CHAPTER FIFTY ONE.
MONNA BRIGIDA'S CONVERSION.
When Romola said that some one else expected her, she meant her cousinBrigida, but she was far from suspecting how much that good kinswomanwas in need of her. Returning together towards the Piazza, they haddescried the company of youths coming to a stand before Tessa, and whenRomola, having approached near enough to see the simple littlecontadina's distress, said, "Wait for me a moment, cousin," MonnaBrigida said hastily, "Ah, I will not go on: come for me to Boni'sshop,--I shall go back there."
The truth was, Monna Brigida had a consciousness on the one hand ofcertain "vanities" carried on her person, and on the other of a growingalarm lest the Piagnoni should be right in holding that rouge, and falsehair, and pearl embroidery, endamaged the soul. Their serious view ofthings filled the air like an odour; nothing seemed to have exactly thesame flavour as it used to have; and there was the dear child Romola, inher youth and beauty, leading a life that was uncomfortably suggestiveof rigorous demands on woman. A widow at fifty-five whose satisfactionhas been largely drawn from what she thinks of her own person, and whatshe believes others think of it, requires a great fund of imagination tokeep her spirits buoyant. And Monna Brigida had begun to have frequentstruggles at her toilet. If her soul would prosper better without them,was it really worth while to put on the rouge and the braids? But whenshe lifted up the hand-mirror and saw a sallow face with baggy cheeks,and crows'-feet that were not to be dissimulated by any simpering of thelips--when she parted her grey hair, and let it lie in simple Piagnonefashion round her face, her courage failed. Monna Berta would certainlyburst out laughing at her, and call her an old hag, and as Monna Bertawas really only fifty-two, she had a superiority which would make theobservation cutting. Every woman who was not a Piagnone would give ashrug at the sight of her, and the men would accost her as if she weretheir grandmother. Whereas, at fifty-five a woman was not so very old--she only required making up a little. So the rouge and the braids andthe embroidered berretta went on again, and Monna Brigida was satisfiedwith the accustomed effect; as for her neck, if she covered it up,people might suppose it was too old to show, and, on the contrary, withthe necklaces round it, it looked better than Monna Berta's. This veryday, when she was preparing for the Piagnone Carnival, such a strugglehad occurred, and the conflicting fears and longings which caused thestruggle, caused her to turn back and seek refuge in the druggist's shoprather than encounter the collectors of the Anathema when Romola was notby her side. But Monna Brigida was not quite rapid enough in herretreat. She had been descried, even before she turned away, by thewhite-robed boys in the rear of those who wheeled round towards Tessa,and the willingness with which Tessa was given up was, perhaps, slightlydue to the fact that part of the troop had already accosted a personagecarrying more markedly upon her the dangerous weight of the Anathema.It happened that several of this troop were at the youngest age takeninto peculiar training; and a small fellow of ten, his olive wreathresting above cherubic cheeks and wide brown eyes, his imaginationreally possessed with a hovering awe at existence as something in whichgreat consequences impended on being good or bad, his longingsnevertheless running in the direction of mastery and mischief, was thefirst to reach Monna Brigida and place himself across her path. Shefelt angry, and looked for an open door, but there was not one at hand,and by attempting to escape now, she would only make things worse. Butit was not the cherubic-faced young one who first addressed her; it wasa youth of fifteen, who held one handle of a wide basket.
"Venerable mother!" he began, "the blessed Jesus commands you to give upthe Anathema which you carry upon you. That cap embroidered withpearls, those jewels that fasten up your false hair--let them be givenup and sold for the poor; and cast the hair itself away from you, as alie that is only fit for burning. Doubtless, too, you have other jewelsunder your silk mantle."
"Yes, lady," said the youth at the other handle, who had many of FraGirolamo's phrases by heart, "they are too heavy for you: they areheavier than a millstone, and are weighting you for perdition. Will youadorn yourself with the hunger of the poor, and be proud to carry God'scurse upon your head?"
"In truth you are old, buona madre," said the cherubic boy, in a sweetsoprano. "You look very ugly with the red on your cheeks and that blackglistening hair, and those fine things. It is only Satan who can liketo see you. Your Angel is sorry. He wants you to rub away the red."
The little fellow snatched a soft silk scarf from the basket, and heldit towards Monna Brigida, that she might use it as her guardian angeldesired. Her anger and mortification were fast giving way to spiritualalarm. Monna Berta and that cloud of witnesses, highly-dressed societyin general, were not looking at her, and she was surrounded by youngmonitors, whose white robes, and wreaths, and red crosses, and dreadfulcandour, had something awful in their unusualness. Her Franciscanconfessor, Fra Cristoforo, of Santa Croce, was not at hand to reinforceher distrust of Dominican teaching, and she was helplessly possessed andshaken by a vague sense that a supreme warning was come to her.Unvisited by the least suggestion of any other course that was open toher, she took the scarf that was held out, and rubbed her cheeks, withtrembling submissiveness.
