After Dark

by Wilkie Collins

  CHAPTER I.

  About eight months after the Countess d'Ascoli had been laid in hergrave in the Campo Santo, two reports were circulated through thegay world of Pisa, which excited curiosity and awakened expectationeverywhere.

  The first report announced that a grand masked ball was to be given atthe Melani Palace, to celebrate the day on which the heir of the houseattained his majority. All the friends of the family were delightedat the prospect of this festival; for the old Marquis Melani had thereputation of being one of the most hospitable, and, at the same time,one of the most eccentric men in Pisa. Every one expected, therefore,that he would secure for the entertainment of his guests, if he reallygave the ball, the most whimsical novelties in the way of masks, dances,and amusements generally, that had ever been seen.

  The second report was, that the rich widower, Fabio d'Ascoli, was on thepoint of returning to Pisa, after having improved his health and spiritsby traveling in foreign countries; and that he might be expected toappear again in society, for the first time since the death of his wife,at the masked ball which was to be given in the Melani Palace. Thisannouncement excited special interest among the young ladies of Pisa.Fabio had only reached his thirtieth year; and it was universally agreedthat his return to society in his native city could indicate nothingmore certainly than his desire to find a second mother for his infantchild. All the single ladies would now have been ready to bet, asconfidently as Brigida had offered to bet eight months before, thatFabio d'Ascoli would marry again.

  For once in a way, report turned out to be true, in both the cases justmentioned. Invitations were actually issued from the Melani Palace, andFabio returned from abroad to his home on the Arno.

  In settling all the arrangements connected with his masked ball, theMarquis Melani showed that he was determined not only to deserve, butto increase, his reputation for oddity. He invented the most extravagantdisguises, to be worn by some of his more intimate friends; he arrangedgrotesque dances, to be performed at stated periods of the evening byprofessional buffoons, hired from Florence. He composed a toy symphony,which included solos on every noisy plaything at that time manufacturedfor children's use. And not content with thus avoiding the beaten trackin preparing the entertainments at the ball, he determined also to showdecided originality, even in selecting the attendants who were to waiton the company. Other people in his rank of life were accustomedto employ their own and hired footmen for this purpose; the marquisresolved that his attendants should be composed of young women only;that two of his rooms should be fitted up as Arcadian bowers; and thatall the prettiest girls in Pisa should be placed in them to preside overthe refreshments, dressed, in accordance with the mock classical tasteof the period, as shepherdesses of the time of Virgil.

  The only defect of this brilliantly new idea was the difficulty ofexecuting it. The marquis had expressly ordered that not fewer thanthirty shepherdesses were to be engaged--fifteen for each bower. Itwould have been easy to find double this number in Pisa, if beauty hadbeen the only quality required in the attendant damsels. But it was alsoabsolutely necessary, for the security of the marquis's gold and silverplate, that the shepherdesses should possess, besides good looks, thevery homely recommendation of a fair character. This last qualificationproved, it is sad to say, to be the one small merit which the majorityof the ladies willing to accept engagements at the palace did notpossess. Day after day passed on; and the marquis's steward onlyfound more and more difficulty in obtaining the appointed number oftrustworthy beauties. At last his resources failed him altogether; andhe appeared in his master's presence about a week before the night ofthe ball, to make the humiliating acknowledgment that he was entirelyat his wits' end. The total number of fair shepherdesses withfair characters whom he had been able to engage amounted only totwenty-three.

  "Nonsense!" cried the marquis, irritably, as soon as the steward hadmade his confession. "I told you to get thirty girls, and thirty I meanto have. What's the use of shaking your head when all their dresses areordered? Thirty tunics, thirty wreaths, thirty pairs of sandals and silkstockings, thirty crooks, you scoundrel--and you have the impudence tooffer me only twenty-three hands to hold them. Not a word! I won't heara word! Get me my thirty girls, or lose your place." The marquis roaredout this last terrible sentence at the top of his voice, and pointedperemptorily to the door.

  The steward knew his master too well to remonstrate. He took his hat andcane, and went out. It was useless to look through the ranks of rejectedvolunteers again; there was not the slightest hope in that quarter.The only chance left was to call on all his friends in Pisa who haddaughters out at service, and to try what he could accomplish, bybribery and persuasion, that way.

  After a whole day occupied in solicitations, promises, and patientsmoothing down of innumerable difficulties, the result of his effortsin the new direction was an accession of six more shepherdesses. Thisbrought him on bravely from twenty-three to twenty-nine, and left him,at last, with only one anxiety--where was he now to find shepherdessnumber thirty?

  He mentally asked himself that important question, as he entered a shadyby-street in the neighborhood of the Campo Santo, on his way back to theMelani Palace. Sauntering slowly along in the middle of the road, andfanning himself with his handkerchief after the oppressive exertions ofthe day, he passed a young girl who was standing at the street door ofone of the houses, apparently waiting for somebody to join her beforeshe entered the building.

