Delphi Collected Works of Ouida

by Ouida

  They went along unmolested till the sun rose higher and the glittering heavy dews began to pass off from the earth as the day widened.

  They descended the hill and proceeded along the straight road of the plain; the great line of the northern mountains unrolled before them in the morning light, with airy grey summits high in the clouds, and the lower spurs purple with shadow, and here and there the white gleam of a village dropped in a ravine, or of a little town shining at the foot of a bold scarp. Monte Morello rose the highest of all the heights, looking a blue, solemn, naked peak against the radiant sky, keeping the secrets of his green oak forests and his emerald snakes for such as have the will and strength to see him near. Beyond, in the distance, far behind the nearer range, were the fantastic slopes of the mountains by the sea, that saw the flames of Shelley’s pyre rise on the solitary shore. They were of faint rose hue, and had a silvery light about them. Signa looked at them; they seemed to him like domes and towers.

  “Are those temples, do you think?” he said, in an awed voice, to Gemma.

  Gemma looked, and put her finger in her mouth.

  “Perhaps they are the tops of the big booths at the fair.”

  “Oh, Gemma!” he said, with pained disgust, and would have loosened his hand, but she held it too close and tight.

  “If they are booths, we shall get to them in time,” she said.

  “I would rather they were temples, though we might never get to them,” said he, with heat and pain.

  “That is silly,” said Gemma.

  What use were those temples that one never got to; — or of any temples, indeed? Nobody ever fried in them, or made sweetmeats.

  That is what she thought to herself, but she did not say so aloud. He was so silly; he never saw these things; and she wished to keep him in good humour.

  In time they reached Poggio Caiano: they were used to run along dusty roads in the sun and did not tire quickly. They could both of them run a dozen miles or more with very little fatigue, but it was now seven in the morning.

  “I am thirsty,” said Gemma. “I should like some milk. Ask for it.”

  There was a cottage by the side of the road with wooden sheds and cackling hens, and bits of grass land under shady mulberries. She saw two cows there. Signa hung back.

  “We have nothing to buy it with — nothing!”

  “How helpless you are,” said Gemma, and she put her pretty golden head in at the cottage door. There was a brown, kindly‐looking woman there, plucking dead pigeons.

  “Dear mother,” said Gemma, coaxingly, “you look so good, could you give us just a little drop of water? We have been walking half the night. Father is gone to Prato with a string of donkeys to sell, and we are to meet him there, and were are so — oh, so thirsty!”

  “Poor little souls!” said the woman, melted in a moment, for all Italians are kind in little things. “My child, what a face you have — like the baby, Jesus! Step in here and I will get you a draught of milk. Is that your brother?”

  “Yes,” said Gemma.

  “Oh, Gemma! to lie is so wicked!” murmured Signa, plucking at her ragged skirt.

  “Is it?” said Gemma, showing her pearly teeth; “then everybody is wicked, dear; and the good God must have his hands full!”

  The woman brought them out two little wooden bowls of milk.

  Gemma drank from hers as thirstily and prettily as a little snake could do. Signa refused his. He said he did not wish for it.

  “Perhaps you are hungry,” said the woman, and offered them two hunches of wholesome bread.

  Signa shook his head and put his hands behind his back.

  Gemma took both.

  “You are so kind,” she said, winningly, “and we are hungry. My brother is shy, that is all.”

  “Poor little dear!” said the good housewife, won and touched, so that she brought out some figs as well. “And you have been walking far? and have so far still to go? Your father is cruel.”

  “He is very poor,” said Gemma, sadly, “and glad to get a copper driving the asses. We come from Scandicci, a long way.”

  And then she threw her arms around the woman prettily, and kissed her, and trotted on, hugging the bread and figs.

  The woman watched them out of sight.

  “A sweet child,” she thought. “If the good Madonna had only given me the like! — ah me! I would have thanked her day and night. The boy is handsome too — but sulky. Poor babies, it is very far to go.”

