Vestigia. Vol. I.

''Tis a pretty dress. Have I never seen you in it before? but you always look the same in my eyes, and whatever I see you wear is what I like the best,' Dino answered, looking at her fondly. He put out his hand and touched the sleeve of her cotton frock. 'You will wear this the day we go to Monte Nero – '

'For the pilgrimage? ah, yes. And this year we must take poor Lucia with us. And the Sora Catarina; – it would not be like Monte Nero if you and your mother were not with us. Do you remember the first time we went there together, Dino? I was twelve years old.'

'And you carried your doll into the church for the benediction; I remember – '

'Ah, but it was a very pretty doll. It was the old Marchesa gave it to me, one day your mother had taken me with her to the palazzo. I remember it so well: I had never been in such a big room before, and when Sora Catarina left me alone I was frightened, and I cried. And then the Marchesa herself came in and spoke to me. She had a long train to her gown that rustled, and it had gold things on it, like the dress of the Madonna. And when she dropped her handkerchief I picked it up for her. It was fine, oh, so fine! and white, like a cobweb, and it smelt of flowers.'

'Why did she not give you that instead of a doll? I would not have taken the doll. I despise dolls,' said Palmira, lifting up her little pale face again from her book.

'As if I had ever been as wise as you, you little monkey. Oh, Dino, I know I have been very idle all the week. And it seems so ungrateful to you after all your trouble. But I can't write, I really can't. I am like father, all my fingers are thumbs,' said Italia mournfully, shaking her head and looking down on her lap at her little sunburned hands. 'But you are not vexed with me? really not? I did not mean to disappoint you, Dino.'

'No, dear; I am sure of that. But now let us see these famous exercises. Perhaps they are not quite so bad.'

She gathered up all the books and brought them to him instantly, standing beside him with perfect docility as he turned over the blotted pages. 'Of course you write so beautifully yourself,' she said. And at that young De Rossi gave a sudden start. 'Indeed I had forgotten. When I am with you I can think of nothing else. But, Italia, there was something – I knew there was something I wanted to tell you – and, what will Sor Andrea say? For I have left the office.'

'Oh, Dino!'

'Not that I mind that so particularly; but what will your father say? I came down to consult with him about it. I – '

'There he is!' said Italia, quickly turning her head at the sound of a heavy step, and adding hastily: 'Do tell him, Dino – tell him everything; you know how good he is' – she sprang to open the door.

The first person to enter, blown into the room, as it seemed, by a stronger gust of wind, was a small, thin woman of about forty or forty-five. Her face and shoulders were closely muffled in a woollen shawl, which Italia promptly removed and threw into a corner.

'Dear Lucia, how good of you to come to us on such a horrible night – '

'If you would not mind – if you will give it to me I will fold it up properly; things get so easily worn,' the new-comer murmured, looking apologetically at them all. And then she put up both her hands – the thin, white hands of a sewing woman – and patted the bands of her shining black hair; her dress, too, was black, and scrupulously neat, with many shining beads and buttons upon it.

'I am so glad to see you,' Italia repeated, looking down at the little woman with an indescribable friendliness and compassion in her own kind eyes.

'Ay, it was rough work getting here for the poor little woman. I left her for half a minute while I stopped to look at the boat, and per Bacco! she came in ahead of me in the race. I could not find her out there in the dark; I thought she had been blown clean away, I did,' observed Sor Drea with a loud, good-natured laugh. He fastened the door and came up slowly to the fireside, – a short, strongly-built figure, with a decided lurch in his walk. He came up and laid his hand upon Italia's shoulder. 'Well, my little girl? Ah! this now is what I like,' the old man said, glancing over with a broad, cordial smile at Dino; 'this is the sort of thing that does a man's heart good, to come in and find supper ready, and a good fire, and all the old faces. Who wants to eat alone? Alone? Why, one isn't comfortable alone even in Paradise; one needs an angel or two if it was only just for company. The blessed saints, they know better than to live separate, they do.'

'How do you know, father?' asked Italia, with a laugh.

