May Templeton: a tale of faith and love

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Princeton University.

English Seminary.

CHAPTER I. “ Thou hast been long alone

Come to thy mother ;

In darkness wast thou left,

Come to thy sisters.” — Felicia Hemans.

“ Run up stairs, Manetta, and attend to your mistress. She has fallen into one of her troublesome fainting-fits, from which you understand better than myself how to arouse her. At the same time, my good girl, do try to make that child Lucia cease screaming, and do not allow her at present to communicate either with the other servants or any one happening to call during my absence. I am obliged to leave home for a few hours, but shall return in the evening, and hope to find your mistress quite recovered as usual — thanks to your good nursing. Recollect about Lucia, she is such an incurable little storyteller, and has imagination enough for any invention, however wild or untrue. You understand me, Manetta.”

These words were addressed in Italian by a young Englishman to- a handsome, but somewhat bold-looking waiting-woman, whom, with an air of true Southern indolence, he found lounging about the portico of his present

B home — a picturesque villa in the immediate neighbourhood of Florence.

“ She is for ever wanting something or other,” muttered the girl, rising, with sullen gesture, to obey her master’s directions.

“ And see here, Manetta,” said the gentleman, following Manetta, and slipping a sovereign into her hand, — “ here is something to buy a pretty dress for the approaching carnival. If it should not be enough for all that is required to set off that pretty face of yours to the best advantage, ask me for more. You are a good, obedient girl, Manetta, and I am always glad to reward you.”

“ Grazie , signore /” replied the girl, as with a saucy smile and half-sneering expression of countenance, she slowly ascended the polished marble steps leading to her mistress’s boudoir. “ He has been in one of his wild English furies again, I suppose,” was her meditation the mean while, “ or he would neither be so polite or so generous. Manetta’s silence will have to be purchased at higher wages than for a paltry sovereign one of these days, I fancy, if somebody does not have a care what he’s about. That poor signora of his doesn’t look very likely to last many months longer. Whatever she married the English madman for passes my understanding. She, with her money, and her beauty ! — not a poor empty-pocketed wretch like Manetta, who, for the sake of being a fine lady, and having nothing to do, like the rest of them, would not mind putting up with the temper of a red Indian. But, misericordia ! a woman, be she lady or serving-maid, never guesses her husband’s dark side till she’s passed her word at the altar, and the time for changing it is over. Hark, now, to that poor unfortunate child ! — but I must put a stop to this squalling, or no more golden coins for Manetta and slipping the money into the bright-coloured purse, or

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father reticule, suspended, along with other articles equally showy, from the taper waist above, Manetta opened the door of the sitting-room.

“What are you making all this noise about, Signorina Lucia ? ” was the severe inquiry, as a little girl, apparently between six and seven years of age, ran up, sobbing violently, and threw herself at Manetta’s feet.

“ She is dead! she is dead! Manetta. My own beautiful, darling mamma ! It was papa — he has killed her ! ” exclaimed the child, renewing her hysterical screaming.

“ Hush — hush, signorina ! It is no such thing ; you must not tell such naughty, wicked falsehoods. Your papa is a good gentleman, and would not kill anybody, much less your pretty mamma. The signora has only fainted; run up stairs and bring me some smelling-salts from her dressing-table, but first leave off that screeching and kneeling down, the waiting-woman hastily unloosened the dress of a lady lying, to all appearance, lifeless on the ground. Lifting the fragile form in her arms, Manetta laid it on a richlyornamented couch beside the window, and having mixed a few drops of strong aromatic essence in water, she began to bathe her mistress’s forehead, with more tenderness than her former manner and tone of speaking might have led a looker-on to expect.

In order to revive the patient more thoroughly, it became necessary to lay aside the thick wavy hair clustering around the brow ; and in doing this the mark of a heavy blow immediately above the left-side temple became visible. The faint purple colour deepened gradually as the water reached the spot.

“ He’s done for her, I do believe, this time, a cruel ruffian ! — but it’s no matter of mine,” soliloquized the attendant. “ She’ll be better off where she’s either gone outright, or, to judge from this mark, soon will go, than with the like of him, I’ll venture to say ; for if ever a good Catholic, or a real saint, lived on the face of this bad earth, she’s lying here now ; that is to say, her body is, for I see little, little sign of anything else. Well, I wish none of us may have more on our conscience by-and-by, when our time comes, than she’s had, and that’s easier wished than granted. Are you or are you not going to cease that noise, Signorina Lucia, because if it doesn’t stop in another minute, I’ll take and lock you up upstairs, you bad, disobedient child. I must go and bid Paolo fetch the doctor to your mamma, but I don’t leave the room till you are quiet.”

