Four Phases of Love Part 6

"You may want it more than I;" murmured Antonino, and moved some baskets filled with oranges on one side to make room. He was going to sell them at Capri, for the rocky islet does not produce enough for its numerous visitors.

"I will not go with you for nothing." said the girl; and the dark eyebrows drew together.

"Come, my child." said the padre, "he is an honest young fellow, and does not want to get rich from your poverty; there--step in," and he reached her his hand, "and seat yourself near me. See there! He has spread his jacket for you that you may sit the softer. He was not half so thoughtful of me. But young blood! young blood! It is always so!

They will take more care of one little girl, then of ten holy fathers."

"Well, well! you need not make any excuses, 'Tonino; it is G.o.d's law that like should cling to like."

In the mean time, Lauretta had slipped into the boat, and seated herself, first pus.h.i.+ng the jacket on one side without saying a word.

The young fisherman let it be, and muttered something between his teeth. Then he pushed stoutly against the beach, and the little bark flew lightly out into the bay.

"What have you got in your bundle?" asked the padre, as they swept over the sea, just beginning to be freckled with the first sunbeams.

"Thread, silk, and a little loaf, padre, I am going to sell the silk to a woman in Capri, who makes ribbons, and the thread to another."

"Did you spin it yourself?"

"Yes, padre."

"If I remember rightly, you have learned to weave ribbons too?"

"Yes, padre, but my mother is so much worse, that I cannot leave her for long at a time; and we are too poor to buy a loom."

"Much worse! Dear, dear, when I saw her at Easter, she was sitting up."

"The spring is always the worst time for her. Since we had the great storm and the earthquake, she has been obliged to keep her bed from pain."

"Don't weary of prayers and supplications to the Holy Virgin, my child,--she alone can help her. And be good and industrious, that your prayers may be heard."

After a pause. "As you came across the beach, they called after you, 'Good day, La Rabbiata.' Why do they call you so? It is not a pretty name for a Christian girl, who ought to be humble and gentle."

The girl's brown face glowed, and her eyes sparkled.

"They laugh at me, because I will not dance and sing and gossip, like the others. They might let me go my own way. I do them no harm."

"But you might be friendly with every one. Others, who lead easier lives may dance and sing; but kindly words may be given even by a sorrowful heart."

She looked steadily down, and drew the black eyebrows still closer together, as if she wished to shroud the dark eyes entirely under them.

For a while they, voyaged on in silence. The sun now stood glorious over the mountains. The peak of Vesuvius ranged high over the bank of mist which still wrapped its flanks, and the houses on the plains of Lorento gleamed whitely from amongst the green orange gardens.

"Have you never heard any thing more of that painter, Lauretta," asked the padre, "that Neapolitan, who wanted to marry you?"

She shook her head.

"He wanted to paint your picture--why did you drive him away?"

"Why did he want it? There are plenty prettier than I. And then, who knows what he might have done with it? He might have bewitched me with it, and endangered my soul, or even have killed me, my mother says."

"Don't believe such wicked things," said the padre, gravely, "Are you not always in the hand of G.o.d, without whose permission not a hair can fall from your head? And do you think that a man with a poor picture like that can be stronger than the Lord G.o.d? You might have seen that he wished you well. Would he have wanted you to marry him if he had not?"

She was silent.

"Then why did you send him away? They said that he was an honest man and well to do, and could have kept you and your mother in comfort. Much more so than you can do now with your poor spinning and silk-weaving."

"We are poor people." she said, impetuously. "And my mother has been ill a long time. We should only have been a burden to him; and I am not fit to be a signora. When his friends came to see him, he would have been ashamed of me."

"What nonsense! I tell you that he was a good man, and, moreover, he was willing to settle in Lorento. Another like him will not come again in a hurry; he seemed sent straight from heaven to a.s.sist you."

"I will never have a husband, never!" she said almost fiercely, and as if to herself.

"Have you taken a vow, or do you intend to enter a cloister?"

She shook her head.

"The people are right in accusing you of obstinacy, even if the name be not a pretty one. Do you forget that you are not alone in the world, and that this resolution of yours makes your sick mother's life and illness still more bitter? What possible grounds can you have for casting aside each honest hand which stretches itself out to a.s.sist you and her? Answer me, Lauretta?"

"I have, indeed, good grounds," she said, low and hesitatingly, "but I cannot tell them."

"Not tell them? not even to me? not even to your old father confessor, whom you used to trust, and who you know means so well towards you?

Will you?"

She nodded.

"So, lighten your heart, my child. If you are _in_ the right, I will be the first to _do_ you right; but you are young, and know but little of the world, and you might repent by-and-by at having ruined your happiness for life for the sake of a childish fancy."

She cast a shy, rapid glance towards the young man, who sat rowing steadily behind them in the boat, with his woollen cap plucked deeply over his brows, gazing sideways at the sea, and seemingly lost in his own reflections. The padre observed her glance, and bent his head nearer to her.

"You did not know my father," she whispered, and her eyes gleamed darkly.

"Your father! he died, if I remember rightly, when you were hardly ten years old. What can your father, whose soul may be in Paradise, have to do with your caprice?"

"You did not know him, padre: you did not know that he was the cause of all my mother's illness."

"How so?"

"Because he ill-treated her, and beat her, and trampled her under his feet! I remember the night well when he used to come home in a rage!

She never said an angry word to him--did all that he wished; but he beat her till I thought my heart would have broken, and used to draw the coverlid over my head, and pretend to be asleep, but cried all the night through. And when he saw her lying on the floor, he changed suddenly, and raised her up, and kissed her, till she cried that he was suffocating her. My mother forbad me ever to say a word about it. But it had such an effect upon her, that she has never been well all these long years since he has been dead; and if she should die soon, which the Madonna forbid, I know well who killed her."

The little priest shook his head, and seemed undecided as to what extent he should justify his penitent. At last he said,

"Forgive him, as your mother has forgiven him. Do not fasten your thoughts on that sad picture, Lauretta. Better times will come for you, and you will forget all this."

"Never shall I forget it," she cried, shuddering; "and I tell you, padre, that I will remain a maiden, and be subject to no one who may ill-treat me one moment and caress me the next. If any one tries to strike me or to kiss me now, I know how to defend myself; but my mother could not defend herself, or ward off the blows or the kisses, because she loved him; and I will love no one so much as to give him the power of making me ill and miserable."

"Now, are you not a child, talking as a child, and knowing nothing of what happens in the world? Are all men like your father, giving way to every fancy and ill-humour, and beating their wives? Have you not seen kind-hearted men enough who live in peace and unity with their wives?"

"No one knew either how my father treated my mother, for she would have died a thousand times rather than have said any thing, or complained of him, and all because she loved him. If that is what love does, closing one's lips when one should cry for help, and disarming one against worse than one's worst enemy could do, never shall my heart entrust itself to a man's keeping."

"I tell you that you are a child, and do not know what you are talking about. Much this heart of yours will ask you whether it is to love or not when its time is come! All those fine fancies you have got into that little head won't help you much _then_! And that painter, did you also inform him that you expected him to ill-treat you?"