After Dark by Wilkie Collins (best desktop ebook reader txt) 📕

He said love knew no difference of rank; and that if he was a nobleman and rich, it was all the more reason why he should please himself. He was so kind, that I thought my heart would burst while he was speaking; and my little sister liked him so, that she got upon his knee and kissed him. Even our dog, who growls at other strangers, stole to his side and licked his hand. Oh, Father Rocco! Father Rocco!” The tears burst out afresh, and the lovely head dropped once more, wearily, on the priest’s knee.

Father Rocco smiled to himself, and waited to speak again till she was calmer.

“Supposing,” he resumed, after some minutes of silence, “supposing Signor Fabio really meant all he said to you—”

Nanina started up, and confronted the priest boldly for the first time since he had entered the room.

“Supposing!” she exclaimed, her cheeks beginning to redden, and her dark blue eyes flashing suddenly through her tears “Supposing! Father Rocco, Fabio would never deceive me. I would die here at your feet, rather than doubt the least word he said to me!”

The priest signed to her quietly to return to the stool. “I never suspected the child had so much spirit in her,” he thought to himself.

“I would die,” repeated Nanina, in a voice that began to falter now. “I would die rather than doubt him.”

“I will not ask you to doubt him,” said Father Rocco, gently; “and I will believe in him myself as firmly as you do. Let us suppose, my child, that you have learned patiently all the many things of which you are now ignorant, and which it is necessary for a lady to know. Let us suppose that Signor Fabio has really violated all the laws that govern people in his high station and has taken you to him publicly as his wife. You would be happy then, Nanina; but would he? He has no father or mother to control him, it is true; but he has friends—many friends and intimates in his own rank—proud, heartless people, who know nothing of your worth and goodness; who, hearing of your low birth, would look on you, and on your husband too, my child, with contempt. He has not your patience and fortitude. Think how bitter it would be for him to bear that contempt—to see you shunned by proud women, and carelessly pitied or patronized by insolent men. Yet all this, and more, he would have to endure, or else to quit the world he has lived in from his boyhood—the world he was born to live in. You love him, I know—”

Nanina’s tears burst out afresh. “Oh, how dearly—how dearly!” she murmured.

“Yes, you love him dearly,” continued the priest; “but would all your love compensate him for everything else that he must lose? It might, at first; but there would come a time when the world would assert its influence over him again; when he would feel a want which you could not supply—a weariness which you could not solace. Think of his life then, and of yours. Think of the first day when the first secret doubt whether he had done rightly in marrying you would steal into his mind. We are not masters of all our impulses. The lightest spirits have their moments of irresistible depression; the bravest hearts are not always superior to doubt. My child, my child, the world is strong, the pride of rank is rooted deep, and the human will is frail at best! Be warned! For your own sake and for Fabio’s, be warned in time.”

Nanina stretched out her hands toward the priest in despair.

“Oh, Father Rocco! Father Rocco!” she cried, “why did you not tell me this before?”

“Because, my child, I only knew of the necessity for telling you to-day. But it is not too late; it is never too late to do a good action. You love Fabio, Nanina? Will you prove that love by making a great sacrifice for his good?”

“I would die for his good!”

“Will you nobly cure him of a passion which will be his ruin, if not yours, by leaving Pisa to-morrow?”

“Leave Pisa!” exclaimed Nanina. Her face grew deadly pale; she rose and moved back a step or two from the priest.

“Listen to me,” pursued Father Rocco; “I have heard you complain that you could not get regular employment at needlework. You shall have that employment, if you will go with me—you and your little sister too, of course—to Florence to-morrow.”

“I promised Fabio to go to the studio,” began Nanina, affrightedly. “I promised to go at ten o’clock. How can I—”

She stopped suddenly, as if her breath were failing her.

“I myself will take you and your sister to Florence,” said Father Rocco, without noticing the interruption. “I will place you under the care of a lady who will be as kind as a mother to you both. I will answer for your getting such work to do as will enable you to keep yourself honestly and independently; and I will undertake, if you do not like your life at Florence, to bring you back to Pisa after a lapse of three months only. Three months, Nanina. It is not a long exile.”

“Fabio! Fabio!” cried the girl, sinking again on the seat, and hiding her face.

“It is for his good,” said Father Rocco, calmly: “for Fabio’s good, remember.”

“What would he think of me if I went away? Oh, if I had but learned to write! If I could only write Fabio a letter!”

“Am I not to be depended on to explain to him all that he ought to know?”

“How can I go away from him! Oh! Father Rocco, how can you ask me to go away from him?”

“I will ask you to do nothing hastily. I will leave you till to-morrow morning to decide. At nine o’clock I shall be in the street; and I will not even so much as enter this house, unless I know beforehand that you have resolved to follow my advice. Give me a sign from your window. If I see you wave your white mantilla out of it, I shall know that you have taken the noble resolution to save Fabio and to save yourself. I will say no more, my child; for, unless I am grievously mistaken in you, I have already said enough.”

