THE YOUNG MASTER.
The young man who entered--not waiting to have his knock answered, but
throwing the door wide open before him with an easy air of good-natured
authority--this newcomer, was dressed in the uniform of an officer of
the King's Guards. As he came into the low smoke-embrowned room he was
at once the brightest object there; the firelight caught and flashed
upon all manner of resplendent buttons and knots and gold lacings, and
on the shining hilt of his sword. His long, glittering spurs rang
sharply against the bare stone floor. 'It is the Prince out of the
fairy tale, Italia; the fairy Prince,' said little Palmira
breathlessly, and stared with her great brown
eyes, clutching at Italia's hand.
'The Marchese Gasparo! the young master!' old Drea cried out in a loud
voice, pulling off his round woollen cap.
They all stood up, even Dino, who strolled away a few steps from the
table to the fireplace, where he began fingering a small dusty model of
a boat: it had stood in that same place, between two handfuls of
shells, as far back as he could remember anything.
'I only came home to-day. I've lost no time in looking you up, old
Drea. My mother was not expecting me back so soon, and half the rooms
are shut up at the Villa--the house is as musty as a tomb. It was so
dull I couldn't stay in after dinner,' the young Marchese said, with a
quick, comprehensive glance at the two women present. His open face
grew still more frankly bright at the sight of Italia; he took a step
forward and doffed his cap, and made her a profound and smiling bow.
'And this is my little playmate, then; _this_ is the little girl who
used to go out with us in the old boat while Drea was teaching me to
fish,' he said, looking at her hard.
'Ay, she's grown, she's grown, my little girl has. Per Bacco! it's six
years now, or more, since you have seen her; it's no wonder if you find
her changed, signor Marchese.'
'I find her--changed!' the young man echoed, smiling. The tone of his
voice was a _resume_ of all unspoken compliments. There could be no
doubt of what he thought of this alteration; and Dino, by the
fireplace, looked around with a sudden sharp pang of jealousy and
wonder.
He had not spoken, but no movement seemed to escape the soldier's quick
keen glance.
'What! Dino?--Dino de Rossi? Why, man, what is the matter with you?
You look like a thunder-cloud. Aren't you glad to see me home again,
then?' the young Marquis asked laughingly, and was pleased to hold out
his hand to his old acquaintance and foster-brother, bidding him cheer
up and not stand there sulking, 'if it were only out of respect to the
signorina's beautiful eyes.'
'Nay, she is no signorina; her name is Italia, at the signor Marchese's
service,' old Drea interposed, gravely enough. Young men would be
young men; but it would be well if the Marchese Gasparo should
recollect the difference, and to be spoken of in this way by one of the
'padroni' brought with it an uneasy sense of incongruity: it was like
one of the gods walking upon the earth and claiming human familiarity.
Old Drea probably cared more about pleasing his young master than for
any other thing in the world unconnected with Italia. He was very
susceptible to the influences of education and rank. 'Ay, there are
differences between us workingmen just as there are differences between
the donkeys; but your cleverest donkey will only think of seven tricks,
while his master can think of eight,' he had said to Dino only a day or
two before; and the fact that 'the masters' knew best was a quite
unquestioned source of comfort and satisfaction to the loyal,
simple-hearted old man. All genuine reverence implies a certain poetry
of nature; there was a good deal of romantic admiration--the old
feeling of the clansman to his chief--mixed up with the affection and
respect with which he contemplated his young guest. And Gasparo was
well aware of the fact. He liked the old man, too, in his way; above
all, he liked to be liked. All pleasant sensations were natural to
him, and the simple admiration which surrounded him now was warm and
agreeable, like the sunshine. Things had not been made quite so
pleasant to him at the Villa. He had found the household unprepared to
receive him, the house in disorder, and the old Marchesa, his mother,
more grimly logical than complaisant on the subject of his gambling
debts. But here, at least, there was no fear of encountering
irritating criticism. He was always ready to do a good-natured thing
_en bon prince_; and now, as he took a seat beside the table--it was
Drea's chair--and let the old man fill him up a glass of the sour wine,
it was impossible altogether to resist the charm and gaiety of his
manner. There was something satisfactory and winning in the very tones
of his voice, in the glance of his quick smiling eyes, in the firm
ready pressure of his hand. When he asked Italia to sing him a song,
which he did presently, it was with the air of pleading for some favour.
'The child's ready enough to sing; and proud enough she ought to be to
think you should have remembered her voice all these years. But she
was always like a little singing bird, when she was no higher than my
knee. Lord! how well I can remember it--taking her out with me in the
old boat, and she, no bigger than that, sitting on the nets and singing
away to herself, soft like, till you could think of nothing else but a
summer morning, when the boat is anchored off shore, and the larks are
just rising in the meadows. But there! 'tis I am keeping the Captain
from his music after all,' old Drea said, with an apologetic laugh.
