THE PEACE DISTURBED
THE bluebird came again to perch on Garibaldi’s cap, the baby maples
put forth their leaves, and Signor Di Bello told Bertino it was time to
give the Wooden Bunch a new coat of yellow. Once more the fire-escapes
on either side of Corso di Mulberry bloomed with potted geraniums;
glistening radishes lent their vernal blush to the vegetable stalls,
and the thoughts of Sara the Frier of Pepper Pods turned to summer
profits. The building trades had set the winter idlers to work, and
the Alley of the Moon resounded no longer with the wild shouts of
_mora_ players. The hokey-pokey man, tiding over the cold months
with an ancient hand organ, yearned to put away The Blue Danube and
The Marseillaise, and wheel out his gorgeous ice-cream cart. The old
gondolier, selling pine-cone seeds at the foot of China Hill, could
leave his toe-toaster at home now, and let the May sunshine economize
the charcoal.
Bertino mixed the paint, selected a cheap brush from the stock of the
shop, and set to work on the Bunch. It is doubtful that he heard the
swish, swish of the brush. His thoughts were of Juno. Her absence had
extended long over the six months, and for more than thirty days he had
not heard from her. There was no excuse for this neglect, he reasoned,
since her education had been so liberal that she could spell and write
as well as any woman in Mulberry. Of the few letters received from her,
each had contained a tale of woe--the woe of a ballet lady striving to
live on the road with a salary of ten dollars a week. The missives,
rich in terms of endearment, always touched his pocket as well as his
heart, and by return mail he never failed to send her a dollar or two.
But why had she been silent this last month of the tour, instead of
writing to tell him where to meet her when she should reach the city?
Already she ought to be here. What if she never came back--if she
forsook him? In the shock of this terrible thought he upset the pail of
yellow just as Signor Di Bello stepped out of the shop.
“Soul of a cat!” exclaimed the grocer, the toe of one of his black
shoes tipped with the paint. “What the rhinoceros are you about? _Gran
Dio_, what stupendous stupidity!”
Re-entering the shop, he cleaned off the paint, fuming the while and
growling. Then he flew out, scowling at Bertino as he passed, and made
straight for the Caffè of the Three Gardens.
“The monkey!” said Bertino to himself. “When the bust arrives I’ll be
rid of him.”
A moment afterward the letter carrier handed him a large envelope
addressed in a big, round hand to “Bertino Manconi, Esq.” It was
from a customhouse agent, announcing the arrival of the bust, and
offering to attend to the business of clearing it. To this end it
would be necessary for Bertino to forward the amount of the duty, a
hundred and forty dollars. He put the letter in his pocket, filled with
apprehension of trouble, for his English was so weak that he could not
make out the meaning of the part about the duty, though he suspected
that the sum of a hundred and forty dollars was in some way required of
him. That evening, after he had lugged in the Wooden Bunch and locked
the shop door, he took the mysterious paper to Signor Tomato, who told
him the awful truth.
“It must be a great work of art,” said the banker; “very valuable.”
“Valuable!” said Bertino. “Ah, _caro mio_, if you only knew! Well, I
will tell you. It is a bust of her Majesty the Presidentessa.”
“What Presidentessa?”
“Of the United States.”
“St. Januarius! Is it possible?”
One hundred and forty dollars! The sum rose like an impassable mountain
between Bertino and the hopes he had cherished so long and fervidly.
