Kitabı oku: «Dorothy, and Other Italian Stories», sayfa 13
As they passed out on their way to the carriage they caught a glimpse of the distant white figure of the cook seated with his back towards them outside of his kitchen door in the shade, occupying his leisure in playing the flute; his notes, which just reached them, were soft and long-drawn as sighs.
"What is it?" said Gray, listening. "I'm sure I know it."
"'Com' è gentil'; that is, 'O summer night.' Peppino is very sentimental in his musical tastes."
"He doesn't go to the party, then?"
"He despises parties. He goes in for bombs."
It was between eight and nine o'clock in the evening when, on their return from the drive, Dennison checked his horses in a hedge-bordered lane, and stopped. (It may be mentioned that they did not reach the tower; no one – that is, no stranger – has ever reached it. Italians are indifferent to its mystery.) "This is the place," he said. "The house is a quarter of a mile from here, and I could have taken you nearer by keeping to the main road; but in that case they might have heard the sound of our wheels. I haven't let any one know we were coming, so that you can have a glimpse of the scene as it really is, and not tamed by the presence of strangers." He tied the horses to the hedge, and, climbing over a stone wall, led the way across a broad field, freshly ploughed. On the other side of this field the ground ascended, and the slope was covered by an olive-grove. The sparse gray foliage of the pruned trees cast hardly more than a lace-work of shade upon the moonlit ground, and the two men made their way upward easily; in ten minutes they had reached the top. Here, on a broad plateau, stood the farm-house with its out-buildings. Beyond the plateau the ground ascended again, decked by another grove. The door and windows of the house were open, and sounds of laughter came forth. The two Americans drew near cautiously, walking as quietly as they could in the shadow of the trees. But their care was unnecessary; all were assembled within, and no one was looking either from the door or the windows; the noise, too, was so great that no sound outside could have been heard even by a listening ear. Dennison, making a détour, led the way round to one of the back casements. This window, a small one, was breast-high; its little lattices of lead-bordered panes had been thrown back; they opened into the room, as the exterior of the window was guarded by iron rods set close together. The two spectators outside, by looking between these rods, obtained a view of the scene within. The room was large, low, and smoke-browned; it was lighted by all the lamps the house could muster – lamps of the old Tuscan pattern for olive-oil; there were also earthen-ware saucers filled with the same oil, and carrying a floating wick. Two candles illumined a supper-table which was placed across one end of the apartment. This table bore upon its white linen cloth the dishes of the feast – dishes and little else, as everything had been eaten save bread, of which there was still a supply (in case any one should feel a return of hunger). There were also fresh flasks of wine for future thirst, and over a handful of coals on the hearth there was a long-handled coffee-pot. A game was now going on, or, rather, a pantomime; two men in masks were jumping about like harlequins, and every now and then they seized a person from the ranks of spectators, and whirled him or her round and round dizzily; there was guessing connected with it in some way, as everybody called out names loudly; the uproar was incessant, with occasional applause and a great deal of laughter. The feet of the harlequins had raised much dust, and at last the room became dim. "More light, more light, Filippo. We can't see," called several voices.
Filippo, a sinewy little man who had been acting as harlequin himself (for the men took turns), consulted with his wife. They had no more candles, and no more saucers and wicks; but they could make a blaze of brushwood on the hearth, if the company would not mind the additional heat? The wife, a laughing ample matron who still showed a handsome face above her rotund person, opened a door into an out-building, and, after some rummaging, produced three fagots of small, dry twigs; one of these she placed over the coals, and in a minute or two a blaze leaped up the wide chimney, lighting the room brilliantly. The game now went on with redoubled vigor and glee, and the gazers without could see all the faces of the circle distinctly.
"There is Modesta by the table," whispered Gray. "How she does laugh! It doesn't seem natural."
"Oh yes, it is. That is the way they laugh sometimes; they can go on for hours like children."
"Isn't that the Swedish girl with one of the harlequins? How light-colored she looks in that tanned, black-haired crowd! She is rather pretty; instead of letting her go back to Stockholm, one of these Italian youths had better marry her."
