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

from Florence, who had just entered the room. “Strengthen yourself to bear the worst,” he continued, addressing himself to Fabio. “She is dying. Can you compose yourself enough to go to her bedside?”

Pale and speechless, Fabio rose from his chair, and made a sign in the affirmative. He trembled so that the doctor who had first spoken was obliged to lead him out of the room.

“Your mistress has some near relations in Pisa, has she not?” said the doctor from Florence, appealing to the servant who waited near him.

“Her father, sir, Signor Luca Lomi; and her uncle, Father Rocco,” answered the man. “They were here all through the day, until my mistress fell asleep.”

“Do you know where to find them now?”

“Signor Luca told me he should be at his studio, and Father Rocco said I might find him at his lodgings.”

“Send for them both directly. Stay, who is your mistress’s confessor? He ought to be summoned without loss of time.”

“My mistress’s confessor is Father Rocco, sir.”

“Very well—send, or go yourself, at once. Even minutes may be of importance now.” Saying this, the doctor turned away, and sat down to wait for any last demands on his services, in the chair which Fabio had just left.

CHAPTER III.

Before the servant could get to the priest’s lodgings a visitor had applied there for admission, and had been immediately received by Father Rocco himself. This favored guest was a little man, very sprucely and neatly dressed, and oppressively polite in his manner. He bowed when he first sat down, he bowed when he answered the usual inquiries about his health, and he bowed, for the third time, when Father Rocco asked what had brought him from Florence.

“Rather an awkward business,” replied the little man, recovering himself uneasily after his third bow. “The dressmaker, named Nanina, whom you placed under my wife’s protection about a year ago—”

“What of her?” inquired the priest eagerly.

“I regret to say she has left us, with her child-sister, and their very disagreeable dog, that growls at everybody.”

“When did they go?”

“Only yesterday. I came here at once to tell you, as you were so very particular in recommending us to take care of her. It is not our fault that she has gone. My wife was kindness itself to her, and I always treated her like a duchess. I bought dinner-mats of her sister; I even put up with the thieving and growling of the disagreeable dog—”

“Where have they gone to? Have you found out that?”

“I have found out, by application at the passport-office, that they have not left Florence—but what particular part of the city they have removed to, I have not yet had time to discover.”

“And pray why did they leave you, in the first place? Nanina is not a girl to do anything without a reason. She must have had some cause for going away. What was it?”

The little man hesitated, and made a fourth bow.

“You remember your private instructions to my wife and myself, when you first brought Nanina to our house?” he said, looking away rather uneasily while he spoke.

“Yes; you were to watch her, but to take care that she did not suspect you. It was just possible, at that time, that she might try to get back to Pisa without my knowing it; and everything depended on her remaining at Florence. I think, now, that I did wrong to distrust her; but it was of the last importance to provide against all possibilities, and to abstain from putting too much faith in my own good opinion of the girl. For these reasons, I certainly did instruct you to watch her privately. So far you are quite right; and I have nothing to complain of. Go on.”

“You remember,” resumed the little man, “that the first consequence of our following your instructions was a discovery (which we immediately communicated to you) that she was secretly learning to write?”

“Yes; and I also remember sending you word not to show that you knew what she was doing; but to wait and see if she turned her knowledge of writing to account, and took or sent any letters to the post. You informed me, in your regular monthly report, that she nearer did anything of the kind.”

“Never, until three days ago; and then she was traced from her room in my house to the post-office with a letter, which she dropped into the box.”

“And the address of which you discovered before she took it from your house?”

“Unfortunately I did not,” answered the little man, reddening and looking askance at the priest, as if he expected to receive a severe reprimand.

But Father Rocco said nothing. He was thinking. Who could she have written to? If to Fabio, why should she have waited for months and months, after she had learned how to use her pen, before sending him a letter? If not to Fabio, to what other person could she have written?

“I regret not discovering the address—regret it most deeply,” said the little man, with a low bow of apology.

“It is too late for regret,” said Father Rocco, coldly. “Tell me how she came to leave your house; I have not heard that yet. Be as brief as you can. I expect to be called every moment to the bedside of a near and dear relation, who is suffering from severe illness. You shall have all my attention; but you must ask it for as short a time as possible.”

“I will be briefness itself. In the first place, you must know that I have—or rather had—an idle, unscrupulous rascal of an apprentice in my business.”

The priest pursed up his mouth contemptuously.