As well have been forty thousand. He could not pay the duty. Marriage
had eaten up the savings brought from Italy and what he had earned
since. When Signor Tomato told him that the Government would retain
the marble until the impost were paid, he blotted out the poor lad’s
fondest anticipations--his dreams of release from Signor Di Bello and
the misery of his secret marriage, the freedom to say to his uncle,
“Juno is my wife.” To the bust he had looked forward as to a loyal
friend, who should come some day to lift him to the plane whereon a
man ought to stand. But now that the friend was near, some power which
he comprehended but vaguely had clapped her in a prison, from which
the future held no promise of letting her go. There came over him the
terrible throbbing of blood and the fire of brain that he felt the
night he crouched, burning with suspicion, in the doorway with a ready
knife waiting for Juno. He could not have answered if asked just now
whom he wished to kill. Some infernal prank was playing at his expense,
and the time had come to end it. A strange calm possessed him as he
began to cast about for the joker. He had been walking in Mulberry
Street. At the corner of Spring Street he entered the Caffè of the
Three Gardens. Dropping into a chair near the door, he ordered a glass
of Marsala; but before the waiter had returned with the wine, Bertino
sprang up and darted out of the place. At a table in the _caffè’s_
depth he had seen Juno and Signor Di Bello with their heads together!
Holy blood of the angels!
No need of looking further for the joker. His wife returns after six
months, does not let her husband know, and goes first to meet another.
Yes, the prank has gone far enough.
It was only a block to Casa Di Bello. In a few minutes he was there and
in his room. When he came into the street again he had his right hand
in his coat pocket.
* * * * *
The meeting of Juno and Signor Di Bello came about in this manner: The
signore was walking in Mulberry Street, on his way to the _caffè_ to
smoke an after-dinner Cavour, and help some good comrades empty a flask
of Chianti. Suddenly he stopped, stood still, his eyes staring and his
mouth a gulf of astonishment.
“By the Egg of Columbus!” he exclaimed. “It is she, or I am dreaming!”
There she was, moving toward him on the same side of the street,
dressed no better than when he last came face to face with her, but her
grand air not a whit impaired.
“At last, at last I find you!” he cried, catching up her hand and
kissing it with a loud smack. “Ah! the good God knows how I have hunted
for you. But joy, joy! I find you! I see you! My eyes look into yours!
Come, away from here! Ah, the Three Gardens! Let us enter. I have
something to say--something very important.”
He drew her into the _caffè_, and sought a table far from the door.
“What do you want to say to me?” asked Juno. She had responded not at
all to Signor Di Bello’s passionate greeting.
“Ah, my angel! I want to say to you what I would have said long ago if
I had found you. The hunt I have had! And once when I caught sight of
you, it was only to have you vanish again like a wine bubble. Where
have you been? How beautiful you are! Oh, the grand hunt!”
“Why have you hunted for me?” she said, releasing her hand from his,
and moving her chair.
“To offer you what you demanded--a wedding ring.”
“You wish to make me your wife?”
“Yes. Before the Madonna, it is true! Months and months ago I was
ready.”
For a moment Juno was silent, contemplative. Then she said, eying him
steadily:
“Would you have married me before I left Mulberry?”
“Yes; _Dio_ my witness.”
“Why did you not come to me and say so?”
“But I could not find you. My nephew, Bertino, will tell you that I
speak truth. I told him that I intended to make you my wife.”
“When did you tell him that?” she asked quickly, leaning forward and
awaiting the answer eagerly, while Signor Di Bello strove to recollect.
“Ah, yes, now I have it,” he said at length. “I remember because it was
the day after my sister Carolina sailed for Genova--two days after the
Feast of San Giorgio, my saint.”
The recollection rose clear to Juno that it was on the day following
Carolina’s departure that she and Bertino went to the little rectory
in Second Avenue. And equally vivid to her consciousness stood forth
the inflaming truth that Bertino, with full knowledge of Signor Di
Bello’s purpose to take her for wife, had hastened their union in order
to checkmate his rival. So this moneyless clerk had tricked her into
marriage, and cheated her of a rich husband!
“_Maledetto!_” she said in a half-stifled voice. At the same instant
there flashed in her brain a resolve to rid herself of Bertino.
“Why _maledetto_?” asked the signore. “Do you not accept my offer?”
“Another time I will give you my answer,” she said, rising. “I must go.”
They stood outside, he holding her hand and looking up into her face
with worshipful eyes. Suddenly she drew back, and without a parting
word took herself off. A face that she had seen in a near-by doorway
made her eager to end the interview. She had gone but a few paces when
Bertino was by her side.
