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قراءة كتاب Donna Teresa
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
said in a very low voice. There was not a touch of triumph in it, but the thing was amazing because they were all unaccustomed to good fortune, and they simply stared at each other. Sylvia broke the silence—
“A thousand a year! How rich you will be!”
“How rich we shall all be!” echoed Teresa in a gay unsteady voice. “Granny, every day of your life you will go for a drive. No more thinking whether a fire is necessary or not, or how long a passo of wood will last. But do you believe it is quite true? Not a mistake of the lawyers?”
And for the first time in her life Mrs Brodrick reflected thankfully that lawyers did not often make mistakes. She could not speak, but she thanked God silently.
“I don’t understand it,” said Sylvia, laughing vaguely.
“Oh, nor do I! Don’t let us try.”
“What will Nina say now?”
“Now—why?”
“Because she was so miserable about your purse. I think she was crying. She said,” Sylvia went on with a little awe, “that she was sure you must have met a priest the first thing this morning, and didn’t come back and wait for an hour as you should have done. And then it is Tuesday, which is always an unlucky day, don’t you know?”
Teresa jumped up and ran to the door. “Nina!”
“Eccellenza!”
A curious small bright-eyed woman appeared, with rough hair and not too tidy clothes. She came from Viterbo, and had a laugh for everything and sometimes a tear.
“Why did you tell the signorina it was an unlucky day?”
“Eh-h-h-h-h-h!” Nina’s “eh” began on the fourth line, and ran down chromatically. Taken with outspread hands and raised shoulders it implied, “How can the signora ask, when she knows as well as I?” What she said was, “Did not the eccellenza lose her purse?”
“But I have had a much bigger one sent to me,” said Teresa gravely.
“Then, eccellenza, it is probable that after the priest you met a hunchback, and she might counteract. Besides—” she hesitated—“there is always that unfortunate Cesare.”
The marchesa was not surprised, Nina having an extraordinary knack of knowing whatever went on. But she was vexed at her thoughts being flung back upon a subject which gave her a miserable impression of having behaved ill without intending it.
“What do you know about Cesare?”
Nina screwed her eyes together, and nodded her rough head.
“See here, eccellenza, I should not mind knowing less. When one meets such in the street it is best to shut one’s eyes and walk on. If he has a temper or not! That poor Camilla! She was a butterfly, yes, and foolish, yes—but to be shot all in a minute, without a priest! What a brother!”
“They say he loved her.”
“Eh-h-h-h-h—h! So they say. They came from Sicily alone, these two, without parents, and he was strict with her, poor little baby, and so—! It was not a love I should have liked, but as for stealing! No, no, no, that is not Cesare.”
“Why did not the guardie say so, then?” demanded Teresa impatiently.
“See, eccellenza, they are afraid, and they do not like him. He is hand and glove with the fiercest men in Rome, men who would overthrow anything, everything, king or pope, what you will! Since Camilla died it is as if an evil spirit had entered into him—he keeps with those men, he never hears mass, he is like a lost soul. What took him into San Martino, I wonder? At any rate I wish the eccellenza had had nothing to do with him,” Nina ended, uneasily.
And Teresa wished the same thing with all her heart. The young violent face, the passion of the eyes, haunted her. Her grandmother and sister were taken up with delight and wonderment over her good fortune. She tried to fling herself into it with them, but while she planned, with all the generosity of her nature, which but yesterday would have leapt to feel certain galling chains removed, her thoughts wandered away to the police station, and to Cesare in the lock-up, with a board for his bed, and the smart of an unjust accusation goading him to yet more furious rebellion against his fate.
Chapter Three.
If Wilbraham were certain of one thing, it was that Donna Teresa ought not to be encouraged to go to the police office. He already called himself an idiot for having let her do so, but as he had never been known seriously to take himself for an idiot, this was probably no more than a figure of speech. It meant, however, that he disapproved of her conduct, and especially of her sympathy for Cesare, for even the knowledge that the last accusation was untrue had not changed his opinion of the accused. Perhaps, if anything, the annoyance had accentuated it.
Yet, the next morning, when he ran over what lay before him, he was not unwilling to admit that he should be early at Via Porta Pinciana, so as to make sure that Donna Teresa did not start on any fool’s errand without him. And with disapproval so active, he might have been more gratified than he was to hear from Mrs Brodrick that an absolutely disabling headache obliged the marchesa to leave everything in his hands.
“Please pay the fine, whatever it is, and see that he is released.”
“Better she should keep out of it,” said Wilbraham grimly.
“But she wants the man’s address.”
“Don’t let her have it,” he said unadvisedly, and then flushed, suddenly aware that he had spoken too warmly. “The marchesa is young,” he said hurriedly, “and there are bad parts in Rome, where she really ought not to go.”
“No doubt,” returned Mrs Brodrick, smiling. “But I never interfere with Teresa’s liberty, and she would like the address.”
“Certainly,” said Wilbraham, stiffening. He knew that he had gone farther than his acquaintance justified, and no one hated a false position more than he. Sylvia came into the room at this awkward moment, looking so pretty that her little froth of chatter seemed only part of the prettiness, particularly when she greeted him warmly.
“Isn’t it tiresome for Teresa? But I told her I was sure you would manage everything perfectly. I don’t see that she need be so very unhappy, because if he was not a pickpocket he might have been one, of course; it was only a mistake, and you will set everything right, won’t you?”
“I’ll do my best,” he said gravely, but secretly pleased. Mrs Brodrick turned away her eyes, and knitted impassively. She was conscious of wrong feelings when her youngest grandchild chattered, and there were times when irritation got the upper hand, and she said something scathing, the only thing which Teresa ever resented. For Teresa upheld Sylvia through thick and thin, and would cheerfully efface herself for her sister.
Wilbraham walked towards the Trevi with his temper still ruffled, so that he scarcely glanced at the great fountain dashing its wealth of waters into the sea at its base. Passing it, he plunged into a network of narrow streets leading to the questura. He did not notice two or three men, who, standing at the door of the Avanti printing office, pointed him out to each other with scarcely perceptible gestures. Reaching his destination he found official feeling running high against Cesare,