  And she called Gemma back and kissed her again, and gave her a little bit of money, being a soft‐hearted soul and well to do herself.

  “Is it wicked to lie?” said Gemma to Signa, showing her white little teeth again. “But, look! — it does answer, you see!”

  “I cannot talk to you, Gemma,” said the body, wearily; “you are so wrong, you grieve me so.”

  Gemma laughed.

  “And yet it is me you always want to kiss — not Palma. Palma, who never tells a lie at all!”

  Signa coloured. He knew that that was true. He went on silently, holding the violin close to him, and not giving his hand to Gemma any more. She did not try to take it; it was too far for him to turn back.

  They came to the royal gardens of the palace where once Bianca Capella reigned and was happy, and studied her love philtres and potions for death’s sleep. Some great gates stood ajar; there were the green shade of trees and shadows of thick grass.

  “Let us go in,” said Gemma; and they went in, and she sat down on the turf and began to taste the sweetness of her figs.

  Signa stood by her, silent and sad. She was so wrong, and yet she was so pretty, and she could make him do the things he hated, and he was full of pain because he had left the Lastra and the hills, and went he knew not whither.

  “What are you doing there, you little tramps! Be off with you,” cried one of the gardeners of the place, espying them.

  Gemma lifted to him her blue caressing eyes.

  “Are we doing wrong? Oh, dear signore, let us stop a little, just a very little; we will into stir from here; only we are so tired, so very tired, and in the road it is hot and dusty and the carts are so many!”

  The gardener looked at her and grumbled, and relented.

  “If you do not stir you may stop a little while — a very little,” he said at last. “Where have you come from, you baby angel?”

  “From Scandicci; and we go to Prato.”

  The man lifted his hands in horror, because Scandicci was a long long way, away upon the Greve river.

  “From Scandicci! Poor children! Well, rest a little if you like.”

  And he left the gate open for them.

  “Have you beautiful flowers here?” said Gemma, softly, glancing through the trees. “I do love flowers!”

  She did not care for a flower more than for a turnip, living amongst gardens always, as she had done. But she knew flowers went to market, like the butter and the eggs.

  “Do you? You are a flower yourself,” said the gardener, who had had three pretty children and lost them. “What are you going to do, you and your brother?”

  “We are going to play in Prato. We have no father or mother. He makes the music and I dance,” said Gemma, who, though without imagination of the finer sort, could ring the changes prettily in lying.

  “Poor little things; and what are your names?”

  “I am Rita; and he is Paolo,” said Gemma. “Do you think you could give me a flower — just one — to smell at as I go along?”

  “I will see,” said the man, smiling.

  Signa stood by mute, with a swelling heart. He knew that he ought to stop her in her falsehoods, but he was afraid to vex her and afraid to lose her. He listened, wounded and ashamed, and feeling himself a coward.

  “Why do you do such things, Gemma?” he cried, piteously, as the gardener turned away.

  “It is no use telling you, you are so silly,” said Gemma; and she ate fig after fig, lying on her back in the shade of the trees wher
e once Bianca and Francesco had wandered when their love and the summer were at height; and where their spirits wander still at midnight, so the peasants say.

  In a little time the gardener returned, bringing with him a basket of cut flowers.

  “You may like to sell these in Prato,” he said to the child. “And you will find a peach or two at the bottom.”

  “Oh, how good you are!” cried Gemma, springing up; and she kissed the flowers and then the brown hand of the man.

  “You have but a sulky companion, I fear,” said the gardener, glancing at the boy, who stood aloof.

  “Oh, no! He is only shy and tired. What is this great house?”

  “It is a palace.”

  “Are there people in it?”

  “No. Only ghosts!”

  “Ghosts of what?”

  “Of a great wicked woman who lived here; and her lovers. She was a baker’s daughter, but she murdered many people, and got to be a duchess of Tuscany.”

  “Did she murder them to be a duchess?”

  “They say so; and to keep her secrets!”

  Gemma opened wondering eyes.

  “And she walks here at night?”

  “By night; not that I can say I have ever seen her myself.”