Manetta could not have hit on a better expedient to obtain silence — the crying instantly stopped, while even the inward sobbing, an almost uncontrollable display of excitement in children of Lucia’s age and disposition, was forced back with an effort worthy a woman of six-and-twentv, and a welldisciplined woman into the bargain, rather than of a child with the twenty years subtracted.

“And remember, signorina,” continued the maid, putting her finger on the little one’s lip ; “ not a word to him of what has happened — the doctor I mean, — not a word, except that your mamma fell down in a fainting-fit while she was crossing the room.”

“ Indeed, she did no such thing,” cried the child ; “ and I won’t say it. Papa pushed her down. I was playing at the other end of the room, and turned round just in time to see him ; he had been asking her to do something for him — I don’t know what it was, because he spoke in English ; but I heard mamma say ‘ No, it was impossible ; it would be contrary to her religion;’ her voice sounded so sadly, Manetta, that I turned round to go and kiss her. She was standing by that table up there, and papa by the window. The moment she said these words, he gave one long stride, and saying some more English words I do not know the

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meaning of, only they seemed very ugly, be knocked her bead with such a hard, hard blow, and she fell backwards. That’s the truth, Manetta ; and when the doctor comes, I’ll tell him all about it. I will — I will !” went on the excited child, hardly knowing in her terror and distress what Manetta wished her to do or not to do. “ I will tell him all about it, every single word ; and how my own darling, precious mamma ”

“ Oh ! you will — will you, my little signorina,” exclaimed the servant, not waiting the conclusion of the sentence ; “ we can soon settle that question ;” and snatching Lucia in her arms, Manetta tied a handkerchief over her mouth, to prevent the little signorina’ s screaming from being heard by the rest of the household, carried her up to a garretlikelooking apartment at the top of the house ; and in order to make assurance doubly sure, fastened the child’s sash to an old-fashioned bedpost, and retired, bolting the door behind her.

“Manetta— Manetta — Manetta !” shrieked the poor child; “ let me come back. I will do what you tell me. I will not say a word about it ; indeed — indeed, I won’t ; — only let me out to my dead — dead — dead, dear mamma. Manetta you’re too cruel ; come back — come back.”

“ Madre mia , protect us ! ” muttered the girl, crossing herself, as the agonized cries reached her ears. “ I wish I were well out of this house; more than all, that I had never been the fool — the worse than fool — to enter it.” And she ran up stairs again. “ Will you promise, then — faithfully promise — faithfully, signorina,” she asked, opening the door and looking in, “ to hold your tongue, and not tell what has happened, if I allow you to come down.”

“ Yes — yes ! indeed I will ; only untie me and I will promise not to say a word.”

“ You swear you won’t, then ?”

“ No, Manetta, not swear ; but I will promise ; and I never, you know, broke my promises.”

“ If you do, signorina, the black lady comes to-night, when you are in bed, remember, and every one asleep.”

The child shuddered, and turned white as death.

“ Indeed, Manetta, I will keep my promise ; — please do not frighten me as you did the other day, it will kill me.”

“ Well, come down, then, and do not be so passionate. Your mamma is not dead; she is only stunned by her fall. Remember this ! If any questions are asked — you saw her fall, did you not P ”

“Yes, papa ”

“You are to forget that part of the story, child. Your papa did not mean it ; and if you say a word about him and what you told me just now, he will be taken up, poor fellow, and put into prison, all through his wicked, cruel little girl, who made the doctor believe he meant to kill her mamma, when he was quite innocent of such a thought, and only rather angry , as all English gentlemen are sometimes. Ah ! the black lady comes every night after that, as the clock strikes twelve, from Santa Maria del Eiore, shaking her long — long finger out there ; ” and the maid pointed mysteriously to the door, while the terrified Italian child, rushing past her, flew back into the sitting-room, and clung, with all the strength sorrow and apprehension united could bring into action, round her mother’s prostrate figure.

Manetta, satisfied by the fear-enforced promise from her little charge, descended to the kitchen with a somewhat more elastic step than the one with which her master’s bidding had been fulfilled a few moments previously.

“ What is your will, Manetta, and why make all this disturbance just as a poor fellow is about to enjoy a hardly-earned meal,” inquired an aggrieved voice, as, in answer to her reiterated summons of “ Paolo — Paolo ! you idle rogue.

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where are you ?” the individual thus abruptly invoked condescended to make his appearance.

