The Patriot Part 29

The Pasottis could not go up to Albogasio Superiore until the farmer, who had been notified at once, should have had time to prepare and heat at least one room for their reception. The Controller at once proposed a three-handed game of _tarocchi_ with the Engineer and Franco. Then Signora Peppina went away, and Barborin asked Luisa to allow her to withdraw for a few minutes, and begged her hostess to accompany her. As soon as he was alone with her friend in the alcove room, she glanced all about her with wide, frightened eyes, and then whispered: "We are not here on account of the was.h.i.+ng, you know. Not on account of the was.h.i.+ng!" Luisa questioned her silently with face and gestures, for had she spoken in a loud voice they would have heard her in the hall. This time Signora Pasotti understood, and replied that she did not know anything, that her husband had not told her anything, that he had ordered her to corroborate the story about the was.h.i.+ng, but that really she was not in the least anxious about it. Then Luisa took a piece of paper and wrote: "What do you suspect?" Signora Pasotti read the words, and then began a most complicated pantomime: shakings of the head, rollings of the eyes, sighs, imploring glances towards the ceiling. It was as if a mighty struggle were going on within her between hope and fear. At last she uttered an "Ah?" seized the pen, and wrote below Luisa's question:

"The Marchesa!"

Then she dropped the pen and stood looking at her friend. "She is at Lodi," she said in an undertone. "The Controller has been to Lodi. So there you have it!" And she hastened back to the hall, faring to arouse her husband's suspicions.

The game over, Pasotti went to one of the windows, saying something in a loud voice about the effect of the twilight, and called Franco to him.

"You must come and see me this evening," he said softly. "I have something to say to you." Franco sought to excuse himself. He was starting the next morning for Milan, leaving his family for some time; he could hardly spend this last evening away from home. Pasotti answered that it was absolutely necessary. "It concerns your journey to-morrow!"

said he.

"It concerns your journey to-morrow!" As soon as the Pasottis had left for Albogasio Superiore, Franco repeated the conversation to his wife.

He had been much upset by it. So Pasotti knew! He would not have been so mysterious had he not been alluding to the journey to Turin, and Franco was greatly vexed to think that Pasotti was aware of this. But how had he found out? Perhaps the friend in Turin had been indiscreet. And now what did Pasotti want of him? Was another blow perhaps about to be struck by the police? But Pasotti was not the man to come and warn him.

And all that hypocritical amiability? Perhaps they did not wish him to go to Turin, did not wish him to find an easier path, to free himself and his family from poverty, from commissaries and gendarmes. He thought and thought, and finally decided this must be the reason. In her heart Luisa greatly doubted it. She feared something else; but she also was persuaded Pasotti knew about Turin, and this upset all her suppositions.

After all, the only way was to go and find out.

Franco went at eight o'clock and Pasotti received him with the most effusive cordiality, and apologised for his wife's absence, she having already gone to bed. Before opening the conversation he insisted that Franco should take a gla.s.s of S. Colombano, and a piece of _panettone_.

With the wine and the cake Franco was obliged to swallow, much against his will, many declarations of friends.h.i.+p, and the most exalted eulogies upon his wife, his uncle, and himself. The gla.s.s and the plate being at last empty, the mellifluous rogue showed himself disposed to come to business.

They were seated facing each other at a small table. Pasotti, leaning back comfortably in his chair, held a red and yellow silk handkerchief in his hands, with which he played constantly.

"Well," said he, "as I told you, my dear Franco, the matter concerns your journey to-morrow. I heard it said to-day at your house that you are going away on business. Now it remains to be seen whether I am not bringing you still more important business than that which calls you to Milan."

Franco remained silent, surprised by this unexpected preamble. Pasotti continued, his eyes fixed on the handkerchief which he never ceased handling.

"Of course, my good friend Don Franco Maironi knows that if I touch upon intimate and delicate questions it is because I have a serious reason for doing so; because I feel it my duty, and because I am authorised to do so."

The hands became still, the s.h.i.+ning and cunning eyes were raised to Franco's distrustful and troubled eyes.

"It concerns both your present and your future, my dear Franco."

Having uttered these words, Pasotti resolutely laid aside the handkerchief. Resting his arms and his clasped hands on the little table, he went to the heart of the matter, keeping his eyes fixed upon Franco, who now, in his turn, leaning back in his chair, returned the gaze, his face pale, his att.i.tude one of hostile defiance.

"You must know that the old friends.h.i.+p I bear your family has long been urging me to do something to put an end to a most painful quarrel. Your good father, Don Alessandro!--What a heart of gold!--How fond he was of me!" (Franco was aware that his father had once threatened Pasotti with his cane, for meddling overmuch in his family affairs.) "Never mind!

Having learned that your grandmother was at Lodi, I said to myself last Sunday: After all the trouble the Maironis have had, perhaps this is the right moment. Let us go and make the attempt. And I went."

There was a pause. Franco was quivering. What a mediator he had had! And who had asked for mediation?

"I must tell you," Pasotti went on, "that I feel satisfied. Your grandmother has her own opinions, and she has reached an age when opinions are not easily changed; you know her character; she is very firm, but after all, she is not heartless. She loves you, you know, and she suffers. There is a continuous struggle going on within her, between her sentiments and her principles; or, one might rather say, between her sentiments and her resentment. Poor Marchesa, it is painful to see how she suffers! But anyhow she is beginning to yield. Of course we must not expect too much. She is indeed yielding, but not sufficiently to break what sustains her--her principles I mean, especially her political principles."

