Tebaldo had not been at all willing to believe that Aliandra Basili
really meant to treat him differently after the meeting in which she had
defined her position so clearly, but he soon discovered that she was in
earnest. She was not a person to change her mind easily, and she had
decided that it was time to end the situation in one way or the other.
Tebaldo must either marry her, or cease to persecute her with his
attentions. In the latter case she intended to marry Francesco.
Like most successful singers, and, indeed, like most people who succeed
remarkably in any career, she possessed the extraordinary energy which
ultimately makes the difference between success and failure in all
struggles for pre-eminence. Many have the necessary talent and the other
necessary gifts; few have, besides these things, the restless, untiring
force to use them at all times to the extreme limit of possibility.
People who have the requisite facility but not the indispensable energy
find it so hard to realise this fact that they have inverted our modern
use of the word 'genius' to account for their own failures. The
ancients, and even the mediævals, when beaten in a fair fight by men
more enduring than themselves, were always ready to account for their
defeat on the ground of a supernatural intervention against them.
Similarly the people who are clever enough to succeed, nowadays, but not
strong enough, nor patient enough, attribute to the man who surpasses
them some sort of supernatural inspiration, which they call genius, and
against which they tell themselves that it is useless to strive.
Socrates called his acute sense of right and wrong his familiar spirit,
his dæmon; but in those days of the supremacy of the greatest art the
world has ever seen, or ever will see, at a time when most people still
believed in oracles, no one ever attributed any such familiar spirit to
Sophocles, to Praxiteles, nor to Zeuxis, nor to any other poets,
sculptors, or painters. The Muses had become mere names even then, and
the stories about them were but superstitious fables.
That restless energy was part of the Sicilian singer's nature. Whether
her other gifts were great enough for greatness remained to be seen, and
the question had nothing to do with Tebaldo Pagliuca. Her singing gave
him pleasure, but it was not what chiefly attracted him. He was in love
with her in a commonplace and by no means elevated way, and artistic
satisfaction did not enter into his passion as a component factor. There
was nothing so elevated about it.
Aliandra's very womanly nature made her vaguely aware of this, and she
had a physical suspicion, so to say, that if Tebaldo ever lost his head,
he would be much more violent than his brother, who had frightened her
so badly one evening at the theatre. She was inclined to think that it
would not be safe to irritate Tebaldo too much; yet she was sure that it
was of no use to prolong the present ambiguous situation, in which she
was practically accepting and authorising the love of a man who would
not marry her if he could help it.
After she had finally told him what she meant to do, nothing could move
her, and she entirely refused to see him alone. Hitherto she had used
her privilege as an artist in this respect, and had often sent away her
worthy aunt, the Signora Barbuzzi, during his visits. But now, when he
came, the black-browed, grey-haired, thin-lipped old woman kept her
place beside her niece on the little green sofa of the little hired
drawing-room, her withered fingers steadily knitting black silk
stockings. This was her only accomplishment, but it was an unusual one,
and she was very proud of it, and of her wonderful eyes, which never
needed glasses, and could count the minute black stitches even when the
light was beginning to fail on a winter's afternoon.
Then Tebaldo sat uneasily on his chair, and wished the old woman might
fall dead in an apoplexy, and that he had the evil eye, and by mere
wishing could bring her to destruction. And Aliandra leaned back in the
other corner of the sofa, behind her aunt, and smiled coolly at what
Tebaldo said, and answered indifferently, and looked at her nails
critically but wearily when he said nothing, as if she wished he would
go away. And he generally went at the end of half an hour, unable to
bear the situation much longer than that, after he had discovered that
the Signora Barbuzzi was in future always to sit through his visits.
'And now, my daughter,' said the aunt one day when he had just gone,
'the other will come in a quarter of an hour. The sun sets, the moon
rises, as we say.'
Which invariably happened. Francesco did not like being caught with
Aliandra by his brother, as has been already seen. He had, therefore,
hit upon the simple plan of spying upon him, following him at a distance
until he entered Aliandra's house, and then sitting in a little
third-rate café opposite until he came out. Tebaldo, who was extremely
particular about the places he frequented, because he wished to behave
altogether like a Roman gentleman, would never have entered any such
place as Francesco made use of for his own purposes. Francesco knew
that, and felt perfectly safe as he sat at his little marble table, with
a glass of syrup and soda water, his eyes fixed on the big front door
which he could see through the window from the place he regularly
occupied. He was also quite sure that, as Tebaldo had always just left
the house when he himself came, there was no danger of his elder
brother's sudden appearance.
The Signora Barbuzzi was decidedly much more civilised than her brother,
the notary of Randazzo, for she had been married to a notary of Messina,
which meant that she had lived in much higher social surroundings. That,
at least, was her opinion, and Aliandra was too wise to dispute with
her. She had given the deceased Barbuzzi no children, and in return for
her discretion he had left her a comfortable little income. Notaries are
apt to marry the sisters and daughters of other notaries, and to
associate with men of their own profession, for they generally have but
little confidence in persons of other occupations. The Signora Barbuzzi
might have been a notary herself, for she had the avidity of mind, the
distrustfulness, the caution about details, and the supernormal
acuteness about the intentions of other people which are the
old-fashioned Italian notary's predominant characteristics. She looked
like one, too.
