Peppina, Mrs Maxwell's maid, having, as she often had, a note to take
to the Marchesa di Sant' Eustachio, turned in for some words with Nina,
now promoted to the position of head of the kitchen, with a staff of two
assistants, whom she governed merrily. The kitchen was still untidy.
Assunta smilingly dragged out a chair from behind a barricade of heaped
baskets; Fernanda, showing her white teeth, bore away in her arms a huge
brown jar of vinegar. Nina had not been content until she had got two
or three of these jars from Viterbo, of coarse highly-glazed pottery,
with a fine free design of yellow on the brown. She now pointed out her
treasure to Peppina with joyous pride.
"And our marchesa has two in the sala with all her other beautiful
things,"--Nina exalted her family to the skies--"she took them away from
me and left me nothing for the wine. But that, see you, was because she
could find nothing like them in Rome. Rome is a poor place, for all
they talk so much, and make one pay, pay, pay. Eh-h-h-h-h! Blessed
Virgin, whether one has to pay! Spinach, _tre soldi_, onions, _due
soldi_, a slice of gourd, a pepperino--I ask you what a pepperino is
worth? Well, believe it or not, that great Mariaccia--daughter of a Jew
I call her--when she brought her basket this morning, she asked _quattro
soldi! Quattro soldi_!--Fernanda, child, there is the bell, fly! Here,
stay! Take off thy apron, which the signora said should only be worn in
the kitchen--the saints alone know why--and remember to say, `_Buon
giorno eccellenza_.'--_Quattro soldi, Peppina mia_, true as that I sit
here, and at Viterbo--ah, at Viterbo they do not rob like that."
"It is true," said Peppina, sighing. "In Rome it is hard to live."
"But not for you. You are like me. Eh-h-h-h-h! It was a good day for
me when Signora Bianco at the laundry told me these angels wanted a
donna." Peppina still looked gloomy.
"Why should you be their donna? Why should some have so much money, and
others none at all?"
Nina's funny little face squeezed itself into innumerable lines as she
nodded her head sagaciously.
"Ah, that is Cesare, eh? That is what he says."
"Yes," acknowledged the other, glancing at her. "That is what Cesare
says. And he is very clever. All the world knows that he is very
clever?"
"Perhaps," returned Nina, shutting her mouth obstinately. "But, see
here, how much good has he done himself with his cleverness?"
"Because he is always thinking of others. You do not understand--no one
understands!" cried the girl passionately. She sprang up and stood
leaning against the table, her breast heaving, her splendid eyes on
fire. "He is not working for himself, he is not working for you or for
me, or for this one or for that--it is for the whole world. When he
comes and talks to me of his thoughts, his plans, he seems,"--she flung
out her hands--"to set the whole of me in a blaze."
"Eh-h-h-h-h!" Nina's shrewd little eyes narrowed. "The whole world.
And you like that?"
"Who would not?"
"Not I."
"You! You!"
Peppina's look rested on her with a touch of contempt, but Nina's gay
laugh bubbled on.
"If I were you I should not care to share all these good things which
Cesare is going to get, with--Elena Cianchetti, for instance."
The girl started as if she had been stung.
"The Cianchetti! She is a viper."
Nina nodded her head, and began to wash her lettuces.
"Perhaps. But Cesare did not always think her a viper."
"Oh!" Peppina flung out her hands, flung her rival and the whole world
on one side. "If he spoke to her, I could kill him. But he will not."
"It seems to me that when we are going to do good to everybody, there
are always a few we mean to leave out. Perhaps, in that way we should
all be left out. Who knows?" remarked the philosopher, still nodding
like a mandarin. The girl's socialism had received a check. Nina
glanced at her and turned the subject. "The English signore, who will
marry our signorina, his leg is not well yet, after all these long days.
It is because he travelled on a Tuesday--an unlucky day."
"Ah!" said Peppina indifferently. She was always alert when Wilbraham
was spoken of, because Cesare had ordered her to bring him what news she
could, but she was well on her guard against betraying special interest
to her present companion, and she no longer talked to Mrs Maxwell. "So
it is true they are to be married?"
"True? Did I not tell you?"
"I had forgotten," lied the girl. "She is pretty."
"As pretty and as innocent as the angels. And our marchesa, who has
grown suddenly very rich, would give her everything in the world if she
wished it."
"If your marchesa is rich, I would have chosen her if I had been the
Englishman."
"She might not have said yes," returned Nina with a snort. "She has had
enough of what you all think the most wonderful thing you can get.
Eh-h-h-h-h, my Pietro was not the worst, though he will need many masses
to give him a little ease, that is certain; but after he had been to the
wine-shop--(Fernanda, _figlia mia_, slip out and buy some fresh ricotta
for the signora, it pleases her)--and I had to do my work with a black
eye and a swelled face, _ecco_!"--Nina's eyebrows, shoulders, hands,
shot up expressively--"I do not want another Pietro. And our marchesa
is like me."
