The news of Dora's death was a great shock to the O'Donnells. The
girl's landlady had telegraphed to them in order that they might break
it to Lavirotte.
Of late, O'Donnell had begun to think that Lavirotte was not treating
Dora very well, and Nellie was distinctly of opinion that his conduct
towards the poor girl was very far from what it ought to be.
Neither knew exactly to what extent his neglect had gone. He spoke
little of Dora of late. They knew she wrote to him regularly every
week, and in palliation of the tone which he took when speaking of
her, O'Donnell said: "Smooth water runs deep. He may be fonder of her
than ever. It may be only his way of trying her constancy."
At this Mrs. O'Donnell would become very wroth, and cry out: "Trying
her constancy indeed! That is an odd way for you who know everything
about him to put it. Whether is it he or she is more likely to be
inconstant?"
If Lavirotte had had any notice that Dora was ill, he had kept it to
himself. The telegram was very brief. It simply stated that the girl
died after a few days' illness, and that they were to break the news
to Lavirotte.
In the face of her sad end, both their hearts softened towards the
Frenchman. Whatever may have been his past, even if he had been a
little careless of her, and had carried on an undignified flirtation
with the flower-girl, Luigia, it never occurred to either of them he
had the faintest notion of finally abandoning Dora.
Now there was but one thing to be thought of, and that was how they
could best break the sad news. They sent for him, and it was agreed
before he came that O'Donnell should speak to him alone.
"Something wrong?" said Lavirotte, on entering the room where he found
Eugene.
"I wanted to see you particularly," said the other. "Are you prepared
for any unpleasant news?"
Lavirotte started and coloured, and looked uneasily about the room.
"Has anyone come from London? I swear to you, Eugene, there is nothing
in that Luigia affair. I know I shouldn't have started even a
flirtation. I am sure you did not tell Dora. She has come to Milan,
and is with your wife? Am I not right?"
"No, Dominique. No, my dear Dominique. I wish she were."
"Then, the girl is dead?" cried Lavirotte.
"My Dora is dead! Tell me so at once, and put me out of pain, Eugene!"
"I had a telegram, Dominique."
"Yes, yes. I know. You need say no more," said the Frenchman, as he
threw himself on a chair. "I am accursed! Poor girl! Poor child!" He
covered his face with his hands and sobbed.
Eugene put his hand softly on the shoulder of his friend as a token of
his sympathy, and then stole quietly out through the window into the
little garden behind the house. He thought he would leave Lavirotte
alone in the first burst of his grief.
In a few minutes O'Donnell came back to the room and found it empty.
He consulted for a short time with his wife, and they came to the
conclusion that it was better not to follow Lavirotte, but to leave
him in solitude and grief.
The afternoon passed away, and it was late in the evening before they
decided that Eugene should look him up at his lodgings.
Here again the Irishman drew a blank. The Signor had left that day for
his country, for England, and would be away for example, a day for
every finger--one, two, three, four, five. The Signor had not said why
he was going. He had taken nothing whatever with him but his purse,
out of which he had given her, the landlady, before the Signor went
away, this gold piece, which was over and above the money due to her.
He seemed in great grief and spoke to himself, not in Italian, and it
seemed to her, who now spoke English somewhat, not in English. It may
have been French. It seemed as though he cursed and threatened, for he
ground his teeth and shook his fists, thus, and thus, and again in
this manner, the last greatly terrifying her, the landlady. And she
left the room, fearing he might, without reason, take vengeance on
her, who had done nothing. For he seemed as one distraught, as one
mad, who might easily strike one who had done no harm.
Ah! Was it so? His sweetheart dead! In that far-away country! Then,
perhaps, when he recovered from this he would marry Luigia, who had
the most wonderful hair in the world, and was so fair, as to seem as
though she had come from the place where his, Signor O'Donnell's, wife
had come from. Luigia was a good girl, and not like others, and if the
Signor did marry her, she would make him a good wife; for having been
poor she would know the value of his money. But the poor Signor who
had gone away that day was in no humour to think of marriage now. Only
of death and the grave. Did Signor O'Donnell know of the sweetheart of
the other?
Yes.
And she was also fair, like the Signora and Luigia?
No; dark.
