After Dark

by Wilkie Collins

  CHAPTER III.

  From the studio Father Rocco went straight to his own rooms, hard by thechurch to which he was attached. Opening a cabinet in his study, he tookfrom one of its drawers a handful of small silver money, consulted for aminute or so a slate on which several names and addresses were written,provided himself with a portable inkhorn and some strips of paper, andagain went out.

  He directed his steps to the poorest part of the neighborhood; andentering some very wretched houses, was greeted by the inhabitants withgreat respect and affection. The women, especially, kissed his handswith more reverence than they would have shown to the highestcrowned head in Europe. In return, he talked to them as easily andunconstrainedly as if they were his equals; sat down cheerfully on dirtybedsides and rickety benches; and distributed his little gifts ofmoney with the air of a man who was paying debts rather than bestowingcharity. Where he encountered cases of illness, he pulled out hisinkhorn and slips of paper, and wrote simple prescriptions to be made upfrom the medicine-chest of a neighboring convent, which served the samemerciful purpose then that is answered by dispensaries in our days.When he had exhausted his money, and had got through his visits, hewas escorted out of the poor quarter by a perfect train of enthusiasticfollowers. The women kissed his hand again, and the men uncovered as heturned, and, with a friendly sign, bade them all farewell.

  As soon as he was alone again, he walked toward the Campo Santo, and,passing the house in which Nanina lived, sauntered up and down thestreet thoughtfully for some minutes. When he at length ascended thesteep staircase that led to the room occupied by the sisters, he foundthe door ajar. Pushing it open gently, he saw La Biondella sitting withher pretty, fair profile turned toward him, eating her evening mealof bread and grapes. At the opposite end of the room, Scarammuccia wasperched up on his hindquarters in a corner, with his mouth wide open tocatch the morsel of bread which he evidently expected the child to throwto him. What the elder sister was doing, the priest had not time to see;for the dog barked the moment he presented himself, and Nanina hastenedto the door to ascertain who the intruder might be. All that he couldobserve was that she was too confused, on catching sight of him, to beable to utter a word. La Biondella was the first to speak.

  "Thank you, Father Rocco," said the child, jumping up, with her bread inone hand and her grapes in the other--"thank you for giving me so muchmoney for my dinner-mats. There they are, tied up together in one littleparcel, in the corner. Nanina said she was ashamed to think of yourcarrying them; and I said I knew where you lived, and I should like toask you to let me take them home!"

  "Do you think you can carry them all the way, my dear?" asked thepriest.

  "Look, Father Rocco, see if I can't carry them!" cried La Biondella,cramming her bread into one of the pockets of her little apron, holdingher bunch of grapes by the stalk in her mouth, and hoisting the packetof dinner-mats on her head in a moment. "See, I am strong enough tocarry double," said the child, looking up proudly into the priest'sface.

  "Can you trust her to take them home for me?" asked Father Rocco,turning to Nanina. "I want to speak to you alone, and her absence willgive me the opportunity. Can you trust her out by herself?"

  "Yes, Father Rocco, she often goes out alone." Nanina gave this answerin low, trembling tones, and looked down confusedly on the ground.

  "Go then, my dear," said Father Rocco, patting the child on theshoulder; "and come back here to your sister, as soon as you have leftthe mats."

  La Biondella went out directly in great triumph, with Scarammucciawalking by her side, and keeping his muzzle suspiciously close to thepocket in which she had put her bread. Father Rocco closed the doorafter them, and then, taking the one chair which the room possessed,motioned to Nanina to sit by him on the stool.

  "Do you believe that I am your friend, my child, and that I have alwaysmeant well toward you?" he began.

  "The best and kindest of friends," answered Nanina.

  "Then you will hear what I have to say patiently, and you will believethat I am speaking for your good, even if my words should distress you?"(Nanina turned away her head.) "Now, tell me; should I be wrong, tobegin with, if I said that my brother's pupil, the young noblemanwhom we call 'Signor Fabio,' had been here to see you to-day?" (Naninastarted up affrightedly from her stool.) "Sit down again, my child; I amnot going to blame you. I am only going to tell you what you must do forthe future."

  He took her hand; it was cold, and it trembled violently in his.