  "Body of Bacchus!" exclaimed the steward (using one of those old Paganejaculations which survive in Italy even to the present day), "therestands the prettiest girl I have seen yet. If she would only beshepherdess number thirty, I should go home to supper with my mind atease. I'll ask her, at any rate. Nothing can be lost by asking, andeverything may be gained. Stop, my dear," he continued, seeing the girlturn to go into the house as he approached her. "Don't be afraid ofme. I am steward to the Marquis Melani, and well known in Pisa as aneminently respectable man. I have something to say to you which may begreatly for your benefit. Don't look surprised; I am coming to the pointat once. Do you want to earn a little money? honestly, of course. Youdon't look as if you were very rich, child."

  "I am very poor, and very much in want of some honest work to do,"answered the girl, sadly.

  "Then we shall suit each other to a nicety; for I have work of thepleasantest kind to give you, and plenty of money to pay for it. Butbefore we say anything more about that, suppose you tell me firstsomething about yourself--who you are, and so forth. You know who I amalready."

  "I am only a poor work-girl, and my name is Nanina. I have nothing more,sir, to say about myself than that."

  "Do you belong to Pisa?"

  "Yes, sir--at least, I did. But I have been away for some time. I was ayear at Florence, employed in needlework."

  "All by yourself?"

  "No, sir, with my little sister. I was waiting for her when you cameup."

  "Have you never done anything else but needlework? never been out atservice?"

  "Yes, sir. For the last eight months I have had a situation to wait on alady at Florence, and my sister (who is turned eleven, sir, and can makeherself very useful) was allowed to help in the nursery."

  "How came you to leave this situation?"

  "The lady and her family were going to Rome, sir. They would have takenme with them, but they could not take my sister. We are alone in theworld, and we never have been parted from each other, and never shallbe--so I was obliged to leave the situation."

  "And here you are, back at Pisa--with nothing to do, I suppose?"

  "Nothing yet, sir. We only came back yesterday."

  "Only yesterday! You are a lucky girl, let me tell you, to have metwith me. I suppose you have somebody in the town who can speak to yourcharacter?"

  "The landlady of this house can, sir."

  "And who is she, pray?"

  "Marta Angrisani, sir."

  "What! the well-known sick-nurse? You could not possibly have a betterre
commendation, child. I remember her being employed at the MelaniPalace at the time of the marquis's last attack of gout; but I neverknew that she kept a lodging-house."

  "She and her daughter, sir, have owned this house longer than I canrecollect. My sister and I have lived in it since I was quite a littlechild, and I had hoped we might be able to live here again. But the toproom we used to have is taken, and the room to let lower down is farmore, I am afraid, than we can afford."

  "How much is it?"

  Nanina mentioned the weekly rent of the room in fear and trembling. Thesteward burst out laughing.

  "Suppose I offered you money enough to be able to take that room for awhole year at once?" he said.

  Nanina looked at him in speechless amazement.

  "Suppose I offered you that?" continued the steward. "And suppose I onlyask you in return to put on a fine dress and serve refreshments in abeautiful room to the company at the Marquis Melani's grand ball? Whatshould you say to that?"

  Nanina said nothing. She drew back a step or two, and looked morebewildered than before.

  "You must have heard of the ball," said the steward, pompously; "thepoorest people in Pisa have heard of it. It is the talk of the wholecity."

  Still Nanina made no answer. To have replied truthfully, she must haveconfessed that "the talk of the whole city" had now no interest for her.The last news from Pisa that had appealed to her sympathies was the newsof the Countess d'Ascoli's death, and of Fabio's departure to travel inforeign countries. Since then she had heard nothing more of him. Shewas as ignorant of his return to his native city as of all the reportsconnected with the marquis's ball. Something in her own heart--somefeeling which she had neither the desire nor the capacity toanalyze--had brought her back to Pisa and to the old home which nowconnected itself with her tenderest recollections. Believing that Fabiowas still absent, she felt that no ill motive could now be attributedto her return; and she had not been able to resist the temptation ofrevisiting the scene that had been associated with the first greathappiness as well as with the first great sorrow of her life. Among allthe poor people of Pisa, she was perhaps the very last whose curiositycould be awakened, or whose attention could be attracted by the rumor ofgayeties at the Melani Palace.

