’ iv the Bridge, Dominick dear, whin ye have so many iv thim that love ye. Look at us now, will ye? Here’s mesilf, and”—she went to the door and called—“Pat, Mike, Biddy! Here to your fatther this minute, and show him the frinds he has.”
Three tousled black heads and bright faces came trooping into the bank. Signor and Signora Tomato caught them up and covered them with caresses.