Cartouche. Frances Mary Peard
young Moroni, the latter led the way to a door in the wall, within which was a kind of rough garden, full of fig-trees laden with fruit. One or two brown-faced boys came running with tables and chairs.
“Ah! but this is truly idyllic, my Giovanni,” said the young countess, sinking into a chair. “If I must confess the truth, I could not have walked another ten steps.”
She was not exactly pretty, but slender and fragile-looking, and she generally contrived to do as much as she liked and no more. Her fierce husband adored and petted her, and she was very fond of him and of the children, whom she expected him to keep in order or amuse as the case might be. Wherever she was she liked to form the centre, and now she managed to draw them all round her, except Bice. Bice strolled away alone towards the other end of the garden, here and there picking a rose, or one of the half-wild flowers which grew without care just as they had been stuck in. The girl was in a strange and dissatisfied mood that day; it seemed as if different strings were vibrating together, making odd discords and harmonies. Some had been set in motion by things which Ibbetson had said the day before, others had been touched and jarred, she scarcely knew how or why: questions and perplexities seemed to have awakened just at the moment when she had intended them to be silent. From that father from whose memory she shrank she had inherited many characteristics: among them a strong will, and a desire to thrust whatever was painful to her out of sight. “Why should I be obliged to remember now?” her heart cried out angrily, as she turned and looked at the gay little group, already beckoning to her to return to them. “Give is Kitty’s own brother, and she is not thinking about him, and Oliver has not come yet, and things are not worse than they were yesterday, when I was not half so unhappy. And to-day I meant to enjoy myself and to forget it all. Why does it come back now?”
She was impatient at her own weakness and yet could not master it; tears rushed into her eyes, she turned hastily away, and laid her arms upon a low wall, heedless, for the moment, of anything but her own unhappiness.
“You must not desert us in this way,” said some one behind. “We are waiting for you before we begin the great business of the day, which is much more formidable than I thought.” And then his voice changed, and, became very kind and grave. “Is anything the matter? Has anyone vexed you, that you go away and leave us?”
For she had turned and looked him full in the face, careless that the tears were running down her cheeks. A desperate longing seized her to tell him her troubles and to ask his help. The poor child had so few from whom she could seek it, that it seemed to her as if this kind voice might give her aid in the labyrinth where she was losing herself. The longing was of course utterly foolish and unreasonable. Jack was an utter stranger, and the next moment her face burnt at the thought of what her impulse had been. He for his part could not understand the piteous appeal in her eyes, or the change in which it died out. She said quickly—
“Vexed? Oh, no! I was unhappy because I was thinking of my brother Clive.”
“Is he ill?”
“No, not ill. He is in some trouble in England. I don’t quite know what it is myself,” she went on, looking frankly at him, “and I dare say that makes it worse. But it is nothing new, and I cannot think why it should come to me so strongly just now. Do you ever feel as if things seized you with a rush and without any reason?”
Jack thought of his walk by the Arno the night before. This girl with her changing moods, her frank appeals, interested him. He felt a strong desire to help her—a desire which was perhaps made more vigorous by the consciousness of her wonderful beauty. He answered the first part of her speech.
“You must have so many friends that it seems ridiculous to suppose that I can do anything about your brother. But can I?”
A sudden gladness lit her eyes.
“Could you?” she said, eagerly answering his question by another. “I daresay you could. You are very much mistaken if you suppose we have many friends; I don’t know that we have any at all.”
It was said slowly and as if she were considering, and for that very reason it almost startled Jack. The words were strange, coming from such lips.
“That is impossible,” he said decidedly. “But about your brother?”
“It is a long story, you see. I couldn’t tell you now.”
“No, I understand, of course you couldn’t. Come back to the other’s,” he went on kindly. “You can talk the matter over with your mother and your sister,”—Bice shook her head with an amused smile—“and tell me when you like. Then we will see what can be done.”
The swift changes in her face and manner were certainly interesting. The cloud had passed; she was smiling, radiant, flashing out with odd unexpected speeches, playing with Cartouche, helping Giovanni to pick up the figs, helping everybody. Two or three boys ran up the tree like squirrels, and in a few minutes had brought great baskets full. All the Moroni party ate them Italian fashion, as a sandwich between raw ham and bread; the contessa teased Bice.
“She knows there is nothing more delicious; it is only the Anglo-mania which prevents her doing as we do. I can forgive Kitty—but you, Bice!”
Ibbetson thought that young Moroni looked annoyed. “Why should the signorina have Anglo-mania?” he said hotly. “At any rate the signore has just said there are no such figs in England.”
“Ah, why, why, why?” cried out the girl gaily. “Do not let us ask questions or find fault. Do you know, Giovanni, that it is absolutely delicious here in your old farm garden. I did not think it had been half so pleasant.”
“Yet you have been here before,” said the young man, flushing with delight.
“Was it it like this? Then I must have forgotten. There is nothing so nice at our podere.”
“Have you a farm?” Ibbetson asked Kitty.
“Yes,” she said, with a little shy stiffness in her manner. “It is in another direction.”
“And who manages it?”
“Bice is really padrona. But the contadino, who is the tenant, manages it; you know that is the custom here. He pays us half of everything, the live stock and the crops.”
So long a speech was almost too great an effort for Kitty, and she jumped up and took refuge with the children, who were sitting in a heap munching figs, and occasionally trying to thrust one down Cartouche’s throat. A boy in the tree over their heads tossed the cool green fruit into their laps.
“Pippa has only eaten twelve,” said little Gigi, planting his white teeth in the rind. “Only twelve! That is because she is a girl, and so little!”
Pippa plodded on sturdily, paying no attention to the insult. The broad leaves cast broken masses of shade upon the long grass, the clear whiteness of the western sky was changing to amber.
“How well you speak our language!” said the little contessa graciously to Ibbetson. “Believe me, it is a compliment we all appreciate. Now when Bice’s other English friend is here, the Signore—Trent—how do you call him? we are obliged to fall back upon French. Eh, Bice, it is so, is it not?”
“Yes,” said the girl shortly.
She was grave again, as Ibbetson remarked. The changes in her manner and in her face were so rapid that he found himself watching and wondering. He had never met with anyone who showed so openly whatever passed across her mind.
“Is he coming again soon? He is your relative, is he not?” persisted the contessa.
“He is Kitty’s cousin.”
It was the first time she had spoken as if Kitty and she were not absolutely one in their possessions, and her tone had an unwilling ring about it. Perhaps it piqued her friend’s curiosity, for she threw back her head, and said in a low amused voice—
“You are mysterious, carina. Is the subject too sacred to be discussed?”