It was a warm afternoon in April, and the sun was blazing hotly down
upon the wooded heights of the Abruzzi and upon the marble cliff
against which nestles the little village of Palenella.
The blue-green aloes were unfurling their sharp-pointed leaves in the
clefts and crannies of the rocks above, and every now and then the wild
roses sent a pink shower fluttering down to the flat roofs below, where
maize and wheat were spread out to dry in the sun.
Lucia Ceprano was sitting at the door of her gray stone cottage this
hot afternoon, busily engaged in peeling and splitting willow rods
preparatory to mending a certain dilapidated old basket which lay on
the ground beside her.
The stony village street was silent, and not a creature was visible but
herself, except, indeed, a few fowls which were promenading in the sun,
and some little black pigs which lay sleeping with outstretched legs in
sundry dusty hollows.
The fact was, that the whole population of Palenella was gone to take
part in a procession in the little town of Palene. Not a creature had
stayed at home but Lucia Ceprano; and no one now was surprised at this
or anything else she took it into her head to do, for the villagers had
made up their minds that she was “cracked.”
Lucia had refused the wealthiest young men in the district; Lucia
owned property, yet she worked as hard as if she were poor; Lucia did
not dance the tarantella, was not merry, would not have a lover, and
never beat her mule, even when he was as obstinate as only a mule can
be!
Such was the indictment against her; and in an out-of-the-way village
like Palenella, where every one was about five hundred years behind the
outside world, any one of these eccentricities would have been quite
enough to make people call her crazy.
Then again, though she certainly was beautiful, it was in a very
different style from her neighbors; indeed, she was of quite a
different type from what one usually sees anywhere in the whole
district, as far South as Naples.
The women in these parts are small, agile, and graceful, with pretty
little dark brown faces, small, sharp noses, pouting lips, and wild
curly hair, almost entirely covering their low foreheads. They are
light-hearted creatures, laughing and chattering the whole day long;
and in character they are an odd mixture of carelessness, shrewdness,
passion, cunning, and narrow-mindedness.
Lucia, on the other hand, was well grown and stately-looking; her face
was oval, and she had smooth black hair and wonderful deep brown,
tranquil eyes, which seemed to look thoughtfully at everything; and
her mouth, though well-formed and full-lipped, was firmly closed; she
moved about in a dignified, deliberate way, and she was reckoned the
most unsociable girl in the village, for she never spoke a word more
than was actually necessary.
The very fact of her being so unlike other village girls, however,
caused Lucia to be quite the rage at one time. All the young men for
miles round were crazy about her, and she had as many offers as there
were Sundays in the year; for she had other attractions besides her
beauty. Every one knew that besides the very tolerable property in
Palenella, which was all her own and quite unencumbered, Lucia also
possessed 10,000 lire, or something over 400_l._, in the national bank
of Rome, so that for these parts she was a considerable heiress.
Lucia allowed her suitors to say their say without interruption, and
then raising those calm, wonderful eyes, and looking steadily at them
for the space of a second, she announced that she had no intention of
marrying.
Things had gone on in this way from Lucia’s fifteenth birthday for five
years; every Sunday and holiday some one made her an offer, and every
Sunday and holiday some one was refused, until she gave up answering
at all, and merely waved her lovers off with a gesture of her hand,
neither more nor less than contemptuous.
The young men had taken offence at her behavior at last, and now
revenged themselves by pronouncing her cracked, and leaving her to
herself. All but one of them at least did so, and he was the son of a
wealthy farmer, Pietro Antonio by name, who lived higher up among the
mountains. Pietro was not so easily to be got rid of as the rest, and,
do what she would, he followed her everywhere, lying in wait for her
at the fêtes and processions, watching for her at church and market,
and persecuting her to such an extent, now with pretty speeches and
entreaties, and now with angry threats, that at last Lucia gave up
going to the fêtes, and did not even venture to church except in the
late evening, when she could do so unobserved.
For Pietro was a wild, passionate youth, with something of the savage
about him, and as Lucia disliked him even more than her other suitors,
she had determined to stay at home this afternoon for fear she should
meet him at Palene and be exposed to his vehement importunities.
She had therefore been alone for some hours; but now she heard a
distant sound of voices, laughing and chattering. The villagers were
coming back, and were climbing the rocky pathway which led to their
homes, and soon the little street was all alive again.
At the first sound of their approach, Lucia had retreated into the
cottage, and set about warming up the polenta for her mother; and as
she stood in the large kitchen, with the blaze from the fire lighting
up her grave, madonna-like face, this personage came in.
