ITALIA.
Seen by daylight, the entrance to Drea's house was not unlike the
entrance of a cave. The house itself was in a corner of the canal,
flush with the water, below the level of the street, and consisted of
two rooms--the long, large entrance room where the table had been laid
for the birthday supper, and another much smaller chamber beyond, which
belonged to Italia, and was lighted by a very small round window like
the port-hole of a ship, which looked out upon the water on the other
side of the bridge. The whole place indeed had been originally
designed for a Government boat-house and store-house, and was sunk in
the thickness of the massive stone pier.
On a sunny morning like this, when the door was thrown wide open, any
painter passing that way would have been charmed by the mysterious look
of the interior, the dark raftered ceiling, the smoke-embrowned
fireplace, above which a row of bright brass plates made round spots of
light in the darkness, and then the heavy coils of rope and the spare
oars, arranged with all a sailor's habit of neatness, against the
whitewashed wall. At dusk, and when the fire was burning, it was like
looking at an interior of Rembrandt's to watch the play of light and
shadow over the rich ruddy brown tones of the room; but on this
particular morning the fire had been allowed to sink to a mere handful
of red embers, and the room was full of the fresh smell of the sea air
and the brightness of the March sunshine.
At the foot of the stone steps leading down from the street before
Drea's door there was a narrow strip of stone pavement, and a floating
wooden stage where the boat was moored. In the corner there, where the
angle of the great granite buttress made a sheltered spot, was Italia's
favourite seat. By sitting well back in the shadow one was entirely
out of sight, unless indeed some especially adventurous spirit
bethought himself to take the trouble to lean bodily over the parapet
of the bridge overhead. But it was too busy a part of Leghorn for much
idling: all day long the tramp, tramp of hurrying feet, and the hollow
rumbling of the weighted carts rolling towards the lading ships, made a
dull, continuous bass, which effectually covered any sound of voices.
Italia could sing there by the hour over her work, sure of never being
heard, save perhaps by some taciturn weather-beaten fisherman poling
his flat-bottomed boat into the quieter water of the canal. It was
Drea's own landing-stage, and he was jealous of his rights to it,
giving but few boats the privilege of mooring there for an hour. Since
the building of the railway, now that the canal has ceased to be of use
for the heavier traffic between Leghorn and Pisa, a quieter spot than
this could scarcely be imagined. For even the supposititious idler
would scarcely be tempted to look this way when, just across the
bridge, by leaning over the opposite balustrade, one could look down
upon all the hurry and interest of the Old Port, and watch the slow
heaving of the anchors, the puffing excitement of the blackened vessels
getting up steam, or the continual come-and-go of the little boats
among the shipping.
The noise and the hurry passed like an unheeded stream around Italia's
sheltered corner. Dino had compared her once to an enchanted princess,
and her quaint rooms, with the silent, sunny platform in front of them,
to a strip of enchanted ground set apart from the disturbing
commonplaces of life. The remembrance of the old fancy brought a smile
upon his lips as he ran lightly down the steps that morning. Drea was
not there, and the old boat was not at her mooring, but Italia was
sitting just where he had expected to find her. She held a book in her
hand, but she was not reading, she was looking dreamily at the lazy
lapping of the water against the old wooden stage. She wore the same
blue cotton dress as on the previous night, but she had taken off her
beads and clasp, and tied a scarlet handkerchief about her neck. Her
hat was lying on the ground beside her; Dino picked it up, and his
first greeting was one of playful reproof.
'Bareheaded in this March sunshine, my Italia? _Pazzarella_! Your
father was right indeed when he said it required two of us to look
after you.'
'Dino _mio_!'
She looked up at him with a wide, dreamy glance, which suddenly grew
bright and loving. The hot colour rushed to her cheeks, and she put up
her little brown hands as if to hide them, while she laughed and shook
her head.
'_Marzo pazzo_, ah, yes, I know it. But indeed, Dino, this is much
more likely to drive me to distraction.' She opened the book on her
lap, and turned over half a dozen pages. 'I have really tried to learn
it, really. But it is so difficult; you have no idea how difficult it
is, Dino.'
'Poor little thing! It is a shame to give it such hard lessons,' said
Dino in a caressing tone, looking down at the rough brown hair. He
threw himself down on the pavement in the shadow at her feet, and put
up his hand for the book.
'Here! let me have a look at it, and see if I can't do something to
make it easier for you. What is it? Arithmetic? Oh! but this is what
I gave you to do long ago. No wonder you find it difficult; you have
had time to forget all my explanations. Let me see now; have you a
pencil?'
'Yes; but you can't write with it. I've broken the point.'
'Give it here, then, you helpless baby!'
