A SUSPICIOUS CHARACTER.
"Who is that singer?" inquired Mrs. Cleveland in broken Italian of the
girl Giuseppina, who had just reentered the room with a large dish of
maccaroni which looked like a pile of tobacco-pipes.
"Improvisatore," answered the girl.
"What is that?" inquired Horace.
"An improvisatore," replied Mrs. Cleveland, "is one who makes poetry on
the spur of the moment. This class of minstrels is, I believe, peculiar
to Italy, the beautiful language of the country giving facility to
rapid composition. Do you suppose," she continued, addressing herself
to Giuseppina, "that the young man really made that song about prisons
himself?"
"Prisons," repeated the Calabrese, with a slight but expressive shrug
of the shoulders; "I should say that Raphael might very well sing about
prisons."
"You don't mean us to understand," said Horace, "that, young as he
seems, he has been acquainted with the inside of them?"
"Chi sa? (Who knows?)" replied the girl, with another expressive shrug,
as she placed his dish upon the table.
"He was never imprisoned, I trust, for any crime?" inquired Mrs.
Cleveland, more uneasy than ever at the recollection of Horace's
rudeness to the stranger.
"Chi sa?" repeated the girl.
"I cannot believe," said the lady, "that there can lurk much harm in
one with such a countenance, and such an exquisite voice."
"Oh, he's an Italian!" cried Horace, who rather prided himself on his
prejudices.
Giuseppina lingered, fidgeting about the table, moving the dish now to
the right, now to the left, as if she could never satisfy herself that
she had placed it perfectly straight.
"Does this Raphael, as you call him," said Horace, "earn his living by
his music?"
"Chi sa?" repeated Giuseppina, not looking up, but showing her teeth in
a meaning smile.
"Does the idle fellow do nothing but sing and play?"
"He cures the sick also," replied Giuseppina; "he gathers herbs, and
has wonderful power to take away fever, and to heal wounds from sword
or from shot. But," she added, crossing herself, and shaking her
head, "the abate (abbot) says that none can tell how he came by his
knowledge."
"This Raphael is looked upon, then, as rather a suspicious character?"
Giuseppina dropped her voice, and looked as if the desire to impart
information were struggling with a fear of danger from so doing as she
made answer:
"He is certainly no stranger to Matteo."
The last word was pronounced in a whisper so low, that both Mrs.
Cleveland and her son had to bend forward to catch the name.
"Who is Matteo?" asked Horace.
Giuseppina raised her hands and eyebrows with a gesture of surprise.
"Not know Matteo! All the world knows Matteo!" she said with low but
rapid utterance, glancing around her as she did so, as if to make sure
that no third listener was present. "We don't speak of him—no one
speaks of him—but—"
"But?" said Horace with some curiosity, as the speaker came to a pause.
"Oh!" continued Giuseppina, with the same stealthy look and quick
utterance. "Did not the signori hear how the government courier was
stopped and robbed of three hundred dollars on the high road, and the
Cavaliero Donato waylaid and shot dead? It is said that they owed him a
grudge. And the Contessa Albani was attacked in her detturino and all
her jewels taken, and her servants knocked on the head!"
"By whom—by this Matteo?" asked Horace, while his mother, who only
understood half of the girl's information, clasped her hands with a
gesture of alarm.
"Zitto! (Hush!)" whispered the talkative Calabrese, who appeared,
however, greatly to relish the diversion of frightening an English
lady. Horace looked as if he could not be frightened.
"And does your government do nothing to keep down such banditti?" said
young Cleveland. "What are the soldiers about?"
"I soldati! Ah!" replied Giuseppina with an expressive nod. "There was
a party of them here to-day, horsemen, on their way to Reggio; they had
a prisoner with them, arms bound behind his back—" The girl put back
her own elbows and scowled darkly, as if acting the part of a captured
bandit.
"I hope that it was this Matteo!" cried Horace.
"Zitto! (Hush!)" again whispered the girl. "It was not Matteo—they said
it was his son."
"I suppose that the soldiers were taking him to Reggio for trial!"
Giuseppina again nodded her head.
"And what is likely to become of him?"
The girl twisted her finger in the chain which she wore, tightening it
round her neck, but only answered with a shrug, "Chi sa?" And quitted
the room to bring in the rest of the dinner.
