_so_ all sorts of feelings. Don't you know, Violante, there is so much
within us that cannot come out, and art--music--acting is a means of
expressing it. I should feel myself that _I_--I myself--had offended my
lover, and wanted to coax him to be friends. Don't you see?"
"I never would!" said Violante, half to herself. "I never could!"
"I don't believe you have a scrap of imagination," cried Rosa, growing
excited.
"Of course, it is not the same thing. Can't you translate your feelings
into the other girl's nature. You _have_ feelings. Now I would show
through my acting all that must be buried else. When I came to happy
scenes acting them would be something like happiness, sad ones would be
a relief, and if--only if--Violante, I had ever cared for anyone, I
should know how to say those words, and even the shadow of the past
would be sweet--"
"Oh, Rosa," faltered Violante, hot and shame-faced, "as if _he_ could
remind me--"
Rosa came suddenly down from her tirade, perceiving how utterly it fell
flat.
"My darling, I meant nothing to distress you. If you don't understand
me, never mind."
"But," she added, half to herself, "if you had the soul of an actress in
you, you would."
"Do you think, Rosa," said Violante, after a pause, in low reflective
accents, "that anyone _could_ be coaxed to make friends?"
"Why, yes, I suppose so," said Rosa, lightly. "You see it succeeded in
the case of Masetto."
"That is only a play," said Violante, in a tone of contempt.
"Ah, well, Violante, real life certainly doesn't work itself out quite
like a play. But it was of plays we were talking, you know."
"Yes. Rosa mia, I am not so silly but that I can tell the difference
between my own acting and other people's. It is not only that I am
frightened--and unhappy--it is that I cannot do it. Do you think I
could ever learn how?"
There was not a shade of pique or of mortified pride in the anxious,
humble question, and Rosa could not help fancying that even in sweet
Violante nothing but utter indifference and incapacity could have made
failure so endurable.
"Well," she said, "I don't suppose you will ever make a great hand at
it; but I should think you might get to act well enough not to spoil
your singing if you were stronger and less frightened."
"Can you tell me--I am sure you could act?"
"Yes," said Rosa, with a colour in her cheeks, and an odd light in her
eyes, "I believe--I am sure I could. But I have no voice, there is no
good in it. I never think of it now. However, stand up. Just sing
through Masetto's part, and I will be Zerlina. I know the music, but I
shall croak like a raven. Now, then."
In another moment Violante started with surprise, for, without change of
dress, Rosa seemed to have disappeared, and the half-coquettish,
half-penitent peasant-girl, who, bewildered for a moment by Don
Giovanni's flatteries, still is at heart faithful to her own lover, was
there in her stead. She ran up to the amazed Violante, face and gesture
full of pathetic entreaty. True, her voice was weak and harsh, but a
hundred bits of byplay, which Violante had never dreamed of, seemed to
come by nature--her face flushed, her eyes beamed.
"Rosa, it is marvellous! How can you do it?"
"Oh," said Rosa, recalled, "I am only showing you. Don't you see?--Now,
do you try."
"No, no--go on. The scene with Don Giovanni, that is what I cannot
manage."
"Oh, where he makes love to her, and she is just a little inconstant to
Masetto. Very well, you are Don Giovanni," and Rosa's hesitating
coquetry, struggle with herself, and bewitching airs were so surprising
that Violante exclaimed:
"Why, I never saw you look so before."
"No, of course not--I am not Rosa--I am Zerlina. However, you don't
know what I may have done in my time--when I was young."
"But you do it so beautifully. Ah, what a pity you have not my voice--
you would be the greatest _prima donna_ in Italy!"
"Do you think so?" said Rosa, gratified. "But, ah, I have no voice, so
there is no chance for me here. I do believe I should have gone on the
stage if I had stayed in England; that is, I thought so once."
"I know now," said Violante, "that I shall never be an actress; never."
"Oh, but I think you can do something. Look at me."
And Rosa, nothing loth, went through the different pieces, Violante
imitating her with sufficient success, now that she was quite at her
ease, to put her in better spirits, as Rosa gave abundant praise to her
efforts.
"Ecco," said Violante, "you shall be Don Giovanni, and I will be
Zerlina; then I shall see if I can remember what you have told me."
Rosa caught up an old hat of their father's, set it sideways on her
brow, twisted a scarf dexterously across her shoulders, delighted at
making Violante laugh.
