CONVALESCENT.
"Look not on thine own loss, but look beyond,
And take the Cross for glory and for guide."
MRS. HAMILTON KING.
When the excitement of Sardoni's visit was over, Carlo flagged a
little, but the weariness and languor were far less trying to bear
than what followed. He could live patiently enough through those
days--could even enjoy the family life going on around him--could be
quietly amused at Kate's efforts to conform him to her own ideal of
what a young man should be--could find comfort in talking to Clare
about the old days at Casa Bella, and about his mother.
But by-and-by, when his strength returned, there came very different
days--days when he felt that to live any longer without Francesca was
more than mortal man could bear--days when in very truth his own
words to her in the belvedere were fulfilled, and to be without her
was to be crucified. His love for Francesca was no light sentiment,
no passing fancy; it was the strongest, most ardent love that man can
feel for woman. He loved her with his whole being--with the
passionate warmth of a southern nature--with the force of a pure and
noble soul--with the lofty, undying devotion of an awakened spirit.
It was inevitable that he should suffer; and though of course such
times were nothing new to him, he could not in his present state
plunge into work, or into the affairs of other people, as in his
ordinary life he had found comfort in doing.
Worst of all, he knew that his kindly host--the only one able to
guess what was the matter with him--desired nothing so much as to see
him quitting the stage and marrying his niece.
But if pain was inevitable, failure was not so. He loved as a man
loves at four-and-twenty, but he had the strength of one who has
resolutely denied himself and honestly tried to be true to his
profession; "his strength was as the strength of ten." And when Mr.
Britton urged his view of the case upon him with the best and kindest
of intentions, he always fell back on the certainty that his duty had
been made clear to him, and on the faith which was his great
stronghold, and which, in its fearless unselfishness, differed as
much from credulity as day from night.
Strangely enough, the man to whom he instinctively turned most at
this time was Sardoni's father. He disagreed with the Vicar on
politics, on many theological points, on the question of the stage,
and on most other things, and yet there was something in the man's
great goodness which made all else quite a secondary consideration,
which even made one forget his tendency to lay down the law, and only
delight in the sense of his devotion. Without that touch of
dogmatism he would have been a saint; his failing interfered a good
deal with his influence in most quarters, but with Carlo hardly at
all. The beautiful goodness of the man attracted him too strongly,
and quite eclipsed all else. It was a relief, too, when he was
allowed to go out again for the briefest of airings on sunny days
when the wind was favorable; and after a time he was able to read
Dante with Kate and Lucy, and to study Zampa, and, little by little,
to find that the outer world was not so altogether flavorless as in
his dark days it had seemed.
One sunny spring day, when the doctor had allowed him to go for a
short drive, Clare and Kate took him for the first time outside the
Merlebank grounds, and drove him through the little village of
Cleevering. By this time he had himself pretty well in hand--had
schooled himself into a sort of content with incompleteness--had
worked himself round to the state in which he could feel that it was
at any rate something to be with Francesca's relations, to hear her
name every now and then, to be at least certain of knowing if she
were in any particular need or trouble.
"We may as well call for the letters as we are passing the
post-office," said Kate, drawing up at the village shop. She sprang
out of the chaise, Carlo offering to hold the pony for her. He had
neither ridden nor driven since he had left Italy, and the mere
feeling of the reins between his fingers awoke new life within him;
it was long since he had been able really to desire any attainable
thing, but now he was seized with a strong desire to ride once more,
and the mere capability of wishing was a relief. He had an almost
boyish pleasure in feeling the movements of the pony's head as it
champed the bit, in hearing the impatient pawing of the ground.
"Two letters for you, Clare," said Kate, reappearing; and Clare took
them rather anxiously, and opening the one from her home began to
read.
"None for me?" asked Carlo.
"Not one," said Kate, tossing two or three envelopes on to the vacant
seat. He instantly detected that one of them bore the blue stamp of
Italy. Was it from Francesca? he wondered, or perhaps from Captain
Britton to his brother? It was something to be staying in a house
where letters were received from Casa Bella, and yet it was a sort of
torture to him to sit quietly in the pony-chaise, obliged to content
himself with studying the length of King Humbert's moustache and the
big letters of "NAPOLI" on the postmark. Doubtless, he thought, the
letter had been posted as they went in to church on Sunday, and he
hardly knew whether the thought made him feel nearer to his love or
more hopelessly cut off from her. He did not dare to ask any
questions lest he should awaken Kate's suspicion, but he hoped
against hope that she would speak and put him out of his suspense.