  "I will not ask what he has been saying to you," continued the priest;"for it might distress you to answer, and I have, moreover, had means ofknowing that your youth and beauty have made a strong impression onhim. I will pass over, then, all reference to the words he may have beenspeaking to you; and I will come at once to what I have now to say,in my turn. Nanina, my child, arm yourself with all your courage, andpromise me, before we part to-night, that you will see Signor Fabio nomore."

  Nanina turned round suddenly, and fixed her eyes on him, with anexpression of terrified incredulity. "No more?"

  "You are very young and very innocent," said Father Rocco; "but surelyyou must have thought before now of the difference between Signor Fabioand you. Surely you must have often remembered that you are low downamong the ranks of the poor, and that he is high up among the rich andthe nobly born?"

  Nanina's hands dropped on the priest's knees. She bent her head down onthem, and began to weep bitterly.

  "Surely you must have thought of that?" reiterated Father Rocco.

  "Oh, I have often, often thought of it!" murmured the girl "I havemourned over it, and cried about it in secret for many nights past. Hesaid I looked pale, and ill, and out of spirits to-day, and I told himit was with thinking of that!"

  "And what did he say in return?"

  There was no answer. Father Rocco looked down. Nanina raised her headdirectly from his knees, and tried to turn it away again. He took herhand and stopped her.

  "Come!" he said; "speak frankly to me. Say what you ought to say to yourfather and your friend. What was his answer, my child, when you remindedhim of the difference between you?"

  "He said I was born to be a lady," faltered the girl, still strugglingto turn her face away, "and that I might make myself one if I wouldlearn and be patient. He said that if he had all the noble ladies inPisa to choose from on one side, and only little Nanina on the other, hewould hold out his hand to me, and tell them, 'This shall be my wife.'He said love knew no difference of rank; and that if he was a noblemanand rich, it was all the more reason why he should please himself. Hewas so kind, that I thought my heart would burst while he was speaking;and my little sister liked him so, that she got upon his knee and kissedhim. Even our dog, who growls at other strangers, stole to his side andlicked his hand. Oh, Father Rocco! Father Rocco!" The tears burst outafresh, and the lovely head dropped once more, wearily, on the priest'sknee.

  Father Rocco smiled to himself, and waited to speak again till she wascalmer.

  "Supposing," he resumed, after some minutes of silence, "supposingSignor Fabio really meant all he said to you--"

  Nanina started up, and confronted the priest boldly for the first timesince he had entered the room.

  "Supposing!" she exclaimed, her cheeks beginning to redden, and her darkblue eyes flashing suddenly through her tears "Supposing! Father Rocco,Fabio would never deceive me. I would die here at your feet, rather thandoubt the least word he said to me!"

  The priest signed to her quietly to return to the stool. "I neversuspected the child had so much spirit in her," he thought to himself.

  "I would die," repeated Nanina, in a voice that began to falter now. "Iwould die rather than doubt him."

  "I will not ask you to doubt him," said Father Rocco, gently; "andI will believe in him myself as firmly as you do. Let us suppose, mychild, that you have learned patiently all the many things of which youare now ignorant, and which it is necessary for a lady to know. Let ussuppose that Signor Fabio has really violated
all the laws that governpeople in his high station and has taken you to him publicly as hiswife. You would be happy then, Nanina; but would he? He has no father ormother to control him, it is true; but he has friends--many friends andintimates in his own rank--proud, heartless people, who know nothing ofyour worth and goodness; who, hearing of your low birth, would look onyou, and on your husband too, my child, with contempt. He has not yourpatience and fortitude. Think how bitter it would be for him to bearthat contempt--to see you shunned by proud women, and carelessly pitiedor patronized by insolent men. Yet all this, and more, he would have toendure, or else to quit the world he has lived in from his boyhood--theworld he was born to live in. You love him, I know--"

  Nanina's tears burst out afresh. "Oh, how dearly--how dearly!" shemurmured.