  “I should like to meet her.”

  “Why?”

  “Perhaps she would tell me how she did it.”

  The gardener stared, — then laughed.

  “You pretty cherub! — if you have patience, and grow a woman, you will find out all that yourself.”

  “Come away,” said Signa, and he dragged her out through the open gates.

  She turned to kiss her hand to the gardener. Signa dragged her on in haste.

  “A rude boy that,” said the man, as he shut the gates on them.

  “They are flowers worth five francs!” said Gemma, hugging her basket of roses; “and you think it is no use to tell lies?”

  “I think it is very vile and base.”

  “Pooh!” said Gemma, and she danced along in the dust. She had got a basket worth five francs, bread and fruit enough for the day, and some copper pieces as well; all by looking pretty and just telling a nice little lie or two.

  He seemed very helpless to her. He had got nothing.

  “It is very hot walking,” she said, presently.

  “Yes,” said Signa. “But we are used to it, you and I.”

  “I hate it, though.”

  “But we must do it if we want to get to Prato.”

  “Must we?”

  She thought a few minutes, then looked behind her; in the distance there were coming along a baroccino and an old white horse.

  Gemma gave a sudden cry of pain.

  “What is it, Gemma, dear?” cried Signa, melted in a moment and catching her.

  “I have twisted my foot on a stone. Oh, Signa, how it hurts!”

  She sat down on a log of wood that chanced to lie there, and rubbed her little dusty foot dolefully. Signa knelt down in the dust, and took the little wounded foot upon his knee and caressed it with fond words. He could see no hurt; but then no one sees sprains or strains till they begin to swell.

  “Oh, Signa, we never shall get on! It hurts me so!” she cried, and sobbed and moaned aloud.

  The cart stopped; there were old people in it coming from the city itself, people who did not know them.

  “Is there anything the matter?” cried the old folks, seeing the little girl crying so bitterly.

  “She has hurt herself,” said Signa. “She has twisted her ancle ankle or something, and we go to Prato. Oh, Gemma, dear Gemma, is it so very bad?”

  Gemma answered by her sobbing.

  The old man and woman chattered together a little, then seeing the children were so pretty and seemed so sad, told them there was room in the cart; they themselves were going to Prato — there were eight miles more to do; the boy might lift the girl in if he liked.

  Gemma was borne up and seated between the two old people; Signa was told that he might curl himself, if he would, on the rope foot‐place of the baroccino, and did so. The white horse rattle onward.

  “You are a pretty boy, too,” said the woman to Signa. “Why do you not talk to one?”

  “I have nothing to say,” he murmured.

  He would not lie; and he could not tell the truth without exposing Gemma’s pretty fables.

  “You are more sulky than your sister; one would think it was your foot that had been hurt,” said the old woman.

  It was the third time in half an hour that, through Gemma, he had been called sulky. He hung his head, and was mute, taking care that Gemma’s ankle should not be shakened as they went.

  The way seemed to him very long.

  He could see little on account of the dust, which rose in large quantities along the road, for the weather was dry and the traffic to the fair was great. Now and then he saw the purple front of Monte Morello and the towers of Prato, lying underneath it to the westward, and farther in the dark quarried sides of the serpentine hills, with the crimson gleam of jasper in the sun; and, much father still, Pistoia; that was all.

  Signa took her foot between his hands, and held it tenderly, so that the jolting should not jar it more than he could help.

  Her sobs ceased little by little, and she chattered softly with the old driver, telling him that she was going to Prato to sell flowers, and her brother to make a few coins by playing if he could; they had no father or mother. She cried out a little now and then, when the cart went rougher than usual over a loose stone.

  “Are you in such pain, dear? Oh, if only I could bear it for you!” said Signa; and the tears came in his eyes to think that she should suffer so much.

  “It is better; do not fret,” said Gemma, gravely; and the old woman in the cart thought what a sweet‐tempered child it was, so anxious to be patient and not vex her brother. For Gemma had the talent to get credit for all the virtues that she had not — a talent which is of much more use than any real possession of the virtues ever can be.

