My Novel Part 17

"Giacomo," said Riccabocca, bowing his head to the storm, "the signorina to-morrow; to-day the honour of the House. Thy small-clothes, Giacomo,--miserable man, thy small-clothes!"

"It is just," said Jackeymo, recovering himself, and with humility; "and the padrone does right to blame me, but not in so cruel a way. It is just,--the padrone lodges and boards me, and gives me handsome wages, and he has a right to expect that I should not go in this figure."

"For the board and the lodgment, good," said Riccabocca. "For the handsome wages, they are the visions of thy fancy!"

"They are no such thing," said Jackeymo, "they are only in arrear. As if the padrone could not pay them some day or other; as if I was demeaning myself by serving a master who did not intend to pay his servants! And can't I wait? Have I not my savings too? But be cheered, be cheered; you shall be contented with me. I have two beautiful suits still. I was arranging them when you rang for me. You shall see, you shall see."

And Jackeymo hurried from the room, hurried back into his own chamber, unlocked a little trunk which he kept at his bed-head, tossed out a variety of small articles, and from the deepest depth extracted a leathern purse. He emptied the contents on the bed. They were chiefly Italian coins, some five-franc pieces, a silver medallion inclosing a little image of his patron saint,--San Giacomo,--one solid English guinea, and somewhat more than a pound's worth in English silver.

Jackeymo put back the foreign coins, saying prudently, "One will lose on them here;" he seized the English coins, and counted them out. "But are you enough, you rascals?" quoth he, angrily, giving them a good shake.

His eye caught sight of the medallion,--he paused; and after eying the tiny representation of the saint with great deliberation, he added, in a sentence which he must have picked up from the proverbial aphorisms of his master,--

"What's the difference between the enemy who does not hurt me, and the friend who does not serve me? Monsignore San Giacomo, my patron saint, you are of very little use to me in the leathern bag; but if you help me to get into a new pair of small-clothes on this important occasion, you will be a friend indeed. Alla bisogna, Monsignore." Then, gravely kissing the medallion, he thrust it into one pocket, the coins into the other, made up a bundle of the two defunct suits, and muttering to himself, "Beast, miser, that I am, to disgrace the padrone with all these savings in his service!" ran downstairs into his pantry, caught up his hat and stick, and in a few moments more was seen trudging off to the neighbouring town of L--------.

Apparently the poor Italian succeeded, for he came back that evening in time to prepare the thin gruel which made his master's supper, with a suit of black,--a little threadbare, but still highly respectable,--two s.h.i.+rt fronts, and two white cravats. But out of all this finery, Jackeymo held the small-clothes in especial veneration; for as they had cost exactly what the medallion had sold for, so it seemed to him that San Giacomo had heard his prayer in that quarter to which he had more exclusively directed the saint's direction. The other habiliments came to him in the merely human process of sale and barter; the small-clothes were the personal gratuity of San Giacomo!

CHAPTER VIII.

Life has been subjected to many ingenious comparisons; and if we do not understand it any better, it is not for want of what is called "reasoning by ill.u.s.tration." Amongst other resemblances, there are moments when, to a quiet contemplator, it suggests the image of one of those rotatory entertainments commonly seen in fairs, and known by the name of "whirligigs," or "roundabouts," in which each partic.i.p.ator of the pastime, seated on his hobby, is always apparently in the act of pursuing some one before him, while he is pursued by some one behind.

Man, and woman too, are naturally animals of chase; the greatest still find something to follow, and there is no one too humble not to be an object of prey to another. Thus, confining our view to the village of Hazeldean, we behold in this whirligig Dr. Riccabocca spurring his hobby after Lenny Fairfield; and Miss Jemima, on her decorous side-saddle, whipping after Dr. Riccabocca. Why, with so long and intimate a conviction of the villany of our s.e.x, Miss Jemima should resolve upon giving the male animal one more chance of redeeming itself in her eyes, I leave to the explanation of those gentlemen who profess to find "their only books in woman's looks." Perhaps it might be from the over-tenderness and clemency of Miss Jemima's nature; perhaps it might be that as yet she had only experienced the villany of man born and reared in these cold northern climates, and in the land of Petrarch and Romeo, of the citron and myrtle, there was reason to expect that the native monster would be more amenable to gentle influences, less obstinately hardened in his iniquities. Without entering further into these hypotheses, it is sufficient to say that, on Signor Riccabocca's appearance in the drawing-room at Hazeldean, Miss Jemima felt more than ever rejoiced that she had relaxed in his favour her general hostility to men. In truth, though Frank saw something quizzical in the old-fas.h.i.+oned and outlandish cut of the Italian's sober dress; in his long hair, and the chapeau bras, over which he bowed so gracefully, and then pressed it, as if to his heart, before tucking it under his arm, after the fas.h.i.+on in which the gizzard reposes under the wing of a roasted pullet,--yet it was impossible that even Frank could deny to Riccabocca that praise which is due to the air and manner of an unmistakable gentleman. And certainly as, after dinner, conversation grew more familiar, and the parson and Mrs. Dale, who had been invited to meet their friend, did their best to draw him out, his talk, though sometimes a little too wise for his listeners, became eminently animated and agreeable. It was the conversation of a man who, besides the knowledge which is acquired from books and life, had studied the art which becomes a gentleman,--that of pleasing in polite society.

The result was that all were charmed with him; and that even Captain Barnabas postponed the whist-table for a full hour after the usual time.

The doctor did not play; he thus became the property of the two ladies, Miss Jemima and Mrs. Dale.

Seated between the two, in the place rightfully appertaining to Flimsey, who this time was fairly dislodged, to her great wonder and discontent, the doctor was the emblem of true Domestic Felicity, placed between Friends.h.i.+p and Love.

