Tales from Many Sources Part 34

Goneril cut her lunch, and took it out of doors to share with her companion, Angiolino. He was harvesting the first corn under the olives, but at noon it was too hot to work. Sitting still there was, however, a cool breeze that gently stirred the sharp-edged olive-leaves.

Angiolino lay down at full length and munched his bread and cheese in perfect happiness. Goneril kept s.h.i.+fting about to get herself into the narrow shadow cast by the split and writhen trunk.

"How aggravating it is!" she cried. "In England, where there's no sun, there's plenty of shade--and here, where the sun is like a mustard-plaster on one's back, the leaves are all set edgewise on purpose that they shan't cast any shadow!"

Angiolino made no answer to this intelligent remark.

"He is going to sleep again!" cried Goneril, stopping her lunch in despair. "He is going to sleep, and there are no end of things I want to know. Angiolino!"

"Sissignora," murmured the boy.

"Tell me about Signor Graziano."

"He is our padrone; he is never here."

"But he is coming to-day. Wake up, Angiolino. I tell you he is on the way!"

"Between life and death there are so many combinations," drawled the boy, with Tuscan incredulity and sententiousness.

"Ah!" cried the girl, with a little s.h.i.+ver of impatience. "Is he young?"

"Che!"

"Is he old, then?"

"Neppure!"

"What is he like? He must be _something_."

"He's our padrone," repeated Angiolino, in whose imagination Signor Graziano could occupy no other place.

"How stupid you are!" exclaimed the young English girl.

"May be," said Angiolino stolidly.

"Is he a good padrone? do you like him?"

"Rather!" The boy smiled, and raised himself on one elbow; his eyes twinkled with good-humored malice.

"My Babbo has much better wine than _quel signore_," he said.

"But that is wrong!" cried Goneril, quite shocked.

"Who knows?"

After this, conversation flagged. Goneril tried to imagine what a great musician could be like: long hair, of course; her imagination did not get much beyond the hair. He would, of course, be much older now than his portrait. Then she watched Angiolino cutting the corn, and learned how to tie the swathes together. She was occupied in this useful employment when the noise of wheels made them both stop and look over the wall.

"Here's the padrone!" cried the boy.

"Oh, he is old!" said Goneril; "he is old and brown, like a coffee-bean."

"To be old and good is better than youth with malice," suggested Angiolino, by way of consolation.

"I suppose so," acquiesced Goneril.

Nevertheless she went in to dinner a little disappointed.

The signorino was not in the house; he had gone up to the villa. But he had sent a message that later in the evening he intended to pay his respects to old friends. Madame Petrucci was beautifully dressed in soft black silk, old lace, and a white Indian shawl. Miss Prunty had on her starchiest collar and most formal tie. Goneril saw it was necessary that she, likewise, should deck herself in her best. She was too young and impressionable not to be influenced by the flutter of excitement and interest which filled the whole of the little cottage. Goneril, too, was excited and anxious, although Signor Graziano had seemed so old and like a coffee-bean. She made no progress in the piece of embroidery she was working as a present for the two old ladies; jumping up and down to look out of the window. When, about eight o'clock, the door-bell rang, Goneril blushed, Madame Petrucci gave a pretty little shriek, Miss Prunty jumped up and rang for the coffee. A moment afterwards the signorino entered. While he was greeting her hostesses, Goneril cast a rapid glance at him. He was tall for an Italian; rather bent and rather grey; fifty at least, therefore very old. He certainly was brown, but his features were fine and good, and he had a distinguished and benevolent air that somehow made her think of an abbe, a French abbe of the last century. She could quite imagine him saying "Enfant de St.

Louis; montez au ciel!"

Thus far had she got in her meditations, when she felt herself addressed in clear, half-mocking tones--

"And how, this evening, is Madamigella Ruth?"

So he had seen her this evening, binding his corn.

"I am quite well, padrone," she said, smiling shyly.

The two old ladies looked on amazed, for of course they were not in the secret.

"Signor Graziano, Miss Goneril Hamelyn," said Miss Prunty, rather severely.

Goneril felt that the time was come for silence and good manners. She sat quite quiet over her embroidery, listening to the talk of Sontag, of Clementi, of musicians and singers dead and gone. She noticed that the ladies treated Signor Graziano with the utmost reverence; even the positive Miss Prunty furling her opinions in deference to his gayest hint. They talked, too, of Madame Lilli; and always as if she were still young and fair, as if she had died yesterday, leaving the echo of her triumph loud behind her. And yet all this had happened years before Goneril had ever seen the light.

"Mees Goneril is feeling very young!" said the signorino, suddenly turning his sharp kind eyes upon her.

"Yes," said Goneril, all confusion.

Madame Petrucci looked almost annoyed; the gay serene little lady that nothing ever annoyed.

"It is she that is young!" she cried, in answer to an unspoken thought.

"She is a baby!"

"Oh, I am seventeen!" said Goneril.

They all laughed, and seemed at ease again.

"Yes, yes; she is very young," said the signorino.

But a little shadow had fallen across their placid entertainment. The spirit had left their memories; they seemed to have grown shapeless, dusty, as the fresh and comely faces of dead Etruscan kings crumble into mould at the touch of the pitiless suns.h.i.+ne.

"Signorino," said Madame Petrucci, presently, "if you will accompany me, we will perform one of your charming melodies."

Signor Graziano rose, a little stiffly, and led the pretty withered little Diva to the piano.

Goneril looked on, wondering, admiring. The signorino's thin white hands made a delicate fluent melody, reminding her of running water under the rippled shade of trees, and, like a high, sweet bird, the thin, penetrating notes of the singer rose, swelled, and died away, admirably true and just, even in this latter weakness. At the end, Signor Graziano stopped his playing to give time for an elaborate cadenza. Suddenly Madame Petrucci gasped, a sharp, discordant sound cracked the delicate finish of her singing. She put her handkerchief to her mouth.

"Bah!" she said, "this evening I am abominably husky."