  The eight miles were very tedious and mournful even to Signa; he was full of sorrow for her little bruised foot, and full of care for her future and his own, and full of reproach to himself for having let her come with him.

  “Whatever will come of it — all is my fault,” he thought, tormenting himself whilst the white horse trotted wearily over the bad road, and the clouds of dust blew round them and obscured the green sunny valley and the shining Bisenzio river.

  Gemma, moaning a little now and then, leant her curly head against the old woman’s knee, and before very long fell fast asleep, her long black lashes sweeping her rosy cheeks.

  “The innocent lamb!” said the woman, tenderly, and covered her face from the sun and from the flies.

  When the cart stopped at the south gate of Prato, the old woman woke Gemma softly:

  “My pretty dear, we cannot get the things out without moving you, but if you will sit a bit in the shade by the wall there, we will take you up again in a minute, and put you where you like; or maybe you will stay with us and have a taste of breakfast.”

  Her husband lifted Gemma with much care down upon the stones, and set her on a bench, Signa standing still beside her.

  “What is to be done, Gemma?” he said, with a piteous sigh. “Tell these good people the truth, dear, and they will take care of you, and drive you back again to Giovoli, I am sure. As for me, it does not matter.”

  “You are a grullo!” said Gemma, with calm contempt, which meant in her tongue that he was as foolish a thing as lived. “Wait till they are not looking, then do what I do.”

  Soon the man and the woman had their backs turned, and were intent on their cackling poultry and strings of sausages.

  “Now!” said Gemma, and she darted round a corner of the gate, and ran swiftly as a young hare down the narrow street, clasping her flower‐basket close to her all the while.

  “But you are not lame at all!” cried Signa, stupefied, when at length, panting and
laughing, she paused in her flight.

  Her azure eyes glanced over him with a smile of intense amusement.

  “Lame! of course not! But we wanted a lift. I got it. That was all.”

  “Oh, Gemma!”

  He felt stunned and sick. He could only look at her. He could not speak. He thought the very stones of the street would open and swallow her for such wickedness as this.

  Gemma laughed the more to see his face. She could not perceive anything amiss in what she had done. It had been fun to see the people’s anxiety for her; and then they had been carried the eight miles they wanted: — how could anything be wrong that had so well succeeded?

  Gemma, with her little plump bare shoulders and her ragged petticoat, reasoned as the big world does: — Success never sins.

  Signa could not laugh. He would not answer her. He felt wretched.

  “You are a kill‐joy!” said Gemma, pettishly, and sat down on a door‐step to tie up her flowers and consider what it would be best worth her while to do.

  She decided that it was of no use at all to consult him. He was full of silly scruples that grew naturally in him, as choke‐grass in the earth.

  “It is very nice to be away from everybody,” said Gemma, sorting her flowers, and looking about her with keen pleasure in the sense of liberty and strangeness.

  “Oh, Gemma! It breaks one’s heart,” murmured Signa, while the water swam in his eyes. He thought his heart was broken. He felt powerless and utterly wretched. A companion who would have clung to him and needed his protection and his aid would have aroused his courage; but Gemma’s hardihood and dauntlessness and reckless wrong‐doing only seemed to crush him and bewilder him till he felt like any frightened kid lost upon the mountains.

  When she rose, he rose also, and crept after her spiritless and weary.

  The bold craft of her practical mind and her little merciless words of worldly wisdom beat into impotency all the finer impulses and higher intelligence of his own. Moral impudence scourges spiritual beauty till it is cowed like a whipt dog.

  Gemma, for her part, was indifferent; she felt herself the master‐mind of the two; she was perfectly happy seeing strange things, and not knowing what new turn fortune might not take any minute; she thought of Palma hoeing and toiling amongst the cabbages at home with scornful pity, and said to herself, “how nice it is to be away and not have a soul to scold one!” When they came in sight of the cathedral and the belfry, Signa, moved to sudden interest, pulled her skirt.