BEGINNING A NEW LIFE.
As if to favor Giovanni's plot, it chanced, that, in the morning of
the next day, Mrs. Ginniss received a sudden summons to the bedside
of Ann Dolan, the friend whose advice had led to Teddy's being
placed in his present situation.
The messenger had reported that Ann was "very bad wid her heart, an'
the life was knocked out intirely, sure:" and Mrs. Ginniss felt
herself bound to hasten to the help of her friend, should she still
be alive; or to see that she was "waked dacent" if dead. Just as she
was wondering if it was best to take Cherry with her, or to leave
her locked up alone until her return, Giovanni appeared at the door,
his face disposed in its most winning smile, and his manner as
respectful as if he had been addressing the marchsa who had been
his own and his daughter's patron.
"Will my good neighbor allow that the little girl go for a walk with
me this fine morning?" asked he. "I would like to show her the
flowers and the swans in the gardens of the city."
"An' will you take the monkey an' the grind-orgin the day?" asked
Mrs. Ginniss doubtfully.
"Indeed, no! I go to a walk to enjoy the fine time, and to see the
flowers and the swans," explained Giovanni in his best English, and
with a proportion of bows and smiles; while Cherry stood by, her
little face full of surprise and mystery, not unmingled with a
little shame as she felt that her good mammy was being deceived and
misled by the wily Italian.
"Faith, thin, Mr. Jovarny, it's very perlite ye are iver an' always;
but I don't jist feel aisy wid the child out uv my sight. Mabbe
she'd better wait till night, when Teddy can take her out."
"Oh, let me go, mammy! I want to go with 'Varny, and I'll bring
you"--
"Yes; we'll get the pretty flowers to bring to mammy, she would
say," interrupted the Italian hastily; and Mrs. Ginniss, looking
down at the little anxious face and pleading eyes, found her better
judgment suddenly converted into a desire to please her little
darling at any rate, and to see her smile again in her own sunny
fashion.
"Sure, an' ye shall go, 'vourneen, if it's that bad ye're wantin'
it," said she, stooping to take the child in her arms; and, as
Cherry kissed her again and again, she added,--
"An' it's well ye don't ask the heart out uv me body; for it's inter
yer hand I'd have to give it, colleen bawn."
Giovanni looked on, his half-shut, black eyes glittering, and a wily
smile wrinkling his sallow cheek.
"Every one has his day," muttered he in Italian, "Your's to-day,
good woman; mine to-morrow."
Half an hour later, Cherry, dressed as neatly as her foster-mother's
humble means and taste would allow, and her face glowing with
pleasure and excitement, skipped out of the door of the
tenement-house, looking like the fairy princess in a pantomime as
she suddenly emerges from the hovel where she has been hidden.
Giovanni followed, carrying a bundle, and his violin wrapped in
papers. These, he explained to Mrs. Ginniss, were only some matters
he had to leave with a friend as he went along; but he should not go
into any house, or take the little girl anywhere but for the walk he
had mentioned.
"Faix, an' it's mighty ginteel ye are, anyway, Misther Jovarny,"
said the Irishwoman, watching the pair from the window of her attic
as they walked slowly up the street. "But I'm afther wishin' I'd
said no whin I said yis. Nor yet I couldn't tell why, more than that
Teddy'll be mad to hear she's been wid him. But the b'y hasn't sinse
whin it's about the little sisther he's talkin'. He thinks the
ground isn't good enough for her to walk on, nor goold bright enough
for her to wear."
So saying, Mrs. Ginniss closed the window, and, throwing a little
shawl over her head, locked the door, leaving the key underneath,
and hurried away to her sick friend, with whom she staid till nearly
night.
Giovanni and Cherry, meantime, walked gayly on, chatting, now of the
wonderful things about them, now of the yet more wonderful scenes
they were to visit. At a confectioner's shop, in a shady by-street,
they stopped to rest for a while; and the Italian provided his
little guest with ice-creams, cakes, and candies, to her heart's
content.
"I like these better than potatoes and pork-meat. I used to eat
these in heaven," said the little girl, pausing to look at a
macaroon, and then finishing it with a relish.
The Italian laughed.