Kate, however, talked of the scenery, and the weather, and the
spring-green of the trees, and of every unimportant thing under the
sun; but of that letter she said not a word, and he had to endure
walking upstairs behind her when they reached the house and seeing
her disappear with it into her own room.
It was hard; but then sore need had taught him to be thankful for
small mercies, and he cheered himself with the reflection that at any
rate he was now tolerably certain that the letter was from Francesca
herself, that by this time she knew of his illness, for Clare had
mentioned it in one of her letters, and that it was even remotely
possible that the Captain might have permitted her to send some
message. Torturing himself with hopes and fears after the manner of
lovers, he waited as long as he could make himself wait upstairs,
then, with the hope predominating and the impatience no longer to be
resisted, found his way into the drawing-room and looked eagerly
round for Kate. The room was empty, but on the mantelpiece there
gleamed the blue King Humbert and the big "NAPOLI," and the direction
in Francesca's own writing to "Miss Britton, Merlebank, nr.
Ashborough, Inghilterra."
He longed to snatch it up and kiss it, but restrained himself because
even the envelope was not his; with a sigh he crossed the room and
tried to make the time pass by playing all Francesca's favorite airs,
and after what seemed a long while the footman came in with the
afternoon tea, and was soon followed by Mr. Britton.
"You are early home this afternoon," said Carlo, leaving the piano
and shivering a little as he came over to the fire.
"I have an appointment at Cleevering at half-past five, and thought I
would snatch a cup of tea on the way," said Mr. Britton. "You don't
look quite so well; I'm afraid you have been overtiring yourself."
"Oh, no, thank you," said Carlo, wondering how his companion could
stand within a yard of Francesca's letter and not notice it. "I have
been for a drive to-day, and enjoyed it very much."
"That's right," said the shipbuilder, in his kindly voice. "We must
begin to lionize you now that you are getting stronger. You ought to
go over to Tancroft Castle: it is a fine old Norman ruin. You would
find a great deal to interest you there."
Carlo thought differently; at any rate just at the present moment he
was inclined to wish all fine old Norman ruins at the bottom of the
sea. It was horrible to feel that he, with his ardent love, must be
patiently polite, and must depend on others for the smallest scrap of
tidings from Francesca. At length old Bevis, the deer-hound, came to
his help by stretching up his head and licking his master's hand.
Mr. Britton bent down to pat his old favorite, and as he raised his
head again his eye was attracted by the foreign letter on the
mantelpiece.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, "a letter from Casa Bella? What news?"
"I do not know," said Carlo. "I was not here when Miss Britton read
it."
Something of the chafed, impatient craving, which was making tumult
in his heart, found its way into his voice. Mr. Britton,
understanding all perfectly well, felt very sorry for him. He took
up the letter, and going out into the hall called his daughter.
Kate came running downstairs in reply to the summons, looking hurried
and annoyed.
"How early you have come home, father!" she exclaimed "I was just
trying to get the 'Mothers'-Meeting' accounts right."
"I am sorry to have interrupted you, my dear; but will you make tea,
for I have to go down to the village directly?"
Kate, in no very good temper, approached the tea-table, perceived
that the tray was crooked, and set it straight with a gesture
betraying inward irritation. Carlo, as usual, offered his services
with the kettle, but was so absent-minded that he was far from
proving an efficient helper, and only made Kate feel that everything
was conspiring together to annoy her. Surely only a lover could have
been so absent as to go on filling a teapot till it overflowed, and
to be deaf to repeated orders to stop? Was this tiresome Italian
really going to fall in love with the daughter of his host like the
hero of a novel?
All his apologies could not make her unbend from the chilly reserve
in which she encased herself.
"What news from Casa Bella?" asked Mr. Britton, when the disaster on
the tea-tray no longer engrossed the general attention.
"Oh!" said Kate, bestowing a cup of tea on Carlo with a frigid air
that was quite lost on him, "Francesca writes to ask if she may come
next week instead of in June. It's very provoking, for I shall be so
busy just then, and there will be no tennis or anything to amuse her."
