FRANCESCA.
"Mortal! if life smile on thee, and thou find
All to thy mind,
Think, Who did once from Heaven to Hell descend
Thee to befriend;
So shalt thou dare forego, at His dear call,
Thy best, thine all."--
KEBLE.
While Carlo rode back from Naples, and while Signor Merlino and his
operatic company steamed between the Pillars of Hercules into the
blue Mediterranean, Francesca Britton sat in a little stone belvedere
in the garden of Casa Bella, from time to time raising her eyes from
her needlework to glance at that same blue Mediterranean, or at the
lovely mountains in Ischia, which were plainly visible through the
arched doorway.
Beautiful as a child, Francesca was more than beautiful in early
womanhood--she was lovely. It was not alone that the outline of
cheeks and chin was perfect, that the nose was finely chiselled, that
the masses of dark hair drawn back from the white forehead were rich
and wavy; all this might be set down in black and white without
conveying the faintest idea of what she was. And in truth this had
happened over and over again; the photographers had done what they
could, but had failed grievously. Photography could not give the
ineffable charm of her ever-varying expression, the depth and
sweetness of her dark-gray eyes, the dimple in her cheek, which
seemed indeed the sign and symbol of her sunshiny nature. It could
not convey the least notion of her shy grace, of her delicate purity,
or of that keen sense of humor which sparkled so deliciously in her
home-life. Outsiders sometimes deemed the beautiful English girl
cold and distant, and a country life had tended to increase her
natural shyness; but even had she lived in the midst of the
fashionable world, Francesca Britton never could have been thoroughly
known out of her own circle,--she was one of those who keep their
best for their own.
She was roused from a reverie by seeing a little miniature of herself
flying down the straight, sunny walk which led to the summer-house,
bordered on either side by azaleas glowing with crimson blossom, and
tall, white oleanders.
"Dino sent me," panted the little girl,--"Dino sent me with this for
father. Where is father? They thought he was out here. And only
fancy! Dino says, Fran dear, that Carlo came and rang the bell just
like a visitor, and handed in his card. Think of Carlo ringing the
bell!"
And Sibyl broke into a peal of laughter as she skipped about the
summer-house. Her sister let her needlework fall, and taking the
card, glanced at it, smiling and blushing in a way that would have
enraptured any one but unobservant Sibyl.
"Dino, he is nodding, and smiling, and looking so funny!" continued
the little girl; "and he says Carlo has perhaps come a courting, but
he won't tell me what it means. What is courting, Fran? Anything to
do with the new tennis-court?"
"'Tis a game which you play for love, Sibyl dear. There, run and
take the card to father, he is down in the orange-grove."
The little messenger flew off again on her errand, and Francesca sat
musing, smiling to herself every now and then as she thought of the
beloved name with its novel prefix. Carlo an "Avvocato;" it was too
funny! And how like him to send in his card and be shown into the
drawing-room so ceremoniously, instead of, as usual, just leaping
over the edge of prickly pear which divided the gardens of Casa Bella
and Villa Bruno. Then delicious tremors, that were neither hope nor
fear, ran through her, and her heart beat fast and loud. She could
bear the stillness no longer, and, rising, she left the summer-house
and walked down the path between the oleanders and the azaleas. All
at once quick footsteps fell upon her ear; then, through the trees,
she caught sight of the lithe, graceful figure so familiar to her.
Ah! how foolish she was. Had they not been the best of friends for
years and years? Why could she not go and meet him naturally to-day?
Scolding herself roundly, she stopped because her feet refused to
advance another step, and, with fingers which trembled visibly, tried
to break off a spray of the crimson flowers.
"It is too stiff for you!" exclaimed Carlo, turning the corner and
hurrying towards her.
"No, no!" she protested, laughing; "you always misdoubt my powers;"
and putting force upon her unruly fingers she broke off the spray.
"Here is a buttonhole for the 'Avvocato,' with his friend's
congratulations."
"The 'Avvocato' is not content, he craves something more," said
Carlo, smiling.
"Very well; old playmates must not stand on ceremony," she said,
gayly, well pleased that she had regained her self-possession; "come
to the belvedere, and I will put some maidenhair with it."
They walked together up the path, Francesca pausing to pluck two or
three pieces from a jungle of maidenhair growing about the old stones.
