a thunderstorm routed the procession, sending the candle-bearers helter-skelter into doorways, covered alleys, under the awnings of the shops. at the first flash and report of the sky’s artillery andrea deserted his push-cart and its royal occupant. but the dauntless leader of the election district was at hand. with heroic calm he lifted the queen in his arms and unaided carried her into the caffè of the beautiful sicilian. mulberry had but few men who could do that—she was of solid carrara—and thoughtful voters saw in the feat a new mark of his fitness for political chieftainship. she was placed on a marble-top table in the corner and the crown straightened on her spotless [pg 293]brow. all night she held court, and until the vender songs of the morning market were heard in the streets. bottle after bottle joined the dead men, the rude quips and quibbles grew noisy, quarrelsome, yet no man drained a glass without first tipping it in homage to the snub-nosed damsel whose hollow eyes stared at every one all the time.
an hour before midnight bertino and armando returned to casa di bello to report to carolina the lodging place of the last lady. hardly had the bell sounded when the door flew open, and carolina came out, finger at lips, with a great air of mystery, and drawing to the panelled oak behind her.
“be off at once!” she said, her voice fluttering. “here is money. go anywhere to-night—anywhere out of mulberry. you, bertino, must not come back until—until i am ready for you. if she saw you it would ruin all. go! ask no questions. to-morrow armando will tell me where you are, and we shall meet. away!”
[pg 294]
with puzzled faces and mystified shakes of the head armando and bertino took themselves off, and carolina re-entered at the moment that signor di bello was mounting the staircase to his bedroom. a few minutes before he had taunted her with the failure of her scheme to cheat him of a wife, and proclaimed again the idiocy of the priest and all others who asserted that there was a bust or a husband of juno. a pretty show they had made of him. all mulberry was laughing. but his time would come. next sunday he would turn the tide, for she would be his in spite of them all. carolina could do as she liked, go or stay; but a wedding there must and should be, for that alone could save his good name as a merchant and a signore.
he had spent a busy night with the flasks of the three gardens along with some choice comrades of the genovese, and the years had told carolina that with her brother it was always in vino veritas. wherefore she knew that he had spoken naught less [pg 295]than a secret of his heart—that a wish to wipe out the stain of ridicule was an added spur to his determination to marry. and this knowledge sparked an idea that keyed her cunning to its highest pitch. without an instant’s delay she began to put the idea into practice. her first move was to keep mum about the return of bertino, although she had waited up to flaunt in her brother’s face the news that his bride’s husband would stand before him in a few minutes. but the new design that her crafty wits had seized upon made that petty triumph seem not worth while—at least not until the tragic moment she was preparing. her next step, as we have seen, was to get bertino out of the way. the corners of her closed mouth curved in a smile of wily content as she watched signor di bello going up to his room in blank ignorance of the little society drama that was in her head.
“good night, my dear brother,” she said. “to-morrow i will begin to make ready for the wedding.”
[pg 296]
“good night.”
on the morrow she gave angelica orders to prepare a wedding feast that should be the equal of the one that had gone to father nicodemo’s poor. she ordered her as well to keep her mouth shut about the turning up of bertino, and the same command she issued to marianna. neither the girl nor the cook was able to fathom the purpose of carolina, but marianna could not shake off a besetting fear that it boded no good for her.
it was a bright morning, and bright were the spirits of signor di bello, and springy his step, as he walked to his shop in paradise park. to his view there was not a speck on the matrimonial prospect, and he exulted in the promise of laughing last at those who were now laughing at him. it was the day that the proofs were to be presented to father nicodemo, and he chuckled serenely over the plight that the banker must be in.
[pg 297]
he had gone less than a block when armando rang the bell of casa di bello, and marianna, who had been watching for him eagerly at the window, threw open the door. breathlessly she fell to telling him of the plans for the wedding and her consequent sense of impending disaster; how carolina knew that juno had one husband, and was helping her to get another! she had closed her and angelica’s lips. what did it all mean? something dreadful, she was sure. if armando would only take her away. if——
the interview was cut off by the voice of carolina, who appeared with her bonnet on and took charge of armando.
