Another figure easily recognised by us — a figure not clad in black, but in the old red, green, and white — was approaching the Piazza that morning to see the Carnival. She came from an opposite point, for Tessa no longer lived on the hill of San Giorgio. After what had happened there with Baldassarre, Tito had thought it best for that and other reasons to find her a new home, but still in a quiet airy quarter, in a house bordering on the wide garden grounds north of the Porta Santa Croce.
Tessa was not come out sight-seeing without special leave. Tito had been with her the evening before, and she had kept back the entreaty which she felt to be swelling her heart and throat until she saw him in a state of radiant ease, with one arm round the sturdy Lillo, and the other resting gently on her own shoulder as she tried to make the tiny Ninna steady on her legs. She was sure then that the weariness with which he had come in and flung himself into his chair had quite melted away from his brow and lips. Tessa had not been slow at learning a few small stratagems by which she might avoid vexing Naldo and yet have a little of her own way. She could read nothing else, but she had learned to read a good deal in her husband’s face.
And certainly the charm of that bright, gentle-humoured Tito who woke up under the Loggia de’ Cerchi on a Lenten morning five years before, not having yet given any hostages to deceit, never returned so nearly as in the person of Naldo, seated in that straight-backed, carved arm-chair which he had provided for his comfort when he came to see Tessa and the children. Tito himself was surprised at the growing sense of relief which he felt in these moments. No guile was needed towards Tessa: she was too ignorant and too innocent to suspect him of anything. And the little voices calling him ‘Babbo’ were very sweet in his ears for the short while that he heard them. When he thought of leaving Florence, he never thought of leaving Tessa and the little ones behind. He was very fond of these round-cheeked, wide-eyed human things that clung about him and knew no evil of him. And wherever affection can spring, it is like the green leaf and the blossom — pure, and breathing purity, whatever soil it may grow in. Poor Romola, with all her self-sacrificing effort was really helping to harden Tito’s nature by chilling it with a positive dislike which had beforehand seemed impossible in him; but Tessa kept open the fountains of kindness.
‘Ninna is very good without me now,’ began Tessa, feeling her request rising very high in her throat, and letting Ninna seat herself on the floor. ‘I can leave her with Monna Lisa any time, and if she is in the cradle and cries, Lillo is as sensible as can be — he goes and thumps Monna Lisa.’
Lillo, whose great dark eyes looked all the darker because his curls were of a light brown like his mother’s, jumped off Babbo’s knee, and went forthwith to attest his intelligence by thumping Monna Lisa, who was shaking her head slowly over her spinning at the other end of the room.
‘A wonderful boy!’ said Tito, laughing.
‘Isn’t he?’ said Tessa, eagerly, getting a little closer to him; ‘and I might go and see the Carnival to-morrow, just for an hour or two, mightn’t I?’
‘Oh, you wicked pigeon!’ said Tito, pinching her cheek; ‘those are your longings, are they? What have you to do with carnivals now you are an old woman with two children?’
‘But old women like to see things,’ said Tessa, her lower lip hanging a little. ‘Monna Lisa said she should like to go, only she’s so deaf she can’t hear what is behind her, and she thinks we couldn’t take care of both the children.’
‘No, indeed, Tessa,’ said Tito, looking rather grave, ‘you must not think of taking the children into the crowded streets, else I shall be angry.’
‘But I have never been into the Piazza without leave,’ said Tessa, in a frightened, pleading tone, ‘since the Holy Saturday, and I think Nofri is dead, for you know the poor madre died; and I shall never forget the Carnival I saw once; it was so pretty — all roses and a king and queen under them — and singing. I liked it better than the San Giovanni.’
But there’s nothing like that now, my Tessa. They are going to make a bonfire in the Piazza — that’s all. But I cannot let you go out by yourself in the evening.’
‘Oh no, no! I don’t want to go in the evening. I only want to go and see the procession by daylight. There will be a procession — is it not true?
‘Yes, after a sort,’ said Tito, ‘as lively as a flight of cranes. You must not expect roses and glittering kings and queens, my Tessa. However, I suppose any string of people to be called a procession will please your blue eyes. And there’s a thing they have raised in the Piazza de’ Signori for the bonfire. You may like to see that. But come home early and look like a grave little old woman; and if you see any men with feathers and swords, keep out of their way: they are very fierce, and like to cut old women’s heads off.’
Santa Madonna! where do they come from? Ah! you are laughing; it is not so bad. But I will keep away from them. Only,’ Tessa went on in a whisper, putting her lips near Naldo’s ear, ‘if I might take Lillo with me! He is very sensible.’
‘But who will thump Monna Lisa then, if she doesn’t hear?’ said Tito, finding it difficult not to laugh, but thinking it necessary to look serious. ‘No, Tessa, you could not take care of Lillo if you got into a crowd, and he’s too heavy for you to carry him.’
‘It is true,’ said Tessa, rather sadly, ‘and he likes to run away. I forgot that. Then I will go alone. But now look at Ninna — you have not looked at her enough.’