“In the second place, this same good-for-nothing fellow had the impertinence to fall in love with Nanina.”

Father Rocco started, and listened eagerly.

“But I must do the girl the justice to say that she never gave him the slightest encouragement; and that, whenever he ventured to speak to her, she always quietly but very decidedly repelled him.”

“A good girl!” said Father Rocco. “I always said she was a good girl. It was a mistake on my part ever to have distrusted her.”

“Among the other offenses,” continued the little man, “of which I now find my scoundrel of an apprentice to have been guilty, was the enormity of picking the lock of my desk, and prying into my private papers.”

“You ought not to have had any. Private papers should always be burned papers.”

“They shall be for the future; I will take good care of that.”

“Were any of my letters to you about Nanina among these private papers?”

“Unfortunately they were. Pray, pray excuse my want of caution this time. It shall never happen again.”

“Go on. Such imprudence as yours can never be excused; it can only be provided against for the future. I suppose the apprentice showed my letters to the girl?”

“I infer as much; though why he should do so—”

“Simpleton! Did you not say that he was in love with her (as you term it), and that he got no encouragement?”

“Yes; I said that—and I know it to be true.”

“Well! Was it not his interest, being unable to make any impression on the girl’s fancy, to establish some claim to her gratitude; and try if he could not win her that way? By showing her my letters, he would make her indebted to him for knowing that she was watched in your house. But this is not the matter in question now. You say you infer that she had seen my letters. On what grounds?”

“On the strength of this bit of paper,” answered the little man, ruefully producing a note from his pocket. “She must have had your letters shown to her soon after putting her own letter into the post. For, on the evening of the same day, when I went up into her room, I found that she and her sister and the disagreeable dog had all gone, and observed this note laid on the table.”

Father Rocco took the note, and read these lines:

 

“I have just discovered that I have been watched and suspected ever since my stay under your roof. It is impossible that I can remain another night in the house of a spy. I go with my sister. We owe you nothing, and we are free to live honestly where we please. If you see Father Rocco, tell him that I can forgive his distrust of me, but that I can never forget it. I, who had full faith in him, had a right to expect that he should have full faith in me. It was always an encouragement to me to think of him as a father and a friend. I have lost that encouragement forever—and it was the last I had left to me!

“NANINA.”

 

The priest rose from his seat as he handed the note back, and the visitor immediately followed his example.

“We must remedy this misfortune as we best may,” he said, with a sigh. “Are you ready to go back to Florence to-morrow?”

The little man bowed again.

“Find out where she is, and ascertain if she wants for anything, and if she is living in a safe place. Say nothing about me, and make no attempt to induce her to return to your house. Simply let me know what you discover. The poor child has a spirit that no ordinary people would suspect in her. She must be soothed and treated tenderly, and we shall manage her yet. No mistakes, mind, this time! Do just what I tell you, and do no more. Have you anything else to say to me?”

The little man shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.

“Good-night, then,” said the priest.

“Good-night,” said the little man, slipping through the door that was held open for him with the politest alacrity.

“This is vexatious,” said Father Rocco, taking a turn or two in the study after his visitor had gone. “It was bad to have done the child an injustice—it is worse to have been found out. There is nothing for it now but to wait till I know where she is. I like her, and I like that note she left behind her. It is bravely, delicately, and honestly written—a good girl—a very good girl, indeed!”

He walked to the window, breathed the fresh air for a few moments, and quietly dismissed the subject from his mind. When he returned to his table he had no thoughts for any one but his sick niece.

“It seems strange,” he said, “that I have had no message about her yet. Perhaps Luca has heard something. It may be well if I go to the studio at once to find out.”

He took up his hat and went to the door. Just as he opened it, Fabio’s servant confronted him on the thresh old.

“I am sent to summon you to the palace,” said the man. “The doctors have given up all hope.”

Father Rocco turned deadly pale, and drew back a step. “Have you told my brother of this?” he asked.

“I was just on my way to the studio,” answered the servant.

“I will go there instead of you, and break the bad news to him,” said the priest.

They descended the stairs in silence. Just as they were about to separate at the street door, Father Rocco stopped the servant.

“How is the child?” he asked, with such sudden eagerness and impatience, that the man looked quite startled as he answered that the child was perfectly well.

“There is some consolation in that,” said Father Rocco, walking away, and speaking partly to the servant, partly to himself. “My caution has misled me,” he continued, pausing