Odo woke with a start. He had been trying to break down a greatgold-barred gate, behind which Fulvia, pale and disordered, struggled inthe clutch of the blind beggar of the Corpus Domini...
He sat up and looked about him. The gate was still there; but as hegazed it resolved itself into his shuttered window, barred with widelines of sunlight. It was day, then! He sprang out of bed and flung openthe shutters. Beneath him lay the piazza of Vercelli, bathed in thevertical brightness of a summer noon; and as he stared out on thisinexorable scene, the clock over the Hospital struck twelve.
Twelve o'clock! And he had promised to meet Vivaldi at dawn behind theUmiliati! As the truth forced itself on Odo he dropped into a chair andhid his face with a groan. He had failed them again, then--and this timehow cruelly and basely! He felt himself the victim of a conspiracy whichin some occult manner was forever forcing him to outrage and betray thetwo beings he most longed to serve. The idea of a conspiracy flashed asudden light on his evening's diversion, and he sprang up with a cry.
Yes! It was a plot, and any but a dolt must have traced the soprano'shand in this vulgar assault upon his senses. He choked with anger at thethought of having played the dupe when two lives he cherished werestaked upon his vigilance...
To his furious summons Cantapresto presented a blank wall of ignorance.
Yes, the Cavaliere had given orders that the carriage should be readybefore daybreak; but who was authorised to wake the cavaliere? Afterkeeping the carriage two hours at the door Cantapresto had ventured tosend it back to the stable; but the horses should instantly be put to,and within an hour they would be well forward on their journey.
Meanwhile, should the barber be summoned at once? Or would the cavalierefirst refresh himself with an excellent cup of chocolate, prepared underCantapresto's own supervision?
Odo turned on him savagely. "Traitor--spy! In whose pay--?"But the words roused him to a fresh sense of peril. Cantapresto, thoughhe might have guessed Odo's intention, was not privy to his plan ofrejoining Vivaldi and Fulvia; and it flashed across the young man thathis self-betrayal must confirm the others' suspicions. His one hope ofprotecting his friends was to affect indifference to what had happened;and this was made easier, by the reflection that Cantapresto was afterall but a tool in more powerful hands. To be spied on was so natural toan Italian of that day that the victim's instinct was rather tocircumvent the spy than to denounce him.
Odo dismissed Cantapresto with the reply that he would give orders aboutthe carriage later; desiring that meanwhile the soprano should purchasethe handsomest set of filigree ornaments to be found in Vercelli, andcarry them with the Cavaliere Valsecca's compliments to the SignorinaMalmocco.
Having thus rid himself of observation he dressed as rapidly aspossible, trying the while to devise some means of tracing Vivaldi. Butthe longer he pondered the attempt the more plainly he saw its futility.
Vivaldi, doubtless from motives of prudence, had not named the friendwith whom he and Fulvia were to take shelter; nor did Odo even know inwhat quarter of the city to seek them. To question the police was torisk their last chance of safety; and for the same reason he dared notenquire of the posting-master whether any travellers had set out thatmorning for Lombardy. His natural activity of mind was hampered by aleaden sense of remissness. With what anguish of spirit must Vivaldi andFulvia have awaited him in that hour of dawn behind the convent! Whatthoughts must have visited the girl's mind as day broadened, the citywoke, and peril pressed on them with every voice and eye! And when atlength they saw that he had failed them, which way did their huntedfootsteps turn? Perhaps they dared not go back to the friend who hadtaken them in for the night. Perhaps even now they wandered through thestreets, fearing arrest if they revealed themselves by venturing toengage a carriage, at every turn of his thoughts Odo was mocked by somevision of disaster; and an hour of perplexity yielded no happierexpedient than that of repairing to the meeting-place behind theUmiliati. It was a deserted lane with few passers; and after vainlyquestioning the blank wall of the convent and the gates of asinister-looking alms-house that faced it, he retraced his steps to theinn.