“not a word,” she admonished him, “about bertino’s return or his marriage to that baggage. mind you do not tell a living soul. my reasons you will know at the proper time. now, lead me to the—last lady.”
together they walked to the caffè of the beautiful sicilian. on the threshold they [pg 298]came face to face with the ex-banker. he was in a fine frenzy of indignation. at daybreak that morning he had started from what was left of the iron villa with a push-cart load of dandelion leaves. after visiting the rectory and making to father nicodemo the humiliating report that the proofs had vanished, there had come to his ear news of the marble queen of springtide, and the talk, current on a thousand tongues, of her strong resemblance to the neapolitan who sang at la scala, and whom the priest had refused to marry to signor di bello. and here was the bust of which he had been robbed. oh, the money it had cost him! one hundred and forty dollars for duty. ah! yes; it was the cause of his ruin. but for that cursed marble he would be still a signore and one of the influential bankers of mulberry. he had demanded his property, but the foreman would not surrender it until he had proved his ownership. what an outrage! but it mattered not now, for they, armando and signorina [pg 299]di bello, would be his witnesses. “who well does climb is helped in time.”
“excuse me, signore,” remarked armando; “this bust does not belong to you.”
“what!” shrieked the banker.
“no; it is mine.”
“yours?”
“i made it.”
“you made it, eh?” the banker snapped. “very good. but who paid for it? eh, who paid for it? answer that. who paid the one hundred and forty dollars of dogana—you or i? give me back the duty money and you may have the infernal thing! ugly yellow snout!”
now, carolina had a lively desire to possess the bust, for she needed it in the avenging play that she had begun to construct. nevertheless, her italian thrift had not been swamped by the wave of worldly purpose that had of late come over her churchly qualities. to pay the sum signor tomato asked would necessitate an inroad upon her savings-bank hoard, an act to which she [pg 300]nerved herself only in the last resort. so she exerted the might of her tongue in behalf of armando’s claim, holding with primordial logic that the last lady belonged to the sculptor by divine right of creation. but the foreman, in his rôle of thief, custodian of the stolen goods, and judge in equity, had a homelier code of ethics for his guide. it took him not a moment to decide. he awarded the bust to the banker on the ground that it was in his wife’s possession at the time of the theft, and must therefore belong to her husband. it was only the reductio ad maritum to which all questions are subject in mulberry. the upshot was that in the afternoon carolina paid the one hundred and forty dollars.
to signor tomato it seemed as if some fairy wand had touched the world and made it a garden of joy. now they might take away the other pipe any time, and he did not care. his bridget and the little tomatoes would not be homeless. in his transport of gladness the rude life about him took on [pg 301]a poetic beauty. the fragrance of sorrentine orange groves filled the squalid streets; there was rapturous music in the shrieks of the parrots on the fire escapes and window sills; the raucous notes of the hucksters enchanted his ear. to dear old mulberry he could return now and resume his proper estate of banker and signore. long live the day in his thankfulness! never more would he quarrel with his lot. ah! the grand truth in the proverb, “blind eyes lose their night when gold is in sight.” straightway he went to the landlord, got the key of the old shop, and, when darkness had fallen, bridget and her brood were eating cabbage soup behind the nankeen sail in the revivified banca tomato.
but the last lady was still with them, to the hearty disgust of bridget. not yet had the hour arrived for carolina to bring the bust on the scene, and signor tomato, with many a word and grimace of reluctance, consented, under an oath of secrecy, to keep it in his place until the supreme moment. [pg 302]pains were taken that it should not be traced to its new biding place. armando had pushed it away in a cart, taking a round-about course from the caffè of the beautiful sicilian to paradise park. thus it happened that when signor di bello, to whose ears had come the gossip of a bust that imaged his lost bride, went to the caffè that morning to see for himself, the bird had again flown.