It was a pretty scene in the hot, shady room: Rosa in her fantastic
dress, her eyes bright, her face full of ardour, acting the part with a
force and fervour that seemed marvellous to Violante; and the slender,
delicate, white-robed girl, with her bird-like voice, and natural grace
that yet lent itself so imperfectly to the gestures and smiles she was
trying to copy, so little inspired by the fictitious character and
feeling that Don. Giovanni's vehement and characteristic wooing made
her hang her head and blush, forgetful of the coquettish response
intended.
Rosa, who had been utterly absorbed in her part, stopped, laughing, and
sympathising with the great singer who could not act with Mademoiselle
Mattei, while she owned the tribute to her skill.
"Look at me, dear; you are only pretending to be shy, you know. No, not
that great innocent stare--through your eyelashes, _so_. Must I teach
my little sister to `make eyes,' as the English say?"
Violante laughed, and the laugh made the next attempt more successful;
and in the midst of Rosa's animated response an unexpected voice cried:
"Brava! bravissima! Why, Rosa, figlia mia, who would have thought it?"
"Oh, father, look at her, she acts so beautifully," cried Violante,
clasping her hands; while Rosa, in her turn confused, paused, colouring
deeply.
"Ay, ay! go on, girls; let me see."
"Courage, courage," whispered Rosa, and, in the desire to show off her
sister, Violante coquetted with praiseworthy archness.
"She can do it now, father, can't she?"
"Ay, that is better; but you--oh, if the Saints had given you a voice!
Again, Rosina mia, here--stand aside, child--play her part, Rosa. I am
Don Giovanni."
Signor Mattei was no contemptible actor, and through the chief parts of
half-a-dozen operas he conducted Rosa, praising, encouraging, clapping
his hands, as he found how she responded to his hints; while Rosa seemed
unwearied. At last he exclaimed:
"It is excellent, most excellent! a real talent, and a face and figure
that would make up well. She would be more effective than the child,
after all. Now, Violante, you see what it is to have sense."
"Oh, it is splendid!" said Violante, warmly. "If her voice was
better--"
"Ah, yes, if such a gift was not wasted on her sister. But this is
talent, and my heart is warmed--it is on fire with delight! Brava,
Rosina!" and Signor Mattei extended his arms and clasped Rosa in them,
after a fashion not unsuitable to their recent performances. Violante,
as he turned away, sprang to her sister's side.
"Oh, Rosa, how pleased he is with you!"
"I wish he was as pleased with you, my darling," said Rosa. "What a
generous little thing you are to look so happy!"
"But I am so glad," said Violante, while Rosa sat down and took up her
work sedately, but presently let it fall and leant back with dreamy eyes
and smiling lips. Years ago, when she was a very young girl, to be an
actress had been the dream of her life. While she learnt and taught in
England she had dreamt of hard work for a great object, of the
excitement to be found in the use of conscious power, of success, of
fame. Then had arisen in her life other, and yet sweeter hopes, which
too soon were destined to be destroyed, and then came the obvious duty
of returning to take charge of Violante. Since then her want of a voice
had, in Italy, been an entire bar to her attempting to take to the stage
as a mode of earning her living, and she had never till lately realised
that Violante's distaste was anything but shy childish fear. _Now_ it
did seem to her that such a career might offer some consolation even for
Hugh Crichton's desertion; _now_ she felt how she would have valued what
to Violante was utter misery. She looked at the girl who, wearied with
the exertion of the morning, had dropped asleep on the cushioned
window-seat, and a misgiving that had often occurred lately began to
deepen in her mind.
Would not the question soon be decided for them--could so delicate a
creature bear the strain of long uncongenial effort, added to the trial
of wearing disappointment?--in short, would not health and strength go
after spirits and energy? Violante's daily-increasing languor and
listlessness made this only too probable.
PART FOUR, CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
LOST.
"Silence, beautiful voice!
Be still, for you only trouble the mind
With a joy in which I cannot rejoice,
A glory I shall not find!"
Rosa's fears were fulfilled. For a few days, with the help of her
sister's teaching, Violante struggled on a little more bravely; but
Rosa's lessons, however carefully conned at home, were forgotten in the
hot, glaring theatre, where fear and exhaustion seemed to stifle sense
and memory. She was too much afraid of her father to tell him that she
was too ill to sing, and she sang badly and incurred deserved rebuke.