Italia had taken her guitar from Dino's hands; she took it with a smile
and a blush, as she had taken the Captain's pretty speeches, and moved
away to the other end of the room. Her voice was the lowest, sweetest
contralto. When she began to sing her face grew serious and composed.
'Why does Italia look so unhappy as that? She looks like one of the
saints on the cathedral window, as if she were saying her prayers,'
Palmira whispered into Lucia's ear. She was awe-struck with admiration
of the Captain's sword, which he had taken off before sitting down at
the table. 'Do you think, Lucia; do you think he would let me touch it
if Italia were to ask him?' she said.
The Captain did not seem in the humour to object to anything. The
song--or was it the singer?--had given him far more pleasure than he
had expected. He told her so, after a moment's hesitation.
'Indeed, I am very glad, sir. I shall be very glad to sing for you as
much as you like, and father pleases,' Italia answered, looking at him
with a great deal of kindness and pleasure. Indeed, every instinct of
her nature was always prompting her to do some kindness to some one.
As she sat there on her low seat, bending over her guitar, the
firelight shining full upon her small dark head and flushed cheeks, and
on the movement of her little brown wrists, Dino could not turn his
gaze away from her. Another man's admiration is a background against
which many an ordinary woman has shone clad in unaccustomed graces to
her lover's eyes. But in this case Dino wanted no confirming in his
devotion: it was only that seeing her there, listening to another man's
compliments, had given a slight shock to the sense of unquestioning
security which had grown up with him since the very first earliest days
of his love. Already he began to look back with some jealous
uneasiness at the past years when Italia had seemed as much his, and as
much a necessity of his being, as the breath he drew. True, he had
never spoken to her about it, at least not in so many definite words;
that was partly because she was still so young--only eighteen on this
birthday, and partly too that there had seemed no need for vexing his
mother beforehand: he had not money enough to marry upon as yet, and
his mother was sure to object; she had always discouraged his being so
much at Drea's. But now all these considerations seemed to go for
nothing, to become futile and irrelevant seen in the light of this new
possibility that another man could step in and attempt to carry away
his own especial treasure from before his very eyes. Dino had but
little of old Andrea's capacity for personal reverence; there was not
enough modesty in his own nature for that; so that it did not strike
him as so utterly preposterous that a man in the young Marchese's
position should fall seriously in love with a fisherman's daughter. On
the other hand, there was always a certain doubt lurking at the bottom
of his strongest assertions of equality. He had no weight of simple
conviction to steady his possession of the theories which attracted him
the most. There was always a struggle between his intelligence and his
instincts. Things outside and away from his creed of conduct appealed
to him. He could not take life simply: there was the exaggeration of
effort in his innermost beliefs. He looked at Italia: he looked with
almost more than a woman's sensitiveness, to material impressions at
the gallant and determined bearing of the man beside her, whose frank
and noble beauty was only like an additional distinction--an emphasis
of class differences. No devout believer in the divinest rights of
kings could have recognised those differences more keenly than Dino did
at that moment. For there is nothing ambiguous in the secret language
of jealousy: 'And they say--_we_ say--that one man is as good as
another without regard to his rank! I was a fool--a fool,' De Rossi
reflected bitterly.
Gasparo seemed to have a talent for seeing everything. He took his
cigarette case out of his pocket and asked old Drea for a light; then
he said: 'There _are_ changes. Why, even the old gardens up there at
the Villa seem to have grown smaller. I remember I thought there was
no end to them when I was a boy.'
'Ay, there's something in a place, but there's more in the eye that
looks at it. And you'll have seen a many fine places since then, sir,
and a many fine people, I'll warrant. It's only the little people and
the little places in life that don't change much; they're away down at
the bottom, in the still water, out o' reach o' the tide. You'll not
find much change in us, sir. There's not a question if we're proud and
glad to see you back.'
'Oh, if there's any change among you it's not of the kind I'm finding
fault with,' the young man said, glancing again at Italia; 'only it
makes one feel how much time has passed. Why, you must be getting an
old man now yourself, Drea--beginning to think about giving up work and
settling down for a bit--while you look out for a husband for Italia.
You'll need to find a good fellow. But perhaps you have done that
already.'
