She went again next day, and on the day after, always alone; and the old man became more and more at his ease with her; but all that she did was done for duty's sake, and she found it harder work to talk to him than it had been to talk with poor dying Sally Dormer, by whose bedside she had spent many quiet hours. The abyss between them was wider. But she felt more affectionately towards Francesca, who adored her almost as if she were indeed the celestial lady whose miraculous presence every good Catholic is prepared to meet at any solemn crisis of life.
Antonia did not rest till, with the assistance of a banker and lawyer at Varenna, she had settled an income of three hundred pounds a year upon Baptisto, with reversion to his grandchildren, she herself acting as trustee in conjunction with the banker, who was partner in an old-established banking house at Milan, of which the Varenna bank—in a pavilion in an angle of a garden wall—was a branch.
This done, her mind was at ease, and she prepared for her journey to England. She would return, as she had come, by the Low Countries, avoiding France on account of the war.
Lord Dunkeld had advised and assisted her in making the settlement on the Baris, but she knew that he thought her foolish and quixotic in her determination to provide for this particular family.
"I could find you a score of claimants for your bounty, far more pathetic cases than Baptisto, if you are so set upon playing the good angel," he said. "'Tis a mercy you do not want to provide for the whole pauper population upon the same magnificent scale. Three hundred a year for an Italian peasant! But a woman's charity is ever a romantic impulse; and one can but admire her tenderness, though one may question her discretion."
"I may have a reason you cannot fathom," Antonia said gravely.
"Oh, 'tis the heart moves you to this act, not the reason! This world would be happier if all women were as unreasonable."
She despised herself for suppressing the motive of her bounty. To be praised for generosity, while she was ashamed to acknowledge her own kindred, ashamed of her own lowly origin! What could be meaner or more degrading? But she thought of Dunkeld's thousand years' pedigree, the pride of birth, the instinct of race, which he had so often revealed unconsciously in their familiar talk; and it was difficult to sink her own pride before so proud a man.
The last day came, and he insisted on accompanying her in her farewell visit. She had given him the privileges of a trusted friend, and had no excuse for refusing his company.
She told Baptisto Bari what she had done for him.