She was too imperfect a performer to have much ground of her own to
stand upon; and her father did not save her in any way from the
consequences of her shortcomings. She was far less beautiful now that
her delicate bloom was gone, and her voice, her one possession, was
growing harsh and strained. What wonder, when she not only cried
herself asleep at night, but cried herself awake again in the morning--a
far colder and drearier thing?
Rosa was at her wit's end, but Signor Vasari's patience was worn to its
last thread, and her father was utterly impracticable. Violante ceased
to complain, but her soft, tender eyes had a desperate look, and her
sweet confiding ways had grown solitary and strange. What would be the
end of it?
It hardly caused Rosa surprise when, one night, in the midst of a
performance, Violante fainted. The representation was brought to an
abrupt conclusion, and Mademoiselle Mattei declared to be too ill to
appear again. The public of Civita Bella was sorry; somehow the soft,
lovely girl had gained a hold on their affections; but through the days
while she lay ill and unconscious there was much wrangling between her
father and the manager as to the amount of her salary to be forfeited by
her non-fulfilment of her engagement. All talk of any tenderer relation
had been dropped, and the discussion was settled greatly to Signor
Mattei's dissatisfaction. He felt that he had been ill-treated.
Violante's further gains were gone for that season; his own hung on a
thread; some of Rosa's best pupils, like Emily Tollemache, had left the
place. What was to become of them?
As he came in, with his head full of all these various annoyances, he
encountered Rosa standing in the sitting-room, holding in her hand the
soft, dusky lengths of Violante's hair.
"You have not cut off her hair?" he exclaimed, wrathfully.
"It may save her life," said Rosa, whose eyes were red with crying.
"She--she _may_ not die."
Then Signor Mattei, realising for the first time that his child's life
was in danger, burst out with vehement lamentations.
She had been his hope and his pride, spite of all her wilfulness--should
he never hear her angel's voice again?--and he seized on the long, soft
hair, and kissed it and cried over it.
"It is the singing that has killed her," said Rosa, bitterly. "If you
had listened to her entreaties--" she checked herself, feeling the
reproach to be cruel and undutiful; but, with a certain hard
common-sense, developed by a life in which she had seen many illusions
fade, revolting against the sentiment, coming, as it seemed, too late.
"No!" cried Signor Mattei. "It is not the singing. It is that young
Englishman for whom she has pined away. And you--you permitted her to
know and to see him, and encouraged her in her folly!"
"This is no time for quarrelling, father," said Rosa, as she turned
away, and went back to her sister, feeling as if, with Violante, every
ray of sunshine would fade out of her life.
But Violante did not die. Either there was more power of resistance in
her nature than they could have supposed, or Rosa's tender nursing
triumphed over fever and weakness; for after some weeks of illness she
began slowly to recover. She was long in gaining strength. She seemed
contented in a sort of passive fashion, was grateful and caressing to
Rosa; but she never talked of anything but the matter in hand, never
spoke of the opera or her singing, or of Hugh; never showed any feeling
except that, when she came sufficiently to herself to know that her hair
had been cut off, she had cried and seemed sorry. Rosa was ready to
follow her lead; but a great anxiety, unacknowledged even, to himself,
was growing up in Signor Mattei's heart. Her voice--was it coming back?
He had not the heart or the courage to speak to her directly on the
subject, but he hummed opera airs in her presence, and watched wistfully
to see if she noticed them. Violante started and coloured.
"Rosa mia," she whispered, "I do not want to hear them yet;" and her
father tried to ascribe her reluctance to a share in his alarm.
"So," he said one day, coming in from a rehearsal, "that Giulia Belloni
has a fine voice, her Zerlina is effective--effective to the vulgar."
"Oh, I am glad," said Violante, "for now they will not miss me."
"Violante, will you never cease to be a fool? Not miss you? I would
have them miss you every night. And this woman can act, laugh, scream--
has eyes that show their size ten times as far as yours. But her voice
is of far commoner sort, at least."
Violante had quivered at her father's rough address.
"Father," she said, "I have no voice now."
"It will return--it will return soon. You must practise--"
"She must not think of it," interposed Rosa. "She is not nearly strong
enough yet."
"Ah, soon; but in good time--There comes il signor dottore."
