Vestigia. Vol. II.. Fleming George

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      'E – e – h, buon anima mia, the scandal would be bigger than the sin.'

      Catarina looked at him a little scornfully. 'You were different once; long ago. I wonder if there is anything that you would really trouble yourself about now, Andrea?'

      'Well, there's my little girl. There isn't much else, I suppose,' said Drea good-naturedly. 'You know the saying we have, we sailors, – a wide shoe and a full belly, and take the storms as they come. That's my way of thinking.'

      'Ah,' murmured Catarina, drawing her shawl more closely about her.

      They had been young together, these two. Catarina could remember a time when to be alone with her, as now, would have been the measure of happiness to the hopeful, ardent young lover whom the slow years had changed into this weather-beaten old man. To a woman's eyes there is always an atmosphere of youth left about any man who has made love to her, no matter how the years have passed since then. And it made no difference to her secret feeling of reproachfulness that she herself had perhaps much to answer for in this general lowering of Andrea's estimate of life. A woman betrays and remembers where a man betrays and forgets. And at that particular moment faithfulness seemed to Catarina to sum up all the virtues.

      In autumn the morning freshness of the wood lingers late: there is something of the coolness of the dawn in the pine shadows long after the fruitful warmth has fallen upon the fields. And in some natures, growing old, there is left somewhat of this same touch of virginal freshness and charm. I think it is oftenest the case with women who have been unhappy in their youth – who have missed the placid midsummer fruition of content. They bear in their hearts an eternal unsatisfied belief in the spring.

      She looked at Italia and Dino walking away across the sunny grass slopes: it seemed not so many years since she too had been walking there, going on the same errand to the same old church. She watched them with eyes grown bitter with a dreary sense of loss: it was like watching the mocking phantom of her own youth.

      But to them the day seemed lengthening out into uncounted hours of pleasure. The sky was cloudless. The spring wind blowing over their faces held a magic of its own. 'Come and walk on the grass, Sora Lucia. Never mind the path – there is no place in the world like these downs. The air changes as it blows over the grass; it is like some one breathing; like a breath that comes and goes,' said Dino, taking off his hat and turning to face the wind. 'Look at the sea now. How far it is below us,' said Italia, stopping too and looking back.

      'What a sea-bird it is,' he said, meeting her eyes with a smile of happy confidence. 'What would you do if you had to live inland, Italia?'

      'Oh, I could not do it. I should stifle. I am always thirsty where I cannot hear the sound of the waves.'

      'How can you possibly tell where you may have to live, figlia mia? It is true one does not go away from one's own town if one can help it, but a girl before she is married is like a bit of thistle-down, who can tell which way the wind will blow her?' asked Lucia in her subdued voice. She, too, was dressed for the festa, and her neat black gown contrasted with the blue and scarlet of the girl's holiday dress, much in the same fashion as her thin face, with its unvarying look of decent disappointment, served as a background for the young radiance of the face by her side. 'How can you tell whom your father will wish you to marry? It might be some one who came from a long way off, – like Dino's friend, the Signor Valdez, who lodges in our house. He comes from a country where they do not speak Italian, for all he looks so like a Christian.'

      'I have not seen old Valdez lately,' Dino began.

      If he wished to ask any questions Lucia spared him the trouble.

      'He is a kind man that, – the blessed saints reward him,' she said, with a sudden fervour. 'And to think how long it took us to find it out, – and the world is hard enough, God knows, without one shutting one's mouth the days it rains comfits. But, via! we knew he was a stranger from over sea. What would you? when he said "buon giorno" or "felicissima notte" as one passed him on the stairs it was like a bear growling; it did not sound like real Italian. Many and many a day have I gone away to my work with the old nonna locked in our room, and my heart in my mouth, not knowing if it were better to leave her there, with all the children, and not a soul to go near them in case of fire. And me never so much as dreaming of asking Signor Pietro to stop sometimes when he passed the door to give them a look. Ah, he is a good heart, he is. And, as for his never speaking, well, there's evil talking enough in the world, God knows! a man can do worse things with his tongue than keep it quiet. As for those children, they are fairly bewitched; there's that Beppi, he follows Signor Pietro about like his shadow. It's Signor Pietro who pays now for his schooling, and such a bright lad as it is! You should have seen him the other day when Signor Pietro told him first about his going off on a journey. Nothing would content the boy but bringing back his geography book from the school to show the nonna all the places.'

      'Does – does Pietro talk of going away, then?' asked Dino, his heart beating faster.

      'See that, now! and you such friends. But I always knew that Signor Pietro could keep his own counsel. Perhaps it's a way they have over there in the countries he comes from. Yes, he is going away. To Pisa first, and then perhaps to Rome. He says he wants a holiday, and no wonder. Cose lunghe diventan serpe, – drag a thing out long enough and it becomes like a snake. And it's two years or more since he has had a day's outing from Leghorn.'

      They had been sitting down to rest on the short dry turf as she talked, but now, as they rose to climb the last shoulder of the hill, her sharp black eyes were turned scrutinisingly upon Italia. She gave some slight ejaculation of surprise. 'Vergine Santissima! Italia, you have lost your ring – your beautiful ring. What a misfortune! Madonna mia, what a misfortune!

      Italia blushed scarlet. 'No, I have not lost it. I did not put it on,' she answered hurriedly. And then, after a moment's consideration, 'Old things are best,' she said in her sweet full voice; 'I did not want a new gift, – I told my father I did not want it. He will keep it for me, he will give it to me to wear when I am married.'

      'And you will wear it that day, my Italia?' asked Dino, looking at her and speaking in a very low tone, yielding yet this once more to the perilous delight of saying what he would have said, what he would have had the right to say, if only he could have hoped to escape from all the consequences of his past actions. The instinctive conviction that this proposed journey of Valdez's was in some way connected with the disposal of his own future gave Dino a still more intense longing to grasp at present happiness. He knew that he was acting ungenerously; yet, as the girl turned her face shyly towards him, – her red silk handkerchief tied about her head in peasant fashion made a soft shade about her temples and her little ears, coming down in front in a bright silken fold across her low forehead, hiding all her hair, and giving an almost Oriental look to the dark straight eyebrows and the dark lustrous eyes. The wind and the sun had brought a soft pink colour into her pale oval-shaped cheeks.

      She was really looking very beautiful as she said, 'Why make plans for the future, my Dino? Surely we are very happy; we do not want things to change. The old things are the best. Why, even this pilgrimage to-day, – one would always care to come, of course, just to show the Holy Mother that one is grateful, – but it would be so different, it would be so sad, if we were to forget the other years that went before. This is the happiest year of them all, I know, yet I should not like not to have the memory of the times we have been here as little children. I like the old gate there at the top because that is the spot where we have always waited; I could open it myself quite easily, but I like to remember the days when it seemed to me wonderful that you could unfasten the lock. It is like that picture of my father's shipwreck, – you know, Dino, – the ex voto up there in the chapel. When I was a child I believed it had СКАЧАТЬ