She was an old, grey-haired woman, but there was an almost wild glare
in her small, sharp eyes, as she glanced angrily at the girl.
“What a shame it is!” she cried, pulling off her red silk neck-kerchief
and kicking away a chair. “The idea of my being the only woman to
have an unmarried daughter! Here I am pointed at by every one! I’m
the mother of the ‘crazy girl,’ forsooth, and I can’t show my face
anywhere!”
“Bah!”said Lucia, without looking up from the fire; “where can’t you
show your face?”
“Why, neither in the village nor in the whole country round,”returned
the old woman, passionately.
“Don’t you trouble yourself about any of their gossip, mother; and
don’t force me to marry, for I can’t take any of the young men about
here,” said Lucia, calmly.
“Forced you will be, sooner or later,” returned her mother. “One of
them will cut off your hair, and then you know you must marry him,
whether you like it or not,” she added dolefully.
“Shame on the men here, then!” exclaimed Lucia, with flaming eyes.
“Shame on any man who forces a woman to marry him by such means! lying
in wait to cut off her hair, and then making a show of it in the
village until the poor thing is obliged to marry the thief, or she will
be forever disgraced and never get another husband! Shame on men who
win their wives in this fashion!”
“Ah, well! it has been the taming of a good many obstinate girls for
all that, and they are happy enough now. Look at Emilia Mantori and
Teresina,”continued the mother; “they held out for a couple of years,
and then one fine day they lost their plaits! They came back from the
fields with their hair cut short; the boys hooted them down the street,
and three weeks later there were two merry weddings, and now it is all
as right as can be!”
“I hope that will never be my fate, mother,”said Lucia; “never!” and
she clenched her brown hand with its long, shapely fingers, while all
the blood left her lips. “If people behave like brigands, they may
expect to be treated like brigands. Any one who lays a finger on my
hair will have to look out for himself, as all the ruffians about here
know full well, and so they keep their distance.”
“Our lads are not ruffians; they may be a little wild, but there are
some good fellows among them.”
“I don’t know a single one, then, and I won’t marry a soul here. If
ever I am married, it shall not be to a man who will beat me and make
me work just as if I were a mule; and you know very well that is what
all the men do here in the Abruzzi, so why do you go on complaining
and fault-finding? I tell you what will be the end of it, if you go on
scolding and worrying, you will drive me away, and I shall go to Rome
and open some sort of little shop—”
“And leave your mother here in poverty and misery!”
“You are not poor, mother, for you can stay here as long as you live,
and there is quite enough to keep you well, without your having to work
hard. Besides, I don’t want to leave you at all, as long as you don’t
want to force me into a marriage I hate!”
“Very well, I won’t, then,”said the old woman. “Stay as you are, since
you will have your own way.”
By this time the sun was almost setting, and a flood of red-gold light
was pouring in through the open door; the mountains were all bathed
in purple vapor, and the still warm evening air was fragrant with the
scent of roses, geraniums, and lavender.
The mother and daughter had eaten their supper in silence, and Lucia
had just risen to take away the things, when a shadow fell across the
threshold, and on Lucia’s looking up, a bold voice said, “Good evening,
signorina.”
The speaker was a fine young man wearing a blue velvet jacket,
high-crowned hat, and a large woollen scarf, which was knotted round
his waist, and he was looking passionately at Lucia with his piercing,
coal-black eyes.
“Do you want to see my mother?” asked Lucia, in anything but an
encouraging manner.
“No; I want to see you, signorina,” answered the young man, with much
polite suavity, taking off his hat as he spoke.
“If you are come to say the same as before, Pietro Antonio, you may
spare yourself the trouble,” said Lucia, clearly and firmly.
“Then you won’t let me come into your house, Lucia Ceprano?” asked the
young man, with a sudden contraction of his thin-lipped mouth, and a
look in his eyes not unlike that of an enraged tiger.
“The door is open, you can come in,” said Lucia, calmly, “and you can
talk to my mother if you like;” and with that she left the room by the
back-door, and went out into the little garden which was fenced round
with aloe bushes.
Meantime Pietro stepped into the cottage, and throwing his hat upon the
table, sat down opposite the old woman, saying, “You don’t seem to have
made much progress, Mother Ceprano.”
“You can see for yourself,”said she, in a low voice.
“Then she will soon be off to Rome, and you will have to work like the
rest,” said the young man, without any apparent malice, “for everything
here belongs to her. It was her father’s property, I know, and settled
on her.”
