CHAPTER XII
Half-past six on the following morning found Constance and her fatherrising from the breakfast table, and Tony turning in at the gate.Constance's nod of greeting was barely perceptible, and her father's eyecontained a twinkle as he watched her. Tony studied her mountain-climbingcostume with an air of concern.
'You go wif us, signorina?' His expression was blended of surprise anddisapproval, but in spite of himself his tone was triumphant. 'You say tome yesterday you no want to climb any more mountain.'
'I have changed my mind.'
'But zis mountain to-day too long, too high. You get tired, signorina.Perhaps anozzer day we take li'l' baby mountain, zen you can go.'
'I am going to-day.'
'It is not possible, signorina. I have not brought ze donk'.'
'Oh, I'm going to walk.'
'As you please, signorina.'
He sighed patiently. Then he looked up and caught her eye. They bothlaughed.
'Signorina,' he whispered, 'I ver' happy to-day. Zat Costantina she morekind. Yesterday ver' unkind; I go home ver' sad. But to-day I sink----'
'Yes?'
'I sink after all maybe she like me li'l' bit.'
Giuseppe rowed the three climbers a mile or so down the lake and set themashore at the base of their mountain. They started up gaily and hadaccomplished half their journey before they thought of being tired. Tonysurpassed himself; if he had been entertaining the day before he wasdoubly so now. His spirits were bubbling over and contagious. He andConstance acted like two children out of school. They ran races andtalked to the peasants in the wayside cottages. They drove a herd ofgoats for half a mile while the goatherd strolled behind and smokedTony's cigarettes. Constance took a water-jar from a little girl theymet coming from the fountain and endeavoured to balance it on her ownhead, with the result that she nearly drowned both herself and the child.
They finally stopped for luncheon in a grove of chestnut trees with sheepnibbling on the hill-side below them and a shepherd boy somewhere out ofsight playing on a mouth organ. It should have been a flute, but theywere in a forgiving mood. Constance this time did her share of the work.She and Tony together spread the cloth and made the coffee while herfather fanned himself and looked on. If Mr. Wilder had any unusualthoughts in regard to the donkey-man, they were at least not reflected inhis face.
When they had finished their meal Tony spread his coat under a tree.
'Signorina,' he said, 'perhaps you li'l' tired? Look, I make nice placeto sleep. You lie down and rest while ze Signor Papa and me, we haveli'l' smoke. Zen after one, two hours I come call you.'
Constance very willingly accepted the suggestion. They had walked fiveuphill miles since morning. It was two hours later that she opened hereyes to find Tony bending over her. She sat up and regarded him sternly.He had the grace to blush.
'Tony, did you kiss my hand?'
'_Scusi_, signorina. I ver' sorry to wake you, but it is tree o'clock andze Signor Papa he say we must start just now or we nevair get to zetop.'
'Answer my question.'
'Signorina, I cannot tell to you a lie. It is true, I forget I am justpoor donkey-man. I play li'l' game. You sleeping beauty; I am ze prince.I come to wake you. Just _one_ kiss I drop on your hand--one ver' littlekiss, signorina.'
Constance assumed an air of indignant reproof, but in the midst of it shelaughed.
'I wish you wouldn't be so funny, Tony; I can't scold you as much as youdeserve. But I am angry just the same, and if anything like that everhappens again I shall be very _very_ angry.'
'Signorina, I would not make you very _very_ angry for anysing. As longas I live nosing like zat shall happen again. No, nevair, I promise.'
They plunged into a pine wood and climbed for another two hours, thesummit always vanishing before them like a mirage. At the end of thattime they were apparently no nearer their goal than when they hadstarted. They had followed first one path, then another, until they hadlost all sense of direction, and finally when they came to a place wherethree paths diverged, they had to acknowledge themselves definitely lost.Mr. Wilder elected one path, Tony another, and Constance sat down on arock.
'I'm not going any farther,' she observed.
'You can't stay here all night,' said her father.
'Well, I can't walk over this mountain all night. We don't get anywhere;we merely move in circles. I don't think much of the guide you engaged.He doesn't know his way.'
'He wasn't engaged to know his way,' Tony retorted. 'He was engaged towear earrings and sing Santa Lucia.'
Constance continued to sit on her rock while Tony went forward on areconnoitring expedition. He returned in ten minutes with the informationthat there was a shepherd's hut not very far off with a shepherd insidewho would like to be friendly. If the signorina would deign to ask somequestions in the Italian language which she spoke so fluently, they coulddoubtless obtain directions as to the way home.
They found the shepherd, the shepherdess and four little shepherds eatingtheir evening polenta in an earth-floored room, with half a dozenchickens and the family pig gathered about them in an expectant group.They rose politely and invited the travellers to enter. It was an eventin their simple lives when foreigners presented themselves at the door.
