The Valley of Decision | Page 6

sat there a long time when the noise of wheels and the crack of
a postillion's whip roused the dogs chained in the stable. Odo's heart
began to beat. What could the sounds mean? It was as though the
flood-tide of the unknown were rising about him and bursting open the
chapel door to pour in on his loneliness. It was, in fact, Filomena who
opened the door, crying out to him in an odd Easter Sunday voice, the
voice she used when she had on her silk neckerchief and gold chain or
when she was talking to the bailiff.

Odo sprang up and hid his face in her lap. She seemed, of a sudden,
nearer to him than any one else--a last barrier between himself and the
mystery that awaited him outside.
"Come, you poor sparrow," she said, dragging him across the threshold
of the chapel, "the abate is here asking for you;" and she crossed herself,
as though she had named a saint.
Odo pulled away from her with a last wistful glance at Saint Francis,
who looked back at him in an ecstasy of commiseration.
"Come, come," Filomena repeated, dropping to her ordinary key as she
felt the resistance of the little boy's hand. "Have you no heart, you
wicked child? But, to be sure, the poor innocent doesn't know! Come
cavaliere, your illustrious mother waits."
"My mother?" The blood rushed to his face; and she had called him
"cavaliere"!
"Not here, my poor lamb! The abate is here; don't you see the lights of
the carriage? There, there, go to him. I haven't told him, your reverence;
it's my silly tender-heartedness that won't let me. He's always been like
one of my own creatures to me--" and she confounded Odo by bursting
into tears.
The abate stood on the doorstep. He was a tall stout man with a hooked
nose and lace ruffles. His nostrils were stained with snuff and he took a
pinch from a tortoise-shell box set with the miniature of a lady; then he
looked down at Odo and shrugged his shoulders.
Odo was growing sick with apprehension. It was two days before the
appointed time for his weekly instruction and he had not prepared his
catechism. He had not even thought of it--and the abate could use the
cane. Odo stood silent and envied girls, who are not disgraced by
crying. The tears were in his throat, but he had fixed principles about
crying. It was his opinion that a little boy who was a cavaliere might
weep when he was angry or sorry, but never when he was afraid; so he
held his head high and put his hand to his side, as though to rest it on
his sword.
The abate sneezed and tapped his snuff-box.
"Come, come, cavaliere, you must be brave--you must be a man; you
have duties, you have responsibilities. It's your duty to console your
mother--the poor lady is plunged in despair. Eh? What's that? You
haven't told him? Cavaliere, your illustrious father is no more."

Odo stared a moment without understanding; then his grief burst from
him in a great sob, and he hid himself against Filomena's apron,
weeping for the father in damascened armour and scarlet cloak.
"Come, come," said the abate impatiently. "Is supper laid? for we must
be gone as soon as the mist rises." He took the little boy by the hand.
"Would it not distract your mind to recite the catechism?" he inquired.
"No, no!" cried Odo with redoubled sobs.
"Well, then, as you will. What a madman!" he exclaimed to Filomena.
"I warrant it hasn't seen its father three times in its life. Come in,
cavaliere; come to supper."
Filomena had laid a table in the stone chamber known as the bailiff's
parlour, and thither the abate dragged his charge and set him down
before the coarse tablecloth covered with earthen platters. A tallow dip
threw its flare on the abate's big aquiline face as he sat opposite Odo,
gulping the hastily prepared frittura and the thick purple wine in its
wicker flask. Odo could eat nothing. The tears still ran down his cheeks
and his whole soul was possessed by the longing to steal back and see
whether the figure of the knight in the scarlet cloak had vanished from
the chapel wall. The abate sat in silence, gobbling his food like the old
black pig in the yard. When he had finished he stood up, exclaiming:
"Death comes to us all, as the hawk said to the chicken. You must be a
man, cavaliere." Then he stepped into the kitchen, and called out for the
horses to be put to.
The farm hands had slunk away to one of the outhouses, and Filomena
and Jacopone stood bowing and curtseying