it was pretty to see the little signorina revive under the favouring influences of prosperity; and indeed the soft airs of the southern seas were never sweeter nor more caressing than those which came to console our voyagers for their short-lived storm.
life was full of interest and excitement for the little girl. the heavy lassitude of her steerage days had fallen from her, and already that first morning a delicate glow of returning vigour touched the little cheek.
“she’s picking up, isn’t she?” mr. dewitt remarked, as he joined blythe and the child at the head of the steerage gangway, where the little one was throwing enthusiastic kisses and musical italian 43 phrases down upon the hardly less radiant giuditta.
“oh, yes!” was the confident reply. “she’s a different child since her saltwater bath and her big bowl of oatmeal. mamma says she really has a splendid physique, only she was smothering down there in the steerage.”
then mr. dewitt stooped and, lifting the child, set her on the railing, where she could get a better view of her faithful friend below.
“there! how do you like that?” he inquired.
upon which the little girl, finding herself unexpectedly on a level with blythe’s face, put up her tiny hand and stroked her cheek.
“like-a signorina,” she remarked with apparent irrelevance.
“oh! you do, do you? well, she’s a nice girl.”
“nice-a girl-a,” the child repeated, adding a vowel, italian fashion, to each word.
then, with an appreciative look into the pleasant, whiskered countenance, 44 whose owner was holding her so securely on her precarious perch, she pressed her little hand gently against his waistcoat, and gravely remarked, “nice-a girl-a, anche il signore!”
“so! i’m a nice girl too, am i?” the old gentleman replied, much elated with the compliment.
and giuditta, down below, perceiving that her signorina was making new conquests, snatched her bright handkerchief from her head, and waved it gaily; whereupon a score of the steerage passengers, seized with her enthusiasm, waved their hats and handkerchiefs and shouted; “buon’ viaggio, signorina! buon’ viaggio!”
and the little recipient of this ovation became so excited that she almost jumped out of the detaining arms of mr. dewitt, who, being of a cautious disposition, made haste to set her down again; upon which they all walked aft, under the big awning.
“she makes friends easily,” mr. grey remarked, later in the morning, as he and 45 blythe paused a moment in their game of ring-toss. the child was standing, clinging to the hand of a tall woman in black, a grave, silent southerner who had hitherto kept quite to herself.
“yes,” blythe rejoined, “but she is fastidious. she will listen to no blandishments from any one whom she doesn’t take a fancy to. that good-natured, talkative mr. distel has been trying all day to get her to come to him, but she always gives him the slip.” and blythe, in her preoccupation, proceeded to throw two rings out of three wide of the mark.
“has the count taken any more notice of her?” mr. grey inquired, deftly tossing the smallest of all the rings over the top of the post.
“apparently not; but she takes a great deal of notice of him. see, she’s watching him now. i should not be a bit surprised if she were to speak to him of her own accord one of these days.”
“there are not many days left,” her companion remarked. “the captain says 46 we shall make cape st. vincent before night.”
“oh, how fast the voyage is going!” blythe sighed.
yet, sorry as she would be to have the voyage over, no one was more enchanted than blythe when cape st. vincent rose out of the sea, marking the end of the atlantic passage. it was just at sundown, and the beautiful headland, bathed in a golden light, stood, like the mystic battlements of a veritable “castle in spain,” against a luminous sky.
“mamma,” blythe asked, “did you ever see anything more beautiful than that?”
they were standing at the port railing, with the little girl between them, watching the great cliffs across the deep blue sea.
“nothing more beautiful than that seen through your eyes, blythe.”
