The next day, a short time before the sportsmen came back, Miss Nevil,
returning with her maid from a walk along the seashore, was just about
to enter the inn, when she noticed a young woman, dressed in black,
riding into the town on a small but strong horse. She was followed by a
sort of peasant, also on horseback, who wore a brown cloth jacket cut at
the elbows. A gourd was slung over his shoulder and a pistol was hanging
at his belt, his hand grasped a gun, the butt of which rested in a
leathern pocket fastened to his saddle-bow--in short, he wore the
complete costume of a brigand in a melodrama, or of the middle-class
Corsican on his travels. Miss Nevil’s attention was first attracted by
the woman’s remarkable beauty. She seemed about twenty years of age; she
was tall and pale, with dark blue eyes, red lips, and teeth like enamel.
In her expression pride, anxiety, and sadness were all legible. On her
head she wore a black silk veil called a _mezzaro_, which the Genoese
introduced into Corsica, and which is so becoming to women. Long braids
of chestnut hair formed a sort of turban round her head. Her dress was
neat, but simple in the extreme.
Miss Nevil had plenty of time to observe her, for the lady in the
_mezzaro_ had halted in the street, and was questioning somebody on
a subject which, to judge from the expression of her eyes, must have
interested her exceedingly. Then, as soon as she received an answer,
she touched her mount with her riding-switch, and, breaking into a quick
trot, never halted till she reached the door of the hotel in which Sir
Thomas Nevil and Orso were staying. There, after exchanging a few words
with the host, the girl sprang nimbly from her saddle and seated herself
on a stone bench beside the entrance door, while her groom led the
horses away to the stable. Miss Lydia, in her Paris gown, passed close
beside the stranger, who did not raise her eyes. A quarter of an hour
later she opened her window, and saw the lady in the _mezzaro_ still
sitting in the same place and in the same attitude. Not long afterward
the colonel and Orso returned from hunting. Then the landlord said a few
words to the young lady in mourning, and pointed to della Rebbia with
his finger. She coloured deeply, rose eagerly, went a few paces forward,
and then stopped short, apparently much confused. Orso was quite close
to her, and was looking at her curiously.
“Are you Orso Antonio della Rebbia?” said she in a tremulous voice. “I
am Colomba.”
“Colomba!” cried Orso.
And taking her in his arms he kissed her tenderly, somewhat to the
surprise of the colonel and his daughter--but in England people do not
kiss each other in the street.
“Brother,” said Colomba, “you must forgive me for having come without
your permission. But I heard from our friends that you had arrived, and
it is such a great consolation to me to see you.”
Again Orso kissed her. Then, turning to the colonel:
“This is my sister,” said he, “whom I never should have recognised
if she had not told me her name--Colomba--Colonel Sir Thomas
Nevil--colonel, you will kindly excuse me, but I can not have the honour
of dining with you to-day. My sister--”
“But, my dear fellow, where the devil do you expect to dine? You know
very well there is only one dinner in this infernal tavern, and we have
bespoken it. It will afford my daughter great pleasure if this young
lady will join us.”
Colomba looked at her brother, who did not need much pressing, and they
all passed together into the largest room in the inn, which the colonel
used as his sitting and dining room. Mademoiselle della Rebbia, on being
introduced to Miss Nevil, made her a deep courtesy, but she did
not utter a single word. It was easy to see that she was very much
frightened at finding herself, perhaps for the first time in her life,
in the company of strangers belonging to the great world. Yet there was
nothing provincial in her manners. The novelty of her position excused
her awkwardness. Miss Nevil took a liking to her at once, and, as there
was no room disengaged in the hotel, the whole of which was occupied by
the colonel and his attendants, she offered, either out of condescension
or curiosity, to have a bed prepared in her own room for Mademoiselle
della Rebbia.
Colomba stammered a few words of thanks, and hastened after Miss Nevil’s
maid, to make such changes in her toilet as were rendered necessary by a
journey on horseback in the dust and heat.
When she re-entered the sitting-room, she paused in front of the
colonel’s guns, which the hunters had left in a corner.
“What fine weapons,” said she. “Are they yours, brother?”
“No, they are the colonel’s English guns--and they are as good as they
are handsome.”