Carlo did not dare to raise his eyes lest the wild rapture of hope
which was filling them should become visible to Kate. He sat
mechanically stirring his tea, making so strong an effort to control
his face and keep his joy secret, that he felt as if his features
must have become as expressionless as a block of wood.
"I don't fancy she is much of a tennis-player," said Mr. Britton.
"Is there no enclosure for me?"
"Oh, yes, I beg your pardon, father; I quite forgot; there is a line
for you from Uncle Britton and a little note from Francesca, too."
Mr. Britton glanced through them, then deliberately handed
Francesca's note to Carlo, possibly intending his daughter to draw
her own conclusions from the act.
"I am glad she comes earlier, you two are old friends, and it would
be a pity that you should not meet."
But Kate observed nothing, for she was full of her preconceived
theory. She did not notice the quick flush which rose to Carlo's
brow as he took the letter; instead, she was secretly resolving to
lose no opportunity of snubbing the Italian, and proving that she was
quite indifferent to him, and was above that despicable feminine
weakness of falling in love with a handsome face and a fine voice.
"Will you have any more tea, Signor Donati?" she asked in her coldly
polite voice.
"No more, thank you," said Carlo, looking up for a moment from the
letter.
His eyes startled her, there was an expression in their dark liquid
depths which she had never seen before in the eyes of any man. She
got up quickly.
"If you'll excuse me, father, I will just finish those accounts," she
said. "Clare and the girls will be down directly."
Meanwhile, Carlo, feeling like one in a beautiful dream, which is
only marred by the dim consciousness that there there must be an
awaking, read and re-read the following note:--
"DEAR UNCLE GEORGE,--Thank you so much for your letters; I never
thought it possible that father would let me come, but something in
your note to him has made him consent; and also, perhaps, something
that has happened here makes him see that I had better leave home for
a little while. It was just like you to keep your promise in that
way, and be Carlo's friend, and just like you, too, to write so
often, for I have been dreadfully anxious. Father says, can you
conveniently meet me, or send some one to meet me at Charing Cross by
the tidal train on Wednesday morning? He does not much like me to
come such a long way alone, and the lady with whom I travel from
Naples only goes as far as London.
"Ever, dear Uncle, your loving niece.
"FRANCESCA BRITTON."
He had his moments of unalloyed bliss, then came the inevitable
awaking.
"Do you think I ought to go away?" he said, returning the letter to
Mr. Britton.
There was something so appealing in his tone that Mr. Britton felt a
genuine thrill of pleasure in being able to answer, with a clear
conscience,--
"Certainly not; the most scrupulous sense of honor can't demand that,
since her father is perfectly well aware that you are staying with
us."
"What do you think makes him willing to let us meet?" said Carlo,
anxiously.
"Well, to speak quite frankly, I think that probably Francesca has
just refused some good offer of marriage, and that my brother finds
that it is hopeless to see her settled in life as he would wish while
her heart is here at Merlebank. Very possibly he hopes,--as I, too,
confess I hope,--that circumstances will lead you to see that it is
useless for you to continue any longer on the stage, and that all may
end well, and you and Francesca be 'very happy ever after,' as they
say in the stories."
Carlo was silent, for suddenly, in that comfortable English
drawing-room, there flashed across his mind the old temptation, which
he thought could never have risen again after the decisive blow dealt
it in the garden at Villa Bruno. This time the strong point of his
character, his genuine humility, was appealed to.
"See," urged the tempter, "you are wrecking Francesca's life and your
own all from an overstrained notion of self-sacrifice. Is it likely
you will succeed in saving Anita? leave that to better and wiser
people. All the best men and women you know think you are
mistaken,--think that you will fail. Are you going to be so
headstrong and conceited as still to persist in this unnecessary
sacrifice? You have tried your best, and have failed,--you know that
you have miserably failed. To go on longer would be mere presumption
and vanity."
He turned away and stood in the window, looking out at the mellow
western sky and at the grassy slopes beneath the trees in the park,
where sheep were peacefully feeding. The sight made him think of the
thorn-crowned Shepherd. But instantly the fiend turned even this to
his advantage, and beset him more vigorously than ever.
