Cartouche. Frances Mary Peard
Her mother is English, if you will—what of that? And possibly the padrone did not treat her over well—who knows? He was a man who liked his own way, and perhaps did not much care how he got it. Altro! The signore knows that men are not all made in the same fashion, and the Capponi were used to being masters. At any rate, he is dead.”
“And his wife?”
“Si, signore, as you see. She married again, before the stone that covers his grave up at San Miniato had time to lose its whiteness. I go there sometimes. There are not many others that remember. But as I was saying, the signora married quickly, and this time it was to a stranger—an Englishman—with two children.”
“Two?”
“Two. There is a young man in some country of strangers, very probably it is England, and the signore has perhaps brought news of him? No? Ah, then he will see him on his return. That will delight the signorina, for she has given her heart to these newcomers. But for all that she cannot help being a Capponi, and no one can mistake her. Such a padrona as she makes! Such a head, such a head! Only ask them at the podere what it is like. The signore goes to Florence?”
“Yes,” said Jack, who had been lighting his cigar. “I suppose there is no shorter road than down this hill?”
“If the signore can keep in his dog he can branch off through the vineyards to the left. I will show him the path in a moment, and it will be much quicker.”
Andrea, delighted at this chance of a gossip, talked on as they went down the hill. It was chiefly loyal, admiring homage to the signorina which filled his mind, and Ibbetson was interested in the ideas he gathered of a homely and simple life, unlike that of which he was accustomed to think. When he parted from Andrea, it seemed to him as if he had known Bice for months instead of hours; a curious charm already hovered about her, and the remembrance of the wistful looks which sometimes crossed her face like a contradiction. He left the old man standing in the road, and turned off into the steep and stony track which had been pointed out to him as his path. No one was visible when he got among the vines, but following Andrea’s advice, he kept the unwilling Cartouche close by his side, and walked quickly, for it was growing late, though a bright moon made the blue sky clear. The air was light and fresh. A few olive trees, twisted and gnarled, bordered the path, their grey leaves catching the light like silver; then the Arno came into sight flooded with radiance; presently the twinkling lights of Florence gleamed out from dark masses of building, and cupola, and tower, and one larger blot which marked the Duomo of Our Lady of Flowers. All over the plain these lights glittered, faintly bright, here far apart, here tremulously disclosing themselves to the eye, as shyly as the stars of heaven itself. When Ibbetson reached the city streets he felt as if he had left enchantment behind him. The thoughts which had troubled him the evening before, now did not once intrude. Hetherton might never have been, and the charm of Italy was at work.
Chapter Four.
The Farm on the Hill.
Most people are acquainted with the sensation of being caught in a sudden and unexpected manner in some little eddy of society or circumstance, and how they are swept away before they know where they are. But if it is odd and startling to ourselves, it is much more so to those who are untouched by the currents; and when, at the appointed time on the next day, Ibbetson went off to Villa Carlina, he left Miss Cartwright a little perplexed at what he had told her, and at his newly-awakened interest.
To himself the villa, when it came in sight, seemed full of pleasant and friendly expectations. He heard sounds before he saw where they came from; then Cartouche boldly plunged under the banksia arches, and there was a little cry of dismay, laughter, children’s voices. “This way,” some one called out, and when he reached them he found a gay little company sitting under the green shade, and was welcomed without formality.
“Now we are all here, we will start directly,” said Bice. “Come, little children!”
But the children were in a state of ecstatic delight over Cartouche’s amazement at the hundreds of gold fish which came crowding to the edge of the pond. He barked and snapped, snapped and barked in vain, and at last, in a frantic attempt to reach them, tumbled headlong into the pond, out of which he scrambled with his enthusiasm a little checked.
Mrs. Masters was not going; the walk, she said, was quite beyond her strength, and they left her strolling back to the house, where she gave them the hope she might employ herself in writing some letters which had long been waiting. The others set off merrily. There was Giovanni Moroni, a youth of two or three-and-twenty, dark, bright-eyed, with cropped hair, and a frank pleasant smile. It was to his podere, high up the hill, that they were bound. There was also his sister, the Contessa, and her husband, who was grey-headed and fierce. The children were theirs; they came from Genoa, and were wild with delight at the country life and their escape from a dark old palace. Kitty and Cartouche speedily became their victims. Bice was kind, but, this afternoon at least, a little graver than the others, for many thoughts were rushing through her head as they went clambering and laughing up the hill.
That little outline which old Andrea had given to Jack told as much of her story as there was, to all appearance, to tell. But to her own thinking a great deal remained unknown—problems, possibilities, were sweeping through the air, and troubling her with a hundred perplexing doubts and shadows, which it was left to her unaided to solve or to disperse—to her, little more than a child, as she was! Everything was simple and a little dull to Mrs. Masters. She had gone through such ill-usage and insult as would have seared most women’s lives; and when it was all over, feathered out again with no more result than a mild assurance that from that time forward she had a right to whatever comfortable compensation she could get out of existence. Bice’s passionate little soul reached the same conviction through quite another road, through all sorts of fiery impulses, horror at her father’s cruelty, contempt, devotion, flinging of herself into the breach, heedless of anything she might have to suffer for her championship. So sad a warfare was it for a child to go through, that it was a wonder so much that was good and noble had survived it. She had always constituted herself her mother’s protector, and now that her father was dead she had a sort of odd notion that it was she who had to make up to her for the sufferings she had gone through. She was ready to accept Mr. Masters, anything that could help them to forget the old life. She was glad that her mother bore another name, and insisted upon sharing it herself against all law and right, and the equally persistent obstinacy of old Andrea. It was this which brought a sudden flame of anger into her cheeks that very afternoon, as they climbed along a steep stony track, on one side shaded by hawthorn bushes, on the other falling away into fields, a valley, and a little stream.
“One might be in England,” Ibbetson said, standing still to look round.
“Is it so like?” asked Bice eagerly. “Kitty never told me that it was. I shall come here often.”
“You have a great fancy for England, and yet you might be content with your own country,” said Jack smiling.
“England is my country,” she said, and it was then the red began to deepen in her cheeks.
“But you are a Capponi?”
She stopped and faced him, her eyes flashing, her whole figure quivering.
“Who told you so?” she cried angrily. “It was that old Andrea, I am certain. I will not have it. I am not Capponi any longer. I am English, and English only.”
She kept away from him for some time after this outburst, though he tried more than once to make his peace. It was only after he had pointedly called her by her mother’s name that she relented and became friendly again.
The podere lay some way up the hill which they were climbing. At last they reached it; a picturesque building well baked by the sun, with a low tower, tiled, a round arch or two, and deep eaves. Outside