“But flower-girls always do smile, Mr Crichton.”
“Ah, but how different this was from the made-up smiles you see in England – such a sense of art, too, in her white handkerchief – no hats and feathers. She only said, ‘Grazie, signor!’ but there was a sort of recognition, you know, of one’s interest in her.”
“I shall go and look at her,” said Emily.
“Now, if one lived in a simpler state of society,” pursued Jem, “what curious intercourse one might have with such a being – how much she might add to one’s knowledge of existence! How one can imagine the great men of old – Raphael in search of the Beautiful – dancing in the evening! Oh, Hugh, I didn’t see you! Where have you been?”
“Where have you been would be more to the point,” retorted Hugh. “In one of Bulwer’s novels?”
“He has fallen in love with a flower-girl,” said Emily.
“Emily, my dear,” said her mother, “Mr Crichton was only describing an artistic effect. It is very desirable to cultivate a love of nature.”
“Very,” said Jem. His enthusiasm had been perfectly genuine, though he had not been without a desire to interest his audience; and he could not resist a side glance at Hugh, who looked hot and cross.
“Have you seen any flower-girls, Mr Crichton?” said Emily, wickedly.
“No, Miss Tollemache, nothing so interesting;” and then a sudden sense of the extreme falsity of his words came over him; and he blushed in a violent, foolish way, which completed his annoyance with things in general.
James saw the blush and knew that something had happened. He did not, how ever, quite like to question his brother; and when the ladies left them they went out on the balcony and for some time smoked in silence.
At last Hugh knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and said, in a formal, uncomfortable tone:
“James, I have made a proposal to Mdlle. Mattei.”
“The deuce you have!” ejaculated Jem.
“And what did she say?”
“She accepted it. But, Jem, you may entirely disabuse your mind of the idea that there has been any attempt to – to catch me; for her father has just given me to understand that he will not consent to it.”
“What! he prefers the manager!”
“So he says.”
“And she doesn’t?”
“No,” very shortly. “But I cannot suppose that if he was fully aware of the genuineness of my intentions and knew that my mother would receive her – In short, Jem, another person’s words – ”
“Another person? Do you mean me? Answer for mamma? I declare, Hugh, that’s a little too much. You’re going to raise such a row at home as was never heard of, and you want me to help you!”
Hugh said nothing, and James’s momentary perturbation subsided.
“This is good!” he said. “You wanting help! Did you ever live in Oxley, Hugh, or is it all a mistake? ‘Jones at the opera abroad’ is so very unlike ‘Jones at the opera at home.’”
“I am in earnest, Jem,” said Hugh, as James did all the laughing at his own joke.
“It’s a great mistake being in earnest,” said Jem. “Here have you spoilt all your fun by it.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Why,” said Jem, mischievously. “Of course, Violante was intended to amuse you during your holiday. A little sentiment – study of life.”
“I have asked Mdlle. Mattei to be my wife,” interrupted Hugh, in a tone of high offence.
“I beg your pardon,” said Jem, after a moment’s pause. “I’ll be serious. So Signor Mattei is the difficulty? H’m! How far do you suppose he is involved with this dangerous rival?”
“That is what I cannot make out. He says that she, Violante, is engaged to him but she never mentioned his name.”
“Told you nothing about him?”
“No. So the question is,” said Hugh, in a voice that he tried hard to keep at an even level, “the question is, who is deceiving me?”
“Both and neither,” returned Jem. “What?”
“I dare say she likes you best, and thinks she will try to get out of her previous entanglement.”
“She should have spoken the truth,” said Hugh, frowning.
“Come, Hugh, that’s expecting a great deal of a poor little frightened thing like that, and an Italian, too. What would you have?”
“You did not see her?” said Hugh.
James looked at him, and saw that his hand shook as he put his pipe back into its case while he kept his face turned away.
“What shall you do?” he said.
“Find out,” returned Hugh, “and act accordingly.”