He took a knife out of his pocket, and picking up the pencil began to
sharpen it while she sat watching him, her dark eyes full and bright
with such an expression of unquestioning content as one is not
accustomed to expect on faces which have outgrown their first childish
calm. The water of the canal was as blue that morning as the stainless
sky which it reflected, and it seemed almost as still; only now and
then the faintest ripple breaking against the step with a weak splash
and stir which made the sunbeams sparkle under the wooden platform.
Beyond the dark archway of the bridge the white-sailed boats came and
went; her glance followed their movement with a vague sense of happy
peace. She was realising for the first time the ideal of all
loving-natured women: she was feeling her happiness depend upon the
will of the man she trusted. When Dino looked up at her inquiringly
she started, as if indeed awakened from a dream.
'Have you understood? Is that plain enough? Oh, Italia! Italia! for
shame! Is that the way to treat a learned professor? You have not
been looking at the book after all,' he said laughing, but shaking his
head with mock severity.
The colour rushed back to her cheeks. 'Oh! I am so sorry, Dino; I
forgot.'
'Now, if I were your father I should tell you that one does not carry
flowers to the mill when what one wants is bread; and the quickest way
to become an arithmetician is not to sit watching for the boat. By the
way, speaking of the boat, Sor Drea must have gone out early this
morning.'
'Yes; he went at daybreak; he woke me up to tell me he was going. He
took Maso with him to help with the nets.'
'Ah! I wish I had known,' said Dino quickly.
'Father thought of going for you; then he said you would be tired--you
had a hard day yesterday. And Sora Catarina would not know yet of your
arrangement; she would have been frightened if you had been fetched
away suddenly in the middle of the night.'
She glanced quickly at him, and added, 'I am glad they did not go for
you; you look so tired this morning, Dino, as if you had not slept.'
'I did not sleep--much,' he said absently.
He threw his arm up and laid his head against it. His face was almost
on a level now with the blue ripple of the water. There was a handful
of loose straw floating about among the piles: he watched it come and
go as the current sucked in under the landing-stage. What was the good
of thinking--of remembering? Why had Italia alluded to last night?
Was he never to forget it for five minutes?
He sat up abruptly, brushing the hair out of his eyes; but as he moved
she spoke.
'Won't you give me the book now, Dino?' She bent her head down over
it: 'I did not mean to vex you; I did not mean to tease you when you
are so tired.'
She looked so like a child submitting to some half-understood reproof
that Dino could scarcely restrain the impulse of mingled tenderness and
adoration which made him long to take her in his arms and kiss her.
But he forced himself to answer lightly: 'What nonsense, little one; as
if anything you did could vex me!' He looked about him: 'I suppose I
ought to be going now. There is no telling when Sor Drea will be in if
he has taken the nets; but I wish you would sing to me--just one song
before I go.' He took the book away from her and closed it gently.
'After all, you are right; it is better to have music than to do one's
lesson on such a morning. Sums are made for different weather, are
they not, Italia _mia_? For days when the _libeccio_ blows, and one
does not mind wasting a whole morning over one terrible bit of
multiplication.'
'Oh, but even I am not quite so bad as that,' said Italia quickly. 'I
had only just brought out my book when you came; before then I had been
talking to the signor Padrone.'
'What!' said Dino, in quite an altered voice. He noticed the change
himself, but he could not prevent it; it was all he could do to ask the
question quietly, 'Has--has the Marchese Gasparo been here?'
'Surely,' said Italia, looking at him with some surprise; 'he came here
about an hour ago to speak about the boat to my father. He wants to
take a party of his friends out for a sail.' She added: 'I thought you
knew he had been here; he told me he had met you.'
'No, I did not know it,' said Dino, speaking between his teeth.
All the radiant sweetness of the day seemed blotted out before him. It
was very well for that child there innocently to accept this fiction
about the boat; but did not he, Dino, understand Gasparo better? A
dozen stories of the handsome Captain's powers of fascination flashed
back across him. He thought of the woman to whom he had carried the
letter that very morning. The letter! It was a trick to get him out
of the way; that was why Gasparo had turned that friendly smiling face
upon him, and talked of 'old times,' of 'days when they were boys
together,' and all the while he was planning this visit to Italia--damn
him!
He forgot all about Italia's presence. With a sudden prophetic feeling
he seemed looking straight ahead into the future. He could see exactly
what would happen, such an old, old story; and to think that such
misery could even come near Italia, his little playfellow, his little
girl. If he had only known in time; if he had warned that strange lady
when he spoke to her this morning, that would indeed have been fighting
Gasparo with his own weapons! And then he remembered the tone of her
voice when she spoke to him; to him, a man, not a girl, thrown upon her
mercy. 'When the waves beat too fiercely against the shore the rock
breaks them,' she said. And he was to go away, he had sworn it, and it
was in such hands that he was to leave the future of Italia!
