think that all we hoped for you should end like this!"
"I am very sorry," said Violante, meekly; "but I think our uncle will be
kind, and--we cannot help it; let us go."
So it was Violante who spoke the common-sense consenting words and
recognised the new necessity. But, indeed, since all her faculties had
not been absorbed in the effort to perform an impossibility, a new
self-reliance seemed to have come upon her and her unreasoning terror
had disappeared. Soft and clinging she must always be, as she laid her
head on Rosa's knee and whispered: "We shall _both_ go, Rosa mia! we
shall be together." But the strange land seemed to have no terror for
her. Either she feared her father and Civita Bella more, or some
strange unrecognised attraction hung over her lover's country. Did
Hope, with her wings cut, still flutter feebly at the bottom of her
heart; or was it merely that a glamour still hung over English life and
English people that made the novelty attractive instead of dreadful?
Did she think an English school-girl less removed from Hugh Crichton
than an Italian _cantatrice_? She _thought_ nothing of all this, but
she recognised, without an effort, that it was right to accept her
uncle's invitation. Those secret unknown currents, below our wishes,
below our sense of duty, below our resolutions, can float the ship
against the wind, or hold it back, spite of a fair breeze and all sails
unfurled.
"If an English winter should be too cold for you?" said Rosa.
"Oh, I am so much better. I don't think it will hurt me. You know I
never feel strong in the heat."
"Well," said Rosa, "I shall like to see the girls again very much."
"You used to talk of Beatrice and Lucy."
"Yes, Lucy is married, you know. Then there are Mary and Kitty, my
pupils, a little older than you; and Charlie divides the two pairs of
girls. Ned is the youngest. Yes--I shall like to see them all. How
strange to be in England again!"
Rosa sat silent and thoughtful. After all, it was not four years since
that English life of hers had ended abruptly with her mother's death;
and four years is not a very long time in which to lose vivid
impressions. She had grown up almost ignorant of her parents and little
sister; and when she was a bright, handsome girl of twenty, full of
ardour and enthusiasm, she made, in the course of a set of private
theatricals, the discovery that she had a taste and talent for acting of
no ordinary kind. She did not love teaching, and reversed Violante's
subsequent history by trying with all her might and main to gain her
uncle's consent to earn her living on the stage. She was in the full
tide of an enthusiasm which was only increased by opposition, and which
no one expected in the good sedate girl who was her aunt's right hand,
when--a new acquaintance, a few weeks' intercourse, a few opposing
hints, and Rosa's persistency drooped and faded, and her hot Italian
nature took another turn.
_He_ could not marry an actress. Poor Rosa! either circumstances were
irresistible or she was deceived altogether; but she sacrificed ambition
to love, for it was a sacrifice, and the love failed her too. She never
knew what separated them; but it was well for her that the summons home
took her right away from both disappointments, and gave her an object in
life in Violante.
She was a brave, strong girl, and she had won the battle. How she had
mistrusted and hated Hugh Crichton none could say! How she had dreaded
her own fate for Violante! Now, when she thought of returning to
England, that first ambition returned in a more moderate form to her
mind. She felt fairly certain of her own powers, and the attraction of
the life was undiminished; but she felt that it would be almost
impossible to fix herself permanently in England, and that, now that
Violante was useless, she would probably be obliged to take a larger
share in earning the family living. She had expected that Violante
would regard the idea of a visit to England with horror, and was
relieved, though surprised, to find how easily she resigned herself to
it.
Violante had a very clear picture in her mind of what it would be to go
back to Civita Bella, idle and useless; freed, indeed, from the burden
of her profession, but exposed to her father's regrets and reproaches.
Life had been very hard before, it would be very dreary and objectless
now. The ghosts of happy and unhappy hours would alike haunt the
familiar places; and England, over the thought of which a soft sweet
halo rested, seemed like a refuge.