“ Hardly earned, indeed, you good-for-nothing one. If thy dinner be hardly earned this morning, what must Manetta’s be, forsooth ! She, however, having small relish for labour while other folks rest, has work in hand for thee, — ay, and before dinner too. Come now, none of those grimaces, Paolo ; you’ll return with all the better appetite !” and her directions to seek for and bring back with him the nearest physician were hastily delivered.

“ This all comes of living with an English signore,” grumbled Paolo. “ An Italian master would know better than to send a poor wretch out in the burning sun. It is next to murder — only think of one’s head. Can you not remonstrate with the signore, good Manetta ? Tell him it is impossible at this moment ; by-and-by it will be cooler.”

“ Something worse than a hot walk awaits thee, lazy one, if thou tarriest another moment. It is not your master who sends you, remember ; it is Manetta.”

“ Ah ! that alters the case entirely,” answered the page, rising gallantly. “ To wait on handsome Manetta is never a trouble. No sun too scorching to encounter for her sake.” “A truce to your compliments, Paolo!” was the girl’s prompt reply. “ They are wasted on one who has already learnt their value. Come, start ; and the sooner you return, so many more ribbons and bonbons for the carnival next week. Is there no other Italian girl Paolo deems as handsome, if not even handsomer, than Manetta P No one else who listens to Paolo’s pretty speeches ! and, better still, believes them tbue !”

“Ha, ha!” laughed the accused, as he scampered off. “You’re as clever as a witch, and almost as wicked!” ejaculated the Italian, sotto voce , as he reached the garden gate.

“ Can you give me an idea as to what has caused your mistress’s sudden illness ?” was the physician’s first inquiry, after a rapid glance at his patient.

“ It is not sudden by any means,” was the unhesitating reply. “ She has been ailing these six months past, and more ; but could not be persuaded to seek advice, having an unfortunate prejudice against gentlemen of your profession, signore. This morning, in crossing the room to ring the bell, the signora’s foot slipped, partly, no doubt, from weakness, and she fell against that couch wounding her poor forehead sadly. See, here is the mark !”

Lucia, at these words, looked up from her mother’s pillow, where her little face had been hidden since the doctor’s entrance. For the first time in her short life, guarded and shielded from approach of evil beneath the shelter of that mother’s watchful tenderness, a falsehood, at once bold and deliberate, had reached her ear. The maid looked threateningly towards her.

“ Is it not so, Signorina Lucia ?” she inquired, as the doctor’s eye caught that of the child. “ For I was not in the room, signore, when the accident happened. Tell the gentleman, signorina. Did not your mamma fall down here by the couch ?”

“ Tes ; she fell down here, Manetta. I ran across the room to try and catch her ; but it was too late.”

“ Whereabouts did her head strike, my little one ?” continued the physician. “It must have been a tremendous blow to have left this mark behind.” But no answer came ; the child’s face was more hidden in the pillow.

“ She is scared to death, signore,” whispered the waiting-woman ; “ her love for her mother — my poor lady there — is something quite past belief.”

“ Povero piccolo /” ejaculated the physician, in a tone of tender commiseration, as, desiring Manetta to raise the

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Bleeveof her lady’s dress, he applied the lancet to her round white arm, drawing a sigh of relief and surprise, as after a few seconds the blood began to trickle slowly, very slowly down, and his patient, opening her eyes, looked wildly around, pronouncing Lucia’s name, whose joy at finding her dead mamma restored to life again, could find expression in nothing but increased sobbing, mingled with suppressed laughter, almost more painful to listen to. The kind physician, after first lifting and then laying the child by her mother’s side, desiring neither to speak, hut to try, if possible, to obtain a little sleep, took Manetta aside, and made her clearly understand that her mistress’s restoration to life was but temporary, and would in all probability last but a few hours longer ; he had done his utmost, but the blow she had sustained in falling was too near the brain for ultimate recovery, besides which, her health from some cause or other, was evidently already shattered. She would not under any circumstances have lived another year. He desired that her friends should at once be informed of the signora’s danger and of his opinion.

“ I will let my master know the very moment he returns home, signore !” was the apparently saddened answer ; “ he has been out for hours, and knows nothing whatever of this terrible accident.”

“ Poor fellow !” exclaimed the doctor in the same compassionate tone used before, in speaking of Lucia. “It will, indeed, be sorrowful news wherewith to greet his return ; but these things will happen. Ob, life is but a spider’s web, maiden ; no lack of time between morning and noonday to scatter it from the wall out into the unknown world beyond. But I cannot linger now ; there is another case requiring immediate attention. I shall, of course, pay another visit in the course of the day ; though my skill, alas ! is useless here, except to alleviate suffering. She is very young to die, and some would say far too beautiful. Do not let that child be excited, or, at all events, as little as possible and after a few more necessary instructions to his listener the physician departed. Manetta accompanied him to the door, and on her return met Lucia coming towards her with the intelligence that her mamma wished to see a priest. “ Will you, dear Manetta, go in search of one ?” was the whispered, timid inquiry.

