Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  A number of small boys were bathing in the bright sunshine, diving off the stones of the breakwater and running along the short pier, brown urchins with lithe thin limbs, matted black hair and beady eyes. Suddenly Bastianello was aware of a small dark face and two little hands holding upon the gunwale of his boat. He knew the boy very well, for he was the son of the Son of the Fool.

  “Let go, Nennè!” he said; “do you take us for a bathing house?”

  “You have a beautiful pair of padroni, you and your brother,” observed Nennè, making a hideous face over the boat’s side.

  Bastianello did not move, but stretched out his long arm to take up the boat-hook, which lay within his reach.

  “If you had seen what I saw in the garden up there just now,” continued the small boy. “Madonna mia, what a business!”

  “Eh, you rascal? what did you see?” asked the sailor, turning the boat-hook round and holding it so that he could rap the boy’s knuckles with the butt end of it.

  “There was the Count, who is Ruggiero’s padrone, trying to kiss your signora’s maid, and offering her the gold, and she — yah!” Another hideous grimace, apparently of delight, interrupted the narrative.

  “What did she do?” asked Bastianello quietly. But he grew a shade paler.

  “Eh? you want to know now, do you? What will you give me?” inquired the urchin.

  “Half a cigar,” said Bastianello, who knew the boy’s vicious tastes, and forthwith produced the bribe from his cap, holding it up for the other to see.

  “What did she do? She threw down the gold and called him an infamous liar to his face. A nice padrone Ruggiero has, who is called a liar and an infamous one by serving maids. Well, give me the cigar.”

  “Take it,” said the sailor, rising and reaching out.

  The urchin stuck it between his teeth, nodded his thanks, lowered himself gently into the water so as not to wet it, and swam cautiously to the breakwater, holding his head in the air.

  Bastianello sat down again and continued to smoke his pipe. There was a happy look in his bright blue eyes which had not been there before.

  CHAPTER X.

  BASTIANELLO SAT STILL in his boat, but he no longer looked to seaward, facing the breeze. He kept an eye on the pier, looking out for his brother, who had not appeared since the midday meal. The piece of information he had just received was worth communicating, for it raised Teresina very much in the eyes of Bastianello, and he did not doubt that it would influence Ruggiero in the right direction. Bastianello, too, was keen enough to see that anything which gave him an opportunity of discussing the girl with his brother might be of advantage, in that it might bring Ruggiero to the open expression of a settled purpose — either to marry the girl or not. And if he once gave his word that he would not, Bastianello would be no longer bound to suffer in silence as he had suffered so many weeks. The younger of the brothers was less passionate, less nervous and less easily moved in every way than the elder, but he possessed much of the same general character and all of the same fundamental good qualities — strength, courage and fidelity. In his quiet way he was deeply and sincerely in love with Teresina, and meant, if possible and if Ruggiero did not take her, to make her his wife.

  At last Ruggiero’s tall figure appeared at the corner of the building occupied by the coastguard station, and Bastianello immediately whistled to him, giving a signal which had served the brothers since they were children. Ruggiero started, turned his head and at once jumped into the first boat he could lay hands on and pulled out alongside of his brother.

  “What is it?” he asked, letting his oars swing astern and laying hold on the gunwale of the sail boat.

  “About Teresina,” answered Bastianello, taking his pipe from his mouth and leaning towards his brother. “The son of the Son of the Fool was swimming about here just now, and he hauled himself half aboard of me and made faces. So I took the boat-hook to hit his fingers. And just then he said to me, ‘You have a beautiful pair of masters you and your brother.’ ‘Why?’ I asked, and I held the boat-hook ready. But I would not have hurt the boy, because he is one of ours. So he told me that he had just seen the Count up there in the garden of the hotel, trying to kiss Teresina and offering her the gold, and I gave him half a cigar to tell me the rest, because he would not, and made faces.”

  “May he die murdered!” exclaimed Ruggiero in a low voice, his face as white as canvas.