"Are you so stupid and vain as to think the world needs such a man as
you to take care of it? Go home to Italy, and live the peaceful life
for which you are so much better fitted. Do you think the Good
Shepherd needs your help? Do you think He can't get on just as well
without you?"
But the vision of the Constant Shepherd would not fade, and a voice,
less vehement but more familiar to him, said plainly, "Follow Me."
"Do you mean to say," resumed the fiend, "that you are going to bear
all your life this miserable incompleteness? Remember what you have
suffered this last fortnight! If you think you can bear such misery
for long you are mistaken. All your life long--think of it!--think
of it! If you dream of being strong enough to bear such a life you
vastly over-rate your own powers."
But again, more clearly, the other voice repeated, "Follow Me!"
At this minute Clare and the younger girls entered the drawing-room.
"Have you had tea, Signor Donati?" said Molly, who dearly loved
officiating at the tea-table in the absence of her elders and betters.
"Did you like your drive?" chirped Flo, dancing up to him in her
free, childish fashion.
He came back with an effort to the outer life, and began to hand
about plates of cake and bread-and-butter, and to wait upon every
one, as was his wont, while Mr. Britton told Clare about Francesca's
visit.
"Why that will seem delightfully natural to have both you and
Francesca here with me," said Clare. "You will like to meet her
again, and hear all the news from Pozzuoli."
"Yes, unless my doctor has permitted me by that time to set to work
again," said Carlo, quietly.
"Oh, but he will not; you know he said nine weeks from the first."
"Yes, yes," said Mr. Britton, "you need at least three more weeks'
rest before thinking of work,--myself I doubt if even then you will
be fit for it; we shall see what Kavanagh says."
No more passed on the subject just then, but after dinner, when Harry
had left the dining-room to escort Kate down to one of her evening
classes in the village, Carlo spoke once more about it to Mr.
Britton, having gained much in the interval.
"What I want to ask you is this," he began, in his direct,
unembarrassed way; "Am I justified in staying on here in the same
house with Francesca when I have not the least idea of renouncing the
stage, when I hope to be able to resist all temptations to yield,
when I sincerely believe that Captain Britton's expectations will be
frustrated?"
"I like you the better for thinking out the matter so frankly," said
Mr. Britton; "but it seems to me that the responsibility rests with
my brother. If he chooses to send Francesca here I don't see that
you are bound to trouble about his expectations. I suppose it will,
at any rate, be some comfort to you both to meet even as ordinary
acquaintances with other people around, and I advise you to get what
pleasure you can out of the slight concession my brother has been
willing to make. 'Take the goods the gods provide you.' You can
certainly do that with a clear conscience."
"Thank you," said Carlo, gratefully, "it has been a great help to
talk it over with you. I think I may stay."
The week of rapturous expectation that followed was the happiest he
had known since the abrupt ending of his betrothal. He went about
with a glad light in his eyes, which made Kate more and more
repressive; his step was no longer the step of an invalid, his voice
grew stronger each day, he felt in harmony with the delicious spring
weather, for all cares had faded from his mind, and he was conscious
once more of youth and hope,--conscious that of late he had felt
preposterously old, and that now he felt ridiculously but
delightfully young.
Counting the days, and indeed the very hours, he lived through the
interval, and at length the day on which Francesca was expected came.
But, to his surprise, as it advanced, the expectation changed to
torment; he could only sit watching the clock, and from time to time
looking from the window with a restless agitation which put happiness
out of the question. At last the supreme moment arrived; he heard
the wheels of the carriage and the sudden rush of girls from the
schoolroom; then Clare looked in for a minute.
"She is just here; but don't come out into the hall, Carlo, for the
wind is so cold to-day."
He made some sort of reply and felt relieved that Clare left the
drawing-room door open as she hastened out to greet her pupil. Good
heavens! how was he to meet her like an ordinary acquaintance! His
breathing was labored, his heart throbbed, he trembled from head to
foot; yet through it all he listened with longing indescribable. Ah,
yes! that was her voice! above all the tumult within and without.
"How are you, dear Clare?" it said; and again, after a pause, "A
beautiful crossing, thank you. Why, Flo, how you have grown!"