He spent a day of futile research and bitter thoughts, now strayingforth in the hope of meeting Vivaldi, now hastening back to the ThreeCrowns on the chance that some message might await him. He dared not lethis mind rest on what might have befallen his friends; yet thealternative of contemplating his own course was scarcely more endurable.
Nightfall brought the conviction that the Professor and Fulvia hadpassed beyond his reach. It was clear that if they were still inVercelli they did not mean to make their presence known to him, while inthe event of their escape he was without means of tracing them farther.
He knew indeed that their destination was Milan, but, should they reachthere safely, what hope was there of finding them in a city ofstrangers? By a stroke of folly he had cut himself off from allcommunication with them, and his misery was enhanced by the discovery ofhis weakness. He who had fed his fancy on high visions, cherishing inhimself the latent patriot and hero, had been driven by a girl's capriceto break the first law of manliness and honour! The event had alreadyjustified her; and in a flash of self-contempt he saw himself as she nodoubt beheld him--the fribble preying like a summer insect on the slowgrowths of difficult years...
In bitterness of spirit he set out the next morning for Pianura. Ahalf-melancholy interest drew him back to the scene of his lonelychildhood, and he had started early in order to push on that night toPontesordo. At Valsecca, the regular posting-station between Vercelliand Pianura, he sent Cantapresto forward to the capital, and in a stormyyellow twilight drove alone across the waste land that dipped to themarshes. On his right the woods of the ducal chase hung black againstthe sky; and presently he saw ahead of him the old square keep, with aflight of swallows circling low about its walls.
In the muddy farm-yard a young man was belabouring a donkey laden withmulberry-shoots. He stared for a moment at Odo's approach and thensullenly returned to his task.
Odo sprang out into the mud. "Why do you beat the brute?" said heindignantly. The other turned a dull face on him and he recognised hisold enemy Giannozzo.
"Giannozzo," he cried, "don't you know me? I am the Cavaliere Valsecca,whose ears you used to box when you were a lad. Must you always bepummelling something, that you can't let that poor brute alone at theend of its day's work?"Giannozzo, dropping his staff, stammered out that he craved hisexcellency's pardon for not knowing him, but that as for the ass it wasa stubborn devil that would not have carried Jesus Christ withoutgibbing.
"The beast is tired and hungry," cried Odo, his old compassion for thesufferings of the farm-animals suddenly reviving. "How many hours haveyou worked it without rest or food?""No more than I have worked myself," said Giannozzo sulkily; "and as forits being hungry, why should it fare better than its masters?"Their words had called out of the house a lean bent woman, whoseshrivelled skin showed through the rents in her unbleached shift. Atsight of Odo she pushed Giannozzo aside and hurried forward to ask howshe might serve the gentleman.
"With supper and a bed, my good Filomena," said Odo; and she flungherself at his feet with a cry.
"Saints of heaven, that I should not have known his excellency! But I amhalf blind with the fever, and who could have dreamed of such anhonour?" She clung to his knees in the mud, kissing his hands andcalling down blessings on him. "And as for you, Giannozzo, youcurd-faced fool, quick, see that his excellency's horses are stabled andgo call your father from the cow-house while I prepare his excellency'ssupper. And fetch me in a faggot to light the fire in the bailiff'sparlour."Odo followed her into the kitchen, where he had so often crouched in acorner to eat his polenta out of reach of her vigorous arm. The roofseemed lower and more smoke-blackened than ever, but the hearth wascold, and he noticed that no supper was laid. Filomena led him into thebailiff's parlour, where a mortal chill seized him. Cobwebs hung fromthe walls, the window-panes were broken and caked with grime, and thefew green twigs which Giannozzo presently threw on the hearth poured acloud of smoke into the cold heavy air.
