"Yes--I--I want you to take it."
She began uncorking the bottle.
"Me? What for? I'm all right. I'm not ill."
"No--but----" she paused.
"But what?"
"It'll do you good. Try it, to please me."
She hid her white head against his coat.
"But what for, dearest?"
"Have you never heard of Ignatia?" she asked.
John shook his head.
"It's a plant. It's a homeopathic medicine. It's a cure for all sorts of things. People take it when their nerves are bad, for worry, for insomnia. It's a cure for trouble when--when you're in love."
She said it so simply, in such fear that he would laugh; but when he looked down and found the hopefulness in her eyes, laughter was impossible. He caught it back, but his nostrils quivered.
"And do you want to cure me of being in love?" he asked with a straightened face.
"I thought you'd be happier, my dear, if you could get over it."
"So you recommend Ignatia?"
"I've known it do wonders," she asserted. "Poor Claudina was very much in love with a worthless fellow--Tina--one of the gondolier!--surely you remember him. He lived on the _Giudecca_."
John nodded smiling.
"Well, she came to me one day, crying her heart out. She declared she was in love with the most worthless man in the whole of Venice. 'Get over it then, Claudina,' I said. But she assured me that it was impossible. He had only to put up his little finger, she said and she had to go to his beckoning, if only to tell him how worthless she thought he was. Well--I prescribed Ignatia, and she was cured of it in a week. She laughs when she talks about him now."
John was forced to smile, but as quickly it died away.
"And is that what you want me to do?" he asked. "Do you want me to be able to laugh when I talk about the lady of St. Joseph? You'd be as sorry as I should, if I did. It would hurt you as much as it would me."
"Then you won't take it, John?" She looked up imploringly into his face.
"No--no charms or potions for me. Besides--" he bent down close to her ear--"the lady of St. Joseph is in Venice. She's coming to see you this afternoon."
With a little cry of delight, she threw the bottle of Ignatia down upon the table and caught his face in her trembling hands.
CHAPTER XXXI
THE SACRIFICE
A belief in Ignatia argues a ready disposition for Romance.
The mind of the little old white-haired lady belonged to that period when love was a visitation only to be cured by the use of simples, herbs, and magic. She called the treatment--homeopathic. It was her gentle way of assuring herself that she marched bravely with the times; that the superstition of the Middle-Ages had nothing whatever to do with it.
This is all very well; but there is no such scientific name for the portents told by the flight of a magpie; you cannot take shelter behind fine-sounding words when you admit to the good fortune brought by a black cat; there is no marching with the times for you, if you are impelled to throw salt over your left shoulder. You are not stepping it with the new generation then. And all these things were essentials in the life of the little old white-haired lady. Certainly there were no flights of magpies over the tiny Italian garden at the back of the _Palazzo Capello_ to disturb the peace of her mind with joyous or terrible prognostications. But the resources of an old lady's suspicions are not exhausted in a flight of magpies. Oh, no! She has many more expedients than that.
The very day before John's announcement of the advent of the lady of St.
Joseph to Venice, she had seen the new moon, a slim silver sickle, over her right shoulder. There is good omen in that. She had gone to bed the happier because of it. What it betokened, it was not in the range of her knowledge at the time to conceive. Destiny, in these matters, as in many others, is not so outspoken as it might be. But immediately John told her, she remembered that little slip of a moon. Then this was what it had heralded--the coming of the lady of St. Joseph.
As soon as their meal was finished, John went out to the Piazza, the meeting place which he had arranged with Jill, leaving his mother and Claudina to make all preparations for his return. How fast the heart of the little old white-haired lady beat then, it would be difficult to say. She was as excited as when Claudina put the treasures away to bed in their night-caps. Her little brown eyes sparkled, for a party to old people is much the same as is a party to a child. The preparations for it are the whirlwind that carries the imagination into the vortex of the event. And this, for which she was getting ready, was all illuminated with the halo of Romance.
Sometimes, perhaps, a wave of jealousy would bring the blood warmly to her cheeks. Supposing the lady of St. Joseph was not equal to her expectations? Supposing she did not fulfil her hopes and demands of the woman whom she had destined in her mind to be the wife of her son? How could she tell him? How could she warn him that he was unwise? How could she show him that the woman he loved was unworthy of him? It would be a difficult task to accomplish; but her lips set tight at the thought of it. She would shirk no duty so grave or serious as that.
Yet all these fears, with an effort, she put away from her. A generous sense of justice told her that she might judge when she had seen, so she sent out Claudina when everything was ready, to buy some cakes at Lavena's and, stealing into her bedroom, knelt down before the little altar at her bedside.
There, some ten minutes later, her husband found her. It was not her custom to pray at that time of the afternoon, unless for some special request and, for a moment, he stood in silence, watching the white head buried in the pathetically twisted hands, the faint rays of the little coloured lamp before the image shining through the silken silver of her hair.
When at last, she raised her head and found him standing there, a smile crept into her eyes. She beckoned to him silently to come to her, and when he reached her side, she pulled him gently to his knees.
"What is it?" he whispered.
"I'm praying for John," she whispered back, for when you kneel before an altar, even if it is only rough-made out of an old box, as was this, you are in a chapel; you are in a cathedral; you are at the very feet of God Himself and you must speak low.
"What about him?" he whispered again.
She put her dear lips close to his ear with its tuft of white hair growing stiffly on the lobe, and she whispered:
"The lady of St. Joseph is in Venice. She's coming to tea this afternoon."
And then, looking round over his shoulder, to see that he had closed the door--because old gentlemen are sensitive about these things--his arm slipped round her neck and both their heads bent together. It was, after all, their own lives they were praying for. Every prayer that is offered, every prayer that is granted, is really for the benefit of the whole world.
What they prayed for--how they prayed; what quaint little sentences shaped themselves in her mind, what fine phrases rolled in his, it is beyond power to say. Certain it is that a woman comes before her God in all the simplest garments of her faith, while a man still carries his dignity well hung upon the shoulder.
Presently, they rose together and went into the other room. Everything was in readiness. The blue and white cups were smiling in their saucers; the brass kettle was beginning its tempting song upon the spirit stove.
"Do you like my cap?" asked the little old white-haired lady and, looking down to see if his waistcoat was not too creased, the old gentleman said that it was the daintiest cap that he had ever seen.
"Poor John will be very shy," she continued, as she sat down and tried to fold her hands in her lap as though she were at ease.
"John! shy!"
The old gentleman laughed at the idea of it and kissed her wrinkled cheek to hide his excitement. John, shy! He remembered the days of his own love-making. He had never been shy. It was like an accusation against himself. Besides, what woman worth her salt would have anything to do with the love-making of a man who was shy? John, shy! He straightened his waistcoat for the second time, because it was getting near the moment of their arrival, the kettle was nearly boiling, and he was beginning to feel just a little bit embarrassed.
"Did John say when they were going to be married?" he asked presently.
"Oh, but you mustn't say that to him!" she cried out quickly. "Why, he told me that he would never see her again. He said that they were friends--just friends. But d'you think I can't guess! Why has she come to Venice? She must have known he was here. Oh, he'll tell nothing about it. We must just treat her as if she were a friend. But----"