“How much I wish you had one like them!” said Colomba.
“One of those three certainly does belong to della Rebbia,” exclaimed
the colonel. “He really shoots almost too well! To-day he fired fourteen
shots, and brought down fourteen head of game.”
A friendly dispute at once ensued, in which Orso was vanquished, to
his sister’s great satisfaction, as it was easy to perceive from the
childish expression of delight which illumined her face, so serious a
moment before.
“Choose, my dear fellow,” said the colonel; but Orso refused.
“Very well, then. Your sister shall choose for you.”
Colomba did not wait for a second invitation. She took up the plainest
of the guns, but it was a first-rate Manton of large calibre.
“This one,” she said, “must carry a ball a long distance.”
Her brother was growing quite confused in his expressions of gratitude,
when dinner appeared, very opportunely, to help him out of his
embarrassment.
Miss Lydia was delighted to notice that Colomba, who had shown
considerable reluctance to sit down with them, and had yielded only at
a glance from her brother, crossed herself, like a good Catholic, before
she began to eat.
“Good!” said she to herself, “that is primitive!” and she anticipated
acquiring many interesting facts by observing this youthful
representative of ancient Corsican manners. As for Orso, he was
evidently a trifle uneasy, fearing, doubtless, that his sister might
say or do something which savoured too much of her native village. But
Colomba watched him constantly, and regulated all her own movements by
his. Sometimes she looked at him fixedly, with a strange expression of
sadness, and then, if Orso’s eyes met hers, he was the first to turn
them away, as though he would evade some question which his sister was
mentally addressing to him, the sense of which he understood only
too well. Everybody talked French, for the colonel could only express
himself very badly in Italian. Colomba understood French, and
even pronounced the few words she was obliged to exchange with her
entertainers tolerably well.
After dinner, the colonel, who had noticed the sort of constraint which
existed between the brother and sister, inquired of Orso, with
his customary frankness, whether he did not wish to be alone with
Mademoiselle Colomba, offering, in that case, to go into the next room
with his daughter. But Orso hastened to thank him, and to assure him
they would have plenty of time to talk at Pietranera--this was the name
of the village where he was to take up his abode.
The colonel then resumed his customary position on the sofa, and Miss
Nevil, after attempting several subjects of conversation, gave up all
hope of inducing the fair Colomba to talk, and begged Orso to read her
a canto out of Dante, her favourite poet. Orso chose the canto of the
Inferno, containing the episode of Francesca da Rimini, and began to
read, as impressively as he was able, the glorious tiercets which so
admirably express the risk run by two young persons who venture to read
a love-story together. As he read on Colomba drew nearer to the table,
and raised her head, which she had kept lowered. Her wide-open eyes,
shone with extraordinary fire, she grew red and pale by turns, and
stirred convulsively in her chair. How admirable is the Italian
organization, which can understand poetry without needing a pedant to
explain its beauties!
When the canto was finished:
“How beautiful that is!” she exclaimed. “Who wrote it, brother?”
Orso was a little disconcerted, and Miss Lydia answered with a smile
that it was written by a Florentine poet, who had been dead for
centuries.
“You shall read Dante,” said Orso, “when you are at Pietranera.”
“Good heavens, how beautiful it is!” said Colomba again, and she
repeated three or four tiercets which she had remembered, speaking at
first in an undertone; then, growing excited, she declaimed them aloud,
with far more expression than her brother had put into his reading.
Miss Lydia was very much astonished.
“You seem very fond of poetry,” she said. “How I envy you the delight
you will find in reading Dante for the first time!”
“You see, Miss Nevil,” said Orso, “what a power Dante’s lines must have,
when they so move a wild young savage who knows nothing but her _Pater_.
But I am mistaken! I recollect now that Colomba belongs to the guild.
Even when she was quite a little child she used to try her hand at
verse-making, and my father used to write me word that she was the best
_voceratrice_ in Pietranera, and for two leagues round about.”