Ninna was a blue-eyed thing, at the tottering, tumbling age — a fair solid, which, like a loaded die, found its base with a constancy that warranted prediction. Tessa went to snatch her up, and when Babbo was paying due attention to the recent teeth and other marvels, she said, in a whisper, ‘And shall I buy some confetti for the children?’
Tito drew some small coins from his scarsella, and poured them into her palm.
‘That will buy no end,’ said Tessa, delighted at this abundance. ‘I shall not mind going without Lillo so much, if I bring him something.’
So Tessa set out in the morning towards the great Piazza where the bonfire was to be. She did not think the February breeze cold enough to demand further covering than her green woollen dress. A mantle would have been oppressive, for it would have hidden a new necklace and a new clasp, mounted with silver, the only ornamental presents Tito had ever made her. Tessa did not think at all of showing her figure, for no one had ever told her it was pretty; but she was quite sure that her necklace and clasp were of the prettiest sort ever worn by the richest contadina, and she arranged her white hood over her head so that the front of her necklace might be well displayed. These ornaments, she considered, must inspire respect for her as the wife of some one who could afford to buy them.
She tripped along very cheerily in the February sunshine, thinking much of the purchases for the little ones, with which she was to fill her small basket, and not thinking at all of any one who might be observing her. Yet her descent from her upper storey into the street had been watched, and she was being kept in sight as she walked by a person who had often waited in vain to see if it were not Tessa who lived in that house to which he had more than once dogged Tito. Baldassarre was carrying a package of yarn: he was constantly employed in that way, as a means of earning his scanty bread, and keeping the sacred fire of vengeance alive; and he had come out of his way this morning, as he had often done before, that he might pass by the house to which he had followed Tito in the evening. His long imprisonment had so intensified his timid suspicion and his belief in some diabolic fortune favouring Tito, that he had not dared to pursue him, except under cover of a crowd or of the darkness; he felt, with instinctive horror, that if Tito’s eyes fell upon him, he should again be held up to obloquy, again be dragged away; his weapon would be taken from him, and he should be cast helpless into a prison-cell. His fierce purpose had become as stealthy as a serpent’s, which depends for its prey on one dart of the fang. Justice was weak and unfriended; and he could not hear again the voice that pealed the promise of vengeance in the Duomo; he had been there again and again, but that voice, too, had apparently been stifled by cunning strong-armed wickedness. For a long while, Baldassarre’s ruling thought was to ascertain whether Tito still wore the armour, for now at last his fainting hope would have been contented with a successful stab on this side the grave; but he would never risk his precious knife again. It was a weary time he had had to wait for the chance of answering this question by touching Tito’s back in the press of the street. Since then, the knowledge that the sharp steel was useless, and that he had no hope but in some new device, had fallen with leaden weight on his enfeebled mind. A dim vision of winning one of those two wives to aid him came before him continually, and continually slid away. The wife who had lived on the hill was no longer there. If he could find her again, he might grasp some thread of a project, and work his way to more clearness.
And this morning he had succeeded. He was quite certain now where this wife lived, and as he walked, bent a little under his burden of yarn, yet keeping the green and white figure in sight, his mind was dwelling upon her and her circumstances as feeble eyes dwell on lines and colours, trying to interpret them into consistent significance.
Tessa had to pass through various long streets without seeing any other sign of the Carnival than unusual groups of the country people in their best garments, and that disposition in everybody to chat and loiter which marks the early hours of a holiday, before the spectacle has begun. Presently, in her disappointed search for remarkable objects, her eyes fell on a man with a pedlar’s basket before him, who seemed to be selling nothing but little red crosses to all the passengers. A little red cross would be pretty to hang up over her bed; it would also help to keep off harm, and would perhaps make Ninna stronger. Tessa went to the other side of the street that she might ask the pedlar the price of the crosses, fearing that they would cost a little too much for her to spare from her purchase of sweets. The pedlar’s back had been turned towards her hitherto, but when she came near him she recognised an old acquaintance of the Mercato, Bratti Ferravecchi, and, accustomed to feel that she was to avoid old acquaintances, she turned away again and passed to the other side of the street. But Bratti’s eye was too well practised in looking out at the corner after possible customers, for her movement to have escaped him, and she was presently arrested by a tap on the arm from one of the red crosses.
‘Young woman,’ said Bratti, as she unwillingly turned her head, ‘you come from some castello a good way off, it seems to me, else you’d never think of walking about, this blessed Carnival, without a red cross in your hand. Santa Madonna! Four white quattrini is a small price to pay for your soul — prices rise in purgatory, let me tell you.’
‘Oh, I should like one,’ said Tessa, hastily, ‘but I couldn’t spare four white quattrini.’
Bratti had at first regarded Tessa too abstractedly as a mere customer to look at her with any scrutiny, but when she began to speak he exclaimed, ‘By the head of San Giovanni, it must be the little Tessa, and looking as fresh as a ripe apple! What! you’ve done none the worse, then, for running away from father Nofri? You were in............