The hereditary lawyer of the Santafede family caused great
inconvenience about this time by leaving a world of woe and
circumlocution, to reap the reward stored up for honest men of business
elsewhere. Since that section of the heavenly mansions cannot be
overcrowded it is to be hoped that he met with a warm welcome. His
demise, lamentable though it appeared to his employers, brought solid
satisfaction to his successor, a stout young gentleman with a turn for
malicious humor, whom he had himself trained and designated as the
disciple on whom his mantle of faded parchments was to fall when he
himself should no longer have any use for it.
Guglielmo De Sanctis swelled with pride when Ferretti, the power behind
the Santafede throne, sent for him to come to the cancelleria to make
out a new lease for one of the apartments. He had acquired considerable
knowledge of the Santafede affairs through having for some years passed
attended to those of the Princess's brother, Cardinal Cestaldini, who
had warmly endorsed his recommendation for the vacant post. As the
young lawyer saw in the appointment another source of income and honor
for the rest of his life, his heart was gay within him as he passed
under the archway into the Santafede palace to answer the maestro di
casa's summons one fine morning late in July.
The Professor was better that day and Mariuccia intended to regale him
with one of her "golden fries;" Giannella, running out in haste to buy
whitebait and cucumbers, and counting her coppers in the corner of the
red handkerchief which takes the place of the market basket in Rome,
nearly bumped into the lawyer as he turned the angle of the colonnade.
She pulled up with hurried excuses; he declared they should come from
him; and then, recognizing the padrone's mysterious visitor of some
weeks ago, she greeted him politely and asked after his respectable
health. He did not reply at once, but stood looking at her with
slightly knitted brow and a puzzled expression. Then, calling up a
smile, he removed his hat and held it in his hand while he assured her
that his health was fairly good, thank Heaven, hoped the scirocco was
not too trying to that of the Signorina Brockmann; though indeed, if he
might be permitted to say so in all sincerity, that was evident, since
she looked so well (his eyes said: so pretty), and reminded her that he
was always at her command should she require his services.
Giannella, unaccustomed to flowery speeches, was puzzled in her turn;
she thanked him briefly, and passed on, unwilling to be seen conversing
alone with any young man--except one. De Sanctis turned and gazed
after her. "What a curious girl!" he said to himself; "she has bought
no finery, she runs out marketing with a red handkerchief and a few
baiocchi--I wonder what she is doing with her money? I suppose she has
lived so long with Bianchi that she has caught some of his parsimonious
tricks. Oh well, it is none of my business. Now for Ferretti," and he
dived into the cool vaulted hall of the cancelleria.
The Professor was certainly much better. Indeed he intended to go out
that afternoon to visit the Cardinal and have an exciting talk about a
discovery made by his Eminence, a bit of an inscription unearthed in
the Cestaldini cellars by the workmen who were repairing the drains.
At this time of year these were always looked to, as heavy rains
usually closed the long summer drought, and the Tiber, rising in his
silt-choked bed, was apt to bubble up and make improvised fountains in
unexpected places. On the discovery of the interesting fragment the
Cardinal had suspended the repairs, feeling sure that the remainder
of the inscription could be found, and had sent for his friend Carlo
Bianchi, that light of dark learnings, to come and advise him as to
further investigations.
Bianchi was keen to get on the scent, but there was one visit he
proposed to pay before calling on the Cardinal. In all the dignity
of clean clothes and returning health, he summoned Giannella to his
study that morning and repeated his declaration of the generous
intention to add to all his past kindness to her by shortly making
her his wife. Seeing that he was perfectly well and otherwise in his
right mind she did not laugh this time, but told him, with a quiet
decision he had never yet seen her display, that she could not even
pretend to consider his proposal an honor; it was degrading to himself
and repulsive to her. What possible grounds for a union, she asked,
could exist between them? He was old enough to be her father, rich
and distinguished. She was a waif and a pauper, and ignorant in the
extreme, having forgotten, as she mournfully declared, the little
book learning that the nuns had taught her, and being now only fit
to cook and clean and mend, services she was most willing to render
him in return for his charity in allowing her to live under his roof.