He went out, leaving her still weeping bitterly. Not far from the house, he met La Biondella and the dog on their way back. The little girl stopped to report to him the safe delivery of her dinner-mats; but he passed on quickly with a nod and a smile. His interview with Nanina had left some influence behind it, which unfitted him just then for the occupation of talking to a child.

 

Nearly half an hour before nine o’clock on the following morning, Father Rocco set forth for the street in which Nanina lived. On his way thither he overtook a dog walking lazily a few paces ahead in the roadway; and saw, at the same time, an elegantly-dressed lady advancing toward him. The dog stopped suspiciously as she approached, and growled and showed his teeth when she passed him. The lady, on her side, uttered an exclamation of disgust, but did not seem to be either astonished or frightened by the animal’s threatening attitude. Father Rocco looked after her with some curiosity as she walked by him. She was a handsome woman, and he admired her courage. “I know that growling brute well enough,” he said to himself, “but who can the lady be?”

The dog was Scarammuccia, returning from one of his marauding expeditions The lady was Brigida, on her way to Luca Lomi’s studio.

Some minutes before nine o’clock the priest took his post in the street, opposite Nanina’s window. It was open; but neither she nor her little sister appeared at it. He looked up anxiously as the church-clocks struck the hour; but there was no sign for a minute or so after they were all silent. “Is she hesitating still?” said Father Rocco to himself.

Just as the words passed his lips, the white mantilla was waved out of the window.

PART SECOND.

CHAPTER I.

Even the master-stroke of replacing the treacherous Italian forewoman by a French dressmaker, engaged direct from Paris, did not at first avail to elevate the great Grifoni establishment above the reach of minor calamities. Mademoiselle Virginie had not occupied her new situation at Pisa quite a week before she fell ill. All sorts of reports were circulated as to the cause of this illness; and the Demoiselle Grifoni even went so far as to suggest that the health of the new forewoman had fallen a sacrifice to some nefarious practices of the chemical sort, on the part of her rival in the trade. But, however the misfortune had been produced, it was a fact that Mademoiselle Virginie was certainly very ill, and another fact that the doctor insisted on her being sent to the baths of Lucca as soon as she could be moved from her bed.

Fortunately for the Demoiselle Grifoni, the Frenchwoman had succeeded in producing three specimens of her art before her health broke down. They comprised the evening-dress of yellow brocaded silk, to which she had devoted herself on the morning when she first assumed her duties at Pisa; a black cloak and hood of an entirely new shape; and an irresistibly fascinating dressing-gown, said to have been first brought into fashion by the princesses of the blood-royal of France. These articles of costume, on being exhibited in the showroom, electrified the ladies of Pisa; and orders from all sides flowed in immediately on the Grifoni establishment. They were, of course, easily executed by the inferior work-women, from the specimen designs of the French dressmaker. So that the illness of Mademoiselle Virginie, though it might cause her mistress some temporary inconvenience, was, after all, productive of no absolute loss.

Two months at the baths of Lucca restored the new forewoman to health. She returned to Pisa, and resumed her place in the private workroom. Once re-established there, she discovered that an important change had taken place during her absence. Her friend and assistant, Brigida, had resigned her situation. All inquiries made of the Demoiselle Grifoni only elicited one answer: the missing work-woman had abruptly left her place at five minutes’ warning, and had departed without confiding to any one what she thought of doing, or whither she intended to turn her steps.

Months elapsed The new year came; but no explanatory letter arrived from Brigida. The spring season passed off, with all its accompaniments of dressmaking and dress-buying, but still there was no news of her. The first anniversary of Mademoiselle Virginie’s engagement with the Demoiselle Grifoni came round; and then at last a note arrived, stating that Brigida had returned to Pisa, and that if the French forewoman would send an answer, mentioning where her private lodgings were, she would visit her old friend that evening after business hours. The information was gladly enough given; and, punctually to the appointed time, Brigida arrived in Mademoiselle Virginie’s little sitting-room.

Advancing with her usual indolent stateliness of gait, the Italian asked after her friend’s health as coolly, and sat down in the nearest chair as carelessly, as if they had not been separated for more than a few days. Mademoiselle Virginie laughed in her liveliest manner, and raised her mobile French eyebrows in sprightly astonishment.

“Well, Brigida!” she exclaimed, “they certainly did you no injustice when they nicknamed you ‘Care-for-Nothing,’ in old Grifoni’s workroom. Where have you been? Why have you never written to me?”

“I had nothing particular to write about; and besides, I always intended to come back to Pisa and see you,” answered Brigida, leaning back