  “Wait a little, she is a good girl,” answered Bastianello. “Teresina threw the gold upon the ground and told the Count that he was an infamous one and a liar. And then she went away. And I think the boy was speaking the truth, because if it were a lie he would have spoken in another way. For it was as easy to say that the Count kissed her as to say that she would not let him, and he would have had the tobacco all the same.”

  “May he die of a stroke!” muttered Ruggiero.

  “But if I were in your place,” said his brother calmly, “I would not do anything to your padrone, because the girl is a good girl and gave him the good answer, and as for him—” Bastianello shrugged his shoulders.

  “May the sharks get his body and the devil get his soul!”

  “That will be as it shall be,” answered Bastianello. “And it is sure that if God wills, the grampuses will eat him. But we do not know the end. What I would say is this, that it is time you should speak to the girl, because I see how white you get when we talk of her, and you are consuming yourself and will have an illness, and though I could work for both you and me, four arms are better than two, in summer as in winter. Therefore I say, go and speak to her, for she will have you and she will be better with you than near that apoplexy of a San Miniato.”

  Ruggiero did not answer at once, but pulled out his pipe and filled it and began to smoke.

  “Why should I speak?” he asked at last. There was a struggle in his mind, for he did not wish to tell Bastianello outright that he did not really care for Teresina. If he betrayed this fact it would be hard hereafter to account for his own state, which was too apparent to be concealed, especially from his brother, and he had no idea that the latter loved the girl.

  “Why should you speak?” asked Bastianello, repeating the words, and stirring the ashes in his pipe with the point of his knife. “Because if you do not speak you will never get anything.”

  “It will be the same if I do,” observed Ruggiero stolidly.

  “I believe that very little,” returned the other. “And I will tell you something. If I were to speak to Teresina for you and say, ‘Here is my brother Ruggiero, who is not a great signore, but is well grown and has two arms which are good, and a matter of seven or eight hundred francs in the bank, and who is very fond of you, but he does not know how to say it. Think well if you will have him,’ I would say, ‘and if you will not, give me an honest answer and God bless you and let it be the end.’ That is how I would speak, and she would think about it for a week or perhaps two, and then she would say to me, ‘Bastianello, tell your brother that I will have him.’ Or else she would say, ‘Bastianello, tell your brother that I thank him, but that I have no heart in it.’ That is what she would say.”

  “It may be,” said Ruggiero carelessly. “But of course she would thank, and say ‘Who is this Ruggiero?’ and besides, the world is full of women.”

  Bastianello was about to ask the interpretation of this rather enigmatical speech when there was a stir on the pier and two or three boats put out, the men standing in them and sculling them stern foremost.

  “Who is it?” asked Bastianello of the boatman who passed nearest to him.

  “The Giovannina,” answered the man.

  She had returned from her last voyage to Calabria, having taken macaroni from Amalfi and bringing back wine of Verbicaro. A fine boat, the Giovannina, able to carry twenty tons in any weather, and water-tight too, being decked with hatches over which you can stretch and batten down tarpaulin. A pretty sight as she ran up to the end of the breakwater, old Luigione standing at th
e stern with the tiller between his knees and the slack of the main-sheet in his hand. She was running wing and wing, with her bright new sails spreading far over the water on each side. Then came a rattle and a sharp creak as the main-yard swung over and came down on deck, the men taking in the bellying canvas with wide open arms and old Luigione catching the end of the yard on his shoulder while he steered with his knees, his great gaunt profile black against the bright sky. Down foresail, and the good felucca forges ahead and rounds the little breakwater. Let go the anchor and she is at rest after her long voyage. For the season has not been good and she has been hauled on a dozen beaches before she could sell her cargo. The men are all as brown as mahogany, and as lean as wolves, for it has been a voyage with share and share alike for all the crew and they have starved themselves to bring home more money to their wives.

  Then there is some bustle and confusion, as Luigione brings the papers ashore and friends crowd around the felucca in boats, asking for news and all talking at once.

  “We have been in your town, Ruggiero,” said one of the men, looking down into the little boat.