"There!" she exclaimed as they sat down in the cool little arbor
while she twisted the ferns among the flowers; "now are you content?"
"Not quite," he said; "I am clumsy, you will put them in for me."
She fastened the flowers in his coat and again her tiresome fingers
began to tremble. Carlo, blessing the sight, snatched her hand in
his and kissed it passionately.
"Francesca, forgive me!" he cried, "I could wait no longer; you will
not grudge me that one kiss. My darling, my darling, I have waited
such years for you!"
His face, glowing with love, and devotion, and eager hope, was raised
to hers. She only saw it for a moment, for something made a mist
rise before her eyes, and when she could see clearly again she did
not dare to meet his gaze; she looked instead out at the blue
Mediterranean.
"I have loved you, Francesca, since you came back from
England,--since you came and brought light and happiness to us after
that dark time. I told your father,--begged him to let me speak to
you, and he bade me wait. I have waited nearly five years,
Francesca, and, oh! at times I scarcely knew how to trust myself
here. Again and again I almost broke my word; but now your father
gives me leave to come to you, to confess my love. My darling, look
at me,--speak to me!"
She turned and gazed right into his eager, wistful eyes, a long,
sweet, steadfast look; then her lips began to quiver a little, but
thought better of it and smiled instead.
"What do you want me to say?"
"Say," he cried eagerly, "say, 'I will try to love you.'"
She shook her head.
"I can never say that," she replied, and once more looked out
seawards.
But the vehemence, the fire of his Italian nature, half frightened
her. Despair was written on his face, despair rang in his voice, he
did not pause one moment to reflect.
"Francesca! Francesca!" he cried, "don't tell me I have come too
late. My love! my love! I can't live without you. Unsay that
'never.'"
Grieved beyond measure that words so playfully meant should have
called forth such a tropical outburst, she wreathed her arms about
his neck, and pressed her face to his.
"Carlo _mio_," she sobbed, "don't break my heart by misunderstanding
me, I can never try to love you--because--because--I love you
already."
The depth of love and tenderness in her voice, the sweet abandonment
of her manner--more really maidenly in its perfect sincerity than any
coyness or hesitation--all this heightened to bliss Carlo's rapture
of love. The momentary mistake, the cloud-shadow that had threatened
his sky, made the sunshine all the more exquisite. He could not
speak a word, but only clasped her close in the long sweet embrace
which symbolized their betrothal.
"My own!" he murmured at last. "My own, you gave me one terrible
minute. To be without you, Francesca, that would be to be crucified!"
He did not definitely think of the talk between the two Englishmen,
but the thought suggested that afternoon had sunk deep into his mind,
and the agony of the brief mistake gave the emphatic utterance of
that last word a tenfold power. Francesca breathed fast; Love
unfolded to her his wonderful face, hitherto veiled; she was awed by
the thought of the immortal passion the undying devotion of her
lover. The strength and sacredness of that last word he had used,
filled her heart with a wondering love and humility. His happiness,
his life, was in her keeping. And hers in his. Mortal man could
never bear the strain of the one thought without the support of the
other.
After a while they began to weave golden visions of the future; Carlo
suggesting one place and another, for which he thought she had a
fancy; a certain ideal nook, called Quisisana, on the other side of
Naples, where once, years, before she had said she would like to
build a house if some one would but leave her a fortune; a pretty
villa at Posilipo, which she used to admire. It touched her to see
how he remembered all her careless, girlish speeches, and had
treasured them up for years.
"Ah," she said, smiling, "I used to think place would make such a
difference; but now, Carlo _mio_, I don't care one bit. We will make
a home in the wilderness, if it so pleases you, or at Naples, in a
corner of an old palace--'tis all one to me so long as we are
together."
He drew her yet closer to him. They went on weaving their plans
unconscious of a small sprite approaching the summer-house. Sibyl
stood composedly in the doorway for a moment, quite unnoticed by the
lovers.
"Oh!" she ejaculated at length, "is that the game?"
Her perplexed and rather disappointed look was most comical.
"What game?" asked Francesca, laughing and blushing.
"The game you said people played for love!"
"Yes, this is it," said Carlo, laughing immoderately.
"Is that all?" exclaimed the sprite, in a tone of deep disappointment.
They only laughed.
