“My father is one of the most wonderful men in the whole world!”
Wilfrid lifted an eyelid.
“He is one of the first-violins at the Italian Opera!”
The gallant cornet's critical appreciation of this impressive
announcement was expressed in a spiral ebullition of smoke from his
mouth.
“He is such a proud man! And I don't wonder at that: he has reason to be
proud.”
Again Wilfrid lifted an eyelid, and there is no knowing but that ideas
of a connection with foreign Counts, Cardinals, and Princes passed
hopefully through him.
“Would you believe that he is really the own nephew of Andronizetti!”
“Deuce he is!” said Wilfrid, in a mist. “Which one?”
“The composer!”
Wilfrid emitted more smoke.
“Who composed--how I love him!--that lovely 'la, la, la, la,' and the
'te-de, ta-da, te-dio,' that pleases you, out of 'Il Maladetto.' And I
am descended from him! Let me hope I shall not be unworthy of him. You
will never tell it till people think as much of me, or nearly. My father
says I shall never be so great, because I am half English. It's not my
fault. My mother was English. But I feel that I am much more Italian
than English. How I long for Italy--like a thing underground! My father
did something against the Austrians, when he was a young man. Would not
I have done it? I am sure I would--I don't know what. Whenever I think
of Italy, night or day, pant-pant goes my heart. The name of Italy is my
nightingale: I feel that somebody lives that I love, and is ill-treated
shamefully, crying out to me for help. My father had to run away to save
his life. He was fifteen days lying in the rice-fields to escape from
the soldiers--which makes me hate a white coat. There was my father; and
at night he used to steal out to one of the villages, where was a good,
true woman--so they are, most, in Italy! She gave him food; maize-bread
and wine, sometimes meat; sometimes a bottle of good wine. When my
father thinks of it he cries, if there is gin smelling near him. At
last my father had to stop there day and night. Then that good woman's
daughter came to him to keep him from starving; she risked being
stripped naked and beaten with rods, to keep my father from starving.
When my father speaks of Sandra now, it makes my mother--she does not
like it. I am named after her: Emilia Alessandra Belloni. 'Sandra' is
short for it. She did not know why I was christened that, and will never
call me anything but Emilia, though my father says Sandra, always.
My father never speaks of that dear Sandra herself, except when he is
tipsy. Once I used to wish him to be tipsy; for then I used to sit at my
piano while he talked, and I made all his words go into music. One night
I did it so well, my father jumped right up from his chair, shouting
'Italia!' and he caught his wig off his head, and threw it into the
fire, and rushed out into the street quite bald, and people thought him
mad.
“It was the beginning of all our misfortunes! My father was taken and
locked up in a place as a tipsy man. That he has never forgiven the
English for! It has made me and my mother miserable ever since. My
mother is sure it is all since that night. Do you know, I remember,
though I was so young, that I felt the music--oh! like a devil in my
bosom? Perhaps it was, and it passed out of me into him. Do you think it
was?”
Wilfrid answered: “Well, no! I shouldn't think you had anything to
do with the devil.” Indeed, he was beginning to think her one of the
smallest of frocked female essences.
“I lost my piano through it,” she went on. “I could not practise. I was
the most miserable creature in all the world till I fell in love with
my harp. My father would not play to get money. He sat in his chair, and
only spoke to ask about meal-time, and we had no money for food, except
by selling everything we had. Then my piano went. So then I said to my
mother, I will advertize to give lessons, as other people do, and make
money for us all, myself. So we paid money for a brass-plate, and our
landlady's kind son put it up on the door for nothing, and we waited for
pupils to come. I used to pray to the Virgin that she would blessedly
send me pupils, for my poor mother's complaints were so shrill and out
of tune it's impossible to tell you what I suffered. But by-and-by my
father saw the brass-plate. He fell into one of his dreadful passions.