Mr Grey's letter had been received on a Saturday, and on the Sunday
morning Violante was sitting by herself on the terrace, doing what she
called, with a reminiscence of her mother's early training, "reading her
chapter," this being one of the few religious observances which
had survived their unsettled life. Violante had a sort of
half-superstitious reverence for the English Bible, her English mother's
gift. She always said her prayers in English, and dutifully read a
chapter on Sunday. She was not very particular which; but since she had
known Hugh Crichton she had indulged in some self-congratulation that
her religion as well as her blood was English. Rosa had bestowed a
small amount of technical instruction on her, but it fitted on to
nothing; and as the elder sister had never thought it her duty to make
Violante unhappy about the Sunday operas, which she could not have
possibly avoided, and as Signor Mattei was nearly equally indifferent to
his own religion and to theirs, Violante's faith was chiefly negative.
On this Sunday morning she sat, with her Bible in her hand, looking at
the groups of peasants who were making their way to the little church,
and listening to the bell tinkling softly through the murmur of the
trees, and the sharper sound of the gay Italian voices. By-and-by they
would dance under the trees. Violante began to wonder what Sunday would
be like in England. She was surprised at herself for not having asked
Rosa more questions about it; but her mind had been absorbed in its
difficult present, and she had been first too passive for curiosity, and
then too deeply-interested to express it.
As she mused Arthur Spencer came up the steps towards her, with that air
of neatness and respectability that generally distinguishes an English
traveller on Sunday. Violante perceived for the first time that he was
in mourning, and was sufficiently interested to wonder why.
"Good morning, signorina," he said.
"Good morning," she answered. "Isn't it a beautiful day?"
"Yes, very lovely, it will be getting cold at home, though."
"I am going to England soon," said Violante, with a sort of shy
confidence, as she bethought her that here was a chance of satisfying
her curiosity.
"Are you?" he said, rather surprised. "How is that?"
"We have an English uncle in London, and he has asked us to go and see
him. Mamma was English," said Violante, with a little unconscious
pleasure.
"Ah, yes; so Madame Cellini told me. Do you think you shall like it?"
"Yes," said Violante, "but I don't know much about England. I wish you
would tell me. I should like to seem like an English girl to my
cousins."
Arthur smiled.
"I don't know where to begin," he said, kindly. "Does your uncle live
in London?"
"Yes; he is a solicitor," she said, repeating the well-known word with a
little pride in its correctness. "But perhaps I am to go to school."
"To school? You!" exclaimed Arthur, thinking of the opera and the
manager-lover. "Should you like that?"
"I know nothing but music," said Violante, blushing; "I never had any
time. But I should like to learn. What is school like?"
Violante did not know why her companion turned away his head and made no
answer for a moment.
"I can't tell you much about girls' schools," he said presently. "I
know one that must be rather a jolly place. I suppose the girls learn
lessons, and go to walk, and have masters. I should think you would
find it dull."
"I should think it was peaceful," said Violante, using a stronger word
than she meant.
"Do you think so much of peace?" he said, rather sadly.
"It is because I have been so tired," she answered simply, and he
thought: "Poor little girl! she is fretting after the manager. But to
send a _prima donna_ to school; how ridiculous! Well, I won't
discourage her."
"I know some school-mistresses who are very kind and lively. My sister
goes there. She is very happy," he added aloud, but thinking to himself
that even the liberal Miss Vennings would hardly admit a disappointed
opera-singer to their school.
"And on Sunday, what do they do in England on Sunday? Oh, yes,"
noticing that he glanced at her Bible. "Yes, we are Protestants, like
mamma; but I did not often go to the service at the Consulate, because,
of course, Sunday was an opera night. What do English girls do on
Sunday?"
Arthur's involuntary laugh at her _naive_ statement died away as her
question recalled the very sweetest, brightest picture of his English
Mysie, in her white Sunday dress, walking down the churchyard path.
For long weeks he had never spoken of her, never seen anyone who had
ever heard her name. He felt a strange impulse to speak of her now, to
_hear_ of her, though it could only be from his own lips. It was easier
to do so in the simple language necessary to make Violante understand so
unfamiliar a picture, and to an auditor who would, he thought, only
receive the impression that he chose to give.
"I knew an English girl," he said; and, leaning on the wall, with his
face turned away, he tried to describe Mysie's Sunday--how she "taught
the little peasants," "went to church," "sang hymns," "walked about
among the flowers," it had all been very commonplace once, but as Arthur
told it now it sounded to him like the Lives of the Saints.