"Well, for my part," said Sibyl, who had caught many old-fashioned
little phrases from living always with grown-up people, "for my part,
I think it's very dull."
She ran off. Carlo watched her out of sight, smiling at her quaint
disapproval.
"She will miss you, poor little one," he said at last.
"Yes, that would be one reason for not going far away. And your
mother, Carlo! How selfish of me not to remember her! You must
never be parted from her--never."
"You will be to her in the place of Nita," said Carlo. "You will
comfort her as I have never been able to do."
And so once again they plunged into the golden glories of the future.
Clare must be persuaded to come back again, and take Sibyl in charge,
and their paradise should be the Villa Bruno, already dear to them
through many associations. That plan would obviate all difficulties,
and render partings unnecessary; would be the happiest plan for
others as well as for themselves.
"And we must not be selfish in our happiness," said Francesca.
"No," he replied, smiling as he remembered his friend's parting
words, "we will prove to Enrico Ritter that love is not selfishness,
and that egoism does not rule the world, as he thinks."
A gong sounding within the house warned Carlo that he ought to go.
Together they left the little stone summer-house and wandered through
the lovely garden,--a garden wholly un-English. The scorching sun
would not admit of lawns, but nevertheless there was a great charm in
the straight shady walks, with here and there an umbrella-pine, or a
tall and sombre cypress mingling with limes, chestnuts, and
camphor-trees. A long colonnade of white pillars was festooned from
end to end with honeysuckle; vines linked together the bushy
mulberry-trees; Indian corn grew green and ribbon-like beneath; while
about all was that delicious sweetness only to be met with in the
gardens of Italy. The house was solid and unpretentious, its
whiteness relieved by masses of the feathery green pepper-tree, and a
glory of climbing red geranium. Captain Britton sat in the loggia,
which was wreathed with white roses. He looked up smiling as he saw
the two drawing near, then came forward to bestow a kiss upon his
daughter and a hearty hand-shake upon his future son-in-law. He was
a large-limbed, strong-looking man, somewhat heavily built, with
scanty gray hair and whiskers, and a broad smiling mouth. In manner
he was kindly, genial, and patronizing. But, spite of some surface
faults, he was a thoroughly good-hearted man, and there was no
mistaking his genuine hospitality and anxiety to help his friends.
If Carlo occasionally winced beneath his benign patronage, or was
provoked to anger by some show of insular prejudice, such trifles
were soon forgotten in the recollection of the thousand acts of
kindness shown both to his mother and to himself by the neighborly
Englishman. And then the Donati were proverbially susceptible, and
Carlo had long been on his guard, and had schooled himself into
thinking that the small discords and jarring notes which now and then
occurred in the intercourse with the Brittons were really owing to
his own ultra-sensitiveness. Such things were, after all, but
trifles light as air, and were powerless really to disturb the bliss
of being near his love.
"Hearty congratulations," said the old Captain, warmly. "I had not
much fear that my little Fran would be unkind to you, and I suppose I
must not grumble at losing her. I little thought that some day she
would be changing into a Signora. But, there, we have made half an
Englishman of you already; have we not?"
"No, no," said Francesca, quick to note that the last words brought a
momentary gleam of anger into her lover's eyes. "Carlo will always
be true to his country, though he speaks English almost like a
native. That is because I taught you, Carlo _mio_; is it not?"
"Without love of the teacher learning his drudgery," said Carlo,
laughing. "I enjoyed my English lessons."
"That reminds me of your old master, Signor Piale. Oh, what will he
say to us, Carlo? What will he say?" and Francesca laughed merrily.
"My kind regards to Signora Donati," said Captain Britton, smiling.
"And if I may be permitted to call and pay my respects--
"To-night," interrupted Carlo, eagerly. "Say you will come to-night,
after dinner. My mother cannot leave the house, you know, and she
will be longing to see Francesca."
"Well, well, no need to stand on ceremony even to-day; we are such
old friends, are we not?" said the Captain, good-naturedly. "After
dinner, then--after dinner. Come, Fran, my dear, no need to see
Carlo off the premises, you'll meet again before long, and the soup
is getting cold."
Francesca was borne off to the dining-room, and Carlo, turning away,
cleared the prickly pears at a bound, and alighted amid a group of
lemon-trees in his own garden.