Part 40 (1/2)
”Oh, what a lie!” Luisa exclaimed, in a tone full of contempt, but not angrily. ”As if it were possible she would go to her and not come to me!”
”Maria has touched her heart,” Franco went on. ”She begs us to pardon her. She fears she is dying, and entreats me to come to her, to bring her a word of peace from you also.”
Franco himself did not believe in the apparition, being profoundly sceptical of everything that was supernatural outside of religion, but he did believe that Maria, in her higher state, had already been able to work a miracle, and touch his grandmother's heart, and the thought caused him indescribable emotion. Luisa remained like ice. She was not even irritated, as Franco had feared she would be, by the proposal to send a friendly message. ”Your grandmother fears h.e.l.l,” she observed with her mortal coldness. ”h.e.l.l does not exist, and so all this amounts to nothing more than a fright. The suffering is not great. Let her bear it, and then die as we all must, and so, 'Amen.'” Franco saw it would be useless to insist. ”Then I will go,” said he. She was silent.
”I don't think I shall be able to come back this way,” Franco added. ”I shall have to take to the hills.”
Still no answer.
”Luisa!” the young man said softly. Reproach, grief, pa.s.sion, all these were in his appeal. Luisa's hands, that had never once paused in their work, now became still. She murmured:
”I no longer feel anything. I am like a stone.”
Franco turned faint. He kissed his wife on her hair, said good-bye, and then entered the alcove, where, kneeling beside the little bed, he threw his arms across it, recalling his treasure's little voice: ”One kiss more, papa!” A paroxysm of weeping a.s.sailed him, but he controlled himself, and hurriedly left the room.
In the hall his friends were impatiently awaiting his return. How could they start? They did not know the way. The lawyer was, indeed, acquainted with the Boglia road, but was that the best way to go if they wished to avoid the guards? On hearing that Franco was going to Cressogno they were filled with amazement, and Pedraglio gave vent to his indignation, saying it was shameful to forsake his friends in this fas.h.i.+on, when they were in trouble. When the prefect realised how matters stood he took Pedraglio's part, and offered to explain Franco's absence to his grandmother, and proposed that Franco should write a line or two, which he himself would carry to Cressogno. But Franco was convinced that his Maria wished him to take this step, and he would not yield. He suddenly remembered that the prefect was as familiar as a hare with all the mountain paths. ”You go!” said he, addressing the priest.
”You accompany them!” The prefect was about to reply that perhaps the Signora Marchesa might need him, when the lawyer exclaimed: ”Hus.h.!.+ Look there!”
Directly in front of the house, where the shadow of Monte Bisgnago lay obliquely upon the rippling water, a boat had stopped. Franco recognised the customs-guards' launch.
”I am willing to wager those hogs are watching for us,” Pedraglio murmured. ”They are afraid we shall escape by boat. Anyway, they are on the lookout.”
”Hus.h.!.+” the lawyer repeated, approaching the window that overlooked the church-place.
All held their breath in silence.
”Children,” said V., turning quickly from the window, ”we are done for!”
Franco went to the window, and saw a solitary figure running towards the house. He concluded the lawyer had given a false alarm, but the man--it was he who went by the nickname of ”the hunted hare,” and who knew and saw everything--flung two words upwards as he pa.s.sed beneath the window: ”The police!” At the same moment they heard the noise of many feet. ”Come with me! You also, Prefect!” cried Franco, and the others following, he made for the little courtyard between the house and the hillside, and, pa.s.sing through a woodshed, reached the short cut that leads to Albogasio Superiore. It was so dark that no one noticed a customs-guard, standing, carbine in hand, not two steps from the door of the wood-shed. Fortunately this guard, a certain Filippini, from Busto, was an honest fellow, who ate the bread of Austria unwillingly, and simply because he could find no other. ”Be quick!” said he in an undertone. ”Cut across the fields, and then take the Boglia road! The path below the Madonnina on the left.” Franco thanked the man, and, with his companions, started up the steep path that comes out on the narrow communal road of Albogasio Superiore. Half-way up they all jumped into a field of maize on the right, and stopped to listen. They heard steps on the stairs leading upwards from the church-place, and then on the path where the guard was posted. Evidently the police wished to make sure that all the exits were well guarded. The four crawled swiftly away through the maize, and on reaching the spot below a great boulder called ”Lori's Rock,” they stopped to hold a consultation. They might take the path that comes out on the Albogasio road at the very door of Pasotti's garden, and then climb up from field to field, as far as the Boglia road. But the path would be hard to find at this hour, and fearing to lose too much time, they determined to make for the stairway that leads up from Albogasio Inferiore to Puttini's house, then, leaving Casa Puttini on the right, they could reach the Boglia road in no time.
It was already less dark. In one way this was a disadvantage, but at least it would enable them to find their way through that labyrinth of small fields and low walls. All were silent. Only Pedraglio would utter an oath in Milanese from time to time, as he stumbled over a stone or scratched his hands on a hedge. Then the others would hush him. They reached the narrow stairway preceded by the prefect, who jumped walls and hedges like a squirrel. When they were all together on the stairs Franco withdrew from the group. On the Boglia road they would not need him; he was going to Cressogno. In vain Pedraglio seized him by the arm, in vain the prefect implored him not to expose himself to certain arrest, and probable imprisonment. He believed he was obeying Maria's voice, and felt that he was acting according to the dictates of conscience. He tore himself from Pedraglio, and disappeared up the stairs, for he did not wish to go to Cressogno by way of S.