'For my part, my daughter,' she said to her niece, shaking her head
twice towards the same side, as some old women frequently do when they
are knitting a stocking, 'for my part, I should send them both away for
the present. They will not marry, for they have no money. Who marries
without money? I see that you earn a great deal, but not a fortune. If
you should marry Tebaldo or Francesco, and if you should not earn the
fortune you expect, you would find yourself badly off. But if you can
earn ten times, twenty times what you have earned this winter during the
next four or five years, then you can marry either of them, because they
will want your money as well as yourself.'
Aliandra said nothing for some minutes, for she saw the truth of her
aunt's advice. On the other hand, she was young and felt quite sure of
success, and she did not feel sure that some unexpected turn of fortune
might not suddenly bring about an advantageous marriage for one of the
two men.
'I am not the Patti,' she said thoughtfully. 'I am not the Melba. I am
only the little Basili yet, but I have a remarkable voice and I can
work--'
'Voices are treacherous,' observed the cautious old woman. 'They
sometimes break down. Then you will only be the daughter of Basili the
notary again.'
'My voice will not break down,' answered Aliandra, confidently. 'It is a
natural voice, and I never make any effort. My master says it is the
voices which are incomplete at first and have to be developed to
equalise them, which break down sometimes.'
'You may have an illness,' suggested the Signora Barbuzzi. 'Then you may
lose your voice.'
'Why should I have an illness? I am strong.'
The handsome girl leaned back on the sofa and raising her arms clasped
her hands behind her head, resting them against the wall--a splendidly
vital figure.
'We are mortal,' observed the old woman, sententiously. 'When God
pleases to send us a fever, goodbye voice!'
'Have I some sin on my soul that Heaven should send me a fever?' asked
Aliandra, rather indignantly. 'What have I done?'
'Nothing, nothing, my daughter! Who accuses you? You are an angel, you
are a crystal, you are a little saint. I have said nothing. But a fever
is a fever for saints and sinners.'
'I am not going to have a fever, and I am not going to lose my voice. I
shall make a great reputation and earn a great deal of money.'
'Heaven send it you thus!' answered the Signora Barbuzzi, devoutly.
'But I shall make Tebaldo jealous of Francesco, so that he will not be
able to see out of his eyes for jealousy. Then he will marry me. But if
not, I will marry the other, whom I like better.'
'Indeed, jealousy is a weapon, my dear. A bad mule needs a good stick,
as they say. But for my part, I am a notary's daughter, the widow of a
notary--may the Lord preserve him in glory!--and the sister of a notary.
I am out of place as the aunt of an artist. With us we have always said,
who leaves the old road to take the new, knows what he leaves but not
what he shall find. That is a good proverb. But your life is on a new
road. You may find fortune, but no one knows. At least, you have bread,
if you fail, and you risk nothing, if you remain a good girl.'
'So far as that goes!' Aliandra laughed scornfully. 'My head will not
turn easily.'
'Thank Heaven, no. There is the other one,' added the old woman, as she
heard the door-bell ring. 'Shall I leave you alone with him, my
daughter?'
'Why should you?' asked Aliandra, indifferently. 'What have I to say to
him?'
She was perhaps not quite as indifferent as she seemed, for Francesco
attracted her. On the other hand, she did not wish to be attracted by
him so long as there was a chance of marrying the other brother, and her
aunt's presence was a sort of precaution against an improbable but
vaguely possible folly which she distinguished in the future.
On his part, Francesco always did his best to make a favourable
impression on the Signora Barbuzzi, considering her friendship
indispensable. He fancied that it must be a comparatively easy thing to
please an old chaperon who got little attention from anyone, and he used
to bring her bunches of violets from time to time, which he presented
with a well-turned speech. He might as well have offered a nosegay to
the deceased Barbuzzi himself, for all the impression he produced by his
civilities to the hard-headed, masculine old woman.
He was not discouraged, however, and though he wished her anywhere but
where she was, he bore her presence with equanimity and made himself as
agreeable as he could. He was far too sharp-sighted himself not to see
what Aliandra was doing, but he had no means of acting upon her feelings
as she was trying to act upon Tebaldo's, and he had the low sort of
philosophy which often belongs to sensual people, and which is perhaps
not much higher than the patience of the cat that crouches before the
mouse's hole, waiting for its victim to run into danger. He was no
match, however, for the two women, and he very much overestimated the
attraction he exercised upon Aliandra.
It was, in a manner, a sort of disturbing influence rather than an
attraction, and Aliandra avoided it until she was forced to feel it, and
when she felt it, she feared it. Yet she liked him, and was surprised at
the contradiction, and distrusted herself in a general way. She was not
much given to self-examination, and would probably not have understood
what the word meant; but, like a young wild animal, she was at once
aware of the presence of danger, and was tempted towards the cause of
it, while her keen natural instinct of self-preservation made her draw
back cautiously whenever the temptation to advance was particularly
strong.
This was the situation of Aliandra with regard to the two brothers
respectively. Her interest lay with the one, her inclination, so far as
it was one, with the other, and she distrusted both in different ways,
fearing the one that was a coward, but distrusting more the one who was
the braver and more manly of the two, but also incomparably the more
deceitful.
They, on their part, were both in love with her, and not in very
different ways; but though Tebaldo was the bolder in character, he was
the one more able to be cautious where a woman was concerned, while he
was also capable of jealousy to a degree inconceivable to Francesco.