There she trusted she might still remain--if he would at once and
forever abandon a project, the fulfillment of which would only make him
ridiculous in the eyes of his friends, and to which she herself would
never, never consent.
Exit Giannella, shaking with the anger of battle, so new to her calm,
equable nature, and enter Mariuccia, who had frankly listened at the
keyhole and heard every word. This time she would not let her feelings
master her. She preserved a respectful attitude--with superhuman effort
and many mental appeals to "Domine Dio" to keep His Hand on her head.
After repeating all Giannella's arguments, she implored her beloved
padroncino, whom she loved as a master and as a son, by all he held
dearest in life, personal comfort, avoidance of expense, the respect of
his many admiring friends, to put this caprice out of his clever head
and restore peace to his unfortunate but ever devoted family.
Mariuccia's address was a triumph of good sense and good temper, but
Bianchi was unmoved by it. A stony silence ensued when she ceased. Then
Bianchi, glowering at her through those big spectacles, told her that
an ignorant female could be no judge of an instructed man's motives or
actions; that he thanked her for her expressions of affection, which he
wished she would prove by either minding her own business or by using
her influence to bring Giannella to a more reasonable frame of mind.
He intended--here he glanced at a fly-blown calendar on the wall and
appeared to be making a rapid mental calculation--yes, he intended to
espouse Giannella in about three weeks; in any case before the end of
August. Mariuccia might retire. He was going out.
Mariuccia, cold at heart, found her way back to the kitchen, sank
into a chair and let her head fall forward on the table. Giannella,
who had been working off her feelings by some violent sweeping in the
inner room, came and knelt beside her and comforted her dumbly; both
their hearts were heavy with the sense of disaster, but Giannella
had something which Mariuccia had not--youth and love and hope, to
strengthen her hard tried courage.
When he was left alone Bianchi locked the door and stuffed a bit of
paper into the key hole. Then he took a rusty key from his vest pocket
and opened the old secretary by the window. From one of the pigeon
holes he drew forth a bundle of papers, laid them on the table, and
read them through one by one. Had Giannella been able to look over
his shoulder her eyes would have opened wide at the revelations
they contained, and at the same time all surprise at the padrone's
extraordinary infatuation would have died with the knowledge. But
Giannella, Bianchi was resolved, never should see them, never should
know that her unwillingly written signature was attached to the
acknowledgment of certain respectable sums accruing to her while she
should be still under the Professor's tutelage as a minor, and to be
delivered into her own keeping on her twenty-first birthday. For the
documents on Bianchi's table set forth that one Siegfried Brockmann,
a merchant in Copenhagen, had died about a year earlier, leaving
his modest fortune to the person who should prove to be his nearest
relation. As he had had a brother who lived abroad, the conscientious
authorities instituted a search, which resulted in the discovery that
the brother had met his end in Rome, and that the person who should
claim the benefit of Siegfried Brockmann's will was this brother's
daughter, proved by the records of the Danish Consulate to have
survived her father. Inquiries of the police (who in those days kept
a strict registry of the families of all householders), and of the
parish priests, revealed that the child had been taken in charge by
one Mariuccia Botti, who had ever since that date been in the service
of Professor Carlo Bianchi, the distinguished archæologist. As this
gentleman, when referred to, claimed to be the responsible guardian
of the girl, and furnished, from his hastily reconstructed memoirs,
convincing proofs of her identity, the negotiations for the transfer
of the money were carried on with him by Signor De Sanctis, the legal
adviser of the Danish Consulate, and he was now in command of some
two thousand scudi a year, to be handed over in due form to Giannella
on her coming of age in the ensuing September. Since that date was so
close when the business was finally wound up in July, it was agreed
that the principal, together with the year's income which had accrued
between the testator's death and the finding of his heir, should lie
at interest in the Banco di Roma, barring the sum of one hundred scudi
handed to Bianchi to pay him for Giannella's maintainance during the
interval, and two hundred to be given to the girl herself to provide
her with a proper wardrobe and a little pocket money.