The voice was drawing nearer and nearer, the oppression grew
frightful. With an effort he rose to his feet, and at that instant
caught the first glimpse of his love as she crossed the hall--the
pure, sweet, delicate face, with its lovely coloring; the slight,
lithe figure; the gray eyes, seeking him out eagerly, yet so shyly.
He went quickly forward to meet her, unable to feel for very excess
of feeling, bewildered and overpowered by the tumult that her
presence caused.
And yet it was all over so soon, this meeting which he had rehearsed
so often, both waking and sleeping; a conventional hand-clasp, a
smile carefully regulated, a few quick words of Italian, since his
native tongue came naturally to him, and for the moment he could not
remember a single word of English. After that there was a pause
which he did not dare to break because he knew he could not steady
his voice, all he could do was to try to look and move naturally, and
to get back the perception that his arms were his own in time to hand
about the cups of tea which Kate, in her cool, business-like way, was
preparing.
After a while he began to hear what the others were saying, and soon
Francesca's sweet, low voice thrilled through him once more, and
before long he was carried away by the happiness of the present, and,
forgetting the past, dared to put in his oar, so that the
conversation became general, he taking a natural share in it, and
falling back to the old footing of the days when Francesca had been
his playmate and friend.
At first the mere possibility of looking at her, talking to her, and
waiting on her kept him happy. When Mr. Britton was present he was a
little less at his ease, because he knew that the kindly host was
well aware of their story; but by day, when only old Mrs. Britton, or
Clare, or the girls were present, he seemed really able to ignore the
past, and act as though their three weeks' betrothal had never been.
The sense of helping her to play this part, the knowledge that he
could shield and protect her, was no small incentive, though at times
he half wished that Captain Britton had permitted Clare to be told,
because her sympathy would have been so well worth having.
As to Kate, both the lovers were unable to help being amused by her,
for Francesca quickly perceived her desire to convert Carlo to her
own ideas, and Carlo instinctively knew that she had perceived it.
But one rainy morning, when the two girls were at work in the
morning-room, Francesca found that there are times when an undeclared
love-story has its disadvantages.
"I have hardly seen you alone, yet," began Kate, "and there is so
much I wanted to talk to you about. But you see I have been so
frightfully busy since you came; indeed it has been one incessant
rush of work all through the spring, and having Signor Donati here
takes up more time than people might fancy."
"It was so good of uncle to ask him here," said Francesca, keeping
her eyes fixed on her needlework.
"Father is always doing that kind of thing. But we have never had a
visitor here for so long whom I felt to understand so little; I don't
think I like him very much."
"Don't you?" said Francesca, stifling a strong inclination to laugh.
"Well, he is so deceptive; he gives you the impression of being so
good and thinking so much of other people, and yet I can't make out
that he has done one single stroke of good, useful work in his life.
He seems to me exactly like the figtree which had nothing but leaves.
How can he bear to waste his life on the stage?"
"You must not malign my old friend," said Francesca, flushing
crimson, yet still feeling more amused than angry, because Kate was
so ludicrously mistaken, and so perfectly convinced that she must
infallibly be right.
"Well, since you are his friend, do just candidly tell me,--Is he so
good as Clare makes out? Is he really so delightful as my father
seems to think?"
The sceptical stress on the "Is he?" made the question all the more
embarrassing. To be coolly asked her unbiassed opinion of the man
she loved was a new experience to Francesca; for a moment she lost
her presence of mind. What in the world could she say? How was she
to gain the composed tone needful for a reply?
"Oh, yes, indeed he is!" she said at length, in a tolerably natural
tone. "I have known him for years and years, you know."
And then, because the answer seemed to her so absurdly inadequate,
and because she was vexed with Kate for having asked such a question,
she felt ready to cry.
But, luckily, Kate was not observant. She went on serenely, "Well,
for my part, I don't understand that kind of man. I don't think I
understand Italians at all."
At that moment Carlo entered, overhearing the last words. He at once
guessed that Kate had been attacking Francesca as to his character,
and knowing that they would feel uncomfortable, said in his easy way,
"Not even after all our Dante readings, Miss Britton? Has not our
great poet raised your opinion of his countrymen? I am afraid you
are very hard on the South."
"Well, frankly," said Kate, "I don't understand southern natures; and
why you are so wrapped up in your country I can't imagine."