“ Not I, indeed !” replied the maid ; “ where’s the use of it ? The signora is quite good enough without, and let master happen to come home and find a priest here, neither be nor any one else in the house but would wish himself a hundred miles away from it. So don’t expect me to set out on such an errand, signorina, — or Paolo either, he likes bis place too well.”

“Then, I will go myself,” cried Lucia. “I know my way to the church of La Sposa, and the Fathers are sure to be in their confessionals, to-day being the eve of the Assumption. Please, dear Manetta, let me ; if you were ill or any one else, and wanted a priest, I would go and fetch him for you,” throwing her arms caressingly around the servant’s neck.

“ There — there, that will do, child and the little arms were hastily, but not roughly disengaged. “ For Heaven’s sake, find some one more worth kissing than Manetta. Well would it be were you never taught to be less innocent and foolish, with all your naughty, passionate ways, than you are now. There, go back to your mamma, and tell her I’m gone for Father Ignatius, the superior of St. Marco’s. He knows neither Manetta nor her history,” thought the girl, as, with a downcast expression, she quitted the child. “ So much the better; he may think her a saint for fetching him here at risk of her life, almost, if it suit the good Father’s fancy. Vercmente, we are neither better nor

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worse for what others please to think of us, saint or sinner. The world is easily deceived ; not even a priest can read one’s heart, if one has a mind to disguise it.”

Father Ignatius came and went, and so likewise did the long hours of that bright summer afternoon. They came like shadows, and departed as silently. At sunset, the Angelus rang out from church and convent. Shortly afterwards, Paolo came up stairs to inform Manetta of her master’s return home, and his wish to see her.

“ Tell him I am busy, but will come presently,” was the reply ; and in the course of ten minutes she obeyed the summons. Her entrance was hailed with a smile of satisfaction, as her master pointed to a chair, and bidding her be seated, inquired whether matters were all right as usual again.

“ You really deserve better wages than you now receive, my good Manetta,” he continued, without waiting her reply. “I have long thought so, and I have also long thought of raising them. A girl with your prudence and discretion should be regarded more in the light of a friend than a dependant. Let the salary you now receive be doubled from this day forth.”

“Grazie,' signore” was the cool and most indifferent reply, no longer accompanied, however, by the bold smile of the morning. There was a look of indignation, mingled with something approaching to sadness, on her brow.

“ And that most irritating of all irritating children, Manetta — did you, to the letter, follow my advice respecting her ? And your mistress, is she quite recovered ? ”

The last words were uttered in a would-be careless tone. The woman folded her arms, and looked fixedly across the room.

“ Si, signore ,” she quietly replied.

“ Ha ! that’s all right, then — you are a clever girl, Manetta. To tell you the plain truth, your mistress chooses at times to aggravate me beyund endurance. I care little for passionate women — it is turn for turn with them ; but * the way your mistress has of speaking, especially when refusing, as she continually does, to comply with my smallest request, is too much for my patience. You are a wild, passionate girl yourself, Manetta, almost as passionate as handsome. You will understand what I mean — and so she is really better, in spite of — in spite of that fall this morning; that stupid fainting-fit I was obliged to leave her in so unfortunately.’ *

“ Yes, signore, she is fast asleep, and much better — far better than either you or I am ever likely to be in this world, or the next. She is quite well”

“What mean you, Manetta?” exclaimed her master, looking up in strange surprise, more at the tone in which the last sentence was spoken than at the words themselves.

Manetta rose and advanced a few paces nearer. “ Do you believe in another world, my English master,” she inquired, slightly raising her voice ; “ a better world than this ?”

“ About as much as you do, Manetta, I suppose. How much may that be ? You used to be well up in these theological questions a few years ago.”

“ A few years ago is not to-day, signore ; would that it were ! But this I do know, that if there be such a place as paradise, the Signora Madlena has just entered there.”

“You don’t mean to tell me, girl, that she is dead l” exclaimed the young Englishman, springing to his feet, and striking the table in his agitation.

“ Even so,” was the calm reply ; “ she died an hour ago, as the bells were ringing the Angelus , and the nuns chanting their Ave Maria . The songs of the Church and her soul were wafted into heaven together — if, as I was saying, there

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be such a place as heaven, which you and I, signore, consider doubtful.”

A look of dark, unavailing remorse passed across the young man’s countenance. It was not penitence — no, nor anything approaching that blessed name. There was a long pause, broken by Manetta.

