Little Novels of Italy | Page 5

great tattered wings
spread towards each other. When the green sky of evening deepened to
blue, and blue grew violet, these shadowing wings were always in
advance, more densely dark. There it was that Vanna worked
incessantly, sewing seam after seam, patching, braiding, and fitting the
pieces. By no chance at all did a hint of the sun fall about her; yet she
always sang softly to herself, always wore her pretty fresh colours, and
still showed the gold sheen in her yellow hair. Her hair was put up now,
pulled smoothly back over her temples; she spoke in a low, sober,
measured voice, and to La Testolina's sly suggestions responded with a
little blush, a little shake of the head, and a very little sigh. "Ser
Baldassare is good to me," she would say; "would you have me do him

a wrong? Last Friday he gave me a silver piece to spend in whatsoever
I chose. I bought a little holy-water stoup with a Gesulino upon it,
bowered in roses. On Sunday morning he patted my cheek and called
me a good girl. To say nothing of the many times he has pinched my
ear, all this was very kind, as you must see. With what do you ask me
to reward him? Fie!" La Testolina snorted, and shrugged herself away.
Vanna went on with her sewing and her little song----
"Giovanottin, che te ne vai di fuora, Stattene allegro, e così vo' far io.
Se ti trovassi qualche dama nuova, L'ha da saper che tua dama son io."
So sang she, innocently enough, whose sweethearting went no farther
than her artless lips. There was not a spice of mischief in the girl. What
she had told La Testolina had been no more than the truth: Master
Baldassare was good to her--better than you would have believed
possible in such a crabbed old stub of a man. He was more of a father
to her than ever Don Urbano had been to anything save his own belly;
but it was incontestable that he was not father to anything else. That
alone might have been a grievance for Vanna, but there is no evidence
that it was. Baldassare was by nature gruff, by habit close-fisted: like
all such men, the more he felt the deeper he hoarded the thought under
his ribs. The most he would venture would be a hand on her hair and a
grunt when she did well; so sure as she looked up gratefully at him the
old man drew off, with puckered brows and jaws working together. He
may have been ashamed of his weakness; it is dead certain that no one
in Verona, least of all Vanna herself, suspected him of any affection for
his young wife. Mostly he was silent; thus she became silent too
whenever he was in the house. This was against nature, for by ordinary
her little songs bubbled from her like a bird's. But to see him so glum
and staring within doors awed her: she set a finger to her lips as she felt
the tune on her tongue, and went about her business mute. Baldassare
would go abroad, stooping under his pack: she took her seat at the
shop-door, threaded her needle, her fingers flew and her fancy with
them. The spring of her music was touched, and all the neighbours
grew to listen for the gentle cadences she made.
So passed a year, so two years passed. Vanna was twenty-three,

looking less, when along there came one morning a tall young friar, a
Carmelite, by name Fra Battista, with a pair of brown dove's eyes in his
smooth face. These he lifted towards Vanna's with an air so timid and
so penetrating, so delicate and hardy at once, that when he was gone it
was to leave her with the falter of a verse in her mouth, two hot cheeks,
and a quicker heart.
This Fra Battista, by birth a Bergamask, accredited to the convent at
Verona by reason of his parts as a preacher, was tall and shapely, like a
spoilt pretty boy to look at, leggy, and soft in the palm. His frock set off
this petted appearance--it gave you the idea of a pinafore on him. He
did not look manly, was not manly by any means, and yet not so girlish
but that you could doubt his sex. His eyes, which, as I say, were soft as
a dove's pair, he was not fond of showing; and this gave them the more
searching appeal when he did. His mouth, full and fleshy in the lips,
had a lovely curve. He kept it very demure, and, when he spoke, spoke
softly. This was a young man born to be Lancilotto to some Ginevra or
other;