Constance commenced amenities by announcing that she had been walking onthe mountain since sunrise and was starving. Did they by chance have anyfresh milk?
'Starving! _Madonna mia_, how dreadful!' Madame held up her hands. Butyes, to be sure they had fresh milk. They kept four cows. That was theirbusiness--turning milk into cheese and selling it on market day in thevillage. Also they had some fresh mountain strawberries which Beppo hadgathered that morning--perhaps they too might be pleasing to thesignorina?
Constance nodded affirmatively, and added, with her eyes on the pig, thatit might be pleasanter to eat outside where they could look at the view.She became quite gay again over what she termed their afternoontea-party, and her father had to remind her most insistently that if theywished to get down before darkness overtook them they must start at once.An Italian twilight is short. They paid for the food and presented a liraapiece to the children, leaving them silhouetted against the sky in abobbing row shouting musical farewells.
Their host led them through the woods and out on to the brow of themountain in order to start them down by the right path. He regretted thathe could not go all the way, but the sheep had still to be brought in forthe night. At the parting he was garrulous with directions.
The easiest way to get home now would be straight down the mountain toGrotta del Monte--he pointed out the brown-tiled roofs of a village farbelow them--there they could find donkeys or an ox-cart to take themback. It was nine kilometres to Valedolmo. They had come quite out oftheir way; if they had taken the right path in the morning they wouldhave reached the top, where the view was magnificent--truly magnificent.It was a pity to miss it. Perhaps some other day they would like to comeagain and he himself would be pleased to guide them. He shook hands andwished them a pleasant journey. They would best hurry a trifle, he added,for darkness came fast, and when one got caught on the mountain atnight--he shrugged his shoulders and looked at Tony--one needed a guidewho knew his business.
They had walked for ten minutes when they heard some one shouting behindand found a young man calling to them to wait. He caught up with them andbreathlessly explained.
Pasquale had told him that they were foreigners from America who wereclimbing the mountain for diversion and who had lost their way. He wasgoing down to the village himself and would be pleased to guide them.
He fell into step beside Constance and commenced asking questions, whileTony, as the path was narrow, perforce fell behind. OccasionallyConstance translated, but usually she laughed without translating, andTony, for the twentieth time, found himself hating the Italian language.
The young man's question's were refreshingly ingenuous. He was curiousabout America, since he was thinking, he said, of becomin
g an Americanhimself some day. He knew a man once who had gone to America to live andhad made a fortune there--but yes, a large fortune--ten thousand lire infour years. Perhaps the signorina knew him--Giuseppe Motta; he lived inBuenos Aires. And what did it look like--America? How was it differentfrom Italy?
Constance described the sky-scrapers in New York.
His wonder was intense. A building twenty stories high! _Dio mio_! Heshould hate to mount himself up all those stairs. Were the buildings likethat in the country too? Did the shepherds live in houses twenty storieshigh?
'Oh no,' she laughed. 'In the country the houses are just like these,only they are made of wood instead of stone.'
'Of wood?' He opened his eyes. 'But, signorina, do they never burn?'
He had another question to ask. He had been told--though of course he didnot believe it--that the Indians in America had red skins.
Constance nodded yes. His eyes opened wider.
'Truly red like your coat?' with a glance at her scarlet golf jacket.
'Not quite,' she admitted.
'But how it must be diverting,' he sighed, 'to travel the world over andsee different things.' He fell silent and trudged on beside her, thewanderlust in his eyes.
It was almost dark when they reached the big arched gateway that led intothe village. Here their ways parted and they paused for farewell.
'Signorina,' the young man said suddenly, 'take me with you back toAmerica. I will prune your olive trees, I will tend your vines. You canleave me in charge when you go on your travels.'
She shook her head with a laugh.
'But I have no vines; I have no olive trees. You would be homesick forItaly.'
He shrugged his shoulders.
'Then good-bye. You, signorina, will go around the world and see manysights, while I, for travel, shall ride on a donkey to Valedolmo.'
He shook hands all around and with the grace of a prince accepted two ofTony's cigarettes. His parting speech showed him a fatalist.
'What will be, will be. There is a girl----' he waved his hand vaguely inthe direction of the village. 'If I go to America then I cannot staybehind and marry Maria. So perhaps it is planned for the best. You willfind me, signorina, when next you come to Italy, still digging the groundin Grotta del Monte.'
As he swung away Tony glanced after him with a suggestion of malice, thenhe transferred his gaze to the empty gateway.
'I see no one else with whom you can talk Italian. Perhaps for tenminutes you will deign to speak English with me?'
