CHAPTER VII.
In spite of all his Machiavellian wisdom, Dr. Riccabocca had been foiled
in his attempt to seduce Leonard Fairfield into his service, even though
he succeeded in partially winning over the widow to his views. For to
her he represented the worldly advantages of the thing. Lenny would
learn to be fit for more than a day-labourer; he would learn gardening,
in all its branches,--rise some day to be a head gardener. "And," said
Riccabocca, "I will take care of his book-learning, and teach him
whatever he has a head for."
"He has a head for everything," said the widow.
"Then," said the wise man, "everything shall go into it." The widow was
certainly dazzled; for, as we have seen, she highly prized scholarly
distinction, and she knew that the parson looked upon Riccabocca as a
wondrous learned man. But still Riccabocca was said to be a Papist, and
suspected to be a conjuror. Her scruples on both these points, the
Italian, who was an adept in the art of talking over the fair sex, would
no doubt have dissipated, if there had been any use in it; but Lenny put
a dead stop to all negotiations. He had taken a mortal dislike to
Riccabocca: he was very much frightened by him,--and the spectacles, the
pipe, the cloak, the long hair, and the red umbrella; and said so
sturdily, in reply to every overture, "Please, sir, I'd rather not; I'd
rather stay along with Mother," that Riccabocca was forced to suspend all
further experiments in his Machiavellian diplomacy. He was not at all
cast down, however, by his first failure; on the contrary, he was one of
those men whom opposition stimulates; and what before had been but a
suggestion of prudence, became an object of desire. Plenty of other lads
might no doubt be had on as reasonable terms as Lenny Fairfield; but the
moment Lenny presumed to baffle the Italian's designs upon him, the
special acquisition, of Lenny became of paramount importance in the
eyes of Signor Riccabocca.
Jackeymo, however, lost all his interest in the traps, snares, and gins
which his master proposed to lay for Leonard Fairfield, in the more
immediate surprise that awaited him on learning that Dr. Riccabocca had
accepted an invitation to pass a few days at the Hall.
"There will be no one there but the family," said Riccabocca. "Poor
Giacomo, a little chat in the servants' hall will do you good; and the
squire's beef is more nourishing, after all, than the sticklebacks and
minnows. It will lengthen your life."
"The padrone jests," said Jackeymo, statelily; "as if any one could
starve in his service."
"Um," said Riccabocca. "At least, faithful friend, you have tried that
experiment as far as human nature will permit;" and he extended his hand
to his fellow-exile with that familiarity which exists between servant
and master in the usages of the Continent. Jackeymo bent low, and a tear
fell upon the hand he kissed.
"Cospetto!" said Dr. Riccabocca, "a thousand mock pearls do not make up
the cost of a single true one! The tears of women--we know their worth;
but the tears of an honest man---Fie, Giacomo!--at least I can never
repay you this! Go and see to our wardrobe."
So far as his master's wardrobe was concerned, that order was pleasing to
Jackeymo; for the doctor had in his drawers suits which Jackeymo
pronounced to be as good as new, though many a long year had passed since
they left the tailor's hands. But when Jackeymo came to examine the
state of his own clothing department, his face grew considerably longer.
It was not that he was without other clothes than those on his back,--
quantity was there, but the quality! Mournfully he gazed on two suits,
complete in three separate members of which man's raiments are composed:
the one suit extended at length upon his bed, like a veteran stretched by
pious hands after death; the other brought piecemeal to the invidious
light,--the torso placed upon a chair, the limbs dangling down from
Jackeymo's melancholy arm. No bodies long exposed at the Morgue could
evince less sign of resuscitation than those respectable defuncts! For,
indeed, Jackeymo had been less thrifty of his apparel, more /profusus
sui/, than his master. In the earliest days of their exile, he preserved
the decorous habit of dressing for dinner,--it was a respect due to the
padrone,--and that habit had lasted till the two habits on which it
necessarily depended had evinced the first symptoms of decay; then the
evening clothes had been taken into morning wear, in which hard service
they had breathed their last.
The doctor, notwithstanding his general philosophical abstraction from
such household details, had more than once said, rather in pity to
Jackeymo than with an eye to that respectability which the costume of the
servant reflects on the dignity of the master, "Giacomo, thou wantest
clothes; fit thyself out of mine!"