Friends.h.i.+p, as became her, worked quietly at the embroidered pocket-handkerchief and left Love to more animated operations.

"You must be very lonely at the Casino," said Love, in a sympathizing tone.

"Madam," replied Riccabocca, gallantly, "I shall think so when I leave you."

Friends.h.i.+p cast a sly glance at Love; Love blushed, or looked down on the carpet,--which comes to the same thing. "Yet," began Love again,--"yet solitude to a feeling heart--"

Riccabocca thought of the note of invitation, and involuntarily b.u.t.toned his coat, as if to protect the individual organ thus alarmingly referred to.

"Solitude to a feeling heart has its charms. It is so hard even for us poor ignorant women to find a congenial companion--but for YOU!" Love stopped short, as if it had said too much, and smelt confusedly at its bouquet.

Dr. Riccabocca cautiously lowered his spectacles, and darted one glance which, with the rapidity and comprehensiveness of lightning, seemed to envelop and take in, as it were, the whole inventory of Miss Jemima's personal attractions. Now Miss Jemima, as I have before observed, had a mild and pensive expression of countenance; and she would have been positively pretty had the mildness looked a little more alert, and the pensiveness somewhat less lackadaisical. In fact, though Miss Jemima was const.i.tutionally mild, she was not de natura pensive; she had too much of the Hazeldean blood in her veins for that sullen and viscid humour called melancholy, and therefore this a.s.sumption of pensiveness really spoiled her character of features, which only wanted to be lighted up by a cheerful smile to be extremely prepossessing. The same remark might apply to the figure, which--thanks to the same pensiveness--lost all the undulating grace which movement and animation bestow on the fluent curves of the feminine form. The figure was a good figure, examined in detail,--a little thin, perhaps, but by no means emaciated, with just and elegant proportions, and naturally light and flexible. But the same unfortunate pensiveness gave to the whole a character of inertness and languor; and when Miss Jemima reclined on the sofa, so complete seemed the relaxation of nerve and muscle that you would have thought she had lost the use of her limbs. Over her face and form, thus defrauded of the charms Providence had bestowed on them, Dr. Riccabocca's eye glanced rapidly; and then moving nearer to Mrs. Dale--"Defend me" (he stopped a moment, and added) "from the charge of not being able to appreciate congenial companions.h.i.+p."

"Oh, I did not say that!" cried Miss Jemima.

"Pardon me," said the Italian, "if I am so dull as to misunderstand you. One may well lose one's head, at least, in such a neighbourhood as this." He rose as he spoke, and bent over Frank's shoulder to examine some views of Italy, which Miss Jemima (with what, if wholly unselfish, would have been an attention truly delicate) had extracted from the library in order to gratify the guest.

"Most interesting creature, indeed," sighed Miss Jemima, "but too--too flattering."

"Tell me," said Mrs. Dale, gravely, "do you think, love, that you could put off the end of the world a little longer, or must we make haste in order to be in time?"

"How wicked you are!" said Miss Jemima, turning aside. Some few minutes afterwards, Mrs. Dale contrived it so that Dr. Riccabocca and herself were in a farther corner of the room, looking at a picture said to be by Wouvermans.

MRS. DALE.--"She is very amiable, Jemima, is she not?"

RICCABOCCA.--"Exceedingly so. Very fine battle-piece!"

MRS. DALE.--"So kind-hearted."

RICCABOCCA.--"All ladies are. How naturally that warrior makes his desperate cut at the runaway!"

MRS. DALE.--"She is not what is called regularly handsome, but she has something very winning."

RICCABOCCA (with a smile).--"So winning, that it is strange she is not won. That gray mare in the foreground stands out very boldly!"

MRS. DALE (distrusting the smile of Riccabocca, and throwing in a more effective grape-charge).--"Not won yet; and it is strange! she will have a very pretty fortune."

RICCABOCCA.--"Ah!"

MRS. DALE. "Six thousand pounds, I dare say,--certainly four."

RICCABOCCA (suppressing a sigh, and with his wonted address).--"If Mrs.

Dale were still single, she would never need a friend to say what her portion might be; but Miss Jemima is so good that I am quite sure it is not Miss Jemima's fault that she is still--Miss Jemima!"

The foreigner slipped away as he spoke, and sat himself down beside the whist-players.

Mrs. Dale was disappointed, but certainly not offended. "It would be such a good thing for both," muttered she, almost inaudibly.

"Giacomo," said Riccabocca, as he was undressing that night in the large, comfortable, well-carpeted English bedroom, with that great English four-posted bed in the recess which seems made to shame folks out of single blessedness, "Giacomo, I have had this evening the offer of probably L6000, certainly of four thousand."

"Cosa meravigliosa!"--["Miraculous thing."]--exclaimed Jackeymo, and he crossed himself with great fervour. "Six thousand pounds Englis.h.!.+

why, that must be a hundred thousand--blockhead that I am!--more than L150,000 Milanese!" And Jackeymo, who was considerably enlivened by the squire's ale, commenced a series of gesticulations and capers, in the midst of which he stopped and cried, "But not for nothing?"

"Nothing! no!"

"These mercenary Englis.h.!.+ the Government wants to bribe you?"

"That's not it."

"The priests want you to turn heretic?"

"Worse than that!" said the philosopher.

"Worse than that! O Padrone! for shame!"

"Don't be a fool, but pull off my pantaloons--they want me never to wear THESE again!"

"Never to wear what?" exclaimed Jackeymo, staring outright at his master's long legs in their linen drawers,--"never to wear--"

"The breeches," said Riccabocca, laconically.