“i believe you do see it through my eyes, mumsey,” blythe answered, thoughtfully, “just as i am getting to see things through cecilia’s eyes. i never realised before how things open up when you look at them that way.” 47
and mrs. halliday smiled a quiet, inward smile that blythe understood with a new understanding.
they took little cecilia ashore with them at gibraltar the next morning, and again blythe experienced the truth of her new theory.
it was our heroine’s first glimpse of europe, and no delectable detail of their hour’s drive, no exotic bloom, no strange moorish costume, no enchanting vista of cliff or sea, was lost upon her. yet she felt that even her enthusiasm paled before the deep, speechless ecstasy of the little cecilia. it was as if, in the tropical glow and fragrant warmth, the child were breathing her native air,—as if she had come to her own.
on their return, as the grimy old tug which had carried them across the harbour came alongside the big steamer, the child suddenly exclaimed, “ecco, il signore!” and, following the direction of her gesture, their eyes met those of the count looking down upon them. he instantly moved away, and they had soon 48 forgotten him, in the pleasurable excitement of bestowing upon giuditta the huge, hat-shaped basket filled with fruit which they had brought for her.
later in the day, as they weighed anchor and sailed out from the shadow of the great rock, blythe found herself standing with mr. grey at the stern-rail of their own deck, watching the face of the mighty cliff as it changed with the varying perspective.
“oh! i wish i were a poet or an artist or something!” she cried.
“would you take that monstrous fortress for a subject?” he asked.
“yes, and i should do something so splendid with it that nobody would dare to be satirical!” and she glanced defiantly at her companion, whose good-humoured countenance was wrinkling with amusement.
“let us see,” he said. “how would this do?” and he gravely repeated the following:
“there once was a fortress named gib,
whose manners were haughty and—
49
what rhymes with gib?”
“glib!” blythe cried.
“good!
whose manners were haughty and glib.
if you tried to get in,
she replied with a grin,—
quick! give me another rhyme for gib.”
“rib!” blythe suggested, audaciously.
“excellent, excellent! rib! now, how does it go?
there once was a fortress named gib,
whose manners were haughty and glib!
if you tried to get in,
she replied, with a grin,
‘i’m great britain’s impregnable rib!’
rather neat! don’t you think?”
“o mr. grey!” blythe cried. “you’ve got to write that in my voyage-book! it’s the––”
at that moment, a gesture from her companion caused her to turn and look behind her. there, only a few feet from where they were standing, but with his back to them, was the count, sitting on one of the long, stationary benches fastened 50 against the hatchway, while just at his knees stood little cecilia. she was balancing herself with some difficulty on the gently swaying deck, holding out for his acceptance a small bunch of violets, which one of the market-women at gibraltar had bestowed upon her.
as he appeared to hesitate: “prendili!” she cried, with pretty wilfulness. upon which he took the little offering, and lifted it to his face.
the child stood her ground resolutely, and presently, “put me up!” she commanded, still in her own sweet tongue.
obediently he lifted her, and placed her beside him on the seat, where she sat clinging with one little hand to the sleeve of his coat to keep from slipping down, with the gentle dip of the vessel.
the two sat, for a few minutes, quite silent, gazing off toward the african coast, and blythe and her companion drew nearer, filled with curiosity as to the outcome of the interview.
presently the child looked up into the count’s face and inquired, with the pretty 51 tuscan accent which sounded like an echo of his own question on the evening of the dance:
“what is thy name?”
“giovanni battista allamiraviglia.”
cecilia repeated after him the long, musical name, without missing a syllable, and with a certain approving inflection which evidently had an ingratiating effect upon the many-syllabled aristocrat; for he lifted his carefully gloved hand and passed it gently over the little head.
the child took the caress very naturally, and when, presently, the hand returned to the knee, she got possession of it, and began crossing the kid fingers one over the other, quite undisturbed by the fact that they invariably fell apart again as soon as she loosed her hold.
at this juncture the two eavesdroppers moved discreetly away, and blythe, leaving her fellow-conspirator far behind, flew to her mother’s side, crying:
“o mumsey! she’s simply winding him round her finger, and there’s nothing he won’t be ready to do for us now!” 52
“yes, dear; i’m delighted to hear it,” mrs. halliday replied, with what blythe was wont to call her “benignant and amused” expression. “and after a while you will tell me what you are talking about!”
but blythe, nothing daunted, only appealed to mr. grey, who had just caught up with her.
“you agree with me, mr. grey; don’t you?” she insisted.
“perfectly, and in every particular. mrs. halliday, your daughter and i have been eavesdropping, and we have come to confess.”
whereupon blythe dropped upon the foot of her mother’s chair, mr. grey established himself in the chair adjoining, and they gave their somewhat bewildered auditor the benefit of a few facts.