The doctor, whose visits to Violante had not yet ceased, would have
given much to evade the question as to how soon Mdlle. Mattei would
recover her voice; but it was sharply pressed on him by Signor Mattei.
Violante lay still, her hands pressed together, her large eyes full of
suspense and anxiety. The doctor thought most pitifully of her, the
young, delicate girl, whose career had received so severe a check; but
yet her feelings to those of her eager father were "but as moonlight
unto sunlight, and as water unto wine."
"She will sing again," said the father. "Mademoiselle Mattei must not
attempt to sing in public for a long time to come. She is far too
delicate for the exertion. Nothing but rest will give her a chance of
recovering her voice."
"But she will recover it?"
"That is impossible to say. To some degree, should her health return,
it is possible that she may; but she must give it rest; she has
overstrained it when too weak for the effort."
"But the time--how long?" cried Signor Mattei, breathlessly.
"I cannot tell," said the doctor, with a shrug; "but if she attempts to
act now it will kill her."
He spoke forcibly, somewhat irritated by the father's persistence, and
then glanced at his patient, anxious to see the effect of his words.
Violante had turned very pale, her mouth trembled, she drew a long
breath; but there was a light in her eyes as of one that lays a burden
down. Her father turned pale also and was quite silent, not one
passionate word rising to his lips. He looked at her; then, as the
doctor left the room, he followed him. Rosa sat down in the window,
trying to govern her tears sufficiently to speak to her sister. And
Violante? She had just been told of the loss of her one gift, of the
one thing that marked her out from other women, without which she was
only a poor, ignorant, helpless girl, with nothing left but a sort of
indefinite beauty; from which her illness had taken much of the charm.
She leant back on her pillows, feeling very small and mean and foolish,
like Cinderella when the clock struck twelve. She felt very
good-for-nothing, and yet--and yet--no more of the weary rehearsals, the
hateful companionship, the terror and fatigue, the glare of the gas, the
jealousy or scorn of her rivals, the anger of her father. She was free!
It was like being let out of a stifling prison into the chilly air.
She shivered and was cold, but she drew long, deep breaths. It was
over. She was not ambitious--perhaps she was not conscientious enough
to grieve that her task in life was taken from her, though she belonged
to too hard-working a family not to think at once that she had lost the
power of earning her own living. She felt that she had failed; but it
was failure _versus_ freedom, and freedom won.
"Violante--oh, my poor child!" cried Rosa, as she came up and kissed her
tenderly.
"Rosa mia, do not be sorry for me. I am sorry, but I am so tired of it
all, and now I can rest," said Violante, pleadingly.
"Rest!" exclaimed Rosa, with hot cheeks. "If I were you I should be
half heart-broken, to lose that beautiful, glorious gift. But it is
better that you should not care."
Violante drooped her head in silence.
"When I _did_ break my heart they blamed me," she thought. "How can I
care _now_?"
"You cried when I cut your hair off," said Rosa, unable to repress her
own disappointment.
Violante crimsoned to her finger tips. Had not Hugh stroked the long,
soft hair? "_He_ did not love me only for my voice," she thought,
somewhat unjustly, for Rosa's love was true and tender, and she silenced
her regrets, as she saw how they distressed her sister. Violante's
momentary flash of indignation passed; but she kept her thoughts to
herself--she was learning to do so.
"There _was_ no good in me but my voice," she said meekly, "but I will
try and help you, Rosa."
"Oh, my darling, do not trouble, we shall do well enough," said Rosa,
repentant, when she thought how weak Violante still was, and how
impossible any exertion would have been to her. "It is only of father I
am thinking."
"Father; oh, yes! Go to him! Rosa, I cannot help it."
"Help it? No! But he will be very sorry. I will go to him. You must
lie still and rest."
Signor Mattei's dream was over; he had lost his vision, as his daughter
had lost her lover. Mademoiselle Mattei would never be a household word
in any capital in Europe, never contest the palm with those who already
bore it. It was a great present, a greater future, loss to him; but it
was not the thought of this that made his heart sink within him. Rosa's
common-sense words jarred upon him.
"It is a grievous pity, father, but it cannot be helped."
"She might as well have married the English signor--"
"Indeed she might!"
"When she was a little girl, and used to sing about the house, I looked
to her success. She had the power, but never the will--never the will!
