Vestigia.

by George Fleming.

CHAPTER I.

MOTHER AND SON.

It was nearly five o'clock of a raw and windy afternoon in the month of March, 187-, when a young man, Bernardino de Rossi by name, came hastily out of an inner room of the Telegraph Office building at Leghorn, letting the heavy swinging door close sharply behind him with a disagreeable sound.

The room which he entered was one reserved for the use of the Government clerks. Its floor was bare; its high walls, painted the same dull uniform yellow as the rest of the building, were lighted from above by a row of small square windows, crossed with rusty bars of iron--an arrangement which involuntarily suggested a prison ward; and there was little to contradict this fancy in the appearance of the line of high desks ranged along three sides of the room, or in the expression of the figures bending over them. The names and dates and rude caricatures scrawled over every available s.p.a.ce of plaster and woodwork seemed indeed an indication that such absorbed industry was not the invariable rule; but on that especial afternoon a dead silence prevailed. To one accustomed to the ways of the place it was a significant silence, broken only by the monotonous ticking of the telegraph wires heard through the half-open door of the adjoining room, and the rapid scratching of many pens.

At De Rossi's entrance one of the younger clerks, a mere lad, with pale watery eyes and a Jewish profile, looked up from his writing.

'Well, Dino?' he murmured anxiously.

De Rossi glanced at him and hesitated.

'It is all right. Only--I'm off.'

'Not--not dismissed, Dino?'

'Dismissed. Turned out. Turned off. Sent away without a character, like a bad cook. Put it any way you prefer it, it all comes to the same thing. But it really does not matter in the least. It was sure to come to that in the end. There is nothing for--for any one to be sorry about. So don't trouble--don't let any one trouble himself on my account,' the young man added rapidly, his face lighting up with a sudden very pleasant smile.

'But--Dino----'

'Who is making that noise? I ask you, who is making that noise there?

By Heaven! you are enough to drive a man mad amongst you. Chatter!

chatter! chatter! Nothing but gossip and chatter, like a parcel of idle women after ma.s.s. Government employees you call yourselves; my word, it is a useful kind of employment that,' interposed the large pale-faced man, who occupied a desk by himself, in the warmest corner, beside the stove, at the far end of the room. 'You were not speaking?

Don't tell _me_, sir. I say you are always speaking--and to no purpose. Chatter, chatter, chatter! and slamming doors----'

'Come, come, Sor Checco. Come now; the lads mean no harm by it. I'll answer for them. They mean no harm,' observed another large, middle-aged individual, who was elaborately filling up an empty telegraph form, standing beside one of the desks provided for the use of the public. He spoke in a good-natured, husky voice. Despite the cold, the yellow fur collar of his enormous cloak was thrown wide open upon his shoulders, and from time to time he paused heavily in his writing, to rub his forehead with the blue and red checked handkerchief which he carried, rolled up in a ball, in his left hand. 'And as for their talking--as for their talking,' he went on soothingly, 'why, what can you expect? Every donkey prefers his own bray. And our young friend's little accident with the door there----'

'Accident! accident! Who believes in accidents? Any fool can call a thing an accident,' retorted Sor Checco, with increasing irritation, standing up and giving an impatient push to his chair. The chair immediately slipped back against the nearest end of the fender, bringing the fire-irons to the ground with a loud rattle and crash.

There was a general laugh at the head clerk's expense, under cover of which Dino walked quietly over to his old place under the window, unlocked a drawer with a key which he took from his pocket, and began putting together some loose papers and a ma.n.u.script book.

One by one the clerks suspended their work, turning their heads to watch him, but no one ventured to speak again until worthy Sor Giovanni--having written out his despatch and read it over carefully, checking off each word on the thick square fingers of his right hand--turned about with a satisfied air, and catching sight of young De Rossi's occupation, 'Why, lad, lad,' he said, reprovingly, 'you're never packing up your things to go on account of six cross words and a sour look? Come, come, my boy, leave that sort of thing to the women folk--G.o.d bless them! But a man can't afford to catch fire every time he strikes a match. Come now. Here is something different for you to do. Why, lad, if bad temper were a fever there wouldn't be hospitals enough to hold us all. Come now. Send off this despatch for me like a good fellow. And no nonsense about mistaking the address. Visconti, Guiseppe, No. 20, Via Tordinona, Rome. There it is all written out for you as plain as the blessed cross on the roof of the Duomo. And here is my franc waiting to pay for it. Fifteen words. You may count it over, you'll find no cheating. I'll answer for it you won't.'

He laughed a good-natured satisfied laugh, and dabbed at his forehead with his checked handkerchief. 'Come, my boy,' he said very good-humouredly, leaning confidentially across the top of the desk, and pushing over the paper and the money.

