And Violante, thus absorbed in revery, forgot to keep watch on the belvidere. And the belvidere was now deserted. The wife, who had no other ideal to distract her thoughts, saw Riccabocca pass into the house.
The exile entered his daughter’s room, and she started to feel his hand upon her locks and his kiss upon her brow. “My child!” cried Riccabocca, seating himself, “I have resolved to leave for a time this retreat, and to seek the neighbourhood of London.”
“Ah, dear father, that, then, was your thought? But what can be your reason? Do not turn away; you know how care fully I have obeyed your command and kept your secret. Ah, you will confide in me.”
“I do, indeed,” returned Riccabocca, with emotion. “I leave this place in the fear lest my enemies discover me. I shall say to others that you are of an age to require teachers not to be obtained here, but I should like none to know where we go.”
The Italian said these last words through his teeth, and hanging his head. He said them in shame.
“My mother—[so Violante always called Jemima]—my mother—you have spoken to her?”
“Not yet. THERE is the difficulty.”
“No difficulty, for she loves you so well,” replied Violante, with soft reproach. “Ah, why not also confide in her? Who so true, so good?”
“Good—I grant it!” exclaimed Riccabocca. “What then? ‘Da cattiva Donna guardati, ed alla buona non fidar niente.‘—[From the bad woman, guard thyself; to the good woman trust nothing.]—And if you must trust,” added the abominable man, “trust her with anything but a secret!”
“Fie,” said Violante, with arch reproach, for she knew her father’s humours too well to interpret his horrible sentiments literally,—“fie on your consistency, Padre Carissimo. Do you not trust your secret to me?”
“You! A kitten is not a cat, and a girl is not a woman. Besides, the secret was already known to you, and I had no choice. Peace, Jemima will stay here for the present. See to what you wish to take with you; we shall leave to-night.” Not waiting for an answer, Riccabocca hurried away, and with a firm step strode the terrace, and approached his wife. “Anima mia,” said the pupil of Machiavelli, disguising in the tenderest words the cruellest intentions,—for one of his most cherished Italian proverbs was to the effect that there is no getting on with a mule or a woman unless you coax them,—“Anima mia, soul of my being, you have already seen that Violante mopes herself to death here.”
“She, poor child! Oh, no!”
“She does, core of my heart,—she does, and is as ignorant of music as I am of tent-stitch.”
“She sings beautifully.”
“Just as birds do, against all the rules, and in defiance of gamut. Therefore, to come to the point, O treasure of my soul! I am going to take her with me for a short time, perhaps to Cheltenham or Brighton. We shall see.”
“All places with you are the same to me, Alphonso. When shall we go?”
“We shall go to-night; but terrible as it is to part from you,—you—”
“Ah!” interrupted the wife, and covered her face with her hands.
Riccabocca, the wiliest and most relentless of men in his maxims, melted into absolute uxorial imbecility at the sight of that mute distress. He put his arm round his wife’s waist, with genuine affection, and without a single proverb at his heart. “Carissima, do not grieve so; we shall be back soon, and travelling is expensive; rolling stones gather no moss, and there is so much to see to at home.”
Mrs. Riccabocca gently escaped from her husband’s arm. She withdrew her hands from her face and brushed away the tears that stood in her eyes.
“Alphonso,” she said touchingly, “hear me! What you think good, that shall ever be good to me. But do not think that I grieve solely because of our parting. No; I grieve to think that, despite all these years in which I have been the partner of your hearth, and slept on your breast,—all these years in which I have had no thought but, however humbly, to do my duty to you and yours, and could have wished that you had read my heart, and seen there but yourself and your child,—I grieve to think that you still deem me as unworthy your trust as when you stood by my side at the altar.”
“Trust!” repeated Riccabocca, startled and conscience-stricken; “why do you say ‘trust’? In what have I distrusted you? I am sure,” he continued, with the artful volubility of guilt, “that I never doubted your fidelity, hook-nosed, long-visaged foreigner though I be; never pryed into your letters; never inquired into your solitary walks; never heeded your flirtations with that good-looking Parson Dale; never kept the money; and never looked into the account-books!” Mrs. Riccabocca refused even a smile of contempt at these revolting evasions; nay, she seemed scarcely to hear them.
“Can you think,” she resumed, pressing her hand on her heart to still its struggles for relief in sobs,—“can you think that I could have watched and thought and taxed my poor mind so constantly, to conjecture what might best soothe or please you, and not seen, long since, that you have secrets known to your daughter, your servant, not to me? Fear not,—the secrets cannot be evil, or you would not tell them to your innocent child. Besides, do I not know your nature; and do I not love you because I know it?—it is for something connected with those secrets that you leave your home. You think that I should be incautious, imprudent. You will not take me with you. Be it so. I go to prepare for your departure. Forgive me if I have displeased you, husband.” Mrs. Riccabocca turned away; but a soft hand touched the Italian’s arm. “O Father, can you resist this? Trust her! trust her!—I am a woman like her! I answer for her woman’s faith. Be yourself,—ever nobler than all others, my own father.”
“Diavolo! Never one door shuts but another opens,” groaned Riccabocca. “Are you a fool, child? Don’t you see that it was for your sake only I feared, and would be cautious?”
“For mine! Oh, then do not make me deem myself mean, and the cause of meanness. For mine! Am I not your daughter,—the descendant of men who never feared?” Violante looked sublime while she spoke; and as she ended she led her father gently on towards the door, which his wife had now gained.
“Jemima, wife mine! pardon, pardon,” cried the Italian, whose heart had been yearning to repay such tenderness and devotion,—“come back to my breast—it has been long closed,—it shall be open to you now and forever.”
In another moment the wife was in her right place,—on her husband’s bosom; and Violante, beautiful peacemaker, stood smiling awhile at both, and then lifted her eyes gratefully to heaven and stole away.
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