He had been silent so long that she thought him very tired. Perhaps he
was depressed, too, about this sudden change in his fortunes. His
mother might have been finding fault with him; Italia was always a
little afraid of the Sora Catarina, who was associated in her mind with
dark reproving looks and a generally grave and joyless view of life.
It was always a matter of secret wonder to her when she heard her
father allude to the days when Dino's mother had been a young and
handsome girl. In her heart Italia could never imagine her looking
otherwise than imperious and miserable. It seemed quite probable now
that she should be the cause of Dino's look of unhappiness.
'I think you would be pleased to hear one thing,' she said gently.
'Signor Gasparo was talking to me this morning about my father. You
know the old Marchese always used to say that he should leave my father
something in his will because of the service he did that night when the
steamer was wrecked. You know, Dino; when we were children. And
Signor Gasparo says that since his father forgot to put it into his
will in writing, it makes no difference at all. He is going to speak
to the lawyers and to the Signora Marchesa about it, and my father will
have the money just the same. It is a great deal of money, three
hundred francs, in gold. Father can buy a new boat with it--dear
father! Are you not glad, Dino?' She was silent for a moment, and
then, for the first time, a shadow came across her face. 'I thought
you would be so glad. That was half the pleasure of it,--the telling
you,' she said rather wistfully.
'I _am_ glad,' Dino answered, in a harsh mechanical voice.
And then the blank look of disappointment on the sweet face bending
over him struck him like a pang. He sat up, rubbing both hands over
his head, and ruffling up his thick curly hair. 'My Italia, you must
know without my telling you if I am glad to hear of any good fortune
coming to you or to Drea. But you must be patient with me this
morning, _carina_. I have things to vex me; and I am very weary.'
'Poor Dino! It is my fault for tiring you. But I will sing to you
now. That will rest you better than anything else,' she said
soothingly, gazing down at him with frank loving eyes.
Dino smiled faintly. This sudden reawakening of thought was like the
clutch of a physical pain. 'Sing to me with your guitar. That is more
formal. It is more like making a stranger of me,' he said, answering
her look. As she moved away he shut his eyes, and buried his face
again on his folded arm. The last hope was gone. After this what
would be the use of warning Drea? The simple loyal-hearted old man was
as incapable of tempering his gratitude for a gift, with a criticism of
the giver's motives as the veriest child. His little store of wisdom
held no formula for such a case. It would be next to impossible to
make him believe in any form of treachery connected with the handsome
open-handed young master; and, even if it were possible, Dino foresaw
only too clearly what would be the first--the immediate result. For
had he not pledged himself to care for and protect Italia? And what
more natural than that her father should turn to him in this emergency?
He lay so quiet that Italia believed him to be half asleep. She looked
down at him two or three times as she sat there tuning her guitar; but
as he did not move she did not speak to him. Presently she began to
sing.
She sang song after song; odds and ends of old ballads; love-catches
such as the peasants sing to themselves while the sheep are grazing;
full rythmical snatches of modern Greek she had learned from wandering
sailors. She sang softly, _a mezza voce_, with an exquisite liquid
tenderness in her voice, like the lowest notes of a brooding bird.
Once, as there came a sound of dripping oars, she broke off suddenly.
A boat passed very near them, and she nodded with a smile to the stout
man in the faded uniform who was seated in the bows.
'What is it?' asked Dino, without lifting his head--he too had heard
the sharp click of the rowlocks.
'Dino! are you awake? And I thought you were sleeping so sweetly. Did
that boat wake you then? It was nothing; only the custom-house men
rowing old Captain Piero home to get his dinner. See! there he is
still waving his hand to me. I see him every day; he always passes at
this hour.'
'But he does not always see you singing a visitor asleep,' said Dino,
sitting up rather hastily and looking after the departed boat. 'No, I
was not dreaming, my Italia; unless it be a dream to feel one's whole
heart and soul full of you.' The words slipped out unintentionally; an
instant later he would have given anything to recall them. He felt
sure she had taken in their full meaning by the very silence which fell
upon her. She sat absolutely motionless; he was sure of it, but he
would not trust himself to look at her. He only added, in a tone which
he tried to make quite impersonal, 'I am afraid your Captain Piero will
only have a poor opinion of my politeness. Do you think we could
explain to him that I was not quite so insensible as I seemed?'
'I don't know,' said Italia, rising and laying down the guitar. She
moved away a few steps and stood leaning against the gray buttress, her
scarlet neck handkerchief making a vivid spot of colour there like a
flower.
'I can see--I think I can see my father's boat,' she said, bending
forward and taking hold of the edge of the bridge's arch.
'Take care!'
Dino got up and went and stood beside her.