Colomba cast an imploring glance at her brother. Miss Nevil had heard
of the Corsican _improvisatrici_, and was dying to hear one. She begged
Colomba, then, to give her a specimen of her powers. Very much vexed
now at having made any mention of his sister’s poetic gifts, Orso
interposed. In vain did he protest that nothing was so insipid as a
Corsican _ballata_, and that to recite the Corsican verses after those
of Dante was like betraying his country. All he did was to stimulate
Miss Nevil’s curiosity, and at last he was obliged to say to his sister:
“Well! well! improvise something--but let it be short!”
Colomba heaved a sigh, looked fixedly for a moment, first at the
table-cloth, and then at the rafters of the ceiling; at last, covering
her eyes with her hand like those birds that gather courage, and fancy
they are not seen when they no longer see themselves, she sang, or
rather declaimed, in an unsteady voice, the following _serenata_:
“THE MAIDEN AND THE TURTLE-DOVE
“In the valley, far away among the mountains, the sun only shines for
an hour every day. In the valley there stands a gloomy house, and grass
grows on its threshold. Doors and windows are always shut. No smoke
rises from the roof. But at noon, when the sunshine falls, a window
opens, and the orphan girl sits spinning at her wheel. She spins, and
as she works, she sings--a song of sadness. But no other song comes to
answer hers! One day--a day in spring-time--a turtle-dove settled on a
tree hard by, and heard the maiden’s song. ‘Maiden,’ it said, ‘thou
art not the only mourner! A cruel hawk has snatched my mate from me!’
‘Turtle-dove, show me that cruel hawk; were it to soar higher than the
clouds I would soon bring it down to earth! But who will restore to me,
unhappy that I am, my brother, now in a far country?’ ‘Maiden, tell me,
where thy brother is, and my wings shall bear me to him.’”
“A well-bred turtle-dove, indeed!” exclaimed Orso, and the emotion with
which he kissed his sister contrasted strongly with the jesting tone in
which he spoke.
“Your song is delightful,” said Miss Lydia. “You must write it in my
album; I’ll translate it into English, and have it set to music.”
The worthy colonel, who had not understood a single word, added his
compliments to his daughter’s and added: “Is this dove you speak of the
bird we ate broiled at dinner to-day?”
Miss Nevil fetched her album, and was not a little surprised to see the
_improvisatrice_ write down her song, with so much care in the matter of
economizing space.
The lines, instead of being separate, were all run together, as far as
the breadth of the paper would permit, so that they did not agree with
the accepted definition of poetic composition--“short lines of unequal
length, with a margin on each side of them.” Mademoiselle Colomba’s
somewhat fanciful spelling might also have excited comment. More than
once Miss Nevil was seen to smile, and Orso’s fraternal vanity suffered
tortures.
Bedtime came, and the two young girls retired to their room. There,
while Miss Lydia unclasped her necklace, ear-rings, and bracelets, she
watched her companion draw something out of her gown--something as
long as a stay-busk, but very different in shape. Carefully, almost
stealthily, Colomba slipped this object under her _mezzaro_, which she
laid on the table. Then she knelt down, and said her prayers devoutly.
Two minutes afterward she was in her bed. Miss Lydia, naturally very
inquisitive, and as slow as every Englishwoman is about undressing
herself, moved over to the table, pretended she was looking for a pin,
lifted up the _mezzaro_, and saw a long stiletto--curiously mounted in
silver and mother-of-pearl. The workmanship was remarkably fine. It was
an ancient weapon, and just the sort of one an amateur would have prized
very highly.
“Is it the custom here,” inquired Miss Nevil, with a smile, “for young
ladies to wear such little instruments as these in their bodices?”
“It is,” answered Colomba, with a sigh. “There are so many wicked people
about!”
“And would you really have the courage to strike with it, like this?”
And Miss Nevil, dagger in hand, made a gesture of stabbing from above,
as actors do on the stage.
“Yes,” said Colomba, in her soft, musical voice, “if I had to do it to
protect myself or my friends. But you must not hold it like that, you
might wound yourself if the person you were going to stab were to draw
back.” Then, sitting up in bed, “See,” she added, “you must strike like
this--upward! If you do so, the thrust is sure to kill, they say. Happy
are they who never need such weapons.”
She sighed, dropped her head back on the pillow, and closed her eyes. A
more noble, beautiful, virginal head it would be impossible to imagine.
Phidias would have asked no other model for Minerva.