"Canary-birds do not feed with crows," said he. "When we are rich,
picciola, you shall never eat worse than this."
"Shall we be rich soon, 'Varny?" asked the child eagerly.
"Upon the moment almost, if you will dance and laugh, and look so
pretty as you can, always."
"But we needn't stop to be very rich before we go and carry some of
the nice things to mammy," rejoined Cherry anxiously.
"No, no, indeed! We will but make a little turn in the country, and
come back princes. But mind you this, picciola: I am to be your
father now, or all the same; and I shall tell every one that you are
my own little girl: so you must never say, 'Not so.'"
"But mammy said my father was dead, and Teddy said so too. He was
Michael darlint."
"I doubt not that Signor Michaelli died, and has gone to glory; but
I strangely doubt if he were thy father, picciola," said the Italian
with a grave smile. "However that may be, forget that you have ever
had other father than me, and call me so always: 'Mio padre,' you
must say, and no more 'Varny. Also, too, you must speak in Italian,
as I shall to you; and never, as you do now, in English."
"But mammy and Teddy don't know Italian," said Cherry, beginning to
look a little troubled.
"'In Rome, do as the Romans do.' When you are again with the woman
and boy, speak as they speak: with me, speak as I speak."
Giovanni said this more decidedly than he had ever spoken before,
and Cherry looked quickly up at him.
"Is that the way you talk because you want to make believe you are
my father?" asked she.
A sudden smile shot across the Italian's face, lighting its dark
features like a gleam of sunshine sweeping across a pine-clad
mountain-land.
"Shame were it to me, dear little heart, if to be thy father were to
make thee less happy than thou hast been with those others," said he
softly in Italian, and using the form of address, which, in almost
every language but the English, marks a different and more tender
relation from that indicated by the more formal plural pronoun.
"You will be happy with me if we do not soon revisit these people we
leave behind?" asked he.
The child's eyes grew large and deep as she fixed them upon his
face, and presently asked,--
"Are you going with me to try to find heaven again?"
"Perhaps: who knows, picciola? The heaven you miss may come to you
more easily if you go to seek it. At any rate, I will carry thee no
farther from it. But come: we must get to our journey."
Leaving the confectioner's shop, Giovanni lingered no longer in the
gay streets, or even upon the fresh green grass of the Common, where
Cherry would have staid to play all day. Hurrying across it, and
through some crowded streets, the Italian entered a large
station-house, where stood the train of cars, already half filled
with passengers; while the engine, puffing and panting with
impatience, seemed unwilling to wait a moment longer.
Leaving Cherry in the ladies' room, the Italian bought his tickets,
and reclaimed from the baggage-room, where he had left it, his
organ, with Pantalon chained to the top of it. Then, calling the
child, he hurried with her into the cars, and selected a seat behind
the door, in the evident wish of being seen as little as possible.
"Now, then, Ciriegia mia, we go to seek our fortune," said he, as
the train left the station, and began to rush through the suburbs of
the city, scattering little dirty children, vagrant dogs, leisurely
pigs, and dawdling carriages driven by honest old ladies, from its
track.
Cherry never had ridden in the cars before; and she clung tight to
the sleeve of her companion, afraid to move, or even to speak, until
he laughingly asked,--
"It does not fear, the poor little one, does it?"
"No, I guess not, 'Varny," replied the child doubtfully; but the
Italian sharply said,--
"What is this 'Varny you say? I am mio padre."
"I forgot. Won't I tumble out of this carriage, my father, it goes
so quick?"
"Fear nothing, figlia mia. You are safe with me and with Pantalon,"
said the Italian, drawing the little girl close to his side; while
the monkey, crouching upon the organ at their feet, chattered his
own promises of protection and comfort.
With 'Toinette, to live was to love and trust; and, clinging close
to her new guardian's side, she laid her little shining head upon
his breast, clinging with one hand to the lappet of his coat; and,
laughing down at Pantalon, she fell presently asleep.
At night the Italian left the train, and took lodgings at a hotel
near the centre of a large town. His little charge-tired, hungry,
and sleepy-was very glad to have supper, and to be allowed to go to
bed, where she slept soundly until summoned the next morning by
Giovanni, who brought her some breakfast with his own hands, and,
placing it upon the table, laid a bundle of clothes beside it.