"She probably holds herself above them," answered Dennison, in the same low tone. "But, in any case, Tuscan peasants are extremely slow to marry a person who is not a Tuscan. They call even Romans foreigners; generally, too, they call them brutes! Well, we've been here twenty minutes: had enough?"
They turned, and, making a second circuit of the house, they crossed the plateau noiselessly, and re-entered the grove. They had gone but a few paces down the slope when the distant voices and laughter suddenly grew louder; looking back, they saw that the whole company had come outside, following the harlequins, each one of whom held a girl by the elbows, and was whirling her over the grass in the brilliant moonlight. Presently four more couples began to whirl in the same manner, and all the others, inspired by the sight, joined hands, and made a long chain which moved to and fro with rhythmical steps, forming now a star, now a square, now a figure 8. The game was at an end; everybody was dancing. One of the harlequins changed his partner every few minutes, but the other did not loosen his grasp of the girl whom he had brought with him from the house. After a while this second harlequin moved away from the other dancers, and came waltzing across the plateau towards the grove where Dennison and Gray were standing, each hidden in the shadow of a tree trunk; at the top of the slope the man did not stop, but began to descend, still dancing, or pretending to dance, and pulling his unwilling partner with him.
At this instant a woman detached herself from the distant groups of revellers and rushed towards the grove. And as she came on her figure was such a vision of swiftness of motion and of intensity of purpose that Gray unconsciously held his breath as he watched her. The plateau was broad; she was a full minute in crossing it. As she drew near the grove she lifted her head a little, and the moonlight, which had been behind her, fell across her forehead; then he saw that it was Modesta.
The harlequin also had recognized her, for, suddenly ceasing his gyrations, he released his companion, and ran off in the opposite direction, bounding as he went, in accordance with his assumed character, and joining the chain of dancers near the house with a high leap which gained for him their loud applause. Meanwhile his partner, freed at last, stood still for an instant with her eyes closed, dizzy from the whirling.
It was during this instant that Modesta reached her; coming down the slope with all the gathered impetus of her tremendous speed, she swooped upon the girl, bore her to the ground, struck her across the cheek, and then, holding her down with one hand, she fumbled in her own pocket with the other.
Dennison meanwhile, as soon as he had recognized his waitress at the top of the descent (he had not distinguished who it was before, his eyesight not being so keen as Gray's), had left his tree, and, darting across the intervening space, he now caught her arm tightly at the elbow, while her hand was still in her pocket. Gray hurried to his aid, and seized her other wrist, dragging her fingers away from the girl on the ground; thus holding her between them, they pulled her to her feet. As they did so her right hand came out of her pocket. It held a murderous-looking knife.
"You devil," said Dennison, in Italian, "drop that knife!"
They held her so closely that she could not move, but her face glared at them in the moonlight. It was like nothing human; her head was thrust out, the eyes were narrowed and glittering, the nostrils flattened, and the lips drawn up and back from the set, fierce teeth. Their four figures – three standing, one on the ground – were below the slope, and no one saw them. There had been no sound from the prostrate girl, who had lost consciousness from fright, paralyzed by the terrible countenance of the woman who had attacked her; and the waitress herself had made no sound as she came. She made no sound now, save that she panted as she breathed; she was like a wild beast who had made one spring and is about to make another.
"Drop the knife, or you shall go to prison," said Dennison, sternly, his hands on her shoulder like a vise.
Her fingers did not move.
"Listen. If you don't drop it, I swear to you I'll send Goro to America by the next Leghorn steamer, with five hundred lire in his pocket."
The knife dropped.
"Pick it up," said Dennison to Gray, in English. "Now see if you can lift that girl and carry her down the hill. Get her across the field somehow to that stone wall where we climbed over; wait there for me – unless she should come to on the way, in which case perhaps she will be able to climb over the wall herself. If she does, wait there with her by the phaeton. I sha'n't be long. But I must take this she-wolf back to the house first."
Gray had bent down; he lifted the inert body at their feet, raising it a little, and as he did so the head fell back, and the moonlight, shining on the hair and temples, showed that it was the Swede. Modesta, as she too saw the face, made a spring at it. But Dennison jerked her back. Then, with a snarling sound in her throat, she twisted her head round, and bit savagely at his hand where it held her shoulder.
"Do hurry. She is perfectly insane," he said to Gray.
