The Cardinal's Snuff Box
Page 115"Then go to bed directly. If you delay any longer, I shall
accuse you of wilful insubordination."
"Bene, Signorino," reluctantly consented Marietta.
Peter strolled into his garden. Gigi, the gardener, was
working there.
"The very man I most desired to meet," said Peter, and beckoned
to him. "Is there a doctor in the village?" he enquired, when
Gigi had approached.
"Yes, Signorino. The Syndic is a doctor--Dr. Carretaji."
"Good," said Peter. "Will you go to the village, please, and
ask Dr. Carretaji if he can make it convenient to call here
to-day? Marietta is not well."
"And stop a bit," said Peter. "Are there such things as women
in the village?' "Ah, mache, Signorino! But many, many," answered Gigi, rolling
his dark eyes sympathetically, and waving his hands.
"I need but one," said Peter. "A woman to come and do
Marietta's work for a day or two--cook, and clean up, and that
sort of thing. Do you think you could procure me such a
woman?"
"There is my wife, Signorino," suggested Gigi. "If she would
content the Signorino?"
"Oh? I was n't aware that you were married. A hundred
felicitations. Yes, your wife, by all means. Ask her to come
Gigi started for the village.
Peter went into the house, and knocked at Marietta's bed-room
door. He found her in bed, with her rosary in her hands. If
she could not work, she would not waste her time. In
Marietta's simple scheme of life, work and prayer, prayer and
work, stood, no doubt, as alternative and complementary duties.
"But you are not half warmly enough covered up," said Peter.
He fetched his travelling-rug, and spread it over her. Then he
went to the kitchen, where she had left a fire burning, and
filled a bottle with hot water.
"Put this at your feet," he said, returning to Marietta.
old woman mustered voice to murmur.
"The Signorino likes it--it affords him healthful exercise,"
Peter assured her.
Dr. Carretaji came about noon, a fat middleaged man, with a
fringe of black hair round an ivory-yellow scalp, a massive
watch-chain (adorned by the inevitable pointed bit of coral),
and podgy, hairy hands. But he seemed kind and honest, and he
seemed to know his business.
"She has a catarrh of the larynx, with, I am afraid, a
beginning of bronchitis," was his verdict.