Читать книгу Gowrie; or, the King's Plot - G. P. R. James - Страница 20

Left alone in the dark, worthy Austin Jute waited with exemplary patience till the old woman who had opened the door, returned with a lamp, and invited him to come and take some supper with her in the kitchen.

"One cannot have too much of a good thing," said the Englishman, for such he was, in his own tongue; "but then again, another proverb says, 'Enough is as good as a feast;' and to speak the truth, I have supped; but 'a full bag is better than an empty sack;' and, for that matter, no one knows when he has had enough, and therefore I cannot be supposed to be a judge in a case of conscience."

This reasoning was addressed to himself rather than to the old lady who stood by his side, listening to all he had to say with an air of the most perfect unconsciousness, waiting for the time when it should be his pleasure to explain himself in Italian.

"Well, ma'am, I will come," he replied, in the latter language, which, by the way, he spoke remarkably well. "My stomach says it would not object to any reasonable quantity of good food, and still less to a cup or two of good wine. I will follow you, and if----"

But the servant, accustomed to see many strange people, and to hear many foreign languages, seemed to comprehend his meaning as much by his looks as his words, and beckoning him to come on before he had ended his sentence, she led the way towards her refectory. The fare she spread before him was not very abundant nor very rich, but it was refreshing, for fruit was ever cheap at Padua, and of such consisted the principal part of their meal. Austin Jute was a man to make himself easily at home wherever he came, and though, to say truth, he might have been well pleased if his companion had been younger and prettier, nevertheless he was soon in full talk with the old woman; and when a little bell rang above for refreshments there, he helped her to arrange the dishes and place the glasses with their long stalks, as willingly and cheerily as if she had been sixteen.

"There now, Tita," he said, as she lifted the tray, "put the other side with the bottles next to you. Always, in life and on a tray, place the load where it is easiest borne. Two hands are enough when we know how to use them, but four are better when work is plenty: so I'll go and open the doors for you, for there seem many in your house."

As may well be supposed, Master Austin was now in high favour with the good dame; for age receives as a boon what youth exacts as a tribute; and when she rejoined him after carrying in the supper, she said, in a low voice, "Well, your lord is certainly one of the handsomest, noblest-looking cavaliers I ever saw; and so frank and friendly in his way. He always speaks to me as if I were an old friend, and not a poor servant."

"Like master, like man, my dear," replied Austin Jute; "birds of a feather flock together. Like sticks to like. That is the reason my master and I are so fond of each other; but I hope there is somebody else fond of him too, for I saw, as you came out, such a beautiful pair of eyes outshining the lamp, that I now understand very well why my lord came back to Padua, and why he used to come hither almost every night when he was here before, with that dull-looking fellow, Martini, after him, like an ill-conditioned cur running at the heels of a fine horse."

"I never liked that man," said the old woman, seating herself on her stool in the kitchen. "I am glad your lord has not brought him to-night."

"He could not bring him if he had wished it," replied Austin; "he would have tumbled to pieces by the way. He was hanged two months ago at Geneva, for robbing a gentleman who was in the same inn with us. My master would never believe he was a rogue till he saw him hanging, though, when he fell out of the ferry-boat into the Po, and floated like a bad egg, I told the noble earl, that he who is born to be hanged will never be drowned. They hanged him at last, however, and made the proverb good."

"I dare say they were quite right," said the old woman, in a moralizing mood; "though people who are set to do justice, often do great injustice. Do you know, they came and wanted to drag my good old master away, who is as honest a man and as good a Christian as any in Padua; and they would have done it, too, and most likely put him to the rack, if it had not been for the courage and kindness of one of your countrymen, a student here, called Hume, and the wit and lightness of the Signora Julia."

"Yes, I heard of all that Signor Hume did," replied Jute, "for he told my master while I was sitting in the ante-room, with nothing but a thin door between; for you know, Tita, though everything is made for one purpose, most of them will serve two. But what did the young lady do?"

"The moment she heard the noise," replied the old woman, "she ran and shut the door across the passage which leads to the study. So they found nothing but some scraps of old papers that were in the room where my poor master was ill in bed; for that door shuts so close that no one can tell it from the wainscot, and having no keyhole, but a spring lock, they thought the passage ended there. If they had got into the study there would have been fine to do, for there are all manner of strange things there, which are as innocent and as holy as the bambino, I will vow; but nobody understands them but my master, and everything people don't understand they think wicked."

This sage and just observation did not lead Austin Jute from the track he was following; for, to say sooth, curiosity was one of his failings, and the sight of so beautiful a face as he had seen in the room above, had stimulated that very ticklish quality till he could not resist it. "Ah, she is a charming creature, I am sure," he said; "it is true, all is not gold that glitters; and handsome is who handsome does. The devil will take an angel's form at times. The frock does not make the monk; but still she looked so sweet and sad, I am sure she is very amiable. Many a one, Donna Tita, looks gay and cheerful, and many a one looks pleasant and merry, and is but a sour devil after all; but it is a good heart that looks sad for other people's sorrows. Besides, my master would not be so fond of her if she were not an angel. But who is she? Is she the old signor's daughter?"