“i really believe,” the englishman remarked, in conclusion,—“i really believe that haughty old dago can help us if anybody can. and when your engaging young protégée has completed her conquest,—to-morrow, it may be, or the day 53 after, for she’s making quick work of it,—we’ll see what can be done with him.”
and, after all, what could have been more natural than the attraction which, from that time forth, manifested itself between the count and his small countrywoman? if the little girl, in making her very marked advances, had been governed by the unwavering instinct which always guided her choice of companions, the old man, for his part, could not but find refreshment, after his long, solitary voyage, in the pretty tuscan prattle of the child. most italians love children, and the count giovanni battista allamiraviglia appeared to be no exception to his race.
the two would sit together by the hour, absorbed, neither in the lovely sights of this wonderful mediterranean voyage, nor in the movements of those about them, but simply and solely in one another.
“she’s telling her own story better than we could do,” mr. grey used to say.
it was now no unusual thing to see the child established on the old gentleman’s knee, and once blythe found her fast 54 asleep in his arms. but it was not until the very last day of the voyage that the most wonderful thing of all occurred.
the sea was smooth as a lake, and all day they had been sailing the length of the riviera. all day people had been giving names to the gleaming white points on the distant, dreamy shore,—nice, mentone, san remo,—names fragrant with association even to the mind of the young traveller, who knew them only from books and letters.
blythe and the little girl were sitting, somewhat apart from the others, on the long bench by the hatchway where cecilia had first laid siege to the count’s affections, and blythe was allowing the child to look through the large end of her field-glass,—a source of endless entertainment to them both. suddenly cecilia gave a little shriek of delight at the way her good friend, mr. grey, dwindled into a pigmy; upon which the count, attracted apparently by her voice, left his chair and came and sat down beside them.
as he lifted his hat, with a polite 55 “permetta, signorina,” blythe noticed, for the first time on the whole voyage, that he was without his gloves. perhaps the general humanising of his attitude, through intercourse with the child, had caused him to relax this little point of punctilio.
cecilia, meanwhile, had promptly climbed upon his knee, and now, laying hold of one of the ungloved hands, she began twisting a large seal ring which presented itself to her mind as a pleasing novelty. presently her attention seemed arrested by the device of the seal, and she murmured softly, “fideliter.”
blythe might not have distinguished the word as being latin rather than italian, had she not been struck by the change of countenance in the wearer of the ring. he turned to her abruptly, and asked, in french:
“does she read?”
“no,” blythe answered, thankful that she was not obliged to muster her “conjugations” for the emergency!
there was a swift interchange of question and answer between the old man and 56 the child, of which blythe understood but little. she heard cecilia say “mamma,” in answer to an imperative question; the words “orologio” and “perduto” were intelligible to her. she was sure that the crest and motto formed the subject of discussion, and it was distinctly borne in upon her that the same device—a mailed hand and arm with the word fideliter beneath it—had been engraved on a lost watch which had belonged to the child’s mother. but it was all surmise on her part, and she could hardly refrain from shouting aloud to mr. grey, standing over there, in dense unconsciousness, to come quickly and interpret this exasperating tongue, which sounded so pretty, and eluded her understanding so hopelessly.
the mind of the count seemed to be turning in the same direction, for, after a little, he arose abruptly, and, setting the child down beside blythe, walked straight across the deck to the englishman, whom he accosted so unceremoniously that blythe’s sense of wonders unfolding was but confirmed. 57
the two men turned and walked away to a more secluded part of the deck, where they remained, deep in conversation, for what seemed to blythe a long, long time. she felt as if she must not leave her seat, lest she miss the thread of the plot,—for a plot it surely was, with its unravelling close at hand.
at last she saw the two men striding forward in the direction of the steerage, and with a conspicuous absence of that aimlessness which marks the usual promenade at sea.
the little girl was again amusing herself with the glasses, and, as the two arbiters of her destiny passed her line of vision, she laughed aloud at their swiftly diminishing forms. impelled by a curious feeling that the child must take some serious part in this crucial moment of her destiny, blythe quietly took the glasses from her and said, as she had done each night when she put her little charge to bed:
“will you say a little prayer, cecilia?”
and the child, wondering, yet perfectly docile, pulled out the little mother-of-pearl 58 rosary that she always wore under her dress, and reverently murmured one of the prayers her mother had taught her. after which, as if beguiled by the association of ideas into thinking it bedtime, she curled herself up on the bench, and, with her head in blythe’s lap, fell fast asleep.
and blythe sat, lost in thought, absently stroking the little head, until suddenly mr. grey appeared before her.