Gray, having got the Swede off the ground, put his left arm under her back at the shoulders, and his right under her knees, and, lifting her in this position, he carried her down the hill with as much speed as was possible. This was not great, because the ground was uneven, and as he could not see where to place his steps, he was obliged to feel his way with his feet as he advanced – to shuffle along cautiously. In time, however, he reached the bottom of the hill. Then slowly he began to cross the field. This, too, was difficult, owing to the soft, crumbling earth of the freshly ploughed furrows. But here at last the girl opened her eyes.
"Can you stand?" asked Gray, breathlessly. Then he thought, with irritation, "None of them can speak anything!"
But the Swede now made of her own accord the motion of trying to get to her feet, and gladly enough he let her slip down and stand on the ground, as his arms were aching. He still supported her, however, lest she should fall.
But the girl seemed to be more terrified than weak; the instant her feet touched the earth she began to run towards the stone boundary wall, looking back every half-minute to see that no one was following. He went with her, trying to help her over the furrows; and as they hurried onward side by side, her face was such a picture of deathly fear that the feeling took possession of him also; he found himself regretting that their figures were so plainly visible on the moonlit expanse, and he too looked nervously over his shoulder, as though he expected to see the Italian woman coming after them madly, with her glittering eyes and the shining knife.
They reached the wall, and climbed over into the road outside, the Swede needing no help, but quicker in her movements than he was. In the road he tried to stop her, but she pulled herself from him. Still holding her, he showed her the horses tied in the shadow of the hedge. This she comprehended. She waited, therefore; but she kept herself several yards away from him, so that he should not stop her in case she should again wish to flee. She was a slender young creature, and she stood there much as a bird poises itself on a twig; not resting, not bearing its full weight, but perched provisionally, as it were – ready to fly away again in an instant.
Gray, who had now recovered his composure, tried to soothe her. With his most encouraging inflections he repeated: "All safe now. All-ll safe! Stay right here with me."
She paid not the least attention to him. Her eyes continued their strained watch of the lower trees of the grove. At length a man's figure emerged from these trees, and the girl gave a muffled scream. But Gray had caught hold of her arm; pointing to the horses and then to Dennison, he said, gesticulating energetically: "Horses are his. Dennison's. My friend. Your friend. (Oh, what is 'friend?') Amicus! Don't you see he's alone? Nobody with him? Solo? Sola?"
And the girl could indeed see for herself that the person approaching was alone. She had understood the fact that the horses belonged to this person, and her hope was in the horses; they could take her away – away from here!
As soon as Dennison was near enough he began speaking in Italian, and he continued to talk to her as he climbed over the wall, calming her, explaining and arranging. Then he turned the phaeton, and they all took their places within, the Swede sitting between the two men on the broad seat. Dennison drove down the lane, still talking encouragingly. When they reached the main road he took a direction which led them away from Casa Colombina and Tre Ponti. "We're in for it!" he said in English to Gray. "I shall take her to the nearest railway station – not the one you know, but another – and pack her off to Florence; there her consul can see to her. I have explained it to her clearly. She is glad enough to go."
"What was it all about, anyhow?"
"Didn't you comprehend? That harlequin (I'll mention no names, and then she won't be startled) was no less a person than the lover of your Madonna beauty – the youth she expects to marry. During the game he was flirting, or trying to flirt after his fashion, with our present companion. This was too much for the older woman. Hence the knife."
"Which I have in my pocket, by-the-bye."
"Don't take it out now; you can throw it away after we have disposed of our Scandinavian. I suppose she has never before seen such a thing as a brandished weapon of that sort. It's a knife used by the peasants about here to cut hides with; your Madonna probably took it from among Filippo's tools somehow while the festivities were going on. She must have been jealous even then."
"I told you that her laugh wasn't natural. 'Twas an awful sight, though! She would certainly have murdered the girl if we hadn't happened to be standing just where we were."
"Very likely," answered Dennison. "Tchk, tchk," he added to the horses.
"I hope she is safely locked up by this time."
"Locked up! She is probably dancing with her harlequin."
"You don't mean to say that you let her go?"
"Quite so. She is all right now; she has come back to her senses. I had six words with the youth, however; he'll treat her better – for the present, at least; I have frightened him."