  “I hope you gave a message from me to Don Pietro Casale,” answered Ruggiero.

  “Health to us, Don Pietro is dead,” said the man, “and his wife is not likely to live long either.”

  “Dead, eh?” cried Bastianello. “He is gone to show the saints the nose we gave him when we were boys.”

  “We can go back to Verbicaro when we please,” observed Ruggiero with a smile.

  “Lend a hand on board, will you?” said the sailor.

  So Ruggiero made the boat fast with the painter and both brothers scrambled over the side of the felucca. They did not renew their conversation concerning Teresina, and an hour or two later they went up to the hotel to be in readiness for their masters, should the latter wish to go out. Ruggiero sat down on a bench in the garden, but Bastianello went into the house.

  In the corridor outside the Marchesa’s rooms he met Teresina, who stopped and spoke to him as she always did when she met him, for though she admired both the brothers, she liked Bastianello better than she knew — perhaps because he talked more and seemed to have a gentler temper.

  “Good-day, Bastianello,” she said, with a bright smile.

  “And good-day to you, Teresina,” answered Bastianello. “Can you tell me whether the padroni will go out to-day in the boat?”

  “I think they will not,” answered the girl. “But I will ask. But I think they will not, because there is the devil in the house to-day, and the Signorina looks as though she would eat us all, and that is a bad sign.”

  “What has happened?” asked Bastianello. “You can tell me, because I will tell nobody.”

  “The truth is this,” answered Teresina, lowering her voice. “They have betrothed her to the Count, and she does not like it. But if you say anything — .” She laughed a little and shook her finger at him.

  Bastianello threw his head back to signify that he would not repeat what he had heard. Then he gazed into Teresina’s eyes for a moment.

  “The Count is worse than an animal,” he said quietly.

  “If you knew how true that is!” exclaimed Teresina, blushing deeply and turning away. “I will ask the Marchesa if she will go out,” she added, as she walked quickly away.

  Bastianello waited and in a few moments she came back.

  “Not to-day,” she said.

  “So much the better. I want to say something to you, Teresina. Will you listen to me? Can I say it here?” Bastianello felt unaccountably nervous, and when he had spoken he regretted it.

  “I hope it is good news,” answered the girl. “Come to the window at the end of the corridor. We shall be further from the door there, and there is more air. Now what is it?” she asked as they reached the place she had chosen.

  “It is this, Teresina,” said Bastianello, summoning all his courage for what was the most difficult undertaking of his life. “You know my brother Ruggiero.”

  “Eh! I should think so! I see him every day.”

  “Good. He also sees you every day, and he sees how beautiful you are, and now he knows how good you are, because the little boy of the Son of the Fool saw you with that apoplexy of a Count in the garden to-day, and heard what you said, and came and told me, and I told Ruggiero because I knew how glad he would be.”

  “Dio mio!” cried Teresina. She had blushed scarlet while he was speaking, and she covered her face with both hands.

  “You need not hide your face, Teresina,” said Bastianello, with a little emotion. “You can show it to every one after what you have done. And so I will go on, and you must listen. Ruggiero is not a great signore like the Count of San Miniato, but he is a man. And he has two arms which are good, and two fists as hard as an ox’s hoofs, and he can break horse-shoes with his hands.”

  “Can you do that?” asked Teresina with an admiring look.

  “Since you ask me — yes, I can. But Ruggiero did it before I could, and showed me how, and no one else here can do it at all. And moreover Ruggiero is a quiet man and does not drink nor play at the lotto, and there is no harm in a game of beggar-my-neighbour for a pipe of tobacco, on a long voyage when there is no work to be done, and—”

  “Yes, I know,” said Teresina, interrupting him. “You are very much alike, you too. But what has this about Ruggiero to do with me, that you tell me it all?”

  “Who goes slowly, goes safely, and who goes safely goes far,” answered Bastianello. “Listen to me. Ruggiero has also seven hundred and sixty-three francs in the bank, and will soon have more, because he saves his money carefully, though he is not stingy. And Ruggiero, if you will have him, will work for you, and I will also work for you, and you shall have a good house, and plenty to eat and good clothes besides the gold—”

  “But Bastianello mio!” cried Teresina, who had suspected what was coming, “I do not want to marry Ruggiero at all.”