Dino looked up with a sharp gesture of impatience. 'Oh, go to some one else!' he began; and then seeing the other's beaming face so near his, and being always ready to be affected by a kind word or a kind look, 'I would serve you if I could, Sor Giovanni,' he added quickly; 'but the fact is--I'm no longer a clerk here. My name was taken off the books this morning. I'm dismissed.'

'Dismissed! Why, lad--why, G.o.d bless my soul! what have you been doing then?' cried Sor Giovanni huskily, bringing his hand down heavily upon the table.

Dino's face flushed; he gave a little laugh. 'Ah, that is the question!' he said, turning away with some slight embarra.s.sment and beginning to fasten up his papers: they were letters chiefly.

'It _is_ the question; there I quite agree with you. It is very much the question,' added the head clerk, Sor Checco, coming forward and resting both hands upon the back of the desk. He looked at the young man with a hard glance. 'Before you leave--and, as I had the honour of telling the Director this morning, it is a question of your leaving or of mine,--before you leave you will perhaps have the goodness to explain the nature of those doc.u.ments which----'

'I shall have the goodness to explain precisely nothing at all,'

retorted De Rossi promptly, standing up and thrusting the package of papers into the breast pocket of his coat. With the change of att.i.tude every vestige of hesitation seemed to leave his bearing. 'To _you_, Sor Giovanni,' he said, looking at him very gratefully, 'I have to express my regret that circ.u.mstances prevent my doing you so trifling a service----'

'But--G.o.d bless my soul! But I don't understand. Come now, lad, what is the row all about? I don't understand in the least; upon my soul I don't. Why, look here. Here am I, so to speak,'--he unfolded one corner of the checked handkerchief,--'here am I writing my despatches as quiet as a sleeping babe. And there is Sor Checco, poor man! busy in his own corner and thinking of nothing. And here are you----'

Dino smiled. 'Was Sor Checco thinking of nothing? It would be a pity to interrupt him. Besides, to him I have nothing to say. He knows my opinion of him,' the young man added sharply, with a sudden light of indignation flashing in his eyes. 'To the others here,--to my old companions----'

He looked down the long room, but at the sound of his words each head was bent lower over its work. De Rossi's face flushed and turned pale like a girl's. He bit his lip, where the smile seemed suddenly to have grown fixed and unnatural, and turned to a peg on the wall from which was hanging a long gray ulster coat. He took down this coat and put it on, b.u.t.toning it across his breast with a deliberation which could not entirely prevent his fingers from trembling. He took down his hat, and stood there for an instant facing the entire room. The light had almost faded away from the small high windows, but there was not a corner of those sordid yellow walls, not a face among those averted faces with which he had not felt familiar. Why, even the chief clerk's fault-finding had its a.s.sociations with many an old foolish light-hearted joke--he had grown accustomed to the discontent, as a man grows accustomed to the rough handle of his daily tool. 'I wish you a very good afternoon. And--and I'm very much obliged to you for your kindness,' the young fellow said abruptly, turning to Sor Giovanni and putting out his hand. And then yielding to an impulse for which he never quite forgave himself, 'I have worked here every day for the last four years, and there is not a man in this room whom I would not have called my friend,' he said bitterly enough, and put his hat upon his head and walked out of the room before them all.

As he pa.s.sed before the young clerk to whom he had spoken on first entering, the boy moved uneasily in his chair, muttering some indistinct word; but at the same moment Sor Checco's voice was heard giving a harsh command that the gas be lighted without further delay.

'And 'tis time surely for more light, when we lose so brilliant an example,' added a tall cadaverous-looking youth, who had hitherto sat silent, keeping a small but wary eye upon the stormy countenance of the patron. Dino could remember years after the pang of bitter and impotent resentment which made him start and clench his fist outside there in the long cold corridor at the echo of the sound of their laughter.

It was a cold clear night, with many stars and a piercing March wind, which set the gas lamps flickering in the deserted Via Grande; for it was a Sat.u.r.day, and all the Jewish shops were closed; and even the few Christian vendors scattered here and there along the street seemed for once to have renounced both orthodoxy and profit, and were for the most part engaged in putting up their shutters with cold and hasty hands.

As he turned, with the automatic accuracy of a man going homewards, out of the main thoroughfare into one of those many narrow streets which lie between the Via Grande and the port, it was indeed a wintry blast which struck the young man full in the face making him catch his breath with a gasp and thrust his hands deeper into the pockets of his long thin coat; but what was this violence of the outer air in comparison to that other fiercer storm, that tumult of hurt pride, of wounded disregarded sensibility, the pa.s.sionate indignation, the hundred mad impulses and promptings which tore at each other and contradicted each other inside his breast? The recollection of his own last words came back to him, and every nerve quivered. He could have struck himself with anger and disgust at his own weakness in having spoken them. 'To have called them--_them_--my friends,' he muttered half aloud. 'If they were laughing at _that_!' he thought, and his face grew hot and cold again as he remembered their laughter.