"And she is dead?" said Violante, softly.
"How can you tell?" he exclaimed, astonished.
"Ah, signor, it was in the sound of your voice," she answered, with an
interest that would have been how greatly intensified had she known to
whom she was speaking.
"Yes, you are right," said Arthur, and something in his voice, repressed
and almost stern, made Violante start and flush and quiver, for he spoke
with the very tone of "Signor Hugo."
Neither for a moment noticed the other, and then Arthur, perceiving that
she was agitated, and not wishing to say more about himself, said
kindly:
"I hope you will be a very happy `English girl,' signorina."
"Oh," exclaimed Violante, "there is too _much_ in the world for
happiness."
"Or--too little! But see, there's your sister; she is looking for you."
Violante started up, and, perhaps a little conscious of how much she had
implied, ran down the steps towards Rosa.
"What a brute that manager must be!" thought Arthur. "But that creature
in a school would be like a hare in a rabbit-hutch. Even Flossy
couldn't tackle such an incongruity. What a queer incident it is!" and
a sort of half-impatient feeling crossed Arthur's mind because he could
not be excited and amused by it. He was so young and bright-natured
that he got tired of grief, and yet his grief held him fast.
"I wish there was an Italian war up, and I could get myself shot!" he
thought, and then his mind glanced wearily over the consolations often
thought out so hardly, and that sometimes, and slowly, were having their
effect. He tried to be resigned, and he longed, poor boy! not only for
his lost Mysie, but for his lost light-heartedness. He strolled back to
the inn at last, with a deep sigh; and found himself wondering what new
queer sort of Italian dishes his black-eyed talkative hostess would
produce for dinner.
PART FOUR, CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.
NO GOOD AT ALL.
"There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune."
That same Sunday afternoon Signor Mattei walked slowly into Caletto, and
seeking the lodging where he knew that his daughters were staying sat
down under the verandah, with the feelings of a man who has come to a
period in his life from which he sees no particular means of progress.
Rosa and Violante were out, and he rested after the hot walk he had
taken from the point where the nearest public conveyance stopped, and
thought over the events of the last few weeks.
Things had gone wrong--his highest hopes were destroyed, and his more
moderate comforts and expectations had shared in their fall. He was
angry with Violante, and as he sat waiting for her blamed her in his
heart for their misfortunes, in a way that would have been intensely
cruel and selfish had he cared what became of himself. But he did not
cherish an unforgiving resentment against her because she could no
longer make their fortune and her own, but because she had lost the
career that he so honoured. He would not have forgiven her could she
have brought him riches gained in another way; but, though she had
disappointed the man's high ideal and not his self-interest, the
disappointment recoiled just as hardly on her.
Signor Vasari had insulted and dismissed him, "esteeming his own private
grudge better than his orchestra, where he cannot supply my place,"
thought Signor Mattei, with a contempt that almost neutralised his
mortification. "Who can play the violin solos as I can?" he thought
proudly. "But old Naldi at Florence understands real genius--could I go
and leave the girls alone? Rosa has unparalleled discretion and
Violante will have no lovers now. Eccola! She is coming."
Violante came round the corner of the house and started with a surprise
not altogether delightful. However, reminding herself that she could be
in no disgrace now, she ran up to him and kissed him.
"Ah, padre mio! How hot and tired you look. You have come to see us?
Rosa will be here directly; she is with Madame Cellini. I will get you
some melon; that will be cool and nice."
Her livelier manner, her more blooming looks, were evident at a glance,
as she ran into the house and brought out a slice of melon and then a
glass of light wine.
"Is it good?" she said, with smiling earnestness. "I will take your bat
and stick."
"You look well--have you tried your voice?" he said abruptly.
"No, father;" answered Violante, with a sudden droop into her old timid
self and falling into silence.
"It must surely be returning--in a few weeks."
"Father, there is Rosa," interrupted Violante hastily, as her sister and
Madame Cellini came up the path.