'Perhaps I've met them. Perhaps I've had an angel or two to live with – there's no telling,' said her father, looking down at her fondly. 'Ask the youngster over there. Why, Lord bless you, my girl, when I was his age – But there, there, a sound man is a young man, and the only old men are the dead ones. What's the matter with the lad? What ails you, boy? Surely no one here can have been vexing you? You can't have been quarrelling with my little girl?' But at that —

'Quarrelling with Italia!' and 'Father!' they both protested in one breath.

Old Drea laughed good-humouredly. 'Well, well; 'tis a young sailor who does not keep ready for a change in the fairest wind. There's no such great harm in a friendly bit of a quarrel. And, bless you, lad! you and the girl there are too like brother and sister not to have found that out long before. There's no such great harm done, I tell you. Women, they are like caterpillars; they curl up if you do but touch them, but they go creeping on.'

Italia and De Rossi exchanged glances. 'Father,' the young girl began; she hesitated for a moment. 'Father!' She went up to him and took one of his hard and knotted hands into both of her own, looking up into his face with the sweetest look of entreaty. 'Indeed you are always right, dear, and our poor Dino is in trouble,' she said simply. 'He has left – he has been sent away from his office, and he has come to his oldest friends. You are not going to be angry with him, father?' Her sweet eyes were full of tears.

'The fact is, there has been a row about a demonstration. I don't know if you heard about it. It was last month, when they were enlisting the new recruits. And some of the republican clubs got up a counter procession and marched down the Via Grande with flags, and cheered Garibaldi. And then there had been a skirmish with the police – nothing very serious, but still – It was a foolish business altogether,' the young man confessed, hanging his head.

'Foolish? By – I call it by another name than foolish!' the other man broke out with sudden passion. 'Nonsense, Italia; let me speak. What does a woman know about such matters? I tell you it was a piece of rank mutiny aboard ship. You ought to have been clapped into irons, every man of you; and so you would have been if I'd had ought to do with you. So you would have been. What, sir; do you mean to tell me that you – you, a lad I've known, ay, and been fond of too, since you were a little chap as high as my knee, – do you mean to tell me, Dino, that you've been and joined a company of shouting fools with nothing better to do than insult the Government that pays and keeps 'em?'

'If the Government paid me the Government got my work in return,' says the young man, turning very red; 'and I was not the only one. I was only carrying out my club's orders.'

'Then I say, damn your club, sir!'

'Father!'

'Gesu Maria! Gesu Maria! ah, those men!' sighed Lucia under her breath, and grasped Palmira's shoulder convulsively. The child shook herself free with a contemptuous movement. 'Let me be. What are you afraid of? Look at Italia,' she said quietly, turning her small pale face and great eyes full upon the young girl. De Rossi, too, had turned towards her.

'Perhaps I'd better go now, sir. I am sorry I came in. I am sorry I troubled you,' he began in a formal voice. 'I ought, I suppose, to apologise – '

'Oh, damn your apologies!' said Sor Drea, starting up to his feet again, and taking a hasty turn across the room. 'Be a man, can't you? What is the use of apologising – of – of apologising, per Bacco! for what you are perfectly ready to do again – for what you mean to do again? Apologies! – yes – they're cheap enough in every market; – a good wind to torn sails. I believe in actions myself; in doing your duty by your masters and betters, and not hurting the people who love you, – not in fine gentlemen apologies – damn 'em,' said the old man, bringing his knotted hand down heavily upon the table, and glaring from under his shaggy eyebrows at Dino with an unspoken world of troubled reproach in his keen old eyes.

There was a moment of silence, and then, 'Father, dear?' said Italia beseechingly, going up to him and slipping her arm about his neck.

'Ay, ay, my little girl. You're a good girl, I know it. A good girl, though I say it as shouldn't. But not even you – you can't think I am going to put up with this sort of nonsense from a youngster like that, a fellow who comes to talk to me of – '

'Who comes to ask advice of his oldest friends. And in your own house, father.'

'Oh, Lord help us!' said old Drea with a groan.