'Nay, as for that,--the little girl can wait for a bit,--she can wait a
bit yet,' her father answered slowly, taking his pipe out of his mouth
and knocking the ashes on the table. 'Our girls are not like the young
ladies you're accustomed to, sir,--with nothing to do but sit in their
chairs while they pick and choose. Gentlefolks--Lord bless you!
they've got one paradise here on earth, and, as for the other one,
they've got plenty o' money to spend in masses--they've only got to pay
for it. But with us 'tis different, you see.' He took up his glass of
wine, looked at it thoughtfully for a moment, and then emptied its
contents down his throat with a sudden jerk of his wrist. 'And I'd
never be one to urge a girl to jump at the first comer,' he said
cheerfully, leaning across the narrow table to emphasise his remark.
'No, no, patience never spoilt any man's luck. And the biggest
fish--they're often nearest the bottom--they're nearest the bottom, eh,
Sora Lucia?'
'Gesu Maria! how should _I_ know?' the little woman murmured hurriedly,
with an apologetic look at the young Marchese. 'In my time we did not
think these things should be discussed before young--young persons,'
she said primly; it would have seemed a familiarity to her if she had
used a common expression such as, 'before young girls.'
'Nay, nay, Lucia _mia_, you won't make us swallow that!' retorted Sor
Drea, with another chuckle of supreme good humour. 'You won't make us
swallow it, my dear. For you'll sooner find an old man without an ache
than a young girl without a lover,--eh, signor Marchese? 'Tis the good
Lord who made us all, who chose to make us in that way, and where's the
harm in speaking of it?' He filled his glass up with a more unsteady
hand. 'There's Dino over there looking at me like a black
thunder-cloud,--but I suppose I may say what I like about my own
daughter in my own house,--eh, boy?'
'I was not contradicting you, Sor Drea,' the young man answered quietly.
'Nay, lad, nay, I meant no malice. But it's a poor sort of business to
waste your breath whistling for yesterday's breeze. Cheer up, lad!
There's always plenty o' good work to the fore when a man's ready to do
it. Ready and cheery,--even the dog can earn his dinner by wagging his
tail.'
Gasparo laughed. 'Well, I must be going,' he said, and stood up and
put out his hand for his belt and sword. As he was buckling it about
him his eye fell upon Palmira's pale intent little face. He sat down
again.
'Come here, child,' he said, and held out his hand.
'Go to the gentleman, Palmira. Go and tell him what your name is, like
a good little girl, and don't be frightened,' said Lucia hastily, with
a general tug at the child's frock.
Palmira looked at her with flashing eyes. 'I am not frightened,' she
said indignantly, and went and stood composedly beside Gasparo's knee.
When he asked, 'Shall I show you my sword?' her eyes flashed again.
She held her breath, and the colour rose in her thin little cheeks.
'May I touch it?' she asked, and drew one small forefinger carefully
across the shining blade. After a moment's consideration, 'Have you
killed many giants with it?' she said; 'you know--like the fairy
Prince.'
'Ay, hark to that, will you? there's a brave little girl for you!' said
old Drea with an inward chuckle, and an irrepressible wink at Dino.
'She'd kill giants, would she? It's her mother all over.'
Gasparo laughed again. 'And what do you know about the fairy Prince?'
'Italia told me. He wore shining clothes, and a sword, and he carried
away the Princess from the enchanted tower. And he was beautiful to
look at,--like you, Italia said----'
'Palmira!'
'Look here, my small friend,--oh, your name is Palmira, is it? Very
well, then; look here, Palmira. Did no body ever explain to you that
one is not allowed in this world to repeat what other people say until
one is old enough to know better? No? Well, then, remember that. No
girl is ever allowed to have her own way until she is old enough to do
mischief. And now, look here.' He drew a ring off his finger, a plain
band of gold set with a large turquoise. 'Do you think that is pretty?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Very pretty?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Well, then,--under the circumstances,--do you think if we asked Sor
Drea, you and I, to let us give it to Italia, because it is her
birthday, and because I have not brought her any other present, do you
think he would let us do it, Palmira? Here, take the ring and ask him.'
Italia put down her guitar and stood up. She gave one rapid glance at
Dino, and turned very pale. 'The Signor Marchese is too kind, father.
Indeed, I do not want the ring. It is--it is too beautiful for me. I
should lose it.'
'Nay,' said Drea simply, 'since the signor Marchese wishes to give it
to you, child----' He turned the bauble over curiously upon the curved
and hardened palm of his hand. 'Craving your pardon, signor Gasparo,
but is it gold?'
Gasparo put his hand up to his mouth and twisted his moustache to
conceal a smile. 'Certainly,' he said.
'Real gold? _Diamine_! it is not often that I've handled it. And that
little blue thing there in the middle, has that got a name of its own?'