“you have been outrageously treated, miss blythe,” he declared, seating himself beside her, “but i had to let the old fellow have his head.”
“oh, don’t tell me anything, till we find mamma,” blythe cried. “it’s all her doing, you know,—letting me have cecilia up here,” and, gently rousing the sleeper, she said, “come, cecilia. we are going to find the signora.”
“and you consider it absolutely certain?” mrs. halliday asked, when mr. grey had finished his tale. she was far more surprised than blythe, for she had had a longer experience of life, to teach her a distrust in fairy-stories. 59
“there does not seem a doubt. the child’s familiarity with the crest was striking enough, but that bellini madonna clinches it. and then, giuditta’s description of both father and mother seems to be unmistakable.”
“oh! to think of his finding the child that he had never heard of, just as he had given up the search for her mother!” blythe exclaimed.
cecilia was again playing happily with the glasses, paying no heed to her companions.
“the strangest thing of all to me,” mrs. halliday declared, “is his relenting toward his daughter after all these years.”
“you must not forget that fate had been pounding him pretty hard,” mr. grey interposed. “when a man loses in one year two of his children, and the only grandchild he knows anything about, it’s not surprising that he should soften a bit toward the only child he has left.”
they were still discussing this wonderful subject, when, half an hour later, the tall figure of the count emerged from the 60 companionway. as he bent his steps toward the other side of the deck he was visible only to the child, who stood facing the rest of the group. she promptly dropped the glasses upon blythe’s knee, and crying, “il signore!” ran and took hold of his hand; whereupon the two walked away together and were not seen for a long, long time.
then blythe and mr. grey went up on the bridge and told the captain. no one else was to know—not even mr. dewitt—until after they had landed, but the captain was certainly entitled to their confidence.
“for,” blythe said, “you know, captain seemann, it never would have happened if you had not sent us up in the crow’s nest that day.”
upon which the captain, beaming his brightest, and letting his cigar go out in the damp breeze for the sake of making his little speech, declared:
“i know one thing! it would neffer haf happen at all, if i had sent anybody else up in the crow’s nest but just miss 61 blythe halliday with her bright eyes and her kind heart!”
and blythe was so overpowered by this tremendous compliment from the captain of the lorelei that she had not a word to say for herself.
that evening mr. grey inscribed his nonsense-verse in blythe’s book; and not that only, for to those classic lines he added the following:
“the above was composed in collaboration with his esteemed fellow-passenger, miss blythe halliday, by hugh dalton, alias ‘mr. grey.’”
it was, of course, a great distinction to own such an autograph as that; yet somehow the kind, witty mr. grey had been so delightful just as he was, that blythe hardly felt as if the famous name added so very much to her satisfaction in his acquaintance.
“i knew it all the time,” she declared, quietly; “but it didn’t make any difference.”
“that’s worth hearing,” said hugh dalton. 62
they parted from the little cecilia at sunrise, but with promises on both sides of a speedy meeting among the hills of tuscany.
the old count, with the child’s hand clasped in his, paused as he reached the gangway, at the foot of which the triumphant giuditta was awaiting them, and pointed toward the rosy east which was flushing the beautiful bay a deep crimson.
“signorina,” he said in his careful french, made more careful by his effort to control his voice,—“signorina, it is to you that i owe a new dawn,—to you and to your honoured mother.”
then, as mr. dewitt and mr. grey approached, to tell them that everything was in readiness for them to land, blythe turned, with the light of the sunrise in her face, and said, under her breath, so that only her mother could hear:
“o mumsey! how beautiful the world is, with you and me right in the very middle of it!”