'I am too tired to talk,' she threw over her shoulder as she followed herfather through the gate.
They plunged into a tangle of tortuous paved streets, the houses pressingeach other as closely as if there were not all the outside world tospread in. Grotta del Monte is built on a slope and its streets are inreality long narrow flights of stairs all converging in the littlepiazza. The moon was not yet up, and aside from an occasional flickeringlight before a madonna's shrine, the way was black.
'Signorina, take my arm. I'm afraid maybe you fall.'
Tony's voice was humbly persuasive. Constance laughed and laid her handlightly on his arm. Tony dropped his own hand over hers and held herfirmly. Neither spoke until they came to the piazza.
'Signorina,' he whispered, 'you make me ver' happy to-night.'
She drew her hand away.
'I'm tired, Tony. I'm not quite myself.'
'No, signorina, yesterday I sink maybe you not yourself, but to-day youver' good, ver' kind--jus' your own self ze way you ought to be.'
The piazza, after the dark, narrow streets that led to it, seemedbubbling with life. The day's work was finished and the evening's playhad begun. In the centre, where a fountain splashed into a broad bowl,groups of women and girls with copper water-jars were laughing andgossiping as they waited their turns. One side of the square was flankedby the imposing facade of a church with the village saint on a pedestalin front; the other side, by a cheerfully inviting osteria with tablesand chairs set into the street and a glimpse inside of a blazing hearthand copper kettles.
Mr. Wilder headed in a straight line for the nearest chair and droppedinto it with an expression of permanence. Constance followed, and theyheld a colloquy with a bowing host. He was vague as to the finding ofcarriage or donkeys, but if they would accommodate themselves until aftersupper there would be a diligence along which would take them back toValedolmo.
'How soon will the diligence arrive?' asked Constance.
The man spread out his hands.
'It is due in three-quarters of an hour, but it may be early and it maybe late. It arrives when God and the driver wills.'
'In that case,' she laughed, 'we will accommodate ourselves until aftersupper--and we have appetites! Please bring everything you have.'
They supped on _minestra_ and _fritto misto_ washed down with the redwine of Grotta del Monte, which, their host assured them, was famousthrough all the country. He could not believe that they had never heardof it in Valedolmo. People sent for it from far off, even from Verona.
They finished their supper and the famous wine, but there was still nodiligence. The village also had finished its supper and was drifting infamily groups into the piazza. The moon was just showing above thehouse-tops, and its light, combined with the blazing braziers before thecook-shops, made the square a patchwork of brilliant high-lights andblack shadows from deep-cut doorways. Constance sat up alertly andwatched the people crowding past. Across from the inn an itinerant showhad established itself on a rudely improvised stage, with two flaringtorches which threw their light half across the piazza, and turned thespray of the fountain into an iridescent shower. The gaiety of the scenewas contagious. Constance rose insistently.
'Come, Dad; let's go over and see what they're doing.'
'No, thank you, my dear. I prefer my chair.'
'Oh, Dad, you're so phlegmatic!'
'But I thought you were tired.'
'I'm not any more; I want to see the play.--You come then, Tony.'
Tony rose with an elaborate sigh.
'As you please, signorina,' he murmured obediently. An onlooker wouldhave thought Constance cruel in dragging him away from his well-earnedrest.
They made their way across the piazza and mounted the church steps behindthe crowd where they could look across obliquely to the little stage. Aclown was dancing to the music of a hurdy-gurdy, while a woman in atawdry pink satin evening gown beat an accompaniment on a drum. It was avery poor play with very poor players, and yet it represented to thesepeople of Grotta del Monte something of life, of the big outside worldwhich they in their little village would never see. Their upturned facestouched by the moonlight and the flare of the torches contained a look ofwondering eagerness--the same look that had been in the eyes of the youngpeasant when he had begged to be taken to America.
The two stood back in the shadow of the doorway watching the people withthe same interest that the people were expending on the stage. A childhad been lifted to the base of the saint's pedestal in order to see, andin the excitement of a duel between two clowns he suddenly lost hisbalance and toppled off. His mother snatched him up quickly andcommenced covering the hurt arm with kisses to make it well.
Constance laughed.
'Isn't it queer,' she asked, 'to think how different these people arefrom us and yet how exactly the same. Their way of living is absolutelyforeign, but their feelings are just like yours and mine.'
He touched her arm and called her attention to a man and a girl on thestep below them. It was the young peasant again who had guided them downthe mountain, but who now had eyes for no one but Maria. She leanedtoward him to see the stage and his arm was around her. Their interest inthe play was purely a pretence, and both of them knew it.
Tony laughed softly and echoed her words.