We had to buy him another wig. His passions were so expensive: my mother
used to say, 'There goes our poor dinner out of the window!' But, well!
he went to get employment now. He can, always, when he pleases; for
such a touch on the violin as my father has, you never heard. You feel
yourself from top to toe, when my father plays. I feel as if I breathed
music like air. One day came news from Italy, all in the newspaper,
of my father's friends and old companions shot and murdered by the
Austrians. He read it in the evening, after we had a quiet day. I
thought he did not mind it much, for he read it out to us quite quietly;
and then he made me sit on his knee and read it out. I cried with rage,
and he called to me, 'Sandra! Peace!' and began walking up and down
the room, while my mother got the bread and cheese and spread it on the
table, for we were beginning to be richer. I saw my father take out his
violin. He put it on the cloth and looked at it. Then he took it up,
and laid his chin on it like a man full of love, and drew the bow across
just once. He whirled away the bow, and knocked down our candle, and in
the darkness I heard something snap and break with a hollow sound. When
I could see, he had broken it, the neck from the body--the dear old
violin! I could cry still. I--I was too late to save it. I saw it
broken, and the empty belly, and the loose strings! It was murdering a
spirit--that was! My father sat in a corner one whole week, moping like
such an old man! I was nearly dead with my mother's voice. By-and-by we
were all silent, for there was nothing to eat. So I said to my mother,
'I will earn money.' My mother cried. I proposed to take a lodging for
myself, all by myself; go there in the morning and return at night, and
give lessons, and get money for them. My landlady's good son gave me the
brass-plate again. Emilia Alessandra Belloni! I was glad to see my name.
I got two pupils very quickly one, an old lady, and one, a young one.
The old lady--I mean, she was not grey--wanted a gentleman to marry her,
and the landlady told me--I mean my pupil--it makes me laugh--asked him
what he thought of her voice: for I had been singing. I earned a great
deal of money: two pounds ten shillings a week. I could afford to
pay for lessons myself, I thought. What an expense! I had to pay ten
shillings for one lesson! Some have to pay twenty; but I would pay it
to learn from the best masters;--and I had to make my father and
mother live on potatoes, and myself too, of course. If you buy potatoes
carefully, they are extremely cheap things to live upon, and make you
forget your hunger more than anything else.
“I suppose,” added Emilia, “you have never lived upon potatoes entirely?
Oh, no!”
Wilfrid gave a quiet negative.
“But I was pining to learn, and was obliged to keep them low. I could
pitch any notes, and I was clear but I was always ornamenting, and what
I want is to be an accurate singer. My music-master was a German--not an
Austrian--oh, no!--I'm sure he was not. At least, I don't think so,
for I liked him. He was harsh with me, but sometimes he did stretch his
fingers on my head, and turn it round, and say words that I pretended
not to think of, though they sent me home burning. I began to compose,
and this gentleman tore up the whole sheet in a rage, when I showed
it him; but he gave me a dinner, and left off charging me ten
shillings--only seven, and then five--and he gave me more time than he
gave others. He also did something which I don't know yet whether I can
thank him for. He made me know the music of the great German. I used
to listen: I could not believe such music could come from a German. He
followed me about, telling me I was his slave. For some time I could not
sleep. I laughed at myself for composing. He was not an Austrian: but
when he was alive he lived in Vienna, the capital of Austria. He ate
Austrian bread, and why God gave him such a soul of music I never can
think!--Well, by-and-by my father wanted to know what I did in the day,
and why they never had anything but potatoes for dinner. My mother came
to me, and I told her to say, I took walks. My father said I was an
idle girl, and like my mother--who was a slave to work. People are often
unjust! So my father said he would watch me. I had to cross the park to
give a lesson to a lady who had a husband, and she wanted to sing to
him to keep him at home in the evening. I used to pray he might not have
much ear for music. One day a gentleman came behind me in the park. He
showed me a handkerchief, and asked me if it was mine. I felt for my own
and found it in my pocket. He was certain I had dropped it. He looked in
the corners for the name, I told him my name--Emilia Alessandra Belloni.
He found A.F.G. there. It was a beautiful cambric handkerchief, white
and smooth. I told him it must be a gentleman's, as it was so large; but
he said he had picked it up close by me, and he could not take it, and I
must; and I was obliged to keep it, though I would much rather not. Near
the end of the park he left me.”
At this point Wilfrid roused up. “You met him the next day near the same
place?” he remarked.
She turned to him with astonishment on her features. “How did you know
that? How could you know?”
“Sort of thing that generally happens,” said Wilfrid.