It was for this sum that Giannella had signed a receipt. The Professor,
on the first announcement of her inheritance, confided to De Sanctis
that the girl was of a nervous, excitable temperament, and begged to
be allowed to inform her of her good fortune himself. He would break
the news quietly and gently. He added that she was shy with strangers,
and, like so many young ladies, inclined to be hysterical on slight
provocation. Giannella would not have recognized herself from the
Professor's description. De Sanctis in his one short conversation with
her, had satisfied himself that she was of sound mind; her answers to
his questions as to her childhood at Castel Gandolfo, her education at
the convent, her having no friends except Signor Bianchi and Mariuccia,
were given with frankness and clearness. Bianchi, in a subsequent
interview with the lawyer, told him that she had been much overcome
by the revelation made to her, and suggested, in order to avoid any
emotional scene, "so disturbing to a man of business," that he should
give her the two hundred dollars himself and she should sign a receipt
for it in De Sanctis' presence without any further discussion of the
subject.
De Sanctis consented gladly. He had a horror of scenes, pleasant or
unpleasant, and was anxious to save time and get the little business
off his mind. The Professor's reputation for parsimony had rather
heightened than diminished the general opinion of his probity. It
seemed fortunate for the girl that she should have such an upright and
careful adviser. Nevertheless the lawyer's bewilderment was great at
meeting her quite a fortnight after the conclusion of the transaction
in the same garb of decent poverty, the same attitude of humble
domestic service in which he had first found her. But he reflected that
there was no accounting for tastes--and dismissed the matter from his
thoughts.
So Mariuccia's brave inventions about the Brockmann relations had
materialized at last. No wonder that the Professor's attention was
attracted to Giannella. Even Mariuccia would have appeared less
forbidding in his eyes had she suddenly inherited money. As for
Giannella, he honestly wondered that he had never noticed before that
she was young and beautiful; now that he had time to think of it, he
remembered with what good-natured readiness she had waited on him and
worked for him; something like a real affection stirred in his heart.
It began to reach out for its rights in comradeship and sympathy, and
he permitted himself to look forward to the more cheerful aspects of
advancing years which he had seen others enjoy but had as yet not
provided for himself. If self was the central motive of his actions at
this juncture, at least his feelings towards the girl were as warm and
kind as his strange nature would permit; and he contemplated, as he
thought, no injury to her; her interests would be carefully safeguarded
in case of his dying first, and in the meantime he was doing her a
benefit by preventing her from squandering her money. So quickly does
self-deception do its work that in a few days after he made up his mind
to marry her he had persuaded himself that he would have done so long
ago had not common prudence barred the way. No man with a sense of duty
would take a portionless bride, of course. But since that reproach had
fallen from her, dear, pretty sweet-tempered Giannella would make an
excellent wife and do him credit, since, probably on account of the
regard felt for himself, she had received a decent education. She had
much to thank him for, he reflected, and he was glad that in the recent
manifesto of his intentions, so rudely received by her, he had not
permitted her to forget her obligations to him. Her unwillingness in
no way affected his calm conviction that he would carry his point in
the end, but there was no time to be lost. Giannella was within a few
weeks of her twenty-first birthday, and Bianchi, who, though he had no
particular impatience to enter heaven, was mightily afraid of hell,
knew that unless she and her money had been lawfully and irrevocably
confined to his keeping before that date he must either become a common
thief or hand over her fortune to her as soon as she came of age.
And then--good-bye pretty money, good-bye pretty Giannella. Mariuccia
and the Curato, and the honest gossips of the neighborhood would find
a pious, honest young man with a fortune more or less equal to hers;
there would be a wedding, and confetti, and a drive round the Villa
Borghese in a livery carriage; and the Professor would return to his
defrauded home and have to watch Mariuccia court a painful death by
devouring fifteen baiocchi's worth of food a day all to herself. No,
these wrongs must not be. The foolish women should know nothing of
defunct Scandinavian uncles until the unconscious heiress was safely
ticketed as a prudent man's wife. Then how pleased they would be if
he spent a few pauls of Giannella's money in taking them out of a
Sunday afternoon to one of the osterias beyond the gates where wine and
maccheroni were so good and cheap!