“She will let me have it,”said the old woman, dejectedly.
“But she won’t go on doing all the work for you! She works for you both
now; and then there’s the interest of her money; of course she will
want that for herself when she is in Rome,” continued the young man,
casting a sharp sidelong glance at the old woman as he spoke. “Yes,
your comfortable, easy-going life will be quite at an end, mother,
unless—but perhaps she is going to take you with her?” inquired Pietro,
in a tone of much sympathy.
“I’m sure I don’t know; but she was saying only this very day again
that go she would, and I believe she will.”
“Ah!”returned the young man, his lips working with suppressed passion,
“then you will just have to hire a couple of strong women to do your
field work—that’s all!”
“You know very well there’s not land enough to keep three
people,”retorted the mother, angrily.
“Then keep the girl!” said Pietro, lightly.
“Keep her! keep her! it’s easy talking; pray, can _you_ keep her,
Pietro Antonio?”
“Yes, I can, if you will help me,” said the young man, softly.
He rose from his seat, and going to the back-door, peered out into the
garden. But Lucia was not there. No doubt, thought he to himself, she
had gone out somewhere to avoid the chance of encountering him again.
At all events, she was safe out of the way; and closing the door again,
he drew his chair nearer to the old woman, and said in a low tone,
“Look here, mother, I can force her to stay here. She wouldn’t be the
first girl who found herself obliged to marry the man who wanted her!
You know what I mean; and though it would be a real pity to spoil her
hair, such beautiful hair as it is, too—still—”
“And what if she were to stab you, Pietro? You don’t know what she is,”
and the old woman looked uneasily at the floor.
“It will be your business to take care that she can’t do anything of
the kind. Take her knife away when she is asleep, hide me in the garden
and let me in when it is all safe. When she wakes up again the plait
will be mine, and then we shall be all right.”
“She will turn me out of the house when she knows, and I shall be worse
off than ever,”returned Mother Ceprano, anxiously.
“I shall be there to look after you, shan’t I? and won’t it all be
for her own happiness? You know I am the richest fellow in the whole
district, and there isn’t another girl who would refuse me. You know
yourself she couldn’t make a better match, and her refusing me is
nothing but a whim; and if you give way to her, she will end by being
an old maid herself, and making you into a common working woman—so
there!”
“Yes, I know that; it’s all true enough, and it would be a real
blessing for us all—for you and me and herself—if she would have you;
but I say you don’t know her, Pietro, you don’t know her, and I am
certain some mischief will come of it.”
“Bah! that’s all talk—a woman indeed—that _would_ be a new idea,” said
Pietro, with a contemptuous laugh. “I’ll soon tame her! The prouder
and wilder they are to begin with, the tamer and more gentle they are
afterwards. When I carry her plait through the streets—and that’s what
I will do if she makes any more fuss—she will follow me like a lamb,
see if she won’t! There has never been a girl in these parts yet who
has been disgraced in this way without being thankful to marry the only
man who could give her back her good name.”
“Ay,”interposed the mother, in a frightened tone, “but then she is not
like other girls. You are strong and clever, and thought a great deal
of, and you are the chief man in the place for miles round; but where
is the good of all that if she hates you, and perhaps does you some
injury, and turns me out of doors?”
“She _doesn’t_ hate me, it’s only her childish pride; I know all about
that, and it does not trouble me a bit,”returned Pietro, coolly. “You
know I have promised to settle so much a year upon you if she marries
me, and I will engage that you shall stay here and have the use of the
cottage and the land rent-free, and be able to keep a servant. There!
So now, please to make up your mind at once, mother. Will you or won’t
you? yes or no?”
“I can’t—I daren’t.”
“Then be poor, as poor as the poorest in the place! Work is wholesome;
those who work long, live long! Good-bye, Mother Ceprano,” said the
young man, scornfully, moving to the door as he spoke.
“Stay!” cried the old woman, hoarsely. “I’ll do it.”
“When?”asked Pietro, still standing in the doorway.
“I will send you a message when I think there is a good chance. I shall
only say that I want you to come and speak to me, and then you can come
about eleven o’clock that night.”
“Well, then, it’s settled, mind. Be careful, don’t gossip, and, above
all, keep your word.”
“I shall keep my word,” said old Mother Ceprano, gloomily, as she
accompanied Pietro to the door; and as she went back into the now dark
kitchen, she muttered, “She can’t make a better match; he is rich, very
rich, and he is looked up to, and he is handsome, and there are others
worse than he. She will be all right, and what he says is quite true;
it is only a whim.”