"Rise and eat, carissima," said be gayly; "and then make thyself as
beautiful as the morning with these fine clothes. See, here are
roses from the garden for a wreath! They are better than the others.
When thou art ready, come out to me."
He left the room; and 'Toinette, rising, made a hasty breakfast; and
then, putting on the brocade-silk dress, and placing upon her head
the wreath Giovanni had twisted of natural flowers for her, she
peeped into the glass, and laughed aloud at the fanciful and
beautiful image that met her eyes.
"I am glad I look so pretty," murmured she, with an innocent delight
at her own beauty, that was not vanity, although, it might, if
untrained, lead to it.
"Come, Ciriegia, are you never ready?" called Giovanni from the
other side of the door; and Cherry, running to open it, exclaimed in
Italian,--
"Oh, see, my father! am I not beautiful?"
"Truly so; but you should not say it, bamb¡na. The charm of a maiden
is her modesty," said the Italian gravely.
"But, if it is true, why mustn't I say so?" asked Cherry positively.
"Many things that we know are never to be said, Ciriega. But come,
now: you are to dance first for these people, and they will make no
charge for our beds and the miserable provender they have given us."
As he spoke, Giovanni led the way to the lower hall of the hotel,
where a number of men were lounging, smoking, or talking; while
through the open doors of the parlor and office were to be seen some
ladies and gentlemen, idling away the hour after breakfast, before
proceeding to their business, their journey, or their amusement.
Placing himself in the centre of the hall, Giovanni, with a bow to
the company, played a little prelude, and then struck into the
lively strains of the cachuca.
Cherry, who had stood looking at him, her head slightly bent, her
lips apart, eyes and ears alert to catch the signal to begin,
pointed her little foot at the precise moment, and, holding her
dress in the tips of her slender fingers, slid into the movement
with a grace and accuracy never to be attained except by vigorous
practice, or a temperament as sensitive to time and tune, limbs as
supple, and impulses as graceful, as were those of this gifted and
unfortunate child.
"See there!-the poor little thing!" exclaimed one of the ladies, who
came to the door of the drawing-room to see the performance.
"How can you say poor little thing?" asked another. "Don't you see
how she enjoys it herself? That smile is not the artificial grimace
of a ballet-dancer; and no eyes ever sparkled so joyously to order."
"Perhaps she does enjoy it; but all the more 'Poor little thing!'
say I," rejoined the first speaker, adding thoughtfully, "What sort
of training for a woman is that?"
"Oh, well! but it is very pretty to see her; and she would probably
be running in the streets, or doing worse, if she did not dance; and
so little as she is! It is equal to the theatre."
The speaker drew out her purse as she spoke, and carelessly threw a
dollar-bill towards the child, who had finished her dance, and stood
looking round with an innocent smile, as if asking for applause
rather than reward.
"Go and take it, carissima; and then hold your hand to the others;
each will give you something," said Giovanni in a low voice.
"How much we shall have to carry to mammy!" exclaimed the child
eagerly; and, as she gathered in her harvest, she chattered away,
always in Italian,--
"And more, and more, and more! O my father! how many cents they
give me! What nice people they are! Let me dance some more for them;
and let Pantalon come down, and let them see him."
" No, no, child! These are not of those who would care for Pantalon.
While you rest by and by, I shall take him and the organ, and go
about the streets; but your little feet are worth many Pantalons to
me. Come, we will give them the tarantella as they have done so
well."
Skipping to his side, with a childish grace more attractive than the
studied movements of the most accomplished actress, Cherry stuffed
the proceeds of her first attempt into the pocket of her guardian,
and then, throwing herself into position, went through the wild and
grotesque movements of the tarantella, with a life and freshness
that drew from the spectators a burst of applause and surprise.
"That will do. We must not give them too much at once, lest the
wonder come to an end. Make the pretty kiss of the hand, figlia mia,
and run up the stairs to your own little room."
Cherry obeyed, calling back, as she disappeared, "Tell them I will
dance some more for them by and by if they want me to."