After that they were silent, staring at each other, while their bitterness leapt out between them; the little back parlor was trembling with it, with the dull, heavy thuds of their hearts. Maddalena quietly picked up the letter, which she thrust into the bosom of her dress, then she turned and went out of the Casa Boselli—leaving Teresa alone.
Six black-clad figures got down from the train when it stopped at Lyndhurst station.
“This must be the lot that have come for the inquest,” whispered a porter to his friend.
Very calm and noble looked Maddalena, clothed in the weeds of her affliction; she walked straight forward into her grief, like the brave Roman matron that she was. Her eyes held no hope and no resentment, they were filled with the finality of fate; and after her followed Teresa Boselli, scarcely less steadfast and upright.
II
Rosa was clinging to Mario’s arm, and Rosa must openly weep: “Mio bambino—mio cuore—” she wept.
And Mario muttered: “He did all, all for me—even in his trouble he remembered poor Mario and got him a post at the Doric.”
Nerone stumped beside them with his chin sunk on his breast; he was swinging his wooden leg slowly, for his loins were no longer so strong as they had been and the wooden leg felt very heavy. And ever at the heels of this sad little flock there hovered a faithful old sheepdog—Father Antonio, whose hair had turned silver, and whose eyes were the cloudy blue of an infant’s, as is sometimes the way with the eyes of a man whose life’s circle is nearing completion. He it was who drove with Maddalena in the fly, and who quietly held her hand.
“So God has taken Gian-Luca—” he said thoughtfully, and he added: “God surely knows best.”
But Maddalena answered: “There is doubt in my heart—I am doubting the mercy of God.” Then she put her doubts and her fears into words, while Father Antonio listened.
What would happen to the poor lonely soul of Gian-Luca? He had died all unshriven by Holy Church—all alone he had died, without priest or candle, and no one had been near to pray for his soul that it might have a merciful passing. And as she went on speaking her voice shook a little with the superstitious dread of the peasant.
“To die like that, on the cold earth—” she whispered; “and he never received the precious body of Our Lord—there was no one to put the blessed oil on his eyelids, or on his tired, travel-stained feet—”
Then Father Antonio looked at her gravely: “The earth has been blest for always, my daughter—God walked upon the earth in the Garden of Eden, and again on His way to Calvary. The Church is a Mother whose arms are wide open to succor and comfort her children, but God is a Father whose heart is eternal, and many a sheep that has never been penned will be gathered to the fold of that heart.” He gazed at the splendor of the woods that they were passing, all flaming they were with gold and crimson. “England is a beautiful church,” he murmured. He often said queer things like that these days, they thought it was because he was so old.
III
Gian-Luca’s body was lying in a stable attached to an unimportant inn. Some new red bricks were piled in a corner, together with a number of workmen’s tools—they were going to turn the place into a garage, and the work had been hastily suspended. A silent police sergeant unlocked the door and allowed the mourners to enter; then he quietly turned back the sheet from the body, and standing aside, he waited.
“Santa Madonna!” muttered Nerone, “this is an outrage, a scandal! No chapel, no reverence, not even for the dead; what a pagan country is England!”
But Gian-Luca lay very much at rest in his stable, with his thin hands folded on his breast; and seeing him thus, Nerone fell silent. Finding his rosary, he began to tell his beads, marking the prayers with his thumb. Then they all gathered round, those members of the clan, to say goodbye to their child.
“He was born in our midst, the Gian-Luca—” sobbed Rosa.
“Davvero,” murmured Mario, “he was born in our midst.” And remembering the past as folk will at such times, he also could not check his tears.
Teresa went close and stared down at her grandson, and none could know what she was thinking, for her face was the face of an ivory idol in which glowed two points of flame.
“What do they say that he died of?” she demanded, walking over to the sergeant.
The sergeant looked embarrassed and glanced at Maddalena. “Well, of course, there’ll have to be an inquest,” he murmured, “but I’ve heard that they think he died of starvation and exposure—it’s been chilly these nights.” Then, because Teresa still fixed him with those eyes, the sergeant must go blundering on: “It’s peculiar, though, we found money on the body—over two pounds—but it’s not for me to talk,” he concluded hastily.
Teresa Boselli went back to the coffin and looked down at the wasted face. “So much food in the world,” she muttered, “and they think that he died of starvation!”
Maddalena bent forward and kissed Gian-Luca, very gently she kissed his forehead. “He looks so strange,” she whispered to her priest, “as though he were not here at all—”
“Why should Gian-Luca be here?” he answered. “Did Our Lord remain in His tomb?”
And now Father Antonio took something from his neck, a little crucifix in gold, and he placed it gently on Gian-Luca’s hands. “May this Man who died and this God who lives, keep your soul unto life everlasting,” he said slowly, then he dropped on his knees by the side of the coffin and began to read the prayers for the dead.
Mario knelt down, and Rosa and Nerone, joining in those charitable prayers; but grief suddenly caught Maddalena