There was a long delay while supper was preparing, and when at lengthFilomena appeared, it was only to produce, with many excuses, a loaf ofvetch-bread, a bit of cheese and some dried quinces. There was nothingelse in the house, she declared: not so much as a bit of lard to makesoup with, a handful of pasti or a flask of wine. In the old days, ashis excellency might remember, they had eaten a bit of meat on Sundays,and drunk aquarolle with their supper; but since the new taxes it was asmuch as the farmers could do to feed their cattle, without having ascrap to spare for themselves. Jacopone, she continued, was bent doublewith the rheumatism, and had not been able to drive a plough or to workin the mulberries for over two years. He and the farm-lads sat in thecow-stables when their work was over, for the sake of the heat, and shecarried their black bread out there to them: a cold supper tasted betterin a warm place, and as his excellency knew, all the windows in thehouse were unglazed save in the bailiff's parlour. Her man would be inpresently to pay his duty to his excellency; but he had growndull-witted since the rheumatism took him, and his excellency must nottake it ill if his talk was a little childish.
Thereupon Filomena excused herself, that she might put a clean shirt onJacopone, and Odo was left to his melancholy musings. His mind had oflate run much on economic abuses; but what was any philandering withreform to this close contact with misery? It was as though white hungryfaces had suddenly stared in at the windows of his brightly-lit life.
What did these people care for education, enlightenment, the religion ofhumanity? What they wanted was fodder for their cattle, a bit of meat onSundays and a faggot on the hearth.
Filomena presently returned with her husband; but Jacopone had shrunkinto a crippled tremulous old man, who pulled a vague forelock at Odowithout sign of recognition. Filomena, it was clear, was master atPontesordo; for though Giannozzo was a man grown, and did a man's work,he still danced to the tune of his mother's tongue. It was from her thatOdo, shivering over the smoky hearth, gathered the details of theirwretched state. Pontesordo being a part of the ducal domain, they hadled in their old days an easier life than their neighbours; but the newtaxes had stripped them as bare as a mulberry-tree in June.
"How is a Christian to live, excellency, with the salt-tax doubled, sothat the cows go dry for want of it; with half a zecchin on every pairof oxen, a stajo of wheat and two fowls to the parish, and not so muchas a bite of grass allowed on the Duke's lands? In his late Highness'sday the poor folk were allowed to graze their cattle on the borders ofthe chase; but now a man dare not pluck a handful of weeds there, or somuch as pick up a fallen twig; though the deer may trample his youngwheat, and feed off the patch of beans at his very door. They do say theDuchess has a kind heart, and gives away money to the towns-folk; but wecountry-people who spend our lives raising fodder for her game neverhear of her Highness but when one of her game-keepers comes down on usfor poaching or stealing wood.--Yes, by the saints, and it was herHighness who sent a neighbour's lad to the galleys last year for fellinga tree in the chase; a good lad as ever dug furrow, but he lacked woodfor a new plough-share, and how in God's name was he to plough his fieldwithout it?"So she went on, like a torrent after the spring rains; but when he namedMomola she fell silent, and Giannozzo, looking sideways, drummed withhis heel on the floor.
Odo glanced from one to the other. "She's dead, then?" he cried.
Filomena opened deprecating palms. "Can one tell, excellency? It may beshe is off with the gypsies.""The gypsies? How long since?""Giannozzo," cried his mother, as he stood glowering, "go see that thestable is locked and his excellency's horses bedded down." He slunk outand she began to gather up the remains of Odo's meagre supper.
"But you must remember when this happened.""Holy Mother! It was the year we had frost in April and lost ourhatching for want of leaves. But as for that child of ingratitude, oneday she was here, the next she was gone--clean gone, as a nut drops fromthe tree--and I that had given the blood of my veins to nourish her!
Since then, God is my witness, we have had nothing but misfortune. Thenext year it was the weevils in the wheat; and so it goes."Odo was silent, seeing it was vain to press her. He fancied that thegirl must have died--of neglect perhaps, or ill usage--and that theyfeared to own it. His heart swelled, but not against them: they seemedto him no more accountable than cowed hunger-driven animals.
He tossed impatiently on the har............