Mamette--that would be too dangerous.
”Follow me!” said the prefect. ”The man is mad, and we have ourselves to think of.”
As they were about to turn the corner of Puttini's house, they heard people approaching who were probably going down the stairs. The door of Puttini's house was open. The friends slipped inside. The people pa.s.sed, talking. They were peasants, and one was saying: ”Where the deuce can he be going at this hour?” Alas, they had met and recognised Franco! If the gendarmes and the guards should start out to hunt for the fugitives and come across these people, they would discover a trace at once. Towards dawn one is always sure of meeting people. This time they had been able to avoid being seen, but a second time they might be less fortunate, and a meeting might prove as fatal to Pedraglio and the lawyer as this one would probably prove to Franco. ”If you could only disguise yourselves as peasants!” said the priest. A happy thought struck the lawyer, who had something both of the poet and the artist, and who was well acquainted with Puttini. He would take _Scior Zacomo's_ clothes for Pedraglio, who was also short, and the big, fat servant's clothes for himself; stuff their own things into a _gerla_,[Q] fasten it upon his back, and start for Boglia. The ”first political deputy” of Albogasio might have a hundred reasons for visiting the forest belonging to the commune. No sooner said than done! They proceeded upstairs, and the prefect, who was familiar with the house, went straight to call Marianna. She did not answer, and her room was empty. The prefect guessed at once that the unfaithful servant had gone to S. Mamette for some secret business transaction, like that of the oil. That was why they had found the door open. They went to the kitchen and lighted two candles. The lawyer took one and the prefect pointed out _Scior Zacomo's_ room to him. Meanwhile Pedraglio explored the kitchen by the light of the other candle, in search of ”something wet, something to brace him up.”
_Scior Zacomo_ slept in a corner room beyond the hall which the lawyer crossed on tiptoe, picking his way between piles of chestnuts, walnuts, filberts, and pears. He approached the door--it was closed. He listened--silence. Very slowly he turned the handle and pushed. The beastly door squeaked--he heard a formidable snort, and _Scior Zacomo_ cried out angrily: ”Go away! Let me alone! Go away!” The lawyer entered without further parley. ”Away with you, you accursed woman! Go away, I tell you!” cried _Scior Zacomo_, the point of his white night-cap rising out of the pillows. On catching sight of the lawyer he began to groan: ”Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord! Oh, dear me! For pity's sake, forgive me! I thought it was my servant. Most distinguished Advocate, for the love of Heaven, tell me what has happened.”
”Nothing, nothing, _Scior Zacomo_!” said the lawyer. ”Only the Commissary of Porlezza is here----”
”Oh, good Lord!” and _Scior Zacomo_ started to stick his legs out of bed.
”It is nothing, nothing! Be calm, be calm! Cover yourself up; cover yourself up again! We are going up to Boglia on account of that accursed bull, you know.”
”Oh, Lord! What are you talking about? There is no bull at Boglia at this time of the year. Oh! I am all bathed in sweat!”
”Never mind. I tell you we are going to see the place, to see where he used to be. But the Commissary has very good reasons for strictly forbidding you to accompany us; he forbids you, moreover, to go out until we return, and he has even ordered me to remove your clothes.”
Then he began rapidly collecting Puttini's garments, commanding him in the name of the Commissary to be silent. He took possession of the tall hat, seized the bamboo walking-stick, ordered the wretched man to bolt the door as soon as he should have left the room, and to open it to no one, to speak to no one, until the Commissary's return; all this in the name of that dreaded functionary. Then, leaving the poor man more dead than alive, he once more joined his companions, who, by dint of much searching, had found a filthy dress of Marianna's, a big, red kerchief for the head, a _gerla_, and a bottle of _Anesone triduo_.[R] ”The deuce!” swore the lawyer, on examining the loathsome garments he must don. His disguise was indeed most unsatisfactory. The skirt was too short, and the kerchief did not hide his face sufficiently. However there was no time to look for anything better. But Pedraglio, in the tall hat, with the bamboo walking-stick in his hand, was a perfect _Scior Zacomo_. The lawyer thrust an old ma.n.u.script pamphlet he found in the kitchen under his friend's arm, and showed him how to walk and puff.
Finally he took the keys to the wine-cellar, two enormous keys, gave one to Pedraglio and put the other in his own pocket. These would prove valuable weapons in case of need; one, he said, would strike in the treble key, the other in the ba.s.s. And so they went out, the prefect first, followed by the false _Scior Zacomo_ puffing like a steam-engine, and then the false Marianna and her _gerla_ bringing up the rear. Hardly had they reached the street when the real Marianna appeared, returning from S. Mamette with an empty flask. Catching sight of her master's tall hat looming in the uncertain light, she faced about and made off as fast as her legs would carry her.
”Miserable thief!” the prefect exclaimed. ”Excellent! Your disguise is splendid!” In five minutes they had reached the Boglia road. Then the prefect turned homewards, and presently, hearing people coming up from Albogasio Superiore talking of gendarmes and guards, he went to meet them and inquired what had happened. Oh, nothing very important; only the gendarmes and soldiers had been to Casa Ribera to arrest Don Franco Maironi, and, it would appear, lawyer V. also, for they were sure he must have been there, and they had been asking every one about him.