OH BELLO!
An hour or two has passed. A slow and cautious step, accompanied with
the tapping of a stick upon the stone flags of the floor, is audible
along the narrow passage leading from the sala to Pipa's room. It
is as dark as pitch. Whoever it is, is afraid of falling, and creeps
along cautiously, feeling by the wall.
Pipa, expecting to be summoned to her mistress--Pipa, wondering
greatly indeed what Enrica can be about, and why she does not go
to bed, when she, the blessed dear, was so faint and tired, and
crying--oh, so pitifully!--when she left her--Pipa, leaning against
the door-post near the half-open door, dozing like a dog with one eye
open in case she should be called--listened and looked out into the
passage. A figure is standing within the light that streams out from
the door, a very well-remembered figure, stout and short--a little
bent forward on a stick--with a round, rosy face framed in snowy
curls, a world of pleasant wickedness in two twinkling eyes, on which
the light strikes, and a mouth puckered up for any mischief.
"Madonna!" cries Pipa, rubbing her eyes--"the cavaliere! How you did
frighten me! I cannot bear to hear footsteps about when Adamo is
out;" and Pipa gazes up and down into the darkness with an unpleasant
consciousness that something ghostly might be watching her.
"Pipa," says the cavaliere, putting his finger to his nose and
winking palpably, "hold your tongue, and don't scream when I tell you
something. Promise me."
"O Gesù!" cries Pipa in a loud voice, starting back, forgetting his
injunction--"is it not about the signorina?"
"Hold your tongue, Pipa, or I will tell you nothing."
Pipa's head is instantly close to the cavaliere's, her face all
eagerness.
"Yes, it is about the signorina--the countess. She is gone!"
"Gone!" and Pipa, spite of warning, fairly shouts now "gone!" at which
the cavaliere shakes his stick at her, smiling, however, benignly all
the time. "Holy mother! gone! O cavaliere! tell me--she is not dead?"
(Ever since Pipa had tended Enrica lying on her bed, so still and
cold, it seemed reasonable to her that she might die at any instant,
without warning given.)
"Yes, Pipa," answers the cavaliere solemnly, his voice shaking
slightly, but he still smiles, though the dew of rising tears is in
his merry eyes--"yes, dead--dead to us, my Pipa--I fear dead to us."
Pipa sinks back in speechless horror against the wall, and groans.
"But only to us--(don't be a fool, Pipa)"--this in a parenthesis--"she
is gone with her husband."
Pipa rises to her feet and stares at Trenta, at first wildly, then, as
little by little the hidden sense comes to her, her rosy lips slowly
part and lengthen out until every snowy tooth is visible. Then Pipa
covers her face with her apron, and shakes from head to foot in such
a fit of laughter, that she has to lean against the wall not to fall
down. "Oh hello!" is all she can say. This Pipa repeats at intervals
in gasps.
"Come, Pipa, that will do," says the cavaliere, poking at her with his
stick--"I must get back before I am missed--no one must know it till
morning--least of all the marchesa and Guglielmi. They are shut up
together. The marchesa says she will sit up all night. But Count
Nobili and his wife are gone--really gone. Fra Pacifico managed it. He
got hold of Adamo, who was running round the house with a loaded
gun, all the dogs after him. Take care of Adamo when he comes back
to-night, Pipa. He is fastening up the dogs, and feeding them, and
taking care of poor Argo, who is badly hurt. He is quite mad, Adamo.
I never saw a man so wild. He would not come in. He said the marchesa
had told him to shoot some one. He swore he would do it yet. He nearly
fought with Fra Pacifico when he forced him in. Adamo is quite mad.
Tell him nothing to-night; he is not safe."
Pipa has now let down her apron. Her bright olive-complexioned face
beams in one broad smile, like the full moon at harvest. She is still
shaking, and at intervals gives little spasmodic giggles.
"Leave Adamo to me" (another giggle); "I will manage him" (another).
"Why, he might have shot the signorina's husband--the fool!"
This thought steadies Pipa for an instant, but she bursts out again.
"Oh hello!"--Pipa gurgles like a stream that cannot stop running; then
she breaks off all at once, and listens. "Hush! hush! There is
Adamo coming, cavaliere--hush! hush! Make haste and go away. He is
coming--Adamo; I hear him on the gravel."
"Say nothing until the morning," whispers the cavaliere. "Give them a
fair start. Ha! ha!"
Pipa nods. Her face twitches all over. As Cavaliere Trenta turns to
go, Pipa catches him smartly by the shoulder, draws him to her, and
speaks into his ear:
"To think the signorina has run away with her own husband! Oh bello!"