Signor Mattei assumed a less anxious air; he was sufficiently in awe of
Rosa not to wish her to find him reverting to the forbidden subject; and
he came in and drank chocolate, which was now provided, and allowed
himself to be made comfortable after his journey. Violante fell into
the background, leaving Rosa to make the communication of their uncle's
letter. Madame Cellini, willing to give them an opportunity for their
discussion, strolled away to look at the sunset, and Rosa handed the
letter to her father, leaving it to tell its own story. The little
tawny children peeped at Violante from a distance, and showed her the
kid with vine-leaves round its horns; but she shook her head at them,
and sat down demurely in the window, with a sort of good-child air
herself, to listen to her father's decision.
Signor Mattei had never shown any jealousy of his daughter's English
relations. He loved his wife's memory; and, though his brother-in-law's
mode of life would have been totally uncongenial to him and it was well
that they never met, he rather liked to talk of "the uncle--of the
highest respectability--who could command the London musical world," a
power which would much have astonished Mr Grey himself; and the fact
that Rosa, coming from this uncle, had been prepared to like her home
life had greatly tended to obviate any uncomfortable feelings. Besides,
to put it plainly, he wanted just now to get rid of his daughters, and
their uncle's proposal was exceedingly convenient to him.
"It has come," he said, rather sentimentally, "to help our fallen
fortunes. Now, with you in the lap of luxury, I can bend to the storm
and suffer hardships willingly."
Violante looked distressed, but Rosa answered:
"We do not wish to be idle wherever we are, and should always come to
you when you wanted us. But as my pupils seem to be dispersed, and they
have behaved so ill to you at the opera, some change seems desirable."
"Assuredly, Rosina,--assuredly. Make yourself easy; anything will do
for me."
"But, father, what _shall_ you do?" said Rosa--not very uneasily, for
she knew from her father's manner that he had schemes in view.
"I?--I shall take my staff in my hand and make my way to Florence. Old
Naldi, my friend there, is a true musician."
"And you will get an engagement at the opera there?" said Rosa.
"Yes, yes, it may be so; and next spring, perhaps, an opening in London:
I am not unknown there."
"That would suit exactly," said Rosa.
"If by that time I had found employment in London, and Violante--
Violante! ah, she is no good at all," said Signor Mattei,
mournfully--"_she_ can do nothing."
"I will go to school and learn," said Violante, her voice choking.
"Ah, foolish child! there is but one moment in life when success is
possible: pass that--pass all! You threw your chance away--it is over."
The words fell on Violante's ears with a double sense: she hid her face
in her hands, and ran out of the room, down through the olive trees,
towards the lake. "Over for ever!"--and she but seventeen. Was she
never to have another chance,--another love?
"Ah, never! never!" she cried, half aloud, as the sleeping passion,
lulled by the passiveness of her recovery and by her easy life, woke
suddenly in all its force. "I had better die, for it is all over for
me! Ah, Hugo,--Hugo mio! ah!"
The last cry dropped into startled commonplace as the branch of a tree
caught her long muslin dress, and tore it right across, while she almost
lost her footing with the shock.
"All, signorina, take care; you'll hurt yourself," said an unexpected
voice; and "Signor Arthur" caught her by the hand and began to
disentangle the unlucky dress.
"Dear me, I'm afraid it's a good deal damaged," he said, good-naturedly;
"you should not run so fast."
"I was--unhappy: so I did not see," said Violante, simply.
The unhappiness was obvious, for Violante's eyes were wet and her voice
trembling. Yet Arthur could hardly help smiling at the utterly
un-English confession. He thought she could only so have acknowledged
some very childish sorrow.
"What makes you so unhappy?" he said, with equal directness.
"Because," she answered, telling half a truth, "because my father is
here, and I have lost my voice, signor; and he says I shall never have
another chance in my life. All is gone in that one."
Mistaken as Arthur was as to the facts of her story, he had heard enough
to supplement her words; and the kindly impulse of consolation prompted
him to say:
"Oh, no, you must not think that. There must be a great deal left in
your life yet, and in England you can begin fresh. Perhaps your voice
will get strong again there."
"Ah, _that_ may be," said Violante, without any answering smile.