"And is your master so fond of her, then?" said the old woman, without answering his question. "Are you sure he has never been straying after other women, all this long time while he has been away?"

"Not once, upon my word," replied Austin, with a solemn air, laying his hand upon his left breast. "Lord bless you, since he knew the signora, he has become as discreet as a bell-wether. Why, he sent me out of Genoa for six weeks, just for pinching the cheek of Ninette Bar, the daughter of the innkeeper, and putting my lips too near those of Rosalie, the smith's niece. It is true that I had to break the head of Jerome, and whack Rosalie's lover in self-defence; for it came to crabstick. But as for my lord, he passed all his time at the house of an old gentleman called Beza, where fewer women got in than get into a monkery--though he used to have as gay a heart as the gayest once on a time."

"Then why did he go away, and stay away so long, if he is so fond of her?" asked the old lady, who had her own share of curiosity as well as Austin Jute.

"Nay! gads my life! you must ask that of the earl himself," replied the man, "for I am not his father confessor. Perhaps the lady was cold, for you women will have your whimsies. Dear creatures, you would not be half so charming without."

The compliment oblique is almost always sure to go deeper than the direct; and good Tita, though she had long lost any external claims to the title of a charming creature, included herself comfortably in the general category, and felt her heart open towards her companion. "No, no," she answered, "she is not cold--to him, at least; and how should she be, when she scarcely ever saw a young man before? He is not so bad looking either, and a kind heart too; and as for whimsies, dear child, she has none, and never had. She lay in my arms when she was two years old, and that is sixteen years since."

"Upon my life, the old gentleman must have taken to matrimony late in life, to have a daughter of eighteen, when he is eighty," said Austin Jute, laughing.

The shot took effect.

"His daughter, you foolish knave!" cried the old lady, "she is not his daughter!--His daughter's daughter, if you will."

"Well, there would be no great harm in it, if she were his daughter," answered Jute; "so you need not look so angry, my dear; many a man marries at sixty for the consolation of life, or at least of the little bit of life that remains. Better late than never, men say. I would rather come in at the end of the dinner than see no dinner at all. It is never too dark to see one's way, if one has but a lantern; and if we have gone on wrong from the beginning, why should we not try to get right at the end?--And so the young lady's name is not Manucci, after all?"

"Her mother's was," answered Tita. "Poor thing, I remember her well. When she gave the child into my hands," she said, "Take care of her, Tita, for she will soon have no mother to do so, and no father has she ever known."

"Oh, ho!" said Austin Jute, with a peculiar expression of countenance; but the old woman's black eyes flashed fire. "Out, knave!" she said, without allowing him to finish the sentence; "would you slander a saint in heaven?"

The next moment, however, her face resumed its ordinary expression, and she said, "I spoke foolishly. I should have told you, the babe's father died on the day that she was born. The mother never held her head up after; and she kept her word with me too truly; for scarcely four months were gone by, ere we laid her in Campo Santo."

"Poor thing!" said Austin Jute, in so natural a tone of pity, that all remains of anger were banished from Tita's heart. "How did the lady's husband die? Was it in battle or of disease?"

"By the axe, young man--by the axe," replied Tita, sharply; "a plaything with which people in your country sport even more than we do here in Italy--at least I have heard so; for I know nothing of any other land but my own; but I have heard the Signor say that there has been sufficient innocent blood shed upon the scaffold in England and Scotland to bring down a curse upon the country."

"Upon my life, he said true," replied Austin Jute; "for I have seen a few heads roll in my own day, and have always thought it a pity that people cannot find some other means of putting those out of the way who stand in their light, but by cutting them on the back of the neck. Were men's heads no better than turnips, we could not treat them more carelessly than we do in our little island. Poor child, her misfortunes came early; and I hope and trust that she got over them all at once. People must eat black bread, they say, at one time of their life; and it is better to swallow it before we have tasted any other, than to eat the white bread first, and then have the other after."

"God send that it be so with her," said the old woman, "for a dearer, sweeter girl never lived."

"And, after all, what is her name?" said Austin Jute, in that quiet sort of easy tone which so often leads on confidence; but good old Tita answered quietly, with a shrewd glance of the eye, "Julia, to be sure--the Lady Julia. That has been enough for me all my life; and it should be enough for you too, I think."

"Enough is as good as a feast," answered Austin Jute; but as he saw he could gain no more information he dropped the subject, and began to wonder at the length of his lord's visit.