"You see, to you, Italy is merely 'a geographical expression,' as
Prince Metternich used to say. To me, it is the land for which my
father, and his father before him, fought and died."
He broke off rather abruptly, afraid of repelling her English nature
by too much warmth of utterance. He had not lived so much among
English people without learning to restrain his speech, and bring it
round pretty nearly to the conventional terseness of a true Briton.
Francesca knew that, had they been alone, a torrent of Italian would
have escaped his lips, and the full force of his eager patriotism
would have been revealed.
"You will think me very blunt," said Kate, "but I really don't see
what you Italians have to be so proud of. I don't see that you have
any great men to boast of--except, of course, painters and musicians."
Carlo laughed. "You will at least allow us Dante?"
"Dante belongs to the world," said Kate.
"True, that might also be said of Shakespeare; yet Shakespeare is
English and Dante is Italian."
"Dante counts among the artists," said Kate, in her decided tone.
"You have no other great men."
Francesca sat watching the disputants, intensely amused at Kate's
calm, argumentative manner; as to Carlo, he seemed gradually losing
his English sobriety, and the more Kate attacked his nation the more
Italian he became.
"What!" he exclaimed. "Do you then wish for greater men than
Galileo, than Savonarola, than Columbus, than Daniele Manin, than
Mazzini, than Garibaldi? Is it nothing to have produced a man of
science like Galvani, a saint like Francesco of Assisi, patriots like
Pellico and Poerio?"
Now Silvio Pellico was no hero to Kate; she smiled at the mention of
his name. He only meant to her a long dull Italian book which she
had struggled half through, until, to her delight, she had been
promoted to _I Promessi Sposi_. She had not lived with Pellico in
his stifling cell under the _piombi_ at Venice, or wearied with him
through his long years in the Austrian fortress, as Carlo had done in
his childhood.
"You care so much for your country," she remarked, "but after all,
patriotism seems to me a very narrow thing--we ought instead to love
the whole human race."
He started to his feet with a gesture that surprised her.
"Believe me!" he exclaimed, "you are mistaken. There is no true love
of race till you love your own land; just as there is no 'charity,'
in the wide sense of the word, till you have genuine love for those
of your own family. For what else are we set in families and in
nations? And how is it that we have any number of people vaguely
longing to work for 'humanity' and sentimentalizing about the
'masses' in the humanitarian cant of the day, and a mere handful of
men and women ready to make their own homes the heaven on earth that
a home might be? It is because we all want to begin at the wrong
end, to launch out on the great undertakings before we have been
faithful to the smaller duties. Because we mistake the meaning of
sacrifice, and choose our own way even in that, and hunger for the
great, and the striking, and the picturesque, but are slow to
sacrifice ourselves for one akin to us, or for a cause which is
unattractive, or for a unit instead of a vague multitude."
There was a force and passion in what he said that appealed to Kate's
honest nature. But the words struck home, because she knew only too
well that, while ready to slave for her school-children or for the
poor, she was often cross and tyrannical to her own brothers and
sisters. She thought Carlo must be alluding to her, but, as a matter
of fact, she was far from his thoughts; and what made him able to
speak with so much fire on an abstract subject was that he spoke of
the things which he knew, of the things which he had proved by fierce
and long conflict.
"And yet," said Kate, angry at having the tables turned on her, "you,
who speak so enthusiastically about sacrifice, and all the rest of
it, can be content to sing, and act, and amuse people, while the poor
are starving, and sinning, and dying! You can be content to fiddle
like Nero while Rome is burning! Oh, it seems to me unworthy of you!
You can't be content with such a life!"
He turned his clear, deep eyes full upon her.
"With what I make of it--no," he replied. "With the life itself,
with my calling--quite content--quite! See! a year ago I talked
Socialism, and theorized, and longed to solve the problems of the
day, and thought that by speaking and agitating the Utopian age would
be brought on. But I see now that it is quite possible to theorize
about the better arrangement of the world, and all the time to be
neglecting perhaps your own relations--to wish to reclaim all the
waste lands, and to misuse your own tiny strip of garden."
But here the conversation was abruptly ended, for at that minute Miss
Claremont and Lucy came in armed with Dante and dictionaries, and
Carlo said no more, but opening his copy of the _Inferno_, began, at
Clare's request, to read to them.