"What did you mean when you said you'd send him away?"
"That was what brought her round. He has had a hankering for a long time to emigrate to – to the land of the free; he would go in a minute if his passage were paid and he had a hundred dollars in his pocket – go and never think of her again; she knows this. But the land of the free doesn't want him – he is incorrigibly lazy; and his departure would end her as far as I am concerned – make her perfectly useless."
"Good heavens! you're not going to take that murderess back?"
"I can't take her back without sending her away first. And that I haven't done," answered Dennison.
"But won't she be arrested, in any case? Every one will know that she attacked this girl, and that the girl has fled."
"No one knows that she attacked her. And even if it is guessed, Tuscan peasants are not so easily alarmed as you suppose; they understand each other. As to the disappearance of this one, I shall explain it by saying that I decided to advance the money to send her as far as Florence, instead of making her wait for the remittance which is expected from the consul; it is known that she was to go before long, in any case. It will cost me something, but I like peace and quietness. The other woman is perfect as a servant, and the cause of her jealousy removed she will continue perfect."
"Brrrr!" said Gray, uttering the sound that accompanies a shudder.
The Swede recognized the meaning of this; she looked at him quickly with parted lips and her hand extended. She was ready to spring from the phaeton.
"Do be quiet!" said Dennison. Then he spoke to the girl in Italian, quieting her dread.
They reached the station in safety, and soon after sunrise the Northerner, her breath still hurried, her hands cold, was placed in the care of the official who had charge of the Florence train. Dennison gave her his white silk handkerchief to tie over her uncovered head. The daylight had revealed the discolored lines of the bruise on her cheek produced by Modesta's blow. "Poor thing!" said Gray, as the train started on its way, and they had a last glimpse of her frightened eyes at the window.
"Yes. But she will get over it in time – she is strong and healthy. I have telegraphed to the consul at Florence to meet her, and take every care of her; he is to give her money from me, and then he is to send her to Stockholm, comfortably, in the charge of a suitable person. When she arrives there she will find a tidy little sum to her credit at a banker's."
"You're paying well for her scare."
"I'm paying well for my comfort."
They took fresh horses and returned to Casa Colombina.
As the Tower of the Dove came into sight on its hill, Gray said: "She won't be there, will she – I mean at the house?"
"Oh yes."
"What will she do when she sees us?"
"She will bring in the breakfast just as she brings it every morning, and Hannibal and the cats will follow behind. Perhaps she will talk rather more than usual; if she does, it will be on the most agreeable topics, and her smile (which you admire so much) will be sweeter than ever; her hair will be braided to perfection, and, what is more important, her work will be done to perfection. We shall pretend, both of us, she and I, that we don't see the mark of the bite on my hand. Shall I go on? In a week or two, probably, she will marry her Goro, and then he will be so constantly under my feet that I shall end by installing him as my gardener for life. He will do no work of importance; but, owing to his presence, I shall continue to enjoy the services of a waitress whom you yourself have described as a regular marvel."
It may be added that this prophecy has been exactly fulfilled.
AT THE CHÂTEAU OF CORINNE
ON the shores of Lake Leman there are many villas. For several centuries the vine-clad banks have been a favorite resting-place for visitors from many nations. English, French, Germans, Austrians, Poles, and Russians are found in the circle of strangers whose gardens fringe the lake northward from Geneva, eastward from Lausanne, and southward from Vevey, Clarens, and Montreux. Not long ago an American joined this circle. The American was a lady named Winthrop.
Mrs. Winthrop's villa was not one of the larger residences. It was an old-fashioned square mansion, half Swiss, half French, ending in a high-peaked roof, which came slanting sharply down over several narrowed half-stories, indicated by little windows like dove-perches – four in the broadest part, two above, then one winking all alone under the peak. On the left side a round tower, inappropriate but picturesque, joined itself to the square outline of the main building; the round tower had also a peaked roof, which was surmounted by a contorted ornament of iron somewhat resembling a letter S. Altogether the villa was the sort of a house which Americans are accustomed to call "quaint." Its name was quaint also – Miolans la Tour, or, more briefly, Miolans. Cousin Walpole pronounced this "Miawlins."