My sun has set, figlia mia. I may hide my head in obscurity, and she
may be as idle and as happy as she can!"
Extravagant as was the language, there was real distress in his
faltering voice and tearful eyes.
"My beloved art has lost an interpreter," he sighed; "and I have lost a
hope."
"Father!" said an unexpected voice, and Violante, with her slow, feeble
step, stood beside him. "Father, I am so sorry!" she said, timidly. "I
shall be very little good; but I will help Rosa all I can. And when I
am well I will teach."
"Teach? As if that would repay me!" cried Signor Mattei, starting to
his feet. "Oh, you unfortunate, foolish girl, you were born to be my
grief and disappointment! You who might have been a queen of song,
_you_ pined and fretted for your lover till this has come on you. If
you had obeyed me, and consented to Vasari's offer, and been _happy_,
this would not have been. But you care nothing, the loss is mine--all
mine! And I? See how I love you, you ungrateful child; see the tears
you cause to flow."
Against such reproaches Violante had no defence, and she was so well
used to them that she was more frightened than grieved.
"Father," cried Rosa, "you have been mistaken, you cannot change her
nature, nor make her what you wish. She is herself, take her for that.
Violante mia! my child, my darling, as if it was not enough to have you
safe. What matters your voice, or your success, or anything?" she
continued, in high indignation. "Come away; this will make you ill
again!"
So they vexed each other sorely; but Violante, forlorn and sorrowful as
she was, could nestle in Rosa's arms, and had Rosa's pity, if not
sympathy, in her grief; while her father, unkind and unreasonable as he
might be, suffered alone a pang of disappointment all the keener because
the baffled desire had been so vehement that to indulge it he had
undertaken the one impossible task of life--to inspire an alien nature
with his own ideal of happiness, his own loves, and his own ambitions.
He thought that it was love for Violante that made her misfortune so
terrible to him, but in truth it was love of the ideal that he thought
to see her fulfil. He grieved over what she _might_ have been, but she
was only a trouble and disappointment to him as she was. He did not
intend to be unkind to her, but he could not forbear to reproach her;
all the more because he instinctively knew that she did not regret her
loss as he did. Violante did not resent this, but the worry and the
depressing sense of inefficiency retarded her recovery. Rosa,
meanwhile, set herself to consider the family fortunes. What could they
do? Her father's engagement to Signor Vasari was almost over and was
not likely to be renewed. He often talked of trying new fields, and
seeking employment in more important places than Civita Bella. And he
was quite well enough known to be likely to find what he wanted. A
wandering life would suit him well enough. But though he might have
connections in half the towns of Italy, Rosa had none, and how could she
afford to lose all her pupils? True, she and Violante might remain
where they were, with Maddalena for a duenna but Rosa felt that a
thorough change would do Violante more good than anything that could be
proposed. She might then recover her strength, and, free from all
present trials, would surely soon forget her ill-starred love story.
For Rosa, with cool, clear judgment, reflected that Hugh Crichton, once
set free from his entanglement, was very little likely ever to attempt
to renew anything so undesirable. He had no means, so far as she knew,
of tracing Violante's future life, for the Tollemaches did not write to
them after leaving Civita Bella; and of himself, beyond the fact of his
profession, and that he lived with his mother at Redhurst, and was a man
of some fortune, Rosa knew nothing. She had never even realised where
Redhurst might be. As for Violante, unfamiliar with English names and
images, she had imbibed no notions of her lover's English home beyond a
few descriptions of the garden and the river; of the great town, whose
name even she forgot; and of various people whom she had hardly begun to
think of as having any connection with herself--his own relations having
been exceedingly uninteresting to Hugh at the period of his courtship.
One day of actual betrothal and she would have known enough about them;
as it was, Violante had no colours to paint her pictures of his present
life, and Rosa felt that he had entirely gone out of theirs.
Under these circumstances she thought very favourably of various former
invitations received from her uncle, Mr Grey, both to herself and
Violante. She believed that she could find occupation of some sort in
England; and perhaps an English home life for a time might prove
beneficial to Violante. In the meantime old Madame Cellini came to the
rescue, and offered to take the two girls to a little village called
Caletto, some distance from Civita Bella, where she usually spent some
weeks in the autumn. Here Violante would have both rest and change, and
when she was fully recovered future plans would be more easily settled.
PART FOUR, CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.
CALETTO.