  She clasped her hands and gazed into the sailor’s eyes with a pretty look of confusion and regret.

  “You do not want to marry Ruggiero!” Bastianello’s expression certainly betrayed more surprise than disappointment. But he had honestly pleaded his brother’s cause. “Then you do not love him,” he said, as though unable to recover from his astonishment.

  “But no — I do not love him at all, though he is so handsome and good.”

  “Madonna mia!” exclaimed Bastianello, turning sharply round and moving away a step or two. He was in great perturbation of spirit, for he loved the girl dearly, and he began to fear that he had not done his best for Ruggiero.

  “But you did love him a few days ago,” he said, coming back to Teresina’s side.

  “Indeed, I never did!” she said.

  “Nor any one else?” asked Bastianello suddenly.

  “Eh! I did not say that,” answered the girl, blushing a little and looking down.

  “Well do not tell me his name, because I should tell Ruggiero, and Ruggiero might do him an injury. It is better not to tell me.”

  Teresina laughed a little.

  “I shall certainly not tell you who he is,” she said. “You can find that out for yourself, if you take the trouble.”

  “It is better not. Either Ruggiero or I might hurt him, and then there would be trouble.”

  “You, too?”

  “Yes, I too.” Bastianello spoke the words rather roughly and looked fixedly into Teresina’s eyes. Since she did not love Ruggiero, why should he not speak? Yet he felt as though he were not quite loyal to his brother.

  Teresina’s cheeks grew red and then a little pale. She twisted the cord of the Venetian blind round and round her hand, looking down at it all the time. Bastianello stood motionless before her, staring at her thick black hair.

  “Well?” asked Teresina looking up and meeting his eyes and then lowering her own quickly again.

  “What, Teresina?” asked Bastianello in a changed voice.

  “You say you also might do that man an
injury whom I love. I suppose that is because you are so fond of your brother. Is it so?”

  “Yes — and also—”

  “Bastianello, do you love me too?” she asked in a very low tone, blushing more deeply than before.

  “Yes. I do. God knows it. I would not have said it, though. Ah, Teresina, you have made a traitor of me! I have betrayed my brother — and for what?”

  “For me, Bastianello. But you have not betrayed him.”

  “Since you do not love him—” began the sailor in a tone of doubt.

  “Not him, but another.”

  “And that other—”

  “It is perhaps you, Bastianello,” said Teresina, growing rather pale again.

  “Me!” He could only utter the one word just then.

  “Yes, you.”

  “My love!” Bastianello’s arm went gently round her, and he whispered the words in her ear. She let him hold her so without resistance, and looked up into his face with happy eyes.

  “Yes, your love — did you never guess it, dearest?” She was blushing still, and smiling at the same time, and her voice sounded sweet to Bastianello.

  Only a sailor and a serving-maid, but both honest and both really loving. There was not much eloquence about the courtship, as there had been about San Miniato’s, and there was not the fierce passion in Bastianello’s breast that was eating up his brother’s heart. Yet Beatrice, at least, would have changed places with Teresina if she could, and San Miniato could have held his head higher if there had ever been as much honesty in him as there was in Bastianello’s every thought and action.

  For Bastianello was very loyal, though he thought badly enough of his own doings, and when Beatrice called Teresina away a few minutes later, he marched down the corridor with resolute steps, meaning not to lose a moment in telling Ruggiero the whole truth, how he had honestly said the best things he could for him and had asked Teresina to marry him, and how he, Bastianello, had been betrayed into declaring his love, and had found, to his amazement, that he was loved in return.

  Ruggiero was sitting alone on one of the stone pillars on the little pier, gazing at the sea, or rather, at a vessel far away towards Ischia, running down the bay with every stitch of canvas set from her jibs to her royals. He looked round as Bastianello came up to him.