"Did he beat her?" asked Peppina, stretching herself and yawning. She
was still thinking of Elena Cianchetti, and she wished to get back and
brood upon Nina's words, but she reflected that the best way of binding
Cesare to herself was to be useful to him. She loved him passionately,
and would have been unscrupulous towards any one who stood between them.
"Those people do not give black eyes. They strike at hearts, and that
hurts worse."
"Yes," said the girl comprehendingly, looking at the older woman, and
surprised that such knowledge had come to her. "Yes, it does. But the
signorina, she does not fear?"
"The English are different."
"Yes, they are cold--hard," cried Peppina passionately. "They go on
their way without caring. Yes, that is what--"
She stopped. She had been going to quote Cesare, and he had always
warned her to keep his name out of the way when she was trying to pick
up information for him. But, quick as she was, Nina was quicker, and
had no difficulty in reading what had so nearly escaped her lips. It
made her angry.
"It is easy to call white black," she said sharply.
"And they have voices--ee-ee-ee--like little canary birds," mimicked the
girl contemptuously. Her own voice was harsh, and the other flung a
withering glance at her.
"That is better than to scream like a jay."
"Well, I do not like them."
"I should think not."
"Why?" asked the girl, suddenly suspicious, and conscious that she had
let her temper sweep her farther than she intended.
"Because if you liked them you would be grateful, eh? And gratitude is
as rare as a white ant. _Ecco_!"
Nina smoothed out her skirts and flirted some water towards her
lettuces, spilling a good deal over Peppina in the process. She was
always horribly untidy. Peppina looked angrily at her, and drew her
skirts out of the wet. She hesitated whether to go away in a rage, or
to linger and try to hear something more definite. Fernanda's return,
carrying on green leaves a great piece of the snow-white ricotta (curd
of sheep's milk), and in her other hand a stick of spiked arbutus
berries, relieved the tension.
"It is for our marchesa," she said proudly, exhibiting the scarlet
berries.
"Do they stay all the winter?" asked Peppina, knowing this to be one of
the points on which Cesare was curious, and so swallowing her
displeasure.
"Who knows? They do as they like," returned Nina. "All the forestieri
do as they like, and why should ours be different?"
"Perhaps they will go to Naples?"
"Perhaps, or to Sicily," said the older woman, looking keenly at her.
"In that case--"
"Yes?" said Peppina, eagerly leaning forward.
"Cesare might tell them a little about the Mafia. Eh?"
The girl drew suddenly back, her face white. It took her a minute to
recover herself.
"The Mafia? What is that?" she said, trying to speak carelessly and
failing, for her voice shook.
"Who knows? Ask Cesare.--Assunta, in there, will you never have done
with those unfortunate dishes? Go, Fernanda, go and see if she is
sleeping."
Peppina went away quickly. She told herself that she would be very
careful not to mention the word Mafia to Cesare, as he would be sure to
think she had been in some way to blame for its name having been so much
as breathed. Those who have to do with such secret societies as the
Camorra or the Mafia do not talk of them, and to the ignorant world the
names convey a theatrical rather than a real meaning. This does not
prevent their existing, and in a more extended network than we might
conceive possible. The Mafia, indeed, exists, and has existed since the
time of the Moors in Sicily, when, law and justice being unattainable,
the secret society was formed to apply them in a rough and ready
fashion. Then it was probably useful; now it serves only for private
revenge. And as private revenge is an unfailing incentive, a society
which allows its members to strike, and then protects it by the terror
of its name, will never want adherents or the help of the devil.
Peppina was not thinking of all this as she went back to the hotel,
swinging her body from the hips with the free lithe gait of a Trastevere
woman. She was only reflecting how she could best adapt the little she
had gathered from Nina to Cesare's wishes. Her love for him was
passionate, but it was so largely mixed with fear--particularly since
that dark episode in his life--that it was doubtful which excitement was
at any time uppermost. She lied to him as readily as to any one else,
only she took more care not to be found out. As she reached the end of
the Sistina she stopped to buy a few hot chestnuts, and Cesare at the
same moment came up the Tritone.
"Did I startle you?" he said, taking the chestnuts she held out to him.
"No; why should you?" asked the girl simply. "Am I not always thinking
of you? Where are you going?"
"To the station to meet a man."
"I will walk with you," she said, turning to cross the sunny piazza by
his side. "Those people do not want me."
"No," said Cesare bitterly. "They pay for what they do not want, so
that we who want have nothing with which to pay. And your priests tell
you that is right!"