“Yes; he was there,” Emilia slowly pursued, controlling her inclination
to question further. “He had forgotten about the handkerchief, for when
I saw him, I fancied he might have found the owner. We talked together.
He told me he was in the Army, and I spoke of my father's playing and my
singing. He was so fond of music that I promised him he should hear us
both. He used to examine my hand, and said they were sensitive fingers
for playing. I knew that. He had great hopes of me. He said he would
give me a box at the Opera, now and then. I was mad with joy; and so
delighted to have made a friend. I had never before made a rich friend.
I sang to him in the park. His eyes looked beautiful with pleasure. I
know I enchanted him.”
“How old were you then?” inquired Wilfrid.
“Sixteen. I can sing better now, I know; but I had voice then, and he
felt that I had. I forgot where we were, till people stood round us, and
he hurried me away from them, and said I must sing to him in some quiet
place. I promised to, and he promised he would have dinner for me at
Richmond Hill, in the country, and he would bring friends to hear me.”
“Go on,” said Wilfrid, rather sharply.
She sighed. “I only saw him once after that. It was such a miserable
day! It rained. It was Saturday. I did not expect to find him in
the rain; but there he stood, exactly where he had given me the
handkerchief. He smiled kindly, as I came up. I dislike gloomy people!
His face was always fresh and nice. His moustache reminded me of
Italy. I used to think of him under a great warm sky, with olives and
vine-trees and mulberries like my father used to speak of. I could have
flung my arms about his neck.”
“Did you?” The cornet gave a strangled note.
“Oh, no!” said Emilia seriously. “But I told him how happy the thought
of going into the country made me, and that it was almost like going to
Italy. He told me he would take me to Italy, if I liked. I could have
knelt at his feet. Unfortunately his friends could not come. Still,
I was to go, and dine, and float on the water, plucking flowers. I
determined to fancy myself in Venice, which is the place my husband must
take me to, when I am married to him. I will give him my whole body and
soul for his love, when I am there!”
Here the cornet was capable of articulate music for a moment, but it
resolved itself into: “Well, well! Yes, go on!”
“I took his arm this time. It gave me my first timid feeling that I
remember, and he laughed at me, and drove it quite away, telling me his
name: Augustus Frederick what was it? Augustus Frederick--it began with
G something. O me! have I really forgotten? Christian names are always
easier to remember. A captain he was--a riding one; just like you. I
think you are all kind!”
“Extremely,” muttered the ironical cornet. “A.F.G.;--those are the
initials on the handkerchief!”
“They are!” cried Emilia. “It must have been his own handkerchief!”
“You have achieved the discovery,” quoth Wilfrid. “He dropped it there
overnight, and found it just as you were passing in the morning.”
“That must be impossible,” said Emilia, and dismissed the subject
forthwith, in a feminine power of resolve to be blind to it.
“I am afraid,” she took up her narrative, “my father is sometimes really
almost mad. He does such things! I had walked under this gentleman's
umbrella to the bridge between the park and the gardens with the sheep,
and beautiful flowers in beds. In an instant my father came up right in
our faces. He caught hold of my left hand. I thought he wanted to shake
it, for he imitates English ways at times, even with us at home, and
shakes our hands when he comes in. But he swung me round. He stood
looking angrily at this gentleman, and cried 'Yes! yes!' to every word
he spoke. The gentleman bowed to me, and asked me to take his umbrella;
but I was afraid to; and my father came to me,--oh, Madonna, think
of what he did! I saw that his pockets were very big. He snatched out
potatoes, and began throwing them as hard as he could throw them at
the gentleman, and struck him with some of them. He threw nine large
potatoes! I begged him to think of our dinner; but he cried 'Yes! it is
our dinner we give to your head, vagabond!' in his English. I could not
help running up to the gentleman to beg for his pardon. He told me not
to cry, and put some potatoes he had been picking up all into my hand.
They were muddy, but he wiped them first; and he said it was not the
first time he had stood fire, and then said good-bye; and I slipped the
potatoes into my pocket immediately, thankful that they were not wasted.
