A Bookful of Girls. Fuller Anna
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New York known as “Little Italy.” He was nothing, —niente, niente; – but the Signora! Oh, if the gentleman could but have known the Signora, so beautiful, so patient, so sad! Giuditta had stayed with her and shared her fortunes, which were all, alas! misfortunes, – and had nursed her through a long decline. But never a word had she told of her own origin, – the beautiful Signora, – nor had her father’s name ever passed her lips. Had she known that she was dying, perhaps then, for the child’s sake, she might have forgotten her pride. But she was always thinking she should get well, – and then, one day, she died!
There was very little left, – only a few dollars; but among the squalid properties of the pitiful little stage where the poor young thing had enacted the last act of her tragedy, was one picture, a Madonna, with the painter’s name, G. Bellini, just decipherable. It was a little picture, twelve inches by sixteen, in a dingy old frame, and not a pretty picture at that. But a kind man, a dealer in antiquities, had given Giuditta one hundred dollars for it. “Think of that, Signore! One hundred dollars for an ugly little black picture no bigger than that!”
“I suppose,” Mr. Grey remarked, as they stood balancing themselves at an angle of many degrees, – “I suppose that the picture was genuine, – else the man would hardly have paid one hundred dollars for it.”
“And would it be worth more than that?”
“A trifle,” he replied, rather grimly. “Somewhere among the thousands.”
“But why should they have kept such a picture when they were so poor? Why didn’t they sell it?”
“That would hardly have occurred to them. It was evidently a family heirloom that the girl had taken with her because she loved it. I doubt if she guessed its value. A Bellini! A Giovanni Bellini, in a New York tenement house! Think of it! And now I suppose some millionaire has got it. Likely enough somebody who doesn’t know enough to buy his own pictures! Horrible idea! Horrible!” and Mr. Grey strode along, all but snorting with rage at the thought.
“But tell me more about the little girl,” Blythe entreated, wishing the wind wouldn’t blow her words out of her mouth so rudely. “Her name is Cecilia, you say?”
“Yes; Cecilia. Dopo is the name they went by, but the nurse doesn’t think it genuine. Her idea is that her Signora was the daughter of some great family, and got herself disowned by marrying an opera singer who subsequently made a fiasco and dropped his name with his fame. She doesn’t think Dopo ever was a family name. It means ‘after,’ you know, and they may have adopted it for its ironical significance.”
“And the poor lady died and never told!” Blythe panted, as they toiled painfully up-hill with the rain beating in their faces.
“Yes, and – look out! hold tight!” for suddenly the slant of the deck was reversed, and they came coasting down to an impromptu seat on a bench.
“It seems,” Mr. Grey went on, when they had resumed their somewhat arduous promenade, – “it seems the woman, Giuditta, is quite alone in the world and has been longing to get back to Italy. So she easily persuaded herself that she could find the child’s family and establish her in high life. Giuditta has an uncommonly high idea of high life,” he added. “I think she imagines that somebody in a court train and a coronet will come to meet her Signorina at the pier in Genoa. Poor things! There’ll be a rude awakening!”
“But we won’t let it be rude!” Blythe protested. “We must do something about it. Can’t you think of anything to do?”
They were standing now, clinging to the friendly rope stretched across the deck, shoulder high.
“Giuditta’s plan,” Mr. Grey replied, “is the naïve one of appealing to the Queen about it. And, seriously, I think it may be worth while to ask the American Minister to make inquiries. For there is, of course, a bare chance that the family may be known at Court. In the meantime–”
“In the meantime,” Blythe interposed, “we’ve got to get her out of the steerage!”
“But how?”
“Oh, Mamma will arrange that. We’ll just make a cabin passenger of her, and I can take her in with me in my stateroom. Oh! how happy she will be, lying in my steamer chair, with that dear Gustav to wait on her! I must go down at once and get Mamma to say yes!”
“And you think she will?”
“I know she will! She is always doing nice things. If you really knew her you wouldn’t doubt it!” And with that the young optimist vanished in her accustomed whirl of golf-cape.
If faith can move mountains, it is perhaps no wonder that the implicit and energetic faith of which Blythe Halliday was possessed proved equal to the removal of a small child from one quarter to another of the big ship. The three persons concerned in bringing about the change were easily won over; for Mrs. Halliday was quite of Blythe’s mind in the matter, Mr. Grey had little difficulty in bringing the Captain to their point of view, while, as for Giuditta, she hailed the event as the first step in the transformation of her small Signorina into the little “great lady” she was born to be.
Accordingly, close upon luncheon time, when the sun was just breaking through the clouds, and the sea, true to the Captain’s prediction, was already beginning to subside, the tiny Signorina was carried, in the strong arms of Gustav, up the steep gangway by the wheel-house, where Blythe and her mother, Mr. DeWitt and the poet, to say nothing of Captain Seemann himself, formed an impromptu reception committee for her little ladyship.
As the child was set on her feet at the head of the gangway, she turned to throw a kiss down upon her faithful Giuditta, and then, without the slightest hesitation, she placed her hand in Blythe’s, and walked away with her.
That evening there was a dance on board the Lorelei; for it had been but the fringe of a storm which they had crossed, and the sea was again taking on its long, easy swell.
The deck presented a festal appearance for the occasion. Rows of Japanese lanterns were strung from side to side against the white background of awning and deckhouse, and the flags of many nations lent their gay colours to the pretty scene. The ship’s orchestra was in its element, playing with a “go” and rhythm which seemed caught from the pulsing movement of the ship itself.
As Blythe, with Mr. DeWitt, who had been a famous dancer in his day, led off the Virginia Reel, she wondered how it would strike the sailors of a passing brig, – this gay apparition of light and music, riding the great, dark, solemn sea.
The dance itself was rather a staid, middle-aged affair, for Blythe was the only young girl on board, and none but the youngest or the surest-footed could put much spirit into a dance where the law of gravitation was apparently changing base from moment to moment. Blythe and her partner, however, took little account of the moving floor beneath their feet, or the hesitating demeanour of their companions. One after another, even the most reluctant and self-distrustful of the revellers found themselves caught up into active participation in the figure.
In a quiet corner of the deck sat Mrs. Halliday, with little Cecilia beside her, snugly stowed away in a nest of steamer-rugs; for they could not bear to take her below, out of the fresh, invigorating air. Their little guest spoke hardly any English, but, although Mrs. Halliday was under the impression that she herself spoke Italian, the child seemed more conversable in Blythe’s company than in that of any one else, not excepting Mr. Grey, about whose linguistic accomplishments there could be no question.
Accordingly when, the Virginia Reel being finished, Blythe came and sat on the foot of the little girl’s chair, they fell into an animated conversation, each in her own tongue. And presently, during a pause in the music, the Italian Count chanced to pass their way, and, stopping in his solitary promenade, appeared to give ear to their talk.
Suddenly he stooped, and, looking into the animated face of the child, inquired in his own tongue; “What is thy name, little one?”
But when the pure, liquid, childish voice answered “Cecilia Dopo,” he merely lifted his hat and, bowing ceremoniously, passed on.
Mr. Grey, who had watched the little scene from