It was evident that these worthies had much to say; and, like their inferiors in the social scale of Montefiano, they said it loudly and decidedly. Such a thing could not be tolerated; and the voice of the majority was in favor of forming a deputation that should wait upon their excellencies at the castle and point out to them the injustice of Sor Beppe's dismissal, and the ill-feeling among the peasants that insistence on the raising of their rents would infallibly produce. There was, indeed, a secondary motive in the minds of those who, headed by Sor Stefano, had suggested the expediency of a deputation. For some little time mysterious rumors had circulated in Montefiano—rumors of which the Principessina Bianca was the central object. It was whispered, especially among the women, that there was something going on in the castle that was not satisfactory; that the principessina had been brought to Montefiano because she wanted to marry a bel giovane in Rome, whose only fault was that he had not a title; that instead of being allowed to marry the man she loved she was being forced to receive the attentions of the princess's brother—a worn-out foreign baron, old enough to be the poor child's father. It was insisted that the Principessina Bianca was unhappy, that she was practically a prisoner, and that the priest was at the bottom of it all. Who circulated these stories among the women, Sor Stefano knew perfectly well. It was certain that they became more definite from day to day, and that by degrees a very wide-spread feeling of suspicion had been aroused among all classes at Montefiano that the Principessina Bianca was being made the victim of an intrigue on the part of her step-mother's foreign advisers to possess themselves both of her person and her estates.
Why, it was asked, was the principessina never seen? The very few people who had happened to see her at the castle had come away full of enthusiasm concerning her beauty and her kindness of manner. When it became known that Sor Beppe had been dismissed, these stories had been repeated with greater insistence than ever. Probably the women had determined to excite the compassion and indignation of their menkind on the principessina's behalf; for several of the leading peasants and small farmers in and around Montefiano had openly talked of going to the castle and demanding an interview with the Principessina Donna Bianca, in order to see for themselves whether their young padrona were in reality exposed to the treatment they suspected.
It was in order to consult together concerning the suggested deputation that the leading spirits of Montefiano had assembled at the Caffè Garibaldi that evening. Notwithstanding the noise, and the totally irrelevant side issues raised by many of his customers, it was clear to Stefano Mazza that the general consensus of public opinion was on his side. The dismissal of Sor Beppe should not be allowed to pass without a protest being made to the principessa in person; and at the same time it should be clearly conveyed to her that any fattore who should be appointed to succeed Sor Beppe would find his task by no means easy, inasmuch as the people would with truth conclude that he had been sent to Montefiano to carry out changes which were obnoxious and unjust. Sor Stefano, anxious to please all parties, had further suggested that the deputation in question should insist upon the Principessina Bianca being present when its members were received by her step-mother. Her presence, he pointed out, would enable the representatives of the Montefiano people to ascertain whether Donna Bianca was or was not aware of what was being done in her name, whether it was true that she was merely a victim of the unscrupulous designs of this Belgian priest, and of another stranger who was, to all intents and purposes, her uncle. Donna Bianca Acorari was their legitimate padrona, the daughter and heiress of the princes of Montefiano; and as such her own people at Montefiano had a right to approach her and hear from her own lips whether all that was said concerning her was truth or fiction.
It was late that night when the Caffè Garibaldi put out its lights and barred its doors after the last of Sor Stefano's clients had left the premises. The chief point under discussion during the evening had been settled, however, and it was unanimously decided that a deputation, headed by the sindaco and Sor Stefano, should send a letter to the castle requesting to be received by the princess and the Principessina Donna Bianca. Perhaps the sindaco of Montefiano was the only one to display some hesitation as to the advisability of the course determined upon. He had no desire to compromise himself by lending his official sanction to any movement which might end in disturbance and in possible collision with the civil authorities. It was impossible to foretell what might take place were the princess and her adviser to oppose the wishes of the already suspicious and excited peasants, and refuse to entertain the objections of the deputation to the dismissal of the fattore, Giuseppe Fontana. The avvocato Ricci, syndic of Montefiano, like many other petty Italian lawyers, nourished an ambition to enter political life as a means whereby to fill his empty pockets at the expense of those who might send him to join the large number of his fellow-lawyers in the Chamber of Deputies. It was a somewhat exalted ambition, no doubt; but the avvocato Ricci, after all, was in no more obscure a position than many another local attorney now calling himself onorevole and making the best of his opportunities as a deputy to rob with both hands, until such time as he should either be made a minister of state or fail to be re-elected by a disillusioned constituency.