“ I must go up stairs again, and sit beside that poor child ; it is growing dark, and she will be thinking about the Black Lady. Wretch that I was to frighten her with that old story this morning ! ”

“ Stop a minute first, and tell me more about this ; I am inexpressibly shocked. Why inform me of it in that sudden, heartless manner ! Did no doctor see her P ”

“ He did.”

“ Oh, that is well. And what said he ? — they have always plenty to say, those gentlemen of life and death, especially when there is nothing to be done.”

“ He said, signore, that my mistress was dying from the effect of a blow on the temple, which I told him she had received from falling against the foot of that couch up stairs in a fainting-fit.”

“ Ah ! the child — what said Lucia ? ” — the words were brought out hurriedly.

“ Oh, I terrified her, not without some considerable difficulty, into the same story, or something very like it. The doctor, at all events, was satisfied by her silence, if nothing else.”

“ Manetta,” said the gentleman, extending his hand, — “ you have saved my life. The least I can do is to free you from care or poverty. Name your sum ; be it what you will, it is your own.”

With a stifled shriek she withdrew her hand from his grasp, and then struck it fiercely on the table. “ Listen, now, my young English master,” she vociferated with wild

Digitized by CjOOQIC passion ; — “ I am a poor ignorant, degraded Italian girl, with nothing to look forward to either in this world or the next ; for the peace of an innocent conscience has departed, and you and others have laughed me out of a belief in pardon here, or recovered happiness hereafter ; your wretched money has bribed me hitherto, but to-day’s work has been a trifle too much even for me, and sooner than touch one scudo more of your accursed money, I would die in the streets starving for a crust of bread at your very door!”

“What is it you dare to insinuate, girl, by speaking thus ? Do you mean to tell me to my face that I intended to — to — that I intended this to have happened ? ”

“ No, I do not. If I did, neither fear of past, present, nor future should hinder me from denouncing you as a villain and a murderer, till all Florence, and even your own country too, rang with the tale. I would make the truth known now (a base enough one even for this bad world) would it be of any avail to that pale corpse up there ; for not only did a harsh word towards me never fall from her lips, spite of my ill temper and impudence, but more than that, she often tried to save the soul others have sought hard to destroy. Her advice was turned into ridicule, and would be again, very likely, were she here to offer it ; though I’m sorry at this moment, like others at the deathbed of those to whom they have turned a scornful ear. For her sake I would make the whole story a public one, signore; but it would do no good to her now, and would but serve to injure the only creature who really loved her — that poor little one. To let her grow up with such a tale attached to her father’s name, would indeed be a heartless cruelty. No need to make the innocent suffer for the guilty more than this wise, just world already makes them suffer.”

“ But I repeat to you, Manetta — are you mad, girl, to

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talk in this way ? — that I never for one moment intended this to happen. How dare you continue these reproaches? Do you know, or have you forgotten, whom you are addressing ? ”

“ Forgotten ? No, you are not easily forgotten, signore, little fear of that ; and as to daring ,” she pointed to the ceiling, “ the less you talk on that subject to Manetta the better. She dare say anything she has a mind to ; ay, and do anything for all that, now the power is her own. So you really did not intend actually and deliberately to imbrue your hands in her blood ! Granted, signore. It was wonderfully forbearing, deserving more praise than one knows how to bestow. Yet, listen to me. Conscience may let you off on easy terms ; but not so, Manetta. She has a word or two of truth to say ere she quit your house for ever. There is many a poor wretch found guilty of murder, and for ever banished human society, even if not brought to the gallows, for a deed done during a momentary fit of passion, and under circumstances of awful provocation, who is far less steeped in crime than yourself. Have you not tortured a fellow-creature’s very life out — let alone her being your wife ? Have you not, for these years past, neglected her through many and many an illness brought on by your ill-usage, and which had like to have been her death ? Have you not insulted her by the constant presence of those her holy and innocent eyes ought never to have gazed upon ? Is this the first blow it has been her lot to receive from that hand — though, fortunately for it and unfortunately for her, the fatal one was deferred till this morning, and then given by a happy chance ? Via , via ! don’t think to frighten me with those glaring eyes ! Sit down, and listen till I conclude ; and learn for the first time in your life, if you have never learnt it before, that neither man, woman, nor chi\d is ever afraid of that w T hich they despise; and one stands here, proud Englishman, who has learnt to despise, more than the worm under her feet, both you and your riches. I ask again, what had she done to provoke it ? What was her crime, except that of being the most gentle and uncomplaining of human creatures, and yet brave enough to speak the truth on seeing you run headlong into ruin ?”