"Horace! What a dreadful place we have come to!" gasped Mrs. Cleveland.
The youth laughed as he seated himself at the table. "It is clear that
one has some chance of an adventure in Calabria," said he.
"Keep me from adventures!" exclaimed the lady. "Did not the girl tell
us—I could hardly understand her, for she spoke so fast—of people being
robbed and murdered on the high road by banditti?"
"Ah! But the soldiers are wide awake," suggested Horace, helping
the maccaroni. "I hope that they—" (he was not now speaking of the
military) "will bring us something better worth eating than this!"
Giuseppina pushed the door open with her knee, and reentered, a dish of
omelet in one hand, a second full of snow in the other, and a bottle of
wine under her arm.
"Where will the soldiers be to-night?" asked Mrs. Cleveland with some
anxiety. "I wish that we had asked for an escort."
"They'll be at Staiti, no doubt," answered Giuseppina, setting down the
viands which she had brought.
"We'll be at Staiti to-night also," said Horace; adding in English,
"so, mother, you need fear nothing."
"Staiti to-night! No, it would be dark ere the signori could arrive
there," observed Giuseppina; "The signori can have good beds here."
"Here!" exclaimed Horace, looking around him in disgust. "The place is
not fit for a hound!"
"But, my dear child," said Mrs. Cleveland, "safety is to be thought of
even before comfort."
Horace replied to his mother, like herself speaking in English, which
Giuseppina, unnecessarily loitering by the table, tried to understand
with her eyes, as it conveyed no meaning to her ears: "You talk of
safety as if this place were safe. Have you not just heard that one of
the gang of banditti is below—a fellow let loose from a prison?"
"The improvisatore?" said Mrs. Cleveland. "I did not understand that he
was actually one of the band."
"But I did," pursued Horace, in his overbearing manner; "and I saw the
master of this very house, who, by the way, looks a ruffian if ever
there was one, in close conference with this very Raphael, who has
doubtless come here for no good."
Mrs. Cleveland pushed away the plate of untasted food before her,
nervous anxiety having taken from the weary lady all inclination to
eat. Horace, to whom a little danger was rather a pleasant excitement,
had already half demolished the omelet.
"The signora is not well, the signora must not travel further to-day,"
suggested Giuseppina.
Horace glanced up hastily at his mother; but seeing on her anxious
countenance nothing to excite his fears for her health, he impatiently
motioned to the girl to quit the room, as he felt more at his ease when
her black eyes were not watching his lips, Giuseppina with lingering
step withdrew.
"I wish that you would eat, mother; you know that you will be quite
exhausted, if you don't," cried Horace in a tone of vexation.
"I can't travel in the dark—I can't go to be waylaid—robbed—perhaps—"
"Don't you see," cried Horace, striking the handle of his spoon on the
table to give more force to his argument, "that if we stay here we are
just as likely to come to grief? Have you never heard or read of horrid
little wayside inns kept by robbers in disguise; of beds contrived
to fall down upon travelers and crush them; of stealthy footsteps at
night—and all that sort of thing? Now this seems to be exactly the
place for such an unpleasant adventure."
"Oh, why did we ever come to Calabria?" exclaimed Mrs. Cleveland,
sinking back in her chair.
Horace felt some self-reproach for thus adding to the terrors of his
mother. He hastily finished his omelet, and said in a more reassuring
voice—
"You see, mother dear, if we once get to Staiti, we'll be under the
wing of the law: you can travel with a military escort like a queen."
"But it is the journey to Staiti—"
"Never fear that, it will soon be over; anything is better than
stopping here."
Horace presently pushed back his chair, and, rising from the table,
said to Mrs. Cleveland, "I'm going to order Jacomo to put to the
horses; the sooner we're off, the better;" and without waiting to hear
his mother's objections, the youth hastily left the apartment.
"Willful, unmanageable boy!" murmured the lady to herself. "He thinks
that he knows better than every one else, and I feel too much exhausted
and worn out to oppose him. The charge of such an ungovernable child
is too much for a poor widow like me. I should never have yielded to
his entreaties, and come to this horrible, desolate place. If I once
find myself again in a civilized land, once again know the comforts of
a home, nothing on earth shall persuade me to go a second time upon a
wild expedition such as this."