"Anyway, one must do the best one can and not vex other people," he
said, with a glance at a letter he held in his hand. Violante's eyes
followed his, but she only saw the bit of folded paper, little knowing
that the mere sight of the writer's name would have burst into her
depression like a storm into mountain mist, and would have brought the
past and the present together again; while Arthur went on, ignorant of
how much vivid, unreasonable happiness he could with a few words have
given to the creature he was trying so kindly to console. For even to
hear of all Hugh's recent troubles would have been better than not to
hear of him at all; and the few reserved, incommunicative lines which
had just disappointed Arthur would have seemed like a message from.
Paradise.
"All sorts of pleasant things may come to you in England; so keep up a
good heart, signorina."
"Keep up a good heart," repeated Violante, as if the expression was not
quite familiar to her.
"Yes; don't be frightened, you know, and never say die."
Violante smiled now. The bright voice and look did put some heart into
her; and Arthur, who had merely talked in the most cheering way he could
think of, without considering, as Hugh would have done in like case,
whether he had himself proved the truth of his words, felt all the
brighter for his success.
"These are very unpeaceful olive-branches to have torn your dress so
badly," he said, after a pause, to turn her attention.
"Ah, yes; but I think I should like to keep a bit of them to remind me
of keeping a good heart, and of never saying die," said Violante, and
the words sounded inexpressibly droll in her soft, lingering foreign
accent. Arthur broke off a little piece and gave it to her.
"I might do the same," he said. "I'm sure I need the motto."
And so unconscious and so uncoquettish was Violante's way that Arthur
actually dropped the olive-leaves into his pocket-book without thinking
of smiling at her proposal. "There," he said, "we will remember."
"I will try," said Violante; "and there is Rosa. She will say it is
late. Good night, Signor Arthur!"
"Good night!"
Violante repeated the advice, and showed her olive-leaves to her sister;
but, though Rosa held her tongue by a great effort of discretion, Signor
Arthur, on thinking over the transaction, was not very much surprised to
find that he obtained no more private interviews with Violante. Perhaps
Rosa was somewhat astonished that he did not seek any.
She had, however, much to occupy her in the arrangements for their
journey. Signor Mattei, who was very far from selfish in practical
matters, was quite ready to assign a sufficient portion of the money
recently earned by Violante and himself to take his daughters
respectably to England; and the whole party soon returned to Civita
Bella to make preparations. Their small stock of furniture was to be
sold, the ready-money being much more valuable to them. Violante tried
to induce Rosa to pack up the china bowl among their private
possessions, but Rosa refused steadily and a little harshly. She did
not mean the old life to cling round her sister still.
"Give it to Maddalena," she said. "We will not sell it, since you care
so much."
So Violante went to the old woman, whose grief at parting was, perhaps,
really the most pathetic part of this break-up of home, and bid her keep
the bowl "for her sake."
"Ecco, carissima," said Maddalena, "I have had a dream, and the
dream-book tells me that it means a meeting and a joy, and thou shalt
meet thy true-love, or another better, and then shall I give thee back
the china bowl."
Violante was not without some lingering belief herself in the dreams and
visions which Maddalena had impressed on her all her life. So it helped
her a little way on her new start in life when, the last night she slept
on Italian soil, she dreamt that she gave Hugh an olive-branch and that
he put it into the china bowl.
She needed every little help when she sobbed and wept at parting with
her father, and begged him to forgive her all she had not done.
"Ah, child, you were no good," he said. "But do not cry; be happy,
since you will not be great."
Signor Mattei turned away, when he was left to his solitude, with a
certain sense of freedom. He laid his plans for going to Florence, and
thought of the dream of his youth--an opera that he had never written,
but which now, perhaps, might find its way from his brain to his
fingers. But he could not lay his hand on the particular piece of music
that he wanted, all the store of violin-strings were mislaid, his salad
was made with bad oil, and he was so much at a loss for some one to find
fault with that he rushed off to find old Maddalena in her new situation
and accuse her of packing up his fiddle-strings in his daughters' box.
And Maddalena, having a sore heart of her own, reproached him so
unreasonably with having driven her dear young ladies out of the country
that she quite restored his self-complacency; and, having refreshed her
spirits by this outbreak, she went back and found the violin-strings,
and hinted that when il signor was settled at Florence he had better
send for her to come and keep house for him.
PART FOUR, CHAPTER THIRTY.
NEW KENSINGTON.