'Yes, their feelings are just like yours and mine.'
He slipped his arm around her.
Constance drew back quickly.
'I think,
' she remarked, 'that the diligence has come.'
'Oh, hang the diligence!' Tony growled. 'Why couldn't it have been fiveminutes late?'
They returned to the inn to find Mr. Wilder already on the front seat,and obligingly holding the reins, while the driver occupied himself witha glass of the famous wine. The diligence was a roomy affair of fourseats and three horses. Behind the driver were three Italiansgesticulating violently over local politics; a new _sindaco_ wasimminent. Behind these were three black-hooded nuns covertly interestedin the woman in the pink evening gown. And behind the three, occupyingthe exact centre of the rear seat, was a fourth nun with the portlybearing of a Mother Superior. She was very comfortable as she was, anddid not propose to move. Constance climbed up on one side of her and Tonyon the other.
'We are well chaperoned,' he grumbled, as they jolted out of the piazza.'I always did think that the Church interfered too much with the rightsof individuals.'
Constance, in a spirit of friendly expansiveness, proceeded to pick up anacquaintance with the nuns, and the four black heads were presentlybobbing in unison, while Tony, in gloomy isolation at his end of theseat, folded his arms and stared at the road. The driver had passedthrough many villages that day and had drunk many glasses of famous wine;he cracked his whip and sang as he drove. They rattled in and out ofstone-paved villages, along open stretches of moonlit road, past villasand olive groves. Children screamed after them, dogs barked, Constanceand her four nuns were very vivacious, and Tony's gloom deepened withevery mile.
They had covered three-quarters of the distance when the diligence wasbrought to a halt before a high stone wall and a solid barred gate. Thenuns came back to the present with an excited cackling. Who would believethey had reached the convent so soon! They made their adieus andponderously descended, their departure accelerated by Tony who had becomeof a sudden alertly helpful. As they started again he slid along into theMother Superior's empty seat.
'What were we saying when the diligence interrupted?' he inquired.
'I don't remember, Tony, but I don't want to talk any more; I'm tired.'
'You tired, signorina? Lay your head on my shoulder and go to sleep.'
'Tony, _please_ behave yourself. I'm simply too tired to make you do it.'
He reached over and took her hand. She did not try to withdraw it fortwo--three minutes; then she shot him a sidewise glance. 'Tony,' shesaid, 'don't you think you are forgetting your place?'
'No, signorina, I am just learning it.'
'Let go my hand.'
He gazed pensively at the moon and hummed Santa Lucia under his breath.
'Tony! I shall be angry with you.'
'I shall be ver' sorry for zat, signorina. I do not wish to make youangry, but I sink--perhaps you get over it.'
'You are behaving abominably to-day, Tony. I shall never stay alone withyou again.'
'Signorina, look at zat moon up dere. Is it not ver' bright? When I lookat zat moon I have always beautiful toughts about how much I loveCostantina.'
An interval followed during which neither spoke. The driver's song wasgrowing louder and the horses were galloping. The diligence suddenlyrounded a curved cliff on two wheels. Constance lurched against him; hecaught her and held her. Her lips were very near his; he kissed hersoftly.
She moved to the far end of the seat and faced him with flushed cheeks.'I thought you were a gentleman!'
'I used to be, signorina; now I am only poor donkey-man.'
'I shall never speak to you again. You can climb as many mountains as youwish with my father, but you can't have anything more to do with me.'
'_Scusi_, signorina. I--I did not mean to. It was just an accident,signorina.'
Constance turned her back and stared at the road.
'It was not my fault. Truly it was not my fault. I did not wish to kissyou--no nevair. But I could not help it. You put your head too close.'
She raised her eyes and studied the mountain-top.
'Signorina, why you treat me so cruel?'
Her back was inflexible.
'I am desolate. If you forgive me zis once I will nevair again do a singso wicked. Nevair, nevair, nevair.'
Constance continued her inspection of the mountain-top. Tony leanedforward until he could see her face.
'Signorina,' he whispered, 'jus' give me one li'l' smile to show me youare not angry for ever.'
The stage had stopped and Mr. Wilder was climbing down, but Constance'sgaze was still fixed on the sky, and Tony's eyes were on her.
'What's the matter, Constance, have you gone to sleep? Aren't you goingto get out?'
She came back with a start.
'Are we here already?'
There was a suspicion of regret in her tone which did not escape Tony.
At the Villa Rosa gates he wished them a humbly deferential good night,but with a smile hovering about the corners of his mouth. Constance madeno response. As he strode off, however, she turned her head and lookedafter him. He turned too and caught her. He waved his hand with a laugh,and took up his way, whistling Santa Lucia in double time.