But he told himself again that there was no time to lose if all his
pleasant dreams were to be realized. He had not counted on the girl's
resistance; it had caused him a painful surprise to find that any
young woman should be so devoid of proper feeling, should show such
a complete lack of gratitude for past benefits and those which he
now proposed to confer. Of course Mariuccia had much to do with it.
Opposition from her he had expected; it was not to be supposed that
she would relish the idea of having to look upon Giannella as her
mistress. The "stultus vulgus" was always so jealous and suspicious.
And unfortunately Mariuccia's was a strong character in a vulgar way.
The kind-hearted Professor acknowledged to himself that it would
cost him many struggles to break down the combined resistance of two
obstinate women, and that discomfort would be added to conflict in the
process, since the ordering of his daily life was in their hands. He
must find an ally of their own sex, one sufficiently imposing to awe
them into good behavior. Who so fitted to speak with authority as the
Princess, to whom Giannella owed so much gratitude and respect? He
would lay the facts--with a few insignificant reservations--before the
great lady and beg her to intervene for the good of the orphan in whom
she had taken such benevolent interest a few years ago.
Rather resenting the necessity of wasting time over these details when
that thrilling discovery of the Cardinal's awaited his inspection, he
presented himself at the Princess's door and sent in his card with
the respectful request that her Excellency would grant him a short
interview on a matter of great importance. He spent some trying moments
in the visitor's waiting-room, in uncertainty as to the result of his
application, and was greatly relieved when informed that the Princess
would have the pleasure of seeing him.
Teresa Santafede was a good deal harassed at this time by domestic
matters; she missed her faithful Elena Dati more every day; Onorato
was distressing her deeply by still evading the charms and chains of
matrimony; her health seemed breaking down, she began to feel old and
to lose confidence in herself. A mistake had been made somewhere; life
had proved unruly and would not fit into the frame she had made for
it. Still she was alert to the call of duty, and never sent away any
person who had a right to see her. This wearisome Professor evidently
wanted something. She hoped it could be quickly and reasonably granted
him--ask him to walk in.
All her sense of duty could not disarm her manner of a certain
stiffness, the outcome of the nobles' deep-seated hereditary antagonism
to the middle class, the class which once furnished hundreds of clients
to every great patrician and is now independent of patronage yet still
mean, obscure, envious yet critical, nameless but ubiquitous, carrying
on its colorless existence entirely apart from their illuminated
sphere. A chasm of separation from her visitor was disclosed in the
Princess's slight, formal bow, and as Bianchi gingerly sat down
on the edge of a chair opposite her sofa, and dropped his hat and
gloves on the floor, his heart sank a little, not from any sense
of inferiority--the Romans are not snobs--but simply because the
atmosphere was not one of success. He was, however, conscious of
the justice of his cause, and after an opening speech, in which he
reminded his hearer of her former benevolence to a certain orphan
girl, unfolded his case with a good deal of tact and plausibility. As
he went on, the Princess became first interested, then sympathetic.
The undoubted benefit of such a marriage for a friendless young woman
was evident. Suppose, said Bianchi, that he or his old servant were to
die? In what an impossible position would Giannella find herself! Could
she remain in his home without a respectable female's companionship?
Could she, in case of his own demise (here the Princess made a polite
gesture of deprecation), be cast on the world, young and attractive
as she was, with only an aged peasant to protect her from its snares
and temptations? The Excellency must surely see that Giannella's only
safety lay in a respectable marriage, and the speaker's good heart,
yearning over the girl's future, had prompted him to throw himself into
the breach.
The moment the word "temptation" sounded in her ears the Princess's
conscience hurled itself to the rescue of a soul in danger, just as the
nearest surgeon hastens to give first aid to the victim of a street
accident. Likes or dislikes, youthful romance or aged prejudice, all
must be swept aside to preserve the innocent and convert the sinful.
Safety awaited Giannella (whose existence had for some time escaped the
Princess's overburdened memory) as the wife of the good, disinterested
man who seemed to have put his own feelings out of the question and to
be pleading her cause alone with fine singleness of heart.