And Jackeymo had bowed his gratitude, as if the donation had been
accepted; but the fact was that that same fitting out was easier said
than done. For though-thanks to an existence mainly upon sticklebacks
and minnows--both Jackeymo and Riccabocca had arrived at that state which
the longevity of misers proves to be most healthful to the human frame,--
namely, skin and bone,--yet the bones contained in the skin of Riccabocca
all took longitudinal directions; while those in the skin of Jackeymo
spread out latitudinally. And you might as well have made the bark of a
Lombardy poplar serve for the trunk of some dwarfed and pollarded oak--in
whose hollow the Babes of the Wood could have slept at their ease--as
have fitted out Jackeymo from the garb of Riccabocca. Moreover, if the
skill of the tailor could have accomplished that undertaking, the
faithful Jackeymo would never have had the heart to avail himself of the
generosity of his master. He had a sort of religious sentiment, too,
about those vestments of the padrone. The ancients, we know, when
escaping from shipwreck, suspended in the votive temple the garments in
which they had struggled through the wave. Jackeymo looked on those
relics of the past with a kindred superstition. "This coat the padrone
wore on such an occasion. I remember the very evening the padrone last
put on those pantaloons!" And coat and pantaloons were tenderly dusted,
and carefully restored to their sacred rest.
But now, after all, what was to be done? Jackeymo was much too proud to
exhibit his person to the eyes of the squire's butler in habiliments
discreditable to himself and the padrone. In the midst of his perplexity
the bell rang, and he went down into the parlour.
Riccabocca was standing on the hearth under his symbolical representation
of the "Patriae Exul."
"Giacomo," quoth he, "I have been thinking that thou hast never done what
I told thee, and fitted thyself out from my superfluities. But we are
going now into the great world: visiting once begun, Heaven knows where
it may stop. Go to the nearest town and get thyself clothes. Things are
dear in England. Will this suffice?" And Riccabocca extended a five-
pound note.
Jackeymo, we have seen, was more familiar with his master than we formal
English permit our domestics to be with us; but in his familiarity he was
usually respectful. This time, however, respect deserted him.
"The padrone is mad!" he exclaimed; "he would fling away his whole
fortune if I would let him. Five pounds English, or a hundred and
twenty-six pounds Milanese! Santa Maria! unnatural father! And what is
to become of the poor signorina? Is this the way you are to marry her in
the foreign land?"
"Giacomo," said Riccabocca, bowing his head to the storm, "the signorina
to-morrow; to-day the honour of the House. Thy small-clothes, Giacomo,--
miserable man, thy small-clothes!"
"It is just," said Jackeymo, recovering himself, and with humility; "and
the padrone does right to blame me, but not in so cruel a way. It is
just,--the padrone lodges and boards me, and gives me handsome wages, and
he has a right to expect that I should not go in this figure."
"For the board and the lodgment, good," said Riccabocca. For the
handsome wages, they are the visions of thy fancy!"
"They are no such thing," said Jackeymo, "they are only in arrear. As if
the padrone could not pay them some day or other; as if I was demeaning
myself by serving a master who did not intend to pay his servants! And
can't I wait? Have I not my savings too? But be cheered, be cheered;
you shall be contented with me. I have two beautiful suits still. I was
arranging them when you rang for me. You shall see, you shall see."
And Jackeymo hurried from the room, hurried back into his own chamber,
unlocked a little trunk which he kept at his bed-head, tossed out a
variety of small articles, and from the deepest depth extracted a
leathern purse. He emptied the contents on the bed. They were chiefly
Italian coins, some five-franc pieces, a silver medallion inclosing a
little image of his patron saint,--San Giacomo,--one solid English
guinea, and somewhat more than a pound's worth in English silver.
Jackeymo put back the foreign coins, saying prudently, "One will lose on
them here;" he seized the English coins, and counted them out. "But are
you enough, you rascals?" quoth he, angrily, giving them a good shake.
His eye caught sight of the medallion,--he paused; and after eying the
tiny representation of the saint with great deliberation, he added, in a
sentence which he must have picked up from the proverbial aphorisms of
his master,--
"What's the difference between the enemy who does not hurt me, and the
friend who does not serve me? Monsignore San Giacomo, my patron saint,
you are of very little use to me in the leathern bag; but if you help me
to get into a new pair of small-clothes on this important occasion, you
will be a friend indeed. /Alla bisogna, Monsignore./" Then, gravely
kissing the medallion, he thrust it into one pocket, the coins into the
other, made up a bundle of the two defunct suits, and muttering to
himself, "Beast, miser, that I am, to disgrace the padrone with all these
savings in his service!" ran downstairs into his pantry, caught up his
hat and stick, and in a few moments more was seen trudging off to the
neighbouring town of L--------.
Apparently the poor Italian succeeded, for he came back that evening in
time to prepare the thin gruel which made his master's supper, with a
suit of black,--a little threadbare, but still highly respectable,--two
shirt fronts, and two white cravats. But out of all this finery,
Jackeymo held the small-clothes in especial veneration; for as they had
cost exactly what the medallion had sold for, so it seemed to him that
San Giacomo had heard his prayer in that quarter to which he had more
exclusively directed the saint's direction. The other habiliments came
to him in the merely human process of sale and barter; the small-clothes
were the personal gratuity of San Giacomo!
