Part 13 (2/2)
”Perhaps,” said t.i.to, smiling, ”unless Messer Bernardo should next recommend Bardo to require that I should yoke a lion and a wild boar to the car of the Zecca before I can win my Alcestis. But I confess he is right in holding me unworthy of Romola; she is a Pleiad that may grow dim by marrying any mortal.”
”_Gnaffe_, your modesty is in the right place there. Yet fate seems to have measured and chiselled you for the niche that was left empty by the old man's son, who, by the way, Cronaca was telling me, is now at San Marco. Did you know?”
A slight electric shock pa.s.sed through t.i.to as he rose from the chair, but it was not outwardly perceptible, for he immediately stooped to pick up the fallen book, and busied his fingers with flattening the leaves, while he said--
”No; he was at Fiesole, I thought. Are you sure he is come back to San Marco?”
”Cronaca is my authority,” said Nello, with a shrug. ”I don't frequent that sanctuary, but he does. Ah,” he added, taking the book from t.i.to's hands, ”my poor Nencia da Barberino! It jars your scholarly feelings to see the pages dog's-eared. I was lulled to sleep by the well-rhymed charms of that rustic maiden--'prettier than the turnip-flower,' 'with a cheek more savoury than cheese.' But to get such a well-scented notion of the contadina, one must lie on velvet cus.h.i.+ons in the Via Larga--not go to look at the Fierucoloni stumping in to the Piazza della Nunziata this evening after sundown.”
”And pray who are the Fierucoloni?” said t.i.to, indifferently, settling his cap.
”The contadine who came from the mountains of Pistoia, and the Casentino, and heaven knows where, to keep their vigil in the church of the Nunziata, and sell their yarn and dried mushrooms at the Fierucola [the little Fair], as we call it. They make a queer show, with their paper lanterns, howling their hymns to the Virgin on this eve of her nativity--if you had the leisure to see them. No?--well, I have had enough of it myself, for there is wild work in the Piazza. One may happen to get a stone or two about one's ears or s.h.i.+ns without asking for it, and I was never fond of that pressing attention. Addio.”
t.i.to carried a little uneasiness with him on his visit, which ended earlier than he had expected, the boy-cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, youngest of red-hatted fathers, who has since presented his broad dark cheek very conspicuously to posterity as Pope Leo the Tenth, having been detained at his favourite pastime of the chase, and having failed to appear. It still wanted half an hour of sunset as he left the door of the Scala palace, with the intention of proceeding forthwith to the Via de' Bardi; but he had not gone far when, to his astonishment, he saw Romola advancing towards him along the Borgo Pinti.
She wore a thick black veil and black mantle, but it was impossible to mistake her figure and her walk; and by her side was a short stout form, which he recognised as that of Monna Brigida, in spite of the unusual plainness of her attire. Romola had not been bred up to devotional observances, and the occasions on which she took the air elsewhere than under the loggia on the roof of the house, were so rare and so much dwelt on beforehand, because of Bardo's dislike to be left without her, that t.i.to felt sure there must have been some sudden and urgent ground for an absence of which he had heard nothing the day before. She saw him through her veil and hastened her steps.
”Romola, has anything happened?” said t.i.to, turning to walk by her side.
She did not answer at the first moment, and Monna Brigida broke in.
”Ah, Messer t.i.to, you do well to turn round, for we are in haste. And is it not a misfortune?--we are obliged to go round by the walls and turn up the Via del Maglio, because of the Fair; for the contadine coming in block up the way by the Nunziata, which would have taken us to San Marco in half the time.”
t.i.to's heart gave a great bound, and began to beat violently.
”Romola,” he said, in a lower tone, ”are you going to San Marco?”
They were now out of the Borgo Pinti and were under the city walls, where they had wide gardens on their left-hand, and all was quiet.
Romola put aside her veil for the sake of breathing the air, and he could see the subdued agitation in her face.
”Yes, t.i.to mio,” she said, looking directly at him with sad eyes. ”For the first time I am doing something unknown to my father. It comforts me that I have met you, for at least I can tell _you_. But if you are going to him, it will be well for you not to say that you met me. He thinks I am only gone to my cousin, because she sent for me. I left my G.o.dfather with him: _he_ knows where I am going, and why. You remember that evening when my brother's name was mentioned and my father spoke of him to you?”
”Yes,” said t.i.to, in a low tone. There was a strange complication in his mental state. His heart sank at the probability that a great change was coming over his prospects, while at the same time his thoughts were darting over a hundred details of the course he would take when the change had come; and yet he returned Romola's gaze with a hungry sense that it might be the last time she would ever bend it on him with full unquestioning confidence.
”The _cugina_ had heard that he was come back, and the evening before-- the evening of San Giovanni--as I afterwards found, he had been seen by our good Maso near the door of our house; but when Maso went to inquire at San Marco, Dino, that is, my brother--he was christened Bernardino, after our G.o.dfather, but now he calls himself Fra Luca--had been taken to the monastery at Fiesole, because he was ill. But this morning a message came to Maso, saying that he was come back to San Marco, and Maso went to him there. He is very ill, and he has adjured me to go and see him. I cannot refuse it, though I hold him guilty; I still remember how I loved him when I was a little girl, before I knew that he would forsake my father. And perhaps he has some word of penitence to send by me. It cost me a struggle to act in opposition to my father's feeling, which I have always held to be just. I am almost sure you will think I have chosen rightly, t.i.to, because I have noticed that your nature is less rigid than mine, and nothing makes you angry: it would cost, you less to be forgiving; though, if you had seen your father forsaken by one to whom he had given his chief love--by one in whom he had planted his labour and his hopes--forsaken when his need was becoming greatest-- even you, t.i.to, would find it hard to forgive.”
What could he say? He was not equal to the hypocrisy of telling Romola that such offences ought not to be pardoned; and he had not the courage to utter any words of dissuasion.
”You are right, my Romola; you are always right, except in thinking too well of me.”
There was really some genuineness in those last words, and t.i.to looked very beautiful as he uttered them, with an unusual pallor in his face, and a slight quivering of his lip. Romola, interpreting all things largely, like a mind prepossessed with high beliefs, had a tearful brightness in her eyes as she looked at him, touched with keen joy that he felt so strongly whatever she felt. But without pausing in her walk, she said--
”And now, t.i.to, I wish you to leave me, for the _cugina_ and I shall be less noticed if we enter the piazza alone.”
”Yes, it were better you should leave us,” said Monna Brigida; ”for to say the truth, Messer t.i.to, all eyes follow you, and let Romola m.u.f.fle herself as she will, every one wants to see what there is under her veil, for she has that way of walking like a procession. Not that I find fault with her for it, only it doesn't suit my steps. And, indeed, I would rather not have us seen going to San Marco, and that's why I am dressed as if I were one of the Piagnoni themselves, and as old as Sant'
Anna; for if it had been anybody but poor Dino, who ought to be forgiven if he's dying, for what's the use of having a grudge against dead people?--make them feel while they live, say I--”
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