"The letter, then, relates to the Signorina. She is well?"
"Yes, she is well now. She is in our native Italy."
Jackeymo raised his eyes involuntarily towards the orange-trees, and
the morning breeze swept by and bore to him the odour of their blossoms.
"Those are sweet even here, with care," said he, pointing to the trees.
"I think I have said that before to the Padrone."
But Riccabocca was now looking again at the letter, and did not notice
either the gesture or the remark of his servant.
"My aunt is no more!" said he, after a pause.
"We will pray for her soul!" answered Jackeymo solemnly. "But she
was very old, and had been a long time ailing. Let it not grieve the
Padrone too keenly: at that age, and with those infirmities, death
comes as a friend."
"Peace be to her dust!" returned the Italian. "If she had her faults,
be they now forgotten for ever; and in the hour of my danger and
distress, she sheltered my infant! That shelter is destroyed. This
letter is from the priest, her confessor. You know that she had nothing
at her own disposal to bequeath my child, and her property passes to
the male heir--mine enemy."
"Traitor!" muttered Jackeymo; and his right hand seemed to feel for
the weapon which the Italians of lower rank often openly wear in their
girdles.
"The priest," resumed Riccabocca calmly, "has rightly judged in
removing my child as a guest from the house in which my enemy enters as
lord."
"And where is the Signorina?"
"With that poor priest. See, Giacomo--here, here--this is her
handwriting at the end of the letter--the first lines she ever yet
traced to me."
Jackeymo took off his hat, and looked reverently on the large
characters of a child's writing. But large as they were, they seemed
indistinct, for the paper was blistered with the child's tears; and
on the place where they had _not_ fallen, there was a round fresh
moist stain of the tear that had dropped from the lids of the father.
Riccabocca renewed,--"The priest recommends a convent."
"To the devil with the priest!" cried the servant; then crossing
himself rapidly, he added, "I did not mean that, Monsignore San
Giacomo--forgive me! But your Excellency[2] does not think of making a
nun of his only child!"
"And yet why not?" said Riccabocca mournfully; "what can I give her in
the world? Is the land of the stranger a better refuge than the home of
peace in her native clime?"
"In the land of the stranger beats her father's heart!"
"And if that beat were stilled, what then? Ill fares the life that
a single death can bereave of all. In a convent at least (and the
priest's influence can obtain her that asylum amongst her equals and
amidst her sex) she is safe from trial and from penury--to her grave."
"Penury! Just see how rich we shall be when we take those fields at
Michaelmas."
"_Pazzie!_" (follies) said Riccabocca listlessly. "Are these suns more
serene than ours, or the soil more fertile? Yet in our own Italy,
saith the proverb, 'he who sows land reaps more care than corn.' It
were different," continued the father after a pause, and in a more
irresolute tone, "if I had some independence, however small, to count
on--nay, if among all my tribe of dainty relatives there were but one
female who would accompany Violante to the exile's hearth--Ishmael had
his Hagar. But how can we two rough-bearded men provide for all the
nameless wants and cares of a frail female child? And she has been so
delicately reared--the woman-child needs the fostering hand and tender
eye of a woman."
"And with a word," said Jackeymo resolutely, "the Padrone might secure
to his child all that he needs, to save her from the sepulchre of a
convent; and ere the autumn leaves fall, she might be sitting on his
knee. Padrone, do not think that you can conceal from me the truth,
that you love your child better than all things in the world--now
the Patria is as dead to you as the dust of your fathers--and your
heart-strings would crack with the effort to tear her from them, and
consign her to a convent. Padrone, never again to hear her voice--never
again to see her face! Those little arms that twined round your neck
that dark night, when we fled fast for life and freedom, and you said,
as you felt their clasp, 'Friend, all is not yet lost!'"
"Giacomo!" exclaimed the father reproachfully, and his voice seemed
to choke him. Riccabocca turned away, and walked restlessly to and
fro the terrace; then, lifting his arms with a wild gesture as he
still continued his long irregular strides, he muttered, "Yes, heaven
is my witness that I could have borne reverse and banishment without
a murmur, had I permitted myself that young partner in exile and
privation. Heaven is my witness that, if I hesitate now, it is because
I would not listen to my own selfish heart. Yet never, never to see
her again--my child! And it was but as the infant that I beheld her! O
Friend, friend--" (and, stopping short with a burst of uncontrollable
emotion, he bowed his head upon his servant's shoulder;) "thou knowest
what I have endured and suffered at my hearth, as in my country; the
wrong, the perfidy, the--the--" His voice again failed him; he clung to
his servant's breast, and his whole frame shook.
"But your child, the innocent one--think now only of her!" faltered
Giacomo, struggling with his own sobs.
"True, only of her," replied the exile, raising his face--"only of her.
Put aside thy thoughts for myself, friend--counsel me. If I were to
send for Violante, and if, transplanted to these keen airs, she drooped
and died--look, look--the priest says that she needs such tender care;
or if I myself were summoned from the world, to leave her in it alone,
friendless, homeless, breadless perhaps, at the age of woman's sharpest
trial against temptation, would she not live to mourn the cruel egotism
that closed on her infant innocence the gates of the House of God?"
Giacomo was appalled by this appeal; and indeed Riccabocca had
never before thus reverently spoken of the cloister. In his hours
of philosophy, he was wont to sneer at monks and nuns, priesthood
and superstition. But now, in that hour of emotion, the Old Religion
reclaimed her empire; and the sceptical world-wise man, thinking only
of his child, spoke and felt with a child's simple faith.