Giannella

by Mrs. Hugh Fraser

CHAPTER XI

Bianchi judged it prudent to prolong his relapse in order to profit by the softening of heart it had induced in his attendants. He obeyed Mariuccia's commands with touching submission and kept her affectionately uneasy about him by well-timed sighs and complaints. She would not leave the house till he should be better, and she would not leave Giannella alone with him; in fact she bade her keep out of his sight altogether, hoping rather forlornly that his mad project would disappear with the other symptoms of his alarming indisposition.

So Giannella went alone to Mass and marketing, and came home each day with more pink in her cheeks, more light in her eyes. Her spirits seemed to have returned and she hummed little tunes over her work, just as she had done when she first came back from the convent. Some of the moist sweetness of the summer morning followed her in when Mariuccia opened the door to her and her parcels at seven o'clock; and through the long hot days of July she looked as fresh and bright as an opening rose in the first sunbeam.

The inhabitants of the Via Tresette knew all about it long before Giannella did. The dairyman's wife told her lord that the Signorino Goffi was as good as in love, "bello che innamorato," with the Biondina. "Don't tell me," she declared, "that a young fellow like that would go to church every day at five o'clock—and bring down a clean handkerchief to kneel on every blessed morning—if he were not in love! He is rich. Has he not a splendid vigna outside Porta San Giovanni, from which he received fruit and wine but yesterday? The man who brought it told me all about him. He is disinterested, one can see that, for he did not bargain more than a day over the rooms, and he has never tried to beat me down on the eggs and ricotta—oh, he will marry Mariuccia's Biondina, and was I not the cleverest of women to insist on your building a good apartment that could accommodate a family, instead of just a studio and a cubbyhole of a kitchen as you wished to do?"

Sora Rosa opposite nodded her old head in approval of these sentiments, delivered in clarion tones on the dairyman's doorstep. She had seen it happening for a week now, had seen Giannella come down the street from Palazzo Santafede with the sun behind her and Rinaldo with the sun on his face emerge from his door at the same moment; had seen them meet at the low entrance to the San Severino courtyard, pause an instant, smile involuntarily, and then disappear as the heavy old portal swung to behind them.

Fra Tommaso too knew all about it. Divided between sympathy for the youth and romance, and jealousy for the respect due the sacred precincts, he had watched his old and his new parishioner closely, but had found nothing to criticise in their behavior. "Good children, good children," he said to himself as he saw Giannella go out and Rinaldo follow her, with proper deliberation. Of course he had obtained the young man's history in full from the communicative lady of the dairy, and indulged in a little self-approval for having been the immediate instrument of obtaining for the Biondina the fine instruction which would fit her to be the sposa of that superior young gentleman, Signorina Goffi. Padre Anselmo might talk about the evils of human distractions, but there could not be anything very dangerous in them when they had such splendid results at this.

Things were nothing like so clear to the hero and heroine of the popular little romance. They had traveled no farther than the outer garden of love's fairy habitation, and Giannella at any rate did not dream that anything sweeter or more perfect could lie beyond. The thrilling excitement of seeing Rinaldo coming to meet her at the doorway, the silent passage to their places in the chapel, the kneeling so near each other for the blessed half hour—this had seemed enough at first to bring her happiness for the day. But when on the fourth morning Rinaldo had overtaken her in the court, and, with profound apologies, returned to her the purse and key which she had left lying on the chair—when, baring his head he looked in her face and she saw the glow on his and heard his voice for the first time—then Giannella's heart beat so wildly that she could find no words to say and her trembling fingers almost dropped the objects he held out to her.

Together they had left the courtyard, and Rinaldo, lifting his hat respectfully, had turned away fearing she might think he was going to have the presumption to accompany her. But when, on looking round, he saw her entering the dairy, he reached the threshold in two strides, for here was his opportunity. Sora Amalia, the proprietress, should introduce him properly. Then Giannella would know as much about him as he already knew about her. After that—leave it to him to make the most of the acquaintance.

As he entered the dark cool shop, Giannella was burying her face in a huge posy of carnations which stood on the marble counter midway between the butter and the fresh eggs. Sora Amalia gave him a cheery good-morning, and Giannella lifted her face, all rosy, and dewy from the flowers, and drew back a little as if to wait her turn until the new-comer should have been attended to. Rinaldo, with a quick movement of the head, manifested his wish to Sora Amalia, who, smiling broadly, said: "Signorina Giannella, this is Signor Goffi, the great painter, who has taken our apartment. Some day, if you like, I will take you upstairs and show you his pictures. For to me he is already like a son. Oh, signorino, that salad you gave me from your vigna—it was a cream, a flower of tenderness. That of Sora Rosa over there is material, tough, compared to it. And the wine—of a sincerity we had a treat last night, Pippo and I."