My father pulled me away roughly from the laughing and staring people
on the bridge. But I knew the potatoes were only bruised. Even three
potatoes will prevent you from starving. They were very fine ones, for I
always took care to buy them good. When I reached home--”
Wilfrid had risen, and was yawning with a desperate grimace. He bade her
continue, and pitched back heavily into his seat.
“When I reached home and could be alone with my mother, she told me my
father had been out watching me the day before, and that he had filled
his pockets that morning. She thought he was going to walk out in the
country and get people on the road to cook them for him. That is what
he has done when he was miserable,--to make himself quite miserable,
I think, for he loves streets best. Guess my surprise! My mother
was making my head ache with her complaints, when, as I drew out the
potatoes to show her we had some food, there was a purse at the bottom
of my pocket,--a beautiful green purse! O that kind gentleman! He must
have put it in my hand with the potatoes that my father flung at him!
How I have cried to think that I may never sing to him my best to please
him! My mother and I opened the purse eagerly. It had ten pounds in
paper money, and five sovereigns, and silver,--I think four shillings.
We determined to keep it a secret; and then we thought of the best way
of spending it, and decided not to spend it all, but to keep some for
when we wanted it dreadfully, and for a lesson or two for me now and
then, and a music-score, and perhaps a good violin for my father, and
new strings for him and me, and meat dinners now and then, and perhaps
a day in the country: for that was always one of my dreams as I watched
the clouds flying over London. They seemed to be always coming from
happy places and going to happy places, never stopping where I was! I
cannot be sorrowful long. You know that song of mine that you like so
much--my own composing? It was a song about that kind gentleman. I got
words to suit it as well as I could, from a penny paper, but they don't
mean anything that I mean, and they are only words.”
She did not appear to hear the gallant cornet's denial that he cared
particularly for that song.
“What I meant was,--that gentleman speaks--I have fought for Italy; I am
an English hero and have fought for Italy, because of an Italian child;
but now I am wounded and a prisoner. When you shoot me, cruel Austrians,
I shall hear her voice and think of nothing else, so you cannot hurt
me.”
Emilia turned spitefully on herself at this close. “How I spoil it! My
words are always stupid, when I feel.--Well, now my mother and I were
quite peaceful, and my father was better fed. One night he brought home
a Jew gentleman, beautifully dressed, with diamonds all over him. He
sparkled like the Christmas cakes in pastry-cooks' windows. I sang
to him, and he made quite a noise about me. But the man made me so
uncomfortable, touching my shoulders, and I could not bear his hands,
even when he was praising me. I sang to him till the landlady made me
leave off, because of the other lodgers who wanted to sleep. He came
every evening; and then said I should sing at a concert. It turned
out to be a public-house, and my father would not let me go; but I was
sorry; for in public the man could not touch me as he did. It damped the
voice!”
“I should like to know where that fellow lives,” cried the cornet.
“I don't know, I'm sure,” she said. “He lends money. Do you want any? I
heard your sisters say something, one day. You can always have all that
I have, you know.”
A quick spirit of pity and honest kindness went through Wilfrid's veins
and threatened to play the woman with his eyes, for a moment. He took
her hand and pressed it. She put her lips to his fingers.
“Once,” she continued, “when the Jew gentleman had left, I spoke to my
father of his way with me, and then my father took me on his knee, and
the things he told me of what that man felt for me made my mother come
and tear me away to bed. I was obliged to submit to the Jew gentleman
patting and touching me always. He used to crush my dreams afterwards! I
know my voice was going. My father was so eager for me to please him,
I did my best; but I felt dull, and used to sit and shake my head at my
harp, crying; or else I felt like an angry animal, and could have torn
the strings.
“Think how astonished I was when my mother came to me to say my father
had money in his pockets!--one pound, seventeen shillings, she counted:
and he had not been playing! Then he brought home a new violin, and he
said to me, 'I shall go; I shall play; I am Orphee, and dinners shall
rise!' I was glad, and kissed him; and he said, 'This is Sandra's
gift to me,' showing the violin. I only knew what that meant two days
afterwards. Is a girl not seventeen fit to be married?”
With this abrupt and singular question she had taken an indignant
figure, and her eyes were fiery: so that Wilfrid thought her much fitter
than a minute before.