"Do not let us talk of the priests," said the girl, hastily crossing
herself unseen to him. Acts were not much, but it always frightened her
to hear him speak against religion. To get him away from this subject
she was ready to invent freely. "I have been with that Nina--over
there," and she flung her dark head on one side in the direction from
whence she had come, "and I have heard something."
"Ah!" The "Ah" was greedy. He had brooded over Wilbraham's
high-handedness until he had come to see in him a representative of the
injustices which he maintained society had inflicted upon him, and he
hated the Englishman with a hatred out of all proportion with his
wrongs.
"She is a poor idiot," Peppina went on contemptuously, "without ideas.
But she talks."
Cesare nodded. If any one had noticed they might have observed that he
never now flung out a word against women.
"She talks of her angels. They are all angels with her. And I think
they are going away. Not now, but later. I believe it will be to
Naples or Sicily."
"Good!" he cried, and her heart gave a leap of delight at seeing his
eyes brighten. The next moment he turned on her. "You did not tell her
it was I who wanted to know?"
"_Altro_!" exclaimed the girl indignantly. "Am I a fool? I did not
even ask the question myself. I tell you she talks. But you are
pleased, dear one?" she went on, her voice changing into deep
tenderness.
He stretched his hands to her, and they stood still for an instant
looking into each other's eyes. The warm sunlight was round them; by
their side a man was urging his miserable overladen mule up the
Tolentino hill with the long "A-a-a-a-a-o-o!" which had been the cry of
his forefathers in the old amphitheatre days. For a moment Peppina let
herself go, dizzy with almost intolerable delight, the next a thought
stung her, the more sharply for this very delight; she held back from
him and cried passionately--
"When did you see the Cianchetti?"
"The Cianchetti!" He was surprised and displeased, so that he flushed
under the girl's piercing look. But he looked back at her. "At her
window this morning," he said unhesitatingly.
"This morning!"
Peppina was pale as death, and trembling all over. Her burning eyes put
the question so insistently that he answered as if she had spoken--
"Why do you ask? She is nothing to me."
The girl told too many lies herself to recognise truth in others. His
words brought back the blood from her heart, and to a certain extent
relieved her. But she did not quite believe, although she pretended
that she did. She was going to strike out at Nina, and say that she had
accused him, when she remembered that she had just denied mentioning his
name.
"I knew you had seen her. I felt it here," she answered, pressing her
heart. "But of course if you say that--"
"When do they go to Sicily?" he demanded presently, reverting to a more
absorbing topic.
"Who knows? They don't say. It will be in the spring no doubt."
He nodded. She looked at him and thought he was thinner than ever.
"Cesare! Is there nothing? Is there no hope?"
He laughed grimly.
"_Ma che_! Of course there is hope. That is always left, though it
grows mouldy with time. They have promised me something on the _Avanti_
staff. And besides,"--his eyes kindled--"there may be a great stroke
struck before long."
"What stroke? Tell me."
"No, no, carina," he said, not unkindly. "There will be no telling."
She reflected.
"Cesare, truly, what have you eaten to-day?"
"Your chestnuts."
She was turning out her pocket the next moment and pressing a five lire
note upon him.
"Blessed Virgin, that it should be so bad as that! But the saints
themselves sent me out with this in my pocket. Cesare, caro, you shall!
For Angelo, for Angelo!"
He had pushed it away with almost violence, but at this appeal looked
down at it, and his hand hesitated. Peppina saw her advantage.
"The child must be hungry, and it is so bad for a child to be hungry.
Take it, take it!"
He caught her wrist.
"Peppina, swear. Is it your own?"
"Is it my own! Whose else should it be? Yes, yes, yes, I tell you!"
He drew a long breath.
"I had begun to think of a pan of charcoal. There seemed nothing else,
only there were one or two affairs I wanted to have arranged first."
"Now you will get food?"
"Yes."
"For you both. Promise."
"I promise."
The Sant' Angelo gun boomed out, and all the church bells began to
clang. Peppina stood still.
"I must go," she said, "_A rividerti_." She wanted to say that the
Cianchetti could not have done so well for him, but she was afraid, and
hurried away down the Venti Settembre. She swung along, her heart full
of Cesare, and hot tears in her eyes. "He has so many enemies, this
Englishman and all," she cried vehemently, "and only me on his side. A
pan of charcoal! Oh, it would kill me! What should I have done if the
signora had not given me that money for the washing? Madonna
santissima, I will carry a candle to thee at Sant' Agostino this very
day." So she went on with her thoughts, a medley of passionate love,
jealousy, and fear, until she reached the hotel and went upstairs. At
the door of the Maxwell's sala she paused. "I shall say I lost it," she
remarked cheerfully. "Madonna santissima, _two_ candles!"