Mrs. Winthrop had taken possession of the villa in May, and it was now late in August; Lake Leman therefore had enjoyed her society for three long months. Through all this time, in the old lake's estimation, and notwithstanding the English, French, Germans, Austrians, Poles, and Russians, many of them titled, who were also upon its banks, the American lady remained an interesting presence. And not in the opinion of the old lake only, but in that also of other observers, less fluid and impersonal. Mrs. Winthrop was much admired. Miolans had entertained numerous guests during the summer; to-day, however, it held only the bona fide members of the family – namely, Mrs. Winthrop, her cousin Sylvia, and Mr. H. Walpole, Miss Sylvia's cousin. Mr. H. Walpole was always called "Cousin Walpole" by Sylvia, who took comfort in the name, her own (a grief to her) being neither more nor less than Pitcher. "Sylvia Pitcher" was not impressive, but "H. Walpole" could shine for two. If people supposed that H. stood for Horace, why, that was their own affair.
Mrs. Winthrop, followed by her great white dog, had strolled down towards the lake. After a while she came within sight of the gate; some one was entering. The porter's lodge was unoccupied save by two old busts that looked out from niches above the windows, much surprised that no one knew them. The new-comer surveyed the lodge and the busts; then opened the gate and came in. He was a stranger; a gentleman; an American. These three items Mrs. Winthrop's eyes told her, one by one, as she drew nearer. He now caught sight of her – a lady coming down the water-path, followed by a shaggy dog. He went forward to meet her, raising his hat. "I think this is Mrs. Winthrop. May I introduce myself? I am John Ford."
"Sylvia will be delighted," said Mrs. Winthrop, giving her hand in courteous welcome. "We have been hoping that we should see you, Mr. Ford, before the summer was over."
They stood a few moments, and then went up the plane-tree avenue towards the house. Mrs. Winthrop spoke the usual phrases of the opening of an acquaintance with grace and ease; her companion made the usual replies. He was quite as much at his ease as she was, but he did not especially cultivate grace. Sylvia, enjoying her conversation with Cousin Walpole, sat just within the hall door; she was taken quite by surprise. "Oh, John, how you startled me! I thought you were in Norway. But how very glad I am to see you, my dear, dear boy!" She stood on tiptoe to kiss him, with a moisture in her soft, faded, but still pretty eyes.
Mrs. Winthrop remained outside; there were garden chairs in the small porch, and she seated herself in one of them. She smiled a little when she heard Sylvia greet this mature specimen of manhood as a "dear, dear boy."
Cousin Walpole now came forward. "You are welcome, sir," he said, in his slender little voice. Then bethinking him of his French, he added, with dignity, "Welcome to Miaw-lins – Miaw-lins-lay-Tower."
Ford took a seat in the hall beside his aunt. She talked volubly: the surprise had excited her. But every now and then she looked at him with a far-off remembrance in her eyes: she was thinking of his mother, her sister, long dead. "How much you look like her!" she said at last. "The same profile – exact. And how beautiful Mary's profile was! Every one admired it."
Ford, who had been gazing at the rug, looked up; he caught Mrs. Winthrop's glance, and the gleam of merriment in it. "Yes, my profile is like my mother's, and therefore good," he answered, gravely. "It is a pity that my full face contradicts it. However, I live in profile as much as possible; I present myself edgewise."
"What do you mean, dear?" said Sylvia.
"I am like the new moon," he answered; "I show but a rim. All the rest I keep dark."
Mrs. Winthrop laughed; and again Ford caught her glance. What he had said of himself was true. He had a regular, clearly cut, delicately finished profile, but his full face contradicted it somewhat, showing more strength than beauty. His eyes were gray, without much expression, unless calmness can be called an expression; his hair and beard, both closely cut, were dark brown. As to his height, no one would have called him tall, yet neither would any one have described him as short. And the same phrasing might have been applied to his general appearance: no one would have called him handsome, yet neither would any one have classed him as ordinary. As to what is more important than looks, namely, manner, although his was quiet, and quite without pretension, a close observer could have discovered in it, and without much effort, that the opinions of John Ford (although never obtruded upon others) were in general sufficiently satisfactory to John Ford; and, furthermore, that the opinions of other people, whether accordant or discordant with his own, troubled him little.