“bah! another stupid jest!” he muttered, and thrashed out of the room amid the titters of a group of sicilians.
soon afterward juno, an unwonted air of wide-awake desire about her, entered the caffè and asked to be shown the queen of springtide. before signora crispina, the proprietor’s peachblow wife, could answer, there came from a half dozen throats the merry chorus:
“long live the queen of springtide!”
“where is it?” juno asked.
“she is here, signorina,” said the wit of the company, rising and tipping his hat. [pg 303]“the lifeless queen has just left us, but her living majesty is here.—it is yourself, beautiful signorina.”
“bah! where is the bust?”
no one could answer. armando was unknown in mulberry, and only three persons—carolina, the banker, and himself—were in the secret of his destination when he pushed away from the caffè with the last lady in the cart. juno went back to her lodgings greatly disappointed. a dread had settled upon her that this marble ghost would spring up in her path somehow, and foil her plans, after the manner of all well-ordered avenging spirits. it had been her intention, when she hurried to the caffè to sound the rumour about the bust, to get signor di bello to buy it and give it to her. once in her hands, she would have seen to it that the thing retired to a safe obscurity. the bottom of the east river seemed to her a particularly fit place for armando’s masterpiece. she doubted no longer that the bust had arrived in mulberry, and the [pg 304]mystery of its whereabouts gave her no peace.
but it was not so with signor di bello. to the mind of the grocer, put upon so hard by recent events, the talk about the queen’s resemblance to his lost bride appeared now as a hoax which had accomplished its purpose of drawing him to the caffè only to be laughed at. if not, where was the bust? surely he knew his people too well to misinterpret this latest prank. he knew. it was the first joke of a practical turn that any one had dared play on him since the blunder at the church marked him for the colony’s ridicule. and he saw therein a sure omen that flat insult would quickly succeed the coarse raillery. before long women would spit at him in the street and taunting youngsters tag at his heels. others that he knew of had tasted the strange persecution. but it should not be his lot, by the tail of lucifer! on the feast of sunday his marriage must silence every idle tongue. for then he would cease [pg 305]to be that despised of all creatures, a bridegroom without a bride.
that his lively taste for juno’s grace of person had become second to a desire to avert the rising gale of mockery, carolina understood very well. and upon this change of his nuptial motive she rested full confidence of success for her own designs. no bar to her project showed itself until she visited bertino, at the cheap hotel on the east side, whither he and armando had taken themselves. then she found that the leading man of her drama had notions of his own about his part that would wreck the plot. he was for killing the feminine villain before the curtain rose. to her directions that he keep out of sight until sunday he demurred vehemently. how could he wait so long when the vendetta was boiling in his veins? his wife had done him a deadly wrong, and, per dio! deadly should be the accounting.
“see the grand trouble she has caused to me, to my friend, and to poor marianna!”
[pg 306]
“to marianna?” she asked, in genuine wonder. “what wrong has she done her?”
“were not she and armando to wed when his presidentessa should be sold? a long time they must wait now. thundering heavens! but she shall pay.”
“you are mistaken,” rejoined carolina, with a note of authority. “it would have made no difference to marianna. she was not to wed armando in any case.”
“i know better. anyway, i shall not sit here biting my lips until the feast of sunday, and perhaps be cheated of my right. who knows when she may fly?”
“no fear of that.”
“no? why not? i tell you she knows what to expect from me, and is no simpleton.” then he lowered his voice to a stage whisper, first opening the door and making sure that there was no listener in the hall. “twice i would have killed her, but once i deceived myself, and the other time she gammoned me with a lie that made me try to kill my uncle. don’t you [pg 307]see that i can not wait here while she may be getting away?”
“i promise you she will not leave mulberry. do you wish to know why? well, it is because she thinks you have fled from america and that she is free to become your uncle’s wife. ah! don’t you see the fine vendetta i am hatching for you? on the feast of sunday you appear and stop the wedding. the neapolitan beast is kicked out of casa di bello. you follow her and—claim your rights. is it not a sweet vendetta?”
“yes,” said bertino after a pause. “i will wait.”