Franco's eyes, his twitching jaws, a quivering of his whole person said to Pasotti: "Woe to you if you touch upon that point!" Pasotti stopped.

Perhaps he was thinking of the cane of the late Don Alessandro.

"I understand your feelings," he continued. "Do you think I don't? I eat the government's bread, and must keep what I feel shut up in my heart, but, nevertheless, I am with you. I sigh for the moment when certain colours shall replace certain others. But your grandmother holds different opinions, and there is nothing for it but to take her as she is. If we want to arrive at an understanding we must take her as she is.

You may seek to oppose her as I myself did, but----"

"All this talk appears to me perfectly useless," Franco exclaimed, rising.

"Wait!" Pasotti added. "The affair may not prove as disagreeable as you think! Sit down and listen."

But Franco would not hear of resuming his seat.

"Out with it, then!" said he, his voice ringing impatiently.

"First of all your grandmother is prepared to recognise your marriage----"

"How kind!" Franco put in.

"Wait!----and to make you a suitable allowance: from what I heard I should think of from six to eight thousand _svanziche_ a year. Not bad, eh?"

"Go on."

"Be patient! There is nothing humiliating in all this. Had there been a single humiliating condition I should not have mentioned the matter to you. Your grandmother wishes you to have an occupation, and also desires that you give a certain guarantee not to take part in political doings.

Now there is a decorous way of combining these two points, as you yourself will be obliged to recognise, although I tell you plainly that I had proposed a different course to your grandmother. My idea was that she should place you at the head of her affairs. You would have had enough to do to keep you from thinking of anything else. However, your grandmother's idea is good also. I know fine young fellows like yourself, who think as you do, and who are in the judicial service. It is a most independent and respectable calling. A word from you and you will find yourself an auditor of the court."

"I?" Franco burst out. "I? No, my dear Pasotti! No! They don't send the police into my house--be quiet!--they don't brutally dismiss from service an honest man, whose only crime is that he is my wife's uncle,--be quiet, I tell you!--they don't seek every possible means of reducing my family and myself to the verge of starvation to-day, that they may offer us filthy bread to-morrow! No, my man, no! Do your worst!

By G.o.d! I am not to be trapped by any one through hunger! Tell my grandmother so, you----you----you----"

Pasotti's nature certainly had much that was feline; he was rapacious, cunning, prudent, a flatterer, quick to feign, but also subject to fits of rage. He had continued to interrupt Maironi's outpouring with protests which became ever more violent, and at this last invective, forseeing the approach of a deluge of accusations which were all the more exasperating because he could guess their character, he also started to his feet.

"Stop!" said he. "What do you mean by all this?"

"Good-night!" cried Franco, who had seized his hat. But Pasotti had no intention of letting him go thus. "One moment!" said he, bringing his fist down swiftly and repeatedly on the little table. "You people are deluding yourselves! You hope great things from that will; but it is not a will at all, it is simply a bit of waste paper, the ravings of a madman!"

Franco, who had already reached the door, stopped short, stunned by the blow. "What will?" said he.

"Come now!" Pasotti retorted, half coldly, half mockingly. "We understand each other perfectly!"

A flash of rage once more set Franco's blood on fire. "We do not!" he cried. "Out with it! Speak! What do you know of any will?"

"Ah! Now we are getting on famously!" Pasotti said with ironical sweetness.

Franco could have strangled him.

"Didn't I tell you I have been to Lodi? So of course I know!"

Franco, quite beside himself, protested that he was entirely in the dark.

"Of course," Pasotti continued, with greater irony than before. "It is for me to enlighten the gentleman! Then I will inform you that Professor Gilardoni, who is by no means the friend you believe him to be, went to Lodi at the end of December, and presented himself before the Marchesa with a legally worthless copy of a will which he pretends was made by your late grandfather. This will appoints you, Don Franco, residuary legatee, in terms attrociously insulting to both the wife and the son of the testator. So now you know. Indeed, Signor Gilardoni did not betray his trust, but stated that he had come on his own responsibility, and without your knowledge."

Franco listened, as pale as death, feeling darkness creeping over his sight and his soul, mustering all his strength that he might not lose his head, but be able to give a fitting answer.

"You are right," said he. "Grandmother is right also. It is Professor Gilardoni who has done wrong. He showed me that will three years ago, on the night of my marriage. I told him to burn it, and believed he had done so. If he did not, he deceived me. If he really went to Lodi on the charming errand you describe, he has committed an act of outrageous indelicacy and stupidity. You were quite justified in thinking ill of us. But mark this! I despise my grandmother's money as heartily as I despise the money of the government, and as this lady has the good fortune to be the mother of my father, I will never--never, I say--although she resort to the most base, the most perfidious means of ruining me--never make use of a doc.u.ment that dishonours her. I am too much her superior! Go and tell her this in my name, and tell her also to withdraw her offers, for I spurn them! Good-night!!"

He left Pasotti in a state of utter amazement, and went his way, trembling with over-excitement and rage. He forgot his lantern, and went down the hill in the dark, striding along, neither knowing nor caring where he placed his feet, and from time to time uttering an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, pouring out that which was seething within him--rage against Gilardoni, and accusations against Luisa!