“So you are here, and putting horns on your husband?” he said, gripping
her arm. “Welcome, signora, welcome!” A smile of hellish mockery played
on his livid face.
“No, I am not,” she pleaded, a tremor in her voice, because she knew
her race.
He laughed, and gripped her arm tighter.
“I know,” he said. “You want a rich man.” Then, with his lips close to
her ear: “Do you think you will live?”
“It is not my fault,” she said, still pleading. “What can a woman do
when a man plays the fool and annoys her?”
“He annoys you?”
“Yes,” she answered, seizing her chance. “If you were a man you would
make him leave me alone. I do not want him.”
“I will kill the dog!” said Bertino, letting go of her arm. A moment he
regarded her with the old tenderness, but a black look settled again on
his face, and he asked slowly, “Why did you not let me know you were
back?”
“I have not been in the city an hour. The shop was closed. Luigia the
Garlic Woman will tell you that I asked her if she knew where you had
gone. I was going to send a note to Casa Di Bello. We met in the
street and--he annoyed me.” She thought now only of saving herself.
“By the heart of Mary!” he said, “this shall stop. I will go to him and
tell him you are my wife.”
“No, no! Don’t do that. Wait--wait until you are rid of him--until you
are your own _padrone_--until the bust is here and you have sold it and
are a free man.”
“The bust?” he said hopelessly. “It is here, but as well might it have
remained in Armando’s studio.”
“What?” she said. “It is here? Where? Let me see it.”
“No; I can not. The Government has it, and will keep it until I pay one
hundred and forty dollars. Seven hundred _lire_! _Gesù Bambino!_ Where
shall I get them?”
As they walked on he recounted the distress that had overtaken the
supposed First Lady of the Land; her captivity in the hands of revenue
officials, and his inability to pay the kingly ransom demanded. This
news was a cut and thrust at the hope whereon Juno’s crude self-love
had fed for many a month, and it killed the solitary motive that
made her hold to Bertino. By neither word nor sign, however, did she
betray her disgust and anger; she even feigned sympathy, and bade
him be of good cheer, saying tenderly that ill fortune would not dog
them forever; that by luck or pluck they should get possession of the
bust, and carry out his plan for money-making. These were the first
heartening words she had ever spoken to him--the first kindness he
could recall as coming from her lips. Despite the black cloud that had
risen so suddenly from behind the customhouse, a sweet rapture filled
his soul. What mattered it all?--his wife loved him. Their joys and
griefs were one. The loneliness that had burdened his spirit since the
day of his marriage departed, and his heart lost its bitterness.
“True, my precious,” he said, pressing her hand, “we love each other,
and shall know how to manage in spite of the Government.”
At the same time Juno said to herself, “How can I get rid of the fool
and marry his uncle?”
They came to a halt at the mouth of the Alley of the Moon, a wide
passage between two tenements that led to a rear court heaped with
push-carts laid up for the night. Halfway up the alley a large gas lamp
with a sputtering light hung over a doorway. On its green glass showed
the words, Restaurant of Santa Lucia. In three dingy rooms above,
Luigia the Garlic Woman lived with a lodger known to the public of
Mulberry as Chiara the Hair Comber. The latter had her shop and living
apartment in the “front” room, looking on the alley, and directly
over the green light, which shed its rays on her sign, Hair Combing
in Signora Style, Two Cents. The remaining room of the trio had been
engaged that day by Juno, who had merely fibbed when she told Bertino
that she had been in town only an hour. It was the same humble chamber
she had occupied during her brief career of starhood on the stage of La
Scala.
“I have come here because it costs only twenty _soldi_ a day,” she said
to Bertino, “and here I shall remain until--until we can do better.
Good night, my dear husband. Courage. Be _allegro_, and our fortune
will sing.”
“Ah, yes; _allegro_ I will be. Good night, my precious wife. Until
to-morrow.”