'And if you knew the whole of the story as I know it – I mean why it is that he has lost his place to-day. Stop, Dino. I know it is a secret, but I think it is a secret which I ought to tell my father. If you knew why he was sent away,' said Italia, in her sweet low voice, looking with beaming eyes full of affection from one man to the other. 'It is quite true what Dino told you about the procession, father, but there is more than that. There was another man in Dino's office who joined in the procession too. And they could not find out who it was, and they wanted Dino to tell them his name. And he would not. And that is why he had to leave.'

'There, there. Say no more, child, say no more. I spoke too soon and forgot to listen. My words were like so many kittens that are born in such a hurry they're born blind. No offence, lad. There, shake hands over it. Lord bless you; and so you wouldn't tell 'em that other chap's name – not to save your own place, eh? Ay, that was right, boy, that was right. But Lord, Lord, what a chap that one must be who let you do it.'

'He's a mere boy. He doesn't know any better. And it does not matter so much to me. I was not so anxious to stay – only on my mother's account,' said Dino slowly.

'Ay, she'll be fine and disappointed, she will. She takes things hard, does Sora Catarina. She always did from a girl. Have you told her yet, Dino?'

'Yes,' he said, glancing over at Italia.

'Ay, she'll be disappointed, she will,' the old man repeated slowly, wrinkling his brow, and looking at the fire, while he fumbled absently in the pocket of his pea-jacket for his pipe. 'So you came and told my little girl here all about it, eh, Dino?'

'I told Italia.'

'Yes, and he told me not to repeat it to any one,' added Italia quickly.

'Ay, ay. I'll warrant you he did. Ah, he's young yet is the lad; he's young,' said Drea with a quiet chuckle. 'When you find a woman who keeps a secret for you, my Dino, you may rest pretty certain she's got some of her own to look after. And even then you need not think yours will last her. Ah, they're a queer rigged craft are women, and a secret is the ballast they think first about throwing overboard if there's ever such a capful o' wind to make the sea a bit roughish. Your mother's the only she-thing in petticoats I've ever seen who can hold her tongue still between her teeth – and even she can only do it by not speaking. They're a queer rigged craft, and no mistake, eh, Sora Lucia? isn't that your experience? You'll have a deal to do with their tempers in the way of your business, I'll be bound.'

'Well, Sor Drea, it's rather like the pins and needles – there are all sorts. And it just makes the difference how much you can pay for them,' said the little woman primly, smoothing down the neat cuff of her sleeve.

'Lucia likes women better than men; they walk about the room without making a noise; and they understand about trimmings,' remarked Palmira, with a toss of her head.

'Eh, little one, and who asked your opinion? Little girls should be seen, you know, seen and not heard of – not heard of,' said the old man in a voice of affected rebuke. He put out his hand, and the child came up to him instantly, nestling against his shoulder, and rubbing her thin little cheek on the rough sleeve of his coat. 'I don't mind, I'm not afraid, if you do make a noise,' she said softly in his ear.

'Nay, nay, child. But you should mind. Little girls must mind what is going on about them, else how are they ever to learn their manners before they grow up?' said Sor Drea, still in an admonitory tone, but patting the little face near him as he spoke with a smile which the child understood better than his words. And then he looked about him, 'Well, Dino – Italia, my girl! – and how about our supper? are we not ready for that birthday supper yet?' he said aloud.

Italia had moved away, and was standing beside the window. She was perfectly aware that Dino had followed her there, but some sudden new shyness kept her silent and wondering at herself. She had pushed back the scanty curtain, and stood leaning her forehead against the coolness of the window-pane. Outside all was darkness, and one heard the sound of the breaking waves. It was a rough night, she thought to herself: and tried to say it, but somehow she could not speak: the words stuck in her throat, and would not frame themselves. In that singular moment she seemed to be leading a double life; – the old existence was there, the old safe habit of home and her father's voice heard beside the fire; and here – here was something different, an unknown feeling of oppression – an anguish of self-consciousness, pierced with sudden flashes of a new unfamiliar joy. And yet this was only Dino, whom she had known all her life; Dino, her old tyrant and protector and playfellow —

'You are not angry now? My father did not mean all that he said; he did not mean to be unkind – to you,' she said abruptly, turning her face still farther away and looking out into the blackness.