Ah, how strange. How incomprehensible. Here in this country they were
nearly all dark, and when a fair woman came among them, no dark woman
had a chance against her. But if what people said was true, there were
the dark and the fair in the place from which the Signora came, and a
man could choose, after his liking, the dark or the fair. Yet the poor
Signor, who had lost his sweetheart, had chosen, in his own country, a
dark woman for a sweetheart, and here, for a sweetheart, a fair woman.
He was fickle in love. Had Signor O'Donnell noticed that Luigia had a
strong resemblance to the Signora? Luigia was a good girl. God keep
her from harm.
Eugene came back and told Nellie that Lavirotte had suddenly left for
London, without, as far as he knew, saying a word to anyone. According
to what his landlady had said, Lavirotte must have gone straight home,
and gone from his lodgings to the railway station. What an odd fellow
he was, not to say a word, not to take a portmanteau or even hand-bag
with him, but dash off across Europe just as they had seen him last.
"You know, Nellie," said Eugene, putting his arm round his wife's
waist, "I often told you I thought there was a screw loose in
Lavirotte, and every day that goes over confirms me more and more in
this belief. It is a curious fact that some great-great-grandfather or
other had a mania for mania, and wrote a book about something or other
connected with the mind. Of late Lavirotte has said a lot to me about
the injudiciousness of trusting to a voice for a living. He has told
me, what is quite true, that until a voice has been tested on the
stage and in front of an audience, no one can tell what it is going to
be. It is just like an unacted play. It may be worth five pounds a
week, or it may be worth five hundred. Then he has said to me that he
thinks his natural bent was towards medicine, and only that he had
given up so much time now to the cultivation of his voice, he would
certainly, if he had the money, become a doctor.
"Eugene," said Nellie, "you have told me something of this before. All
this talk about the impossibility of deciding the value of a voice
until it is tested in front of an audience, seems to me to have a good
deal to do with the fact that people, both here and in England, say
your voice is better than his. Whatever may be on the surface of his
talk about his voice, I am sure at the bottom of it there is jealousy
of yours."
"Nonsense, Nellie!" cried Eugene, good-naturedly. "You know what you
are saying is absurd. Such jealousy as you speak of is a lost art. As
Uncle Toby said to the fly, Lavirotte might say to me: 'Go, go, poor
devil! Get thee gone--why should I hurt thee? This world is surely
wide enough to hold both thee and me.' How could two men of second or
third-rate voices, such as we have, even clash. There are hundreds of
towns which want third-class tenors, and once we have taken to the
boards there is no more likelihood of our meeting and clashing than of
two twenty-fifth-rate comets meeting in space."
"He is jealous by nature, Eugene; and he is jealous of you."
"If he is jealous of me, darling, it must be in regard to you." He
pressed her to him, and kissed her forehead as he spoke.
"You may put it what way you will, Eugene, but you are a truer friend
to him than he is to you."
"God bless my soul!" cried her husband, "how _can_ you say so? Did he
not nearly lose his life in trying to get that treasure, with a view
to saving our house?"
"I suppose _I_ must believe that he believed he would get that money,
and so be able to do you a service, but I do not know anything harder
to credit."
"Why, he not only nearly lost his life, but he certainly injured his
health in some way in that unfortunate undertaking at St. Prisca's
Tower. The day he got the letter from me about the money for the last
call, he fell asleep or fainted in a chair at his lodgings, and he
tells me that ever since, his chest now and then feels strange."
"According to what your father told us afterwards, it is very
wonderful that neither of these men should have known anything about
the law. For my part, Eugene, I believe poor old Mr. Crawford was a
sincere, half-witted man, and that Lavirotte seemed to adopt the
delusion of the old man in order that he might pose as your patron or
benefactor, to balance the injury he had done you that dreadful night
at the cove."
"Nonsense!" cried her husband. "Men do not carry farces so far as to
injure their health permanently."
"If you were to talk till morning," said she, decisively, "you could
not convince me he is not jealous."
"Of my voice?"
"I don't say of that only."
"Of you?"
"I don't say that either."
"In the name of Heaven, then, what is he jealous of? Of baby?" laughed
the husband. "Do you think he is jealous of our having little Mark?"
At that moment the door opened, and a young Italian girl entered,
carrying the baby.
"You needn't be so absurd, Eugene," said the young mother, fondly
taking her infant from the girl. "And yet," she added, kissing the
child, "anyone might well be jealous of us about you, darling."
"Nellie, dear, you have capped the climax of absurdity."