In the solitude of her dreary little coop, while the hoarse shouts
of _mora_ players in the restaurant below sounded in her ears, Juno
set her wits calmly to the knotty puzzle that the day had brought
forth: How to get rid of her husband that she might accept Signor Di
Bello’s offer of marriage? A few grains of poison dropped in wine for
Bertino to drink would accomplish the needful state of widowhood, but
this method, she discerned, had its faults. It was likely to bring
man-hunters from the Central Office about one’s head, and detectives
were given to putting awkward questions. Moreover, they had a trick of
locking up persons whose answers did not suit them. No; in a strictly
private matter of this kind it would never do to have the police
meddling. That might spoil all. She thought of other plans of removal
that she had heard talked about in the Porto quarter of Naples. And
while she considered these there darted into her mind one of those
mystic shafts of memory that come unbidden by cognate suggestion. It
was a Sunday afternoon, and she and Bertino, walking in the suburbs,
stood upon Washington Bridge. From the height of the great span she
looked down again on the slopes of the Harlem Valley beautiful in the
gold and flame of autumn; the sedge marshes that waved to the temperate
wind, and far below, growing narrow in the distance, the silvery ribbon
of water that glimmered yet faintly in the gloam of sunset. It was
one of those Sundays that Bertino brought her a package of bob veal,
and she recalled the desire that had seized her to throw him over the
parapet. Had she done so in the darkness that soon fell not a soul
would have known. What she could have done then she could do now.
By this method there would be no police knocking at one’s door and
prying into secrets. The quicker he were out of the way the better,
and next Sunday, if no moon shone, the thing could be done. With deep
satisfaction she viewed her brawny arms and stalwart frame and felt
sure of the strength needful to execute the task without bungling. Then
she went to bed and slept soundly.
But the morrow had in its teeth a fine marplot for her little tragedy.
It happened in the evening in this wise: The shutters of the shop put
up, Bertino hastened to the Restaurant of Santa Lucia, where Juno had
promised to await him. He opened the door, and what he saw caused him
to pause on the threshold, but for only a moment. She was not alone.
Seated by her side on the rough wooden bench that flanked the long
oil-clothed table was Signor Di Bello. Their backs were turned to the
door, but Bertino knew both at first glance. On the opposite side
of the board the gaslight fell upon a row of dusky faces, into the
caverns of which large quantities of spaghetti coiled about forks were
being despatched. In other parts of the low-ceiled room, muggy with
smoke of two-cent cigars, coatless men, engaged in furious combats at
cards, shouted and rained sledge-hammer blows on the tables. Before any
one had seen him enter, Bertino sprang across the floor like a jaguar
and snatched from his uncle’s hand a knife with which he was in the act
of conveying a bit of sheep’s-milk cheese to his mouth. Then without
ado the gudgeon who believed that his wife was annoyed fell to the
performance of a husband’s duty. It was a wild thrust, but well enough
aimed to have found a mortal course had the tool been of the standard
pattern used in Mulberry for odd jobs of this kind--the long thin
steel, fine tempered, and needlelike of point. As it chanced, Signor
Di Bello’s left shoulder blade was stabbed flesh deep, and a second
lunge only slit his coat sleeve, because he dropped sidewise out of
harm’s way just as Bertino brought down the knife again. Every eye
in the restaurant had witnessed the second blow and the fall of Signor
Di Bello from the end of the bench, so the conclusion was instant and
general that the odd job had been finished.
[Illustration: It was a wild thrust.]
“Fly!” they cried, one and all, rising and pointing to the door. “Your
work is done.”
Bertino stood a moment, grasping the knife and looking at Juno; then
he flung it down and made for the door. One of the card players held
it open for him as he passed out; for the _vendetta_ is a man’s sacred
right--a strictly private matter to be settled by him in his own way,
free of outside interference. Enough that he use the genteel knife and
not the clumsy pistol, which is seldom sure of its mark, and brings the
police to make trouble for one’s friends.