''Tis a turquoise. They are said to bring good luck and happiness,'
the young man said carelessly enough. And then he looked with a
certain reproach at Italia. 'If I had known I might have found you
something that would have pleased you better----'
'No one ever made me a present before. I--Father knows that I am not
used to them,' the girl said shyly. She took Palmira's hand in hers,
and began stroking the little fingers.
'Nay, take it, my little girl, take it. And put it away in some safe
place. Keep it to be married with. 'Twill be so much money saved when
we come to think of your wedding. And 'twill be a fine thing to
remember--when you've got children of your own--that you were married
with a gold ring off our young master's own finger. It was very kind
of you to think of it, sir; it's not every one would ha' thought of
anything so kind. You must excuse my little girl if she didn't seem to
thank you properly. It's only that she is not used to being made so
much of; it's not that she's ungrateful or lacking in her duty.'
He spoke with a simple earnestness which was not devoid of dignity.
'I like old Drea. He's such a good old boy. There's not a more honest
old fellow in Leghorn,' Gasparo said cordially, a few moments later, as
the two young men came out into the cold night air together. 'The
devil take that wind if it is not beginning to blow a _libeccio_! That
child will be blown over the steps if you don't look after her. Been
out in Drea's boat much this winter, Dino?'
'No, sir.'
'Too rough, eh? Yet I remember you used to beat me at managing a boat
when we were little chaps together. _Che diavolo_! how time flies! It
seems only yesterday--until one looks at that girl in there. There's a
beauty if you like. What eyes! and did you ever notice how she smiles
with 'em?'
Palmira felt her brother's fingers closing with a sudden thrill upon
her own. He did not answer for nearly a minute. 'If you are speaking
of Italia, sir----'
Gasparo burst into a wild laugh. 'Oh, no! How could you think it? I
was speaking of the other woman, of course. Maria--Lucia--what's her
name? Your little dressmaking friend with the beads. How she did look
at me, _per Bacco_! you would have thought I was in league with the
very devil himself.'
'The women are not accustomed to your manner, sir. You must be
indulgent enough to make allowances for our ignorance. No doubt when
they have found out how much your kind interest is worth----'
'Look here, my good fellow. You're my foster-brother and all that.
And my mother is very fond of yours--by the way you must tell Sora
Catarina to come up and see me at the Villa. But as for noticing
anything which you may choose to say--why, my good Dino, you are really
asking too much of me! There! Don't lose your temper--and don't
swear. It's not the child's fault--is it, my dear? And so good-night
to you, little one; and here's something to buy yourself sugar-plums
with. Good-night! _Au revoir_, friend Dino!'
He turned abruptly on his heel and strode off down the street without
waiting for an answer, the wild stormy moonlight shining full upon his
handsome face. He walked on, humming an air from the new opera, and
then, 'Poor devil!' he said aloud, and smiled with an easy insolent
amusement.
Before her brother could speak Palmira had flung the silver coin upon
the pavement. 'I don't want it; I won't have it,' she said
passionately. 'I would not keep it, not--not if Italia told me to!'
She clasped both her small cold hands about one of Dino's. 'Why did he
speak like that? and why did he laugh at you? He is not like the fairy
Prince at all--he is like some wicked enchanter who has come to spoil
everything. Oh, I liked him so; and now I wish he had never come!' she
said. 'Oh, Dino, I wish he had never come!'
And at the door of their house she still clung to her brother. 'Must
you go to the club to-night? Can't you wait for some other night?
Won't you come upstairs with me? Must you go?' she asked wistfully.
Dino looked down at the small earnest face and patted her cheek.
'Good-night, little one. Run along upstairs. You ought to have been
in bed hours ago. Do you know what time it is, and what the mother
will say to you?'
'But, Dino, are you going?'
He glanced out at the dark street. 'Yes.'
'Dino, I want to whisper to you.'
He laughed. 'You little torment,' he said, but he bent his head
obediently.
'Dino, does Italia know about your going there--about the club?'
She felt him give a sudden start at the question. 'What do you mean?'
he asked roughly.
'I know that every time you go there you come back looking so
angry--oh, so angry! And mother cries while you are away. I've seen
her when she thought I was asleep. And, Dino,' she laid her little
cheek against his, 'Italia told me to take care of you. "Take good
care of Dino," that was the last thing she said to me to-night. And I
said I would. I wonder if I ought to let you go there?' the child said
gravely.
'Did Italia say that?' He drew a long breath, and then stooped down
and kissed her. 'There, run along now. There's a good child.'
He stood waiting at the foot of the stairs till the sound of the small
footsteps had stopped at an upper landing, and a shrill childish voice
was heard calling out, 'I'm here. Take care of yourself, my Dino!'
Then he went out again into the street.