It would certainly not add to his prospects were he, as sindaco of Montefiano, to compromise himself with the authorities of the Home Office in Rome for the sake of some discontented peasants in his commune, and he had already done his best that evening to throw cold water on Sor Stefano's suggestions, and to dissociate himself from any part in the movement in question. A few words, however, spoken in his ear by Stefano Mazza, conveying a gentle but pointed allusion to certain bills, more than once renewed which Sor Stefano happened to have in his keeping, had effectually silenced the sindaco Ricci's official objections to making one of the proposed deputation to the castle.
The gathering at the Caffè Garibaldi had taken place on the very evening of Concetta Fontana's delivery to Bianca Acorari of her lover's missive. Concetta, indeed, knew well enough that the meeting was to take place, and also what its object was. As a matter of fact, it was largely, if not entirely, owing to her that public interest in Montefiano had been aroused concerning the motives for the Principessina Bianca's confinement—for so Concetta had not hesitated to qualify it—in the castle and the park behind the castle. She had let fall mysterious hints as to what she had seen and heard during the hours she was employed in helping the principessina's maid in mending the linen and in other household duties; and her tales had certainly not lost in the telling during the long summer evenings when the women of the paese had little to do but to sit and gossip outside their doors.
Doubtless, like most gossip, the stories woven round Concetta Fontana's suggestion would soon have been replaced by others of closer interest. The premature appearance of the baker's baby, which had upset the ideas of Don Agostino's house-keeper as to the fitness of things, had been for some days relegated to an altogether secondary place; nor would the men have paid much attention to the tales told them by their womenkind of the treatment to which the Principessina Bianca was being subjected, had it not been for Sor Beppe's sudden dismissal from office. It needed very little to impress upon the farmers and peasantry on the latifondo belonging to Casa Acorari that the latter circumstance was in direct connection with the former; and that it had evidently been found necessary to get rid of Giuseppe Fontana and replace him by another agent who would be nothing more nor less than a tool in the hands of the foreign priest who had already persuaded the princess to consent to their rents being materially increased. It must be confessed that Concetta Fontana had lost no opportunity of duly impressing her friends and acquaintances with this plausible explanation of the reasons which had led to her father's dismissal. She had conceived an enthusiastic devotion to the Principessina Bianca almost from the first moment she had seen her and Bianca had spoken a few kindly words to her. This devotion had been further increased by realizing the loneliness of the girl's position, by sympathy with her for her enforced separation from the man she wished to marry, as well as by the discovery that Bianca was being exposed to the joint intrigues of Monsieur d'Antin and the Abbé Roux. The thought that her young padrona had need of her devotion had kindled Concetta's sense of loyalty, in which, as in that of her father, there was much that was nothing short of feudal feeling for the young head of the house of the Acorari of Montefiano.
Concetta, however, could hardly be blamed if, in addition to her genuine desire to rescue Bianca Acorari from the fate into which she felt convinced that Baron d'Antin and the Abbé Roux were trying to force her, she hoped at the same time to benefit her father and bring about his reinstatement. Sor Beppe had been, as it were, stunned by the suddenness of the blow which had fallen upon him. As he had said to Don Agostino, he was too old for transplantation. The interests of Casa Acorari had been his interests ever since he could remember. However unsatisfactory the late Principe di Montefiano might have been in other relations of life—however neglectful he might have been of the fact that he was taking all he could get out of his properties and was putting nothing into them again—he had always been a just and considerate landlord towards the people of the place from which he took his principal title, and which had been the cradle of his race.
It was the thought of how the late Prince Montefiano would have disapproved of the course taken by the Abbé Roux, and by the so-called administration of the affairs of Casa Acorari, that made the injustice of his dismissal all the harder for Sor Beppe to bear. If he had received his dismissal at the hands of the Principessina Bianca, it would have been bad enough; but to receive it from foreigners who, as he more than suspected, were only bent upon filling their own pockets during the principessina's minority, was altogether intolerable. The sympathy which had been shown him in the paese, and the general indignation aroused by the facts which had led to his dismissal had certainly been very pleasant to Sor Beppe's wounded feelings. He had made no secret of his conviction that so soon as the Principessina Bianca had the control of her affairs he would be reinstated, and public opinion in Montefiano quickly exonerated Donna Bianca Acorari from all responsibility in the matter. That such a thing had happened was, in the eyes of the Montefianesi, only a further proof of the bad foreign influence by which their young princess was surrounded.
Sor Beppe had carefully abstained from going to the Caffè Garibaldi that evening. It was his custom to spend an hour or two there on most nights, taking a hand at tresette or playing a game of billiards. He was aware, of course, of the discussion that was to take place on that particular evening, and it certainly would not have been seemly for him to be present. Moreover, there was no reason to suppose that his cause would suffer by his absence from the gathering. He knew that his friend, Stefano Mazza, would take care that this was not the case.