It was not until he had actually quitted the street, and was rapidly running up the dark stair of a narrow building, that another thought seemed to strike him with a sudden power to slacken his impatient footstep and hold him, hesitating, outside a closed door. 'And the mother? what will she say to it all?' he asked himself, and looked at the latch-key in his hand. An expression of mingled weariness and defiance, the expression of a man who expects to find but short and scanty indulgence between the four walls of his home, crossed his face for an instant. He opened the door and went in.

First came a little hall, a mere pa.s.sageway; beyond that again was a large low room, somewhat empty of furniture, with blackened rafters which divided the ceiling into squares. The walls were whitewashed, scrupulously clean, and quite devoid of character, but here and there a touch of faded colour,--the blurred outline of a flying figure, some heavy tracery of fruit or flower, or line of tarnished gold, still spoke of the original painting of the roof. Facing the door a narrow window led out upon a rickety iron balcony, high hung beneath the eaves of the old house, and from thence in the daytime the view was superb, stretching across the Old Port and the New, over the sea, to the pale vision-like peaks of Carrara.

But to-night the curtain was close drawn. A single oil lamp, with a long wick, was burning on the mantelpiece; its light fell upon the bent gray head of an elderly woman, who was knitting busily, and only occasionally moving a little to cast an anxious glance at the contents of an earthen vessel which stood before the fire.

She looked up, with an air of almost painful suspense in eyes which had once been celebrated for their beauty, and which, even yet, shone clear and dark beneath the troubled brows; she looked up, still holding her knitting with both hands, as her son entered.

'Well, Dino?' she said breathlessly.

'Well, mother. You see I was not mistaken. I thought I should come home rather later to-night,' the young man answered, with an attempt at speaking easily. He came and stood before the fire, spreading out his chilled fingers to the warmth of the blaze. 'It is a cold night. I don't know when I can remember so cold a night,' he said absently. And then, rousing himself with an effort, 'Where is the little one? where is Palmira?' he asked, glancing around him.

'She has gone to spend the afternoon at Drea's. Italia came for her.

It is Italia's birthday, and they said you had arranged to call for the child,' returned his mother slowly. She bent her head still lower over her knitting. 'You will want your supper before you go out again. It is spoilt now, with keeping. It has been ready for you this hour past.

I knew nothing about it. I knew nothing of when you intended to come back. Perhaps that is one of the things which you had already settled--with Italia.'

'Dear mother, I am so sorry. But indeed it was unavoidable,' said Dino soothingly. He added in a lower voice, 'Even this morning I did not think there was much chance for me. And the moment I heard the Director's conditions I saw it was all up. They wanted to get rid of me,--my being at the demonstration was a mere pretext. Don't worry yourself about it, mother; pray don't. It must have come to this in the end. They wanted--they all wanted to get rid of me. And perhaps, all things considered, it is not so much to be wondered at.'

'Wonder? Do you think I have lived until now to wonder at any trouble overtaking us--at _any_ misfortune?' interrupted Sora Catarina pa.s.sionately. She took a few hasty impatient st.i.tches, holding her work up close to her eyes, which burned painfully with hot tears of repressed disappointment. Then she rose abruptly, sweeping the b.a.l.l.s of wool into some inner pocket; she took up the lamp, placing it upon a centre table. 'You are cold. You had better eat,' she said briefly.

'Thank you, mother. I am not hungry.'

'There were potatoes, too, cooked as you like them. But that was an hour ago,' she went on, taking a dish from the warm hearth and looking into it.

'Oh, it is sure to be good. It is my own fault that I am not hungry,'

said Dino. He threw off his outer coat and drew his chair nearer to the table.

'Mother.'

'Well?'

She turned her head slowly towards him, and for the first time that evening their eyes met,--dark serious eyes, almost the only trace of resemblance between mother and son, the only feature they had in common. 'Well?' she repeated after an instant's pause. She was still standing; now she crossed the room to fetch another candle, which she lighted and placed before him. 'There is no reason you should eat your supper in the dark. It is little enough pleasure that comes here in the daytime, goodness knows. But you never did care about being made comfortable.'

'Mother, I think--I have been thinking of asking Drea if he does not want another hand at his work. I can manage a boat if I can do nothing else. And it will be something to go on with for the present. That is, if you have no objection,' said Dino, still looking at her rather anxiously.