'Don't lean too far forward, dear. Is that Drea's boat? What eyes you
have, my Italia! See, the wind is against her; she will have to come
in on another tack.'
The patched sail bent and dipped as he spoke. The boat seemed gliding
away from them.
He looked down at her. They were standing so close together now he
could see the quick rise and fall of her breath; the stirring of the
wind in her roughened hair; the quivering shadow where the long lashes
rested on her cheek.
One hand hung loosely by her side. He barely touched it, with fingers
that trembled.
'Italia!'
What were resolutions or remembrance? All the world had faded away;
there were no living presences now but himself and this girl beside
him, and that far-off winged boat moving slowly towards them across the
shining water. 'My Italia?' She turned a radiant face towards him.
The momentary shyness which had made her leave her place was gone now;
there was only left a deep look of rapture in the dark loving eyes.
'Yes, Dino. You _do_ love me. I know it,' she said simply. She did
not change her expectant attitude; but she moved her hand until the
little brown fingers clasped his.
They stood so for fully a minute without speaking, their eyes fixed on
the approaching boat. 'And you love me too, Italia? You will say that
you love me?' Dino said in a half whisper. He had not meant to say
this. He had resolved not to say it; but what was the good of prudence
now? The patched sail was drawing nearer; there was only this one
moment left in which fearfully to snatch at perfect joy. He held his
breath lest she should delay to speak.
But Italia answered him with grave simplicity. There was not the
shadow of a doubt in her heart, not a cloud upon her heaven of content.
Perhaps they had never been farther apart, these two, in all their
sensations, than at this first moment of supreme understanding.
'I do love you,' she said, in her clear full voice. And then at the
sound of her own words she started; Dino felt the movement of her
fingers in his; her eyes filled with happy tears, and the colour swept
in a quick wave over her pale face and throat. 'I think I have always
loved you--after my father--always, since I was a little girl, my
Dino,' she said softly.
'Only--after your father, Italia?'
She hesitated; but he had asked his question an instant too late, for
now the wind had really caught the flapping sail of the _Bella Maria_;
they could see the quick movement of old Drea's hand on the tiller, and
hear his voice calling out an order to Maso. In another moment the two
men had brought the old brown boat cleverly alongside. Dino made a
quick catch at the rope that was flung to him; there was a momentary
struggle of strong-armed Maso with the heavy sail.
'Well, lad,' said Drea, standing up at his place by the helm and
looking about him. 'Well, my little girl!'
'Was it a good morning's work, father?'
'_Mah_! ... I've seen worse days, child, I've seen worse days. Mind
what you are about with those nets, you Maso! That's right, lad; give
him a hand. We wanted another man with us, but I've seen worse hauls
for all that. You'll be ready to go out with us to-night, eh, Dino?'
'Yes, Sor Drea.'
'Ay, ay. You'd have come with us this morning fast enough, I'm
thinking, but the girl there wouldn't hear of my sending for you. "He
has had a hard day; he will be so tired, father," she said. Tired!
_Santissima Vergine!_ and she a sailor's daughter!' The old man
chuckled, straightening his back and rubbing his stiffened shoulder
joints. 'But, bless you, they're all alike, and even one's own
daughter is a woman. Women! they'll pray all day for rain, and be
frightened the first minute they see a cloud in the sky.--You'll get
your dinner here, Maso.'
Maso, a broad-backed young fellow in a blue jacket, looked up from the
wet heap of nets with a smile which showed all his white teeth. 'Ay,
Sor Drea.'
'And I must be off home,' said Dino, looking at Italia.
'Ay, lad. You'll stay another time likely. There won't be too much
dinner to-day for three of us,' the fisherman said simply, 'and Maso
has earned his share. The chestnut is for the man who takes its shell
off: that's my way o' thinking.'
'I could not stop in any case; thanking you kindly all the same, Sor
Drea. I told my mother I'd be back to dinner. By the way, I was to
ask you if it is all settled about our going up there?' he nodded in
the direction of Monte Nero.
'Ay, ay. 'Tis settled for Sunday fast enough. Sora Catarina has only
to get herself ready. We might have had worse luck, Maso; we might
have had worse luck. 'Twas stiffish work with only two of us,' old
Drea said, sitting down on the edge of the platform with his feet in
the boat to light his pipe. '_Mah! ... che volete_? There's nothing
like the day after a storm for finding out the colour o' the bottom o'
things. There's good in every wind that blows, lad, for a man who
knows how to set his sail.'
He thrust a heap of the wet shining fish aside with his foot.
'When there's not so many o' the big there's more o' the little. You
know what I'm always telling you. The Devil himself, _con rispetto
parlando_, the Devil himself has a curly tail.'
END OF VOL. I.