After a while all went down to the outlook to see the after-glow on Mont Blanc. Mrs. Winthrop led the way with Cousin Walpole, whose high, bell-crowned straw hat had a dignity which no modern head-covering could hope to rival.
Sylvia followed, with her nephew. "You must come and stay with us, John," she said. "Katharine has so much company that you will find it entertaining, and even at times instructive. I am sure I have found it so; and I am, you know, your senior. We are alone to-day; but it is for the first time. Generally the house is full."
"But I do not like a full house," said Ford, smiling down upon the upturned face of the little "senior" by his side.
"You will like this one. It is not a commonplace society – by no means commonplace. The hours, too, are easy; breakfast, for instance, from nine to eleven – as you please. As to the quality of the – of the bodily support, it is sufficient to say that Marches is house-keeper. You remember Marches?"
"Perfectly. Her tarts no one could forget."
"Katharine is indebted to me for Marches," continued Sylvia. "I relinquished her to Katharine upon the occasion of her marriage, ten years ago; for she was totally inexperienced, you know – only seventeen."
"Then she is now twenty-seven."
"I should not have mentioned that," said Miss Pitcher, instinctively. "It was an inadvertence. Could you oblige me by forgetting it?"
"With the greatest ease. She is, then, sensitive about her age?"
"Not in the least. Why should she be? Certainly no one would ever dream of calling twenty-seven old!" (Miss Pitcher paused with dignity.) "You think her beautiful, of course?" she added.
"She is a fine-looking woman."
"Oh, John, that is what they always say of women who weigh two hundred! And Katharine is very slender."
Ford laughed. "I supposed the fact that Mrs. Winthrop was handsome went without the saying."
"It goes," said Sylvia, impressively, "but not without the saying; I assure you, by no means without the saying. It has been said this summer many times."
"And she does not find it fatiguing?"
The little aunt looked at her nephew. "You do not like her," she said, with a fine air of penetration, touching his coat-sleeve lightly with one finger. "I see that you do not like her."
"My dear aunt! I do not know her in the least."
"Well, how does she impress you, then, not knowing her?" said Miss Pitcher, folding her arms under her little pink shawl with an impartial air.
He glanced at the figure in front. "How she impresses me?" he said. "She impresses me as a very attractive, but very complete, woman of the world."
A flood of remonstrance rose to Sylvia's lips; but she was obliged to repress it, because Mrs. Winthrop had paused, and was waiting for them.
"Here is one of our fairest little vistas, Mr. Ford," she said as they came up, showing him an oval opening in the shrubbery, through which a gleam of blue lake, a village on the opposite shore, and the arrowy, snow-clad Silver Needle, rising behind high in the upper blue, were visible, like a picture in a leaf frame. The opening was so narrow that only two persons could look through it. Sylvia and Cousin Walpole walked on.
"But you have seen it all before," said Mrs. Winthrop. "To you it is not something from fairy-land, hardly to be believed, as it is to me. Do you know, sometimes, when waking in the early dawn, before the prosaic little details of the day have risen in my mind, I ask myself, with a sort of doubt in the reality of it all, if this is Katharine Winthrop living on the shores of Lake Leman – herself really, and not her imagination only, her longing dream." It is very well uttered, with a touch of enthusiasm which carried it along, and which was in itself a confidence.
"Yes – ah – quite so. Yet you hardly look like a person who would think that sort of thing under those circumstances," said Ford, watching a bark, with the picturesque lateen-sails of Lake Leman, cross his green-framed picture from east to west.
Mrs. Winthrop let the hand with which she had made her little gesture drop. She stood looking at him. But he did not add anything to his remark, or turn his glance from the lateen-sails.
"What sort of a person, then, do I look like?" she said.
He turned. She was smiling; he smiled also. "I was alluding merely to the time you named. As it happened, my aunt had mentioned to me by chance your breakfast hours."
"That was not all, I think."
"You are very good to be interested."
"I am not good; only curious. Pray tell me."
"I have so little imagination, Mrs. Winthrop, that I cannot invent the proper charming interpretation as I ought. As to bald truth, of course you cannot expect me to present you with that during a first visit of ceremony."