  "Yes, you love him dearly," continued the priest; "but would all yourlove compensate him for everything else that he must lose? It might,at first; but there would come a time when the world would assert itsinfluence over him again; when he would feel a want which you could notsupply--a weariness which you could not solace. Think of his life then,and of yours. Think of the first day when the first secret doubt whetherhe had done rightly in marrying you would steal into his mind. We arenot masters of all our impulses. The lightest spirits have their momentsof irresistible depression; the bravest hearts are not always superiorto doubt. My child, my child, the world is strong, the pride of rank isrooted deep, and the human will is frail at best! Be warned! For yourown sake and for Fabio's, be warned in time."

  Nanina stretched out her hands toward the priest in despair.

  "Oh, Father Rocco! Father Rocco!" she cried, "why did you not tell methis before?"

  "Because, my child, I only knew of the necessity for telling you to-day.But it is not too late; it is never too late to do a good action. Youlove Fabio, Nanina? Will you prove that love by making a great sacrificefor his good?"

  "I would die for his good!"

  "Will you nobly cure him of a passion which will be his ruin, if notyours, by leaving Pisa to-morrow?"

  "Leave Pisa!" exclaimed Nanina. Her face grew deadly pale; she rose andmoved back a step or two from the priest.

  "Listen to me," pursued Father Rocco; "I have heard you complain thatyou could not get regular employment at needle-work. You shall have thatemployment, if you will go with me--you and your little sister too, ofcourse--to Florence to-morrow."

  "I promised Fabio to go to the studio," began Nanina, affrightedly. "Ipromised to go at ten o'clock. How can I--"

  She stopped suddenly, as if her breath were failing her.

  "I myself will take you and your sister to Florence," said Father Rocco,without noticing the interruption. "I will place you under the care of alady who will be as kind as a mother to you both. I will answer for yourgetting such work to do as will enable you to keep yourself honestlyand independently; and I will undertake, if you do not like your life atFlorence, to bring you back to Pisa after a lapse of three months only.Three months, Nanina. It is not a long exile."

  "Fabio! Fabio!" cried the girl, sinking again on the seat, and hidingher face.

  "It is for his good," said Father Rocco, calmly: "for Fabio's good,remember."

  "What would he think of me if I went away? Oh, if I had but learned towrite! If I could only write Fabio a letter!"

  "Am I not to be depended on to explain to him all that he ought toknow?"

  "How can I go away from him! Oh! Father Rocco, how can you ask me to goaway from him?"

  "I will ask you to do nothing hastily. I will leave you till to-morrowmorning to decide. At nine o'clock I shall be in the street; and I willnot even so much as enter this house, unless I know beforehand that youhave resolved to follow my advice. Give me a sign from your window. IfI see you wave your white mantilla out of it, I shall know that you havetaken the noble resolution to save Fabio and to save yourself. I willsay no more, my child; for, unless I am grievously mistaken in you, Ihave already said enough."

  He went out, leaving her still weeping bitterly. Not far from the house,he met La Biondella and the dog on their way back. The little girlstopped to report to him the safe delivery of her dinner-mats; but hepassed on quickly with a nod and a smile. His interview with Naninahad left some influence behind it, which unfitted him just then for theoccupation of talking to a child.

  Nearly half an hour before nine o'clock on the following morning, FatherRocco set forth for the street in which Nanina lived. On his way thitherhe overtook a dog walking lazily a few paces ahead in the roadway; andsaw, at the same time, an elegantly-dressed lady advancing toward him.The dog stopped suspiciously as she approached, and growled and showedhis teeth when she passed him. The lady, on her side, uttered anexclamation of disgust, but did not seem to be either astonished orfrightened by the animal's threatening attitude. Father Rocco lookedafter her with some curiosity as she walked by him. She was a handsomewoman, and he admired her courage. "I know that growling brute wellenough," he said to himself, "but who can the lady be?"

  The dog was Scarammuccia, returning from one of his maraudingexpeditions The lady was Brigida, on her way to Luca Lomi's studio.

  Some minutes before nine o'clock the priest took his post in the street,opposite Nanina's window. It was open; but neither she nor her littlesister appeared at it. He looked up anxiously as the church-clocksstruck the hour; but there was no sign for a minute or so after theywere all silent. "Is she hesitating still?" said Father Rocco tohimself.

  Just as the words passed his lips, the white mantilla was waved out ofthe window.

  PART SECOND.