  But she could not confess all this; she could only listen with greathumility and no small surprise, while the steward, in compassion for herignorance, and with the hope of tempting her into accepting his offeredengagement, described the arrangements of the approaching festival, anddwelt fondly on the magnificence of the Arcadian bowers, and the beautyof the shepherdesses' tunics. As soon as he had done, Nanina ventured onthe confession that she should feel rather nervous in a grand dress thatdid not belong to her, and that she doubted very much her own capabilityof waiting properly on the great people at the ball. The steward,however, would hear of no objections, and called peremptorily for MartaAngrisani to make the necessary statement as to Nanina's character.While this formality was being complied with to the steward's perfectsatisfaction, La Biondella came in, unaccompanied on this occasion bythe usual companion of all her walks, the learned poodle Scarammuccia.

  "This is Nanina's sister," said the good-natured sick-nurse, taking thefirst opportunity of introducing La Biondella to the great marquis'sgreat man. "A very good, industrious little girl; and very clever atplaiting dinner-mats, in case his excellency should ever want any. Whathave you done with the dog, my dear?"

  "I couldn't get him past the pork butcher's, three streets off," repliedLa Biondella. "He would sit down and look at the sausages. I am morethan half afraid he means to steal some of them."

  "A very pretty child," said the steward, patting La Biondella on thecheek. "We ought to have her at the hall. If his excellency should wanta Cupid, or a youthful nymph, or anything small and light in that way,I shall come back and let you know. In the meantime, Nanina, consideryourself Shepherdess Number Thirty, and come to the housekeeper's roomat the palace to try on your dress to-morrow. Nonsense! don't talk tome about being afraid and awkward. All you're wanted to do is to lookpretty; and your glass must have told you you could do that long ago.Remember the rent of the room, my dear, and don't stand in your lightand your sister's. Does the little girl like sweetmeats? Of course shedoes! Well, I promise you a whole box of sugar-plums to take home forher, if you will come and wait at the ball."

  "Oh, go to the ball, Nanina; go to the ball!" cried La Biondella,clapping her hands.

  "Of course she will go to the ball," said the nurse. "She would be madto throw away such an excellent chance."

  Nanina looked perplexed. She hesitated a little, then drew MartaAngrisani away into a corner, and whispered this question to her:

  "Do you think there will be any priests at the palace where the marquislives?"

  "Heavens, child, what a thing to ask!" returned the nurse. "Priests at amasked ball! You might as well expect to find Turks performing high massin the cathedral. But supposing you did meet with priests at the palace,what then?"

  "Nothing," said Nanina, constrainedly. She turned pale, and walked awayas she spoke. Her great dread, in returning to Pisa, was the dreadof meeting with Father Rocco again. She had never forgotten her firstdiscovery at Florence of his distrust of her. The bare thought of seeinghim any more, after her faith in him had been shaken forever, made herfeel faint and sick at heart.

  "To-morrow, in the housekeeper's room," said the steward, putting on hishat, "you will find your new dress all ready for you."

  Nanina courtesied, and ventured on no more objections. The prospect ofsecuring a home for a whole year to come among people whom she knew,reconciled her--influenced as she was also by Marta Angrisani's advice,and by her sister's anxiety for the promised present--to brave the trialof appearing at the ball.

  "What a comfort to have it all settled at last," said the steward, assoon as he was out again in the street. "We shall see what the marquissays now. If he doesn't apologize for calling me a scoundrel the momenthe sets eyes on Number Thirty, he is the most ungrateful nobleman thatever existed."

  Arriving in front of the palace, the steward found workmen engaged inplanning the external decorations and illuminations for the night of theball. A little crowd had already assembled to see the ladders raisedand the scaffoldings put up. He observed among them, standing near theoutskirts of the throng, a lady who attracted his attention (he wasan ardent admirer of the fair sex) by the beauty and symmetry ofher figure. While he lingered for a moment to look at her, a shaggypoodle-dog (licking his chops, as if he had just had something to eat)trotted by, stopped suddenly close to the lady, sniffed suspiciouslyfor an instant, and then began to growl at her without the slightestapparent provocation. The steward advancing politely with his stick todrive the dog away, saw the lady start, and heard her exclaim to herselfamazedly:

  "You here, you beast! Can Nanina have come back to Pisa?"

  This last exclamation gave the steward, as a gallant man, an excuse forspeaking to the elegant stranger.

  "Excuse me, madam," he said, "but I heard you mention the name ofNanina. May I ask whether you mean a pretty little work-girl who livesnear the Campo Santo?"

  "The same," said the lady, looking very much surprised and interestedimmediately.

  "It may be a gratification to you, madam, to know that she has justreturned to Pisa," continued the steward, politely; "and, moreover, thatshe is in a fair way to rise in the world. I have just engaged her towait at the marquis's grand ball, and I need hardly say, under thosecircumstances, that if she plays her cards properly her fortune ismade."

  The lady bowed, looked at her informant very intently and thoughtfullyfor a moment, then suddenly walked away without uttering a word.

  "A curious woman," thought the steward, entering the palace. "I must askNumber Thirty about her to-morrow."