"I see. Yes, I agree with you," the hostess said, bowing slightly
to show that the interview was ended. "Send the girl to me, and let
the servant accompany her. I will speak to Giannella alone, and will
then have a few words with the old woman, who can only be acting from
jealous and unworthy motives in thus opposing a marriage which, in
spite of a trifling difference of age, offers such advantages to
that unfortunate orphan. I am not at all surprised at the servant's
conduct. The common people are always ignorant and stubborn, but they
can see reason when it is explained to them. I have generally found
our contadini tractable. Excuse me for mentioning such a thing--but I
suppose there is no secret attachment, no foolish love affair which is
causing Giannella to behave so strangely? That is quite impossible, is
it not?"
"Quite impossible, Excellency," the Professor declared. "We have
brought her up most strictly, have never let her out of our sight. I
can assure you that she has never spoken to a young man in her life!"
Had the Princess become more human with the passing years? A gleam of
amused pity touched her eyes and mouth; but she replied gravely: "That
is as it should be. I shall expect her to-morrow then at ten o'clock.
I am leaving for Santafede at twelve and shall not return to Rome till
October. It was fortunate, Signor Professore, that you came to-day."
Bianchi bowed himself out with effusive thanks. As he went on his way
to keep his interesting appointment with the Cardinal, his appearance
was one of such elation that a student who belonged to his class at the
university laughingly pointed him out to his two companions, Rinaldo
Goffi and Peppino Sacchetti. "There goes old 'brontolone' (grumbler)
Bianchi, boys," he said, "just look at him. I never saw him so happy
before. He might have won a terno in the lottery! But I am sure it is
nothing more than a copper picked up in the street--or another mouldy
old statue discovered in a cabbage patch. What things some men do stick
for stars in their sky!"
"Is that Professor Bianchi?" asked Rinaldo, looking after the receding
figure with sudden interest. "Capperi! He is no beauty!"
"Who is, at that age?" laughed Peppino, and he began to hum, "La
gioventu é un fiore, che presto se ne vá."
But Rinaldo did not laugh. A chance phrase of the sacristan of San
Severino came back to his mind. "Now that she is big and pretty,
they say he means to marry her." He had hardly thought of it again.
Giannella's eyes, Giannella's smile, had told him that he had no
rivals; but the insolence of the Professor's pretensions suddenly
kindled him to a fury of resentment. That sallow, hook-nosed,
round-shouldered old fellow would dare to approach her, was trying to
wrap the cobwebs of his ugly age round her sweet freshness? For the
first time in his life Rinaldo felt a passionate hatred fasten on his
heart and pump the lust of murder through his veins. He was standing
rooted to the spot, gazing at the entrance to Palazzo Cestaldini,
through which the Professor had disappeared.
"Come on, Nalduccio," said Peppino, shaking him by the arm, "what on
earth is the matter? You look as if you had seen the Lupo Manaro."
"I wish it would catch him," growled Rinaldo, turning to his friends
with such an expression that they drew back from him in horror. "May
he and all his best dead be the werewolf's food forever. No, I shall
not come to the river. The sight of that antipatico Professor of yours
has upset me. It will be more prudent to go home and take a dose of
medicine than to go for a cold swim after such an emotion."
"Is it as bad as that?" inquired Peppino with affectionate concern.
"Poveraccio, perhaps he has the evil eye?" and he fingered the coral
horn on his watch chain as he pronounced the fatal word. "If so, why, I
think I will come with you. This meeting might bring us bad luck on the
river. It is a Friday, too. Yes, I will go back with you, Rinaldo."
"Stuff and nonsense!" exclaimed the third member of the party, the
irreverent student who had drawn attention to Bianchi; "I and thirty
others have been attending his lectures for the last year, and nothing
has happened to us. He is as ugly as hungry, and as tiresome as the
Latin in a sermon, but as for the other thing, I never heard that he
was accused of it. What a couple of superstitious young donkeys you
are!"
"That is all very well," retorted Peppino, "but when the mere sight
of a man makes such an impression as that--are you feeling worse,
Nalduccio?" he inquired hastily, seeing the artist's face screwing
itself up into a frightful grimace--"it is folly, even impiety, to
disregard it. Come along, Rinaldo, we will stop at the apothecary's and
get him to prescribe for you, and I will come and sit with you till you
feel better."