A Spirit in Prison Part 28

Vere seemed extraordinarily thin and young as she sat there in her dripping bathing-dress, with her small, bare feet distilling drops into the bottom of the boat, and her two hands, looking drowned, holding lightly to the wood on each side of her. Even Gaspare, as he spoke, was struck by this, and by the intensely youthful expression in the eyes that now regarded him curiously.

"Really, Gaspare?"

Vere asked the question quite seriously.

"Si, Signorina."

"A woman!"

She looked down, as if considering herself. Her wet face had become thoughtful, and for a moment she said nothing.

"And what did mother say?" she asked, looking up again. "But I know. I am sure she laughed at you."

Gaspare looked rather offended. His expressive face, which always showed what he was feeling, became almost stern, and he began to row faster than before.

"Why should the Signora laugh? Am I an imbecile, Signorina?"

"You?"

She hastened to correct the impression she had made.

"Why, Gaspare, you are our Providence!"

"Va bene, but--"

"I only meant that I am sure Madre wouldn't agree with you. She thinks me quite a child. I know that."

She spoke with conviction, nodding her head.

"Perhaps the Signora does not see."

Vere smiled.

"Gaspare, I believe you are horribly sharp," she said. "I often think you notice everything. You are birbante, I am half afraid of you."

Gaspare smiled, too. He had quite recovered his good humor. It pleased him mightily to fancy he had seen what the Padrona had not seen.

"I am a man, Signorina," he observed, quietly. "And I do not speak till I know. Why should I? And I was at your baptism. When we came back to the house I put five lire on the bed to bring you luck, although you were not a Catholic. But it is just the same. Your Saint will take care of you."

"Well, but if I am almost a woman--what then, Gaspare?"

"Signorina?"

"Mustn't I play about any more? Mustn't I do just what I feel inclined to, as I did in the grotto just now?"

"Three is no harm in that, Signorina. I was only joking then. But--"

He hesitated, looking at her firmly with his unfaltering gaze.

"But what? I believe you want to scold me about something. I am sure you do."

"No, Signorina, never! But women cannot talk to everybody, as children can. n.o.body thinks anything of what children say. People only laugh and say 'Ecco, it's a baby talking.' But when we are older it is all different. People pay attention to us. We are of more importance then."

He did not mention Ruffo. He was too delicate to do that, for instinctively he understood how childish his Padroncina still was. And, at that moment, Vere did not think of Ruffo. She wondered a little what Gaspare was thinking. That there was some special thought behind his words, prompting them, she knew. But she did not ask him what it was, for already they were at the islet, and she must run in, and put on her clothes. Gaspare put her cloak carefully over her shoulders, and she hurried lightly up the steps and into her room. Her mother was not in the house. She had gone to Naples that day to see some poor people in whom she was interested. So Vere was alone. She took off her bathing-dress, and began to put on her things rather slowly. Her whole body was deliciously lulled by its long contact with the sea. She felt gloriously calm and gloriously healthy just then, but her mind was working vigorously though quietly.

A woman! The word sounded a little solemn and heavy, and, somehow, dreadfully respectable. And she thought of her recent behavior in the Grotto, and laughed aloud. She was so very slim, too. The word woman suggested to her some one more bulky than she was. But all that was absurd, of course. She was thinking very frivolously to-day.

She put on her dress and fastened it. At the age of sixteen she had put up her hair, but now it was still wet, and she had left it streaming over her shoulders. In a moment she was going out onto the cliff to let the sun dry it thoroughly. The sun was so much better than any towel.

With her hair down she really looked like a child, whatever Gaspare thought. She said that to herself, standing for a moment before the gla.s.s. Vere was almost as divinely free from self-consciousness as her father had been. But the conversation in the boat had made her think of herself very seriously, and now she considered herself, not without keen interest.

"I am certainly not a wicked baby," she said to herself. "But I don't think I look at all like a woman."

Her dark eyes met the eyes in the gla.s.s and smiled.

"And yet I shall be seventeen quite soon. What can have made Gaspare talk like that to Madre? I wonder what he said exactly. And then that about 'women cannot talk to everybody as children can.' Now what--?"

Ruffo came into her mind.

"Ah!" she said, aloud.

The figure in the gla.s.s made a little gesture. It threw up its hand.

"That's it! That's it! Gaspare thinks--"

"Signorina! Signorina!"

Gaspare's voice was speaking outside the door. And now there came a firm knock. Vere turned round, rather startled. She had been very much absorbed by her colloquy.

"What is it, Gaspare?"

"Signorina, there's a boat coming in from Naples with Don Emilio in it."

"Don Emilio! He's come back! Oh!" There was a pause. Then she cried out, "Capital! Capital!"

She ran to the door and opened it.

"Just think of Don Emilio's being back already, Gaspare. But Madre! She will be sorry."

"Signorina?"

"Why? What's the matter?"

"Are you coming out like that?"

"What?--Oh, you mean my hair?"

"Si, Signorina."

"Gaspare, you ought to have been a lady's maid! Go and bring in Don Emilio to Madre's room. And--wait--you're not to tell him Madre is away.