"It is well, madonna," said the second youth. "It is a holy beginning.And when you have taken those vanities from your head, the dew ofheavenly grace will descend on it." The infusion of mischief wasgetting stronger, and putting his hand to one of the jewelled pins thatfastened her braids to the berretta, he drew it out. The heavy blackplait fell down over Monna Brigida's face, and dragged the rest of thehead-gear forward. It was a new reason for not hesitating: she put upher hands hastily, undid the other fastenings, and flung down into thebasket of doom her beloved crimson-velvet berretta, with all itsunsurpassed embroidery of seed-pearls, and stood an unrouged woman, withgrey hair pushed backward from a face where certain deep lines of agehad triumphed over _embonpoint_.
But the berretta was not allowed to lie in the basket. With impish zealthe youngsters lifted it, and held it up pitilessly, with the false hairdangling.
"See, venerable mother," said the taller youth, "what ugly lies you havedelivered yourself from! And now you look like the blessed Saint Anna,the mother of the Holy Virgin."
Thoughts of going into a convent forthwith, and never showing herself inthe world again, were rushing through Monna Brigida's mind. There wasnothing possible for her but to take care of her soul.
Of course, there were spectators laughing: she had no need to look roundto assure herself of that. Well! it would, perhaps, be better to beforced to think more of Paradise. But at the thought that the dearaccustomed world was no longer in her choice, there gathered some ofthose hard tears which just moisten elderly eyes, and she could see butdimly a large rough hand holding a red cross, which was suddenly thrustbefore her over the shoulders of the boys, while a strong guttural voicesaid--
"Only four quattrini, madonna, blessing and all! Buy it. You'll find acomfort in it now your wig's gone. Deh! what are we sinners doing allour lives? Making soup in a basket, and getting nothing but the scumfor our stomachs. Better buy a blessing, madonna! Only four quattrini;the profit is not so much as the smell of a danaro, and it goes to thepoor."
Monna Brigida, in dim-eyed confusion, was proceeding to the furthersubmission of reaching money from her embroidered scarsella, at presenthidden by her silk mantle, when the group round her, which she had notyet entertained the idea of escaping, opened before a figure as welcomeas an angel loosing prison-bolts.
"Romola, look at me!" said Monna Brigida, in a piteous tone, putting outboth her hands.
The white troop was already moving away, with a slight consciousnessthat its zeal about the head-gear had been superabundant enough toafford a dispensation from any further demand for penitential offerings.
"Dear cousin, don't be distressed," said Romola, smitten with pity, yethardly able to help smiling at the sudden apparition of her kinswoman ina genuine, natural guise,
strangely contrasted with all memories of her.She took the black drapery from her own head, and threw it over MonnaBrigida's. "There," she went on soothingly, "no one will remark younow. We will turn down the Via del Palagio and go straight to ourhouse."
They hastened away, Monna Brigida grasping Romola's hand tightly, as ifto get a stronger assurance of her being actually there.
"Ah, my Romola, my dear child!" said the short fat woman, hurrying withfrequent steps to keep pace with the majestic young figure beside her;"what an old scarecrow I am! I must be good--I mean to be good!"
"Yes, yes; buy a cross!" said the guttural voice, while the rough handwas thrust once more before Monna Brigida: for Bratti was not to beabashed by Romola's presence into renouncing a probable customer, andhad quietly followed up their retreat. "Only four quattrini, blessingand all--and if there was any profit, it would all go to the poor."
Monna Brigida would have been compelled to pause, even if she had beenin a less submissive mood. She put up one hand deprecatingly to arrestRomola's remonstrance, and with the other reached out a grosso, worthmany white quattrini, saying, in an entreating tone--
"Take it, good man, and begone."
"You're in the right, madonna," said Bratti, taking the coin quickly,and thrusting the cross into her hand; "I'll not offer you change, for Imight as well rob you of a mass. What! we must all be scorched alittle, but you'll come off the easier; better fall from the window thanthe roof. A good Easter and a good year to you!"
"Well, Romola," cried Monna Brigida, pathetically, as Bratti left them,"if I'm to be a Piagnone it's no matter how I look!"
"Dear cousin," said Romola, smiling at her affectionately, "you don'tknow how much better you look than you ever did before. I see now howgood-natured your face is, like yourself. That red and finery seemed tothrust themselves forward and hide expression. Ask our Piero or anyother painter if he would not rather paint your portrait now thanbefore. I think all lines of the human face have something eithertouching or grand, unless they seem to come from low passions. How fineold men are, like my godfather! Why should not old women look grand andsimple?"
"Yes, when one gets to be sixty, my Romola," said Brigida, relapsing alittle; "but I'm only fifty-five, and Monna Berta, and everybody--butit's no use: I will be good, like you. Your mother, if she'd beenalive, would have been as old as I am; we were cousins together. One_must_ either die or get old. But it doesn't matter about being old, ifone's a Piagnone."