“Married!” she exclaimed. “My mother told me about that. You do not
belong to yourself: you are tied down. You are a slave, a drudge;
mustn't dream, mustn't think! I hate it. By-and-by, I suppose it will
happen. Not yet! And yet that man offered to take me to Italy. It was
the Jew gentleman. He said I should make money, if he took me, and
grow as rich as princesses. He brought a friend to hear me, another Jew
gentleman; and he was delighted, and he met me near our door the very
next morning, and offered me a ring with blue stones, and he proposed to
marry me also, and take me to Italy, if I would give up his friend and
choose him instead. This man did not touch me, and, do you know, for
some time I really thought I almost, very nearly, might,--if it had
not been for his face! It was impossible to go to Italy--yes, to go to
heaven! through that face of his! That face of his was just like the
pictures of dancing men with animals' hairy legs and hoofs in an old
thick poetry book belonging to my mother. Just fancy a nose that seemed
to be pecking at great fat red lips! He met me and pressed me to go
continually, till all of a sudden up came the first Jew gentleman, and
he cried out quite loud in the street that he was being robbed by the
other; and they stood and made a noise in the street, and I ran away.
But then I heard that my father had borrowed money from the one who came
first, and that his violin came from that man; and my father told me the
violin would be taken from him, and he would have to go to prison, if
I did not marry that man. I went and cried in my mother's arms. I shall
never forget her kindness; for though she could never see anybody crying
without crying herself, she did not, and was quiet as a mouse, because
she knew how her voice hurt me. There's a large print-shop in one of
the great streets of London, with coloured views of Italy. I used to go
there once, and stand there for I don't know how long, looking at them,
and trying to get those Jew gentlemen--”
“Call them Jews--they're not gentlemen,” interposed Wilfrid.
“Jews,” she obeyed the dictate, “out of my mind. When I saw the views
of Italy they danced and grinned up and down the pictures. Oh, horrible!
There was no singing for me then. My music died. At last that oldish
lady gave up her lessons, and said to me, 'You little rogue! you will do
what I do, some day;' for she was going to be married to that young man
who thought her voice so much improved; and she paid me three pounds,
and gave me one pound more, and some ribbons and gloves. I went at once
to my mother, and made her give me five pounds out of the gentleman's
purse. I took my harp and music-scores. I did not know where I was
going, but only that I could not stop. My mother cried: but she helped
to pack my things. If she disobeys me I act my father, and tower over
her, and frown, and make her mild. She was such a poor good slave to
me that day! but I trusted her no farther than the door. There I kissed
her, full of love, and reached the railway. They asked me where I was
going, and named places to me: I did not know one. I shut my eyes, and
prayed to be directed, and chose Hillford. In the train I was full of
music in a moment. There I met farmer Wilson, of the farm near us--where
your sisters found me; and he was kind, and asked me about myself; and I
mentioned lodgings, and that I longed for woods and meadows. Just as
we were getting out of the train, he said I was to come with him; and I
did, very gladly. Then I met you; and I am here. All because I prayed to
be directed--I do think that!”
Emilia clasped her hands, and looked pensively at the horizon sky, with
a face of calm gratefulness.
The cornet was on his legs. “So!” he said. “And you never saw anything
more of that fellow you kissed in the park?”
“Kissed?--that gentleman?” returned Emilia. “I have not kissed him. He
did not want it. Men kiss us when we are happy, and we kiss them when
they are unhappy.”
Wilfrid was perhaps incompetent to test the truth of this profound
aphoristic remark, delivered with the simplicity of natural conviction.
The narrative had, to his thinking, quite released from him his
temporary subjection to this little lady's sway. All that he felt for
her personally now was pity. It speaks something for the strength of the
sentiment with which he had first conceived her, that it was not pelted
to death, and turned to infinite disgust, by her potatoes. For sentiment
is a dainty, delicate thing, incapable of bearing much: revengeful,
too, when it is outraged. Bruised and disfigured, it stood up still, and
fought against them. They were very fine ones, as Emilia said, and they
hit him hard. However, he pitied her, and that protected him like a
shield. He told his sisters a tale of his own concerning the strange
damsel, humorously enough to make them see that he enjoyed her presence
as that of no common oddity.