He walked away as he spoke. James did not suppose it likely that Violante would come out of the ordeal with such flying colours as to satisfy his brother; and, though he was very little inclined to judge the poor child harshly, he could not help hoping that here was a way of escape for Hugh from a most unlucky prepossession, though, as he was forced to acknowledge, at the cost of considerable pain.
Part 2, Chapter XIII
Contrary Winds
“Oh, well for him whose will is strong!”
“Rosa! you were mistaken! He loves me – he says so. Oh, I am so happy – he is so good!” cried Violante, as she ran to meet her sister and threw herself into her arms. Timid as the southern maiden might be she had none of the proud, reticent “shamefastness” that would have led an English girl to conceal her joy even from herself. It was all right and natural; and as Rosa, aghast, dropped into a chair she knelt beside her, her sweet, pathetic eyes and lips transfigured as a flower by the sun.
“What did he say to you?” exclaimed Rosa.
“He loves me – he is coming back again. He does not mind about my singing – Ah, I cannot tell you,” and the bright face drooped with sudden bashfulness.
“Oh!” cried Rosa, passionately, as she pulled off her hat and fanned herself with it; “what a foolish world this is! What has he said? what has he done?” she repeated, almost fiercely.
“He asked me to marry him,” said Violante, with a sort of dignity.
“Oh, dear! he is a very foolish young man. What is to come of it? – what can come of it? Nothing but trouble.”
Violante gazed at her, mute and frightened; then her face brightened with an incredulous smile.
“Oh, if you had never seen him!”
“Rosa!” cried Violante, springing to her feet, “rather than that, I would be miserable for ever – rather than that, I would die.”
“Because you are as silly as the rest! Oh, you unlucky child! don’t you see that it is impossible? Either he will go back to his own people and they will talk him out of it, or he will marry you in spite of them. But no, he shall never do that!”
“But he said it would be right,” said Violante; then, as Rosa laughed bitterly, she went on, pleadingly: “Oh, Rosa mia, it is you who are silly. He will make it right. Indeed, I am happy; but I cannot bear to see you cry. I will act, I shall not care now, and you must keep father from being vexed.” There was much in Violante’s speech of the unconscious selfishness of one to whom the part of comforter was a strange reversion of ordinary life; but her caresses were very sweet to Rosa, who, recovering herself with an effort, said:
“Well, Violante, you can’t expect me to believe in him as you do! I never thought it would come to this!”
“But, Rosa, you will not try to stop it?” Rosa hesitated. Even supposing Hugh entirely faithful, what doubtful happiness lay before her sister; and, if not, what a blank of disappointment, what hopeless injury, what misery how unendurable to the girl who shrank and trembled at a harsh word!
Rosa sat upright and gazed straight before her, while Violante watched, unable to understand her face.
“No!” at length she exclaimed, “you must take your chance with the rest of us. How can I or anyone help it? But – but – I’ll never stop anyone’s love – oh, my little darling, my little darling!” and Rosa broke down into tears, hiding her face in the girl’s soft hair.
“Rosa, you think I could not bear any trouble; but I could – for him.”
There was a new fervour in her voice, and Rosa yielded to it. “Oh, I hope you will be happy,” she said.
“Why, you see I am happy!” said Violante, with a childish laugh. “Father is late; let us have some coffee – you are so hot and tired, I will get it. There is no terrible opera to-night. Maddalena! Maddalena!”
“Ah! signorina, I know who nearly broke the china bowl.”
“Why, I did, Maddalena! I threw it down,” said Violante, as she tripped about after the old woman, whose gold hair-pins were quivering with sly triumph. “But it is quite safe – not a crack in it.”
The coffee was finished; the bright, hot sun went down; and the sisters sat long by the open window in the warm, pleasant twilight. Violante fell into dreamy silence; Rosa also. But there was a great gulf between their meditations, though they were thinking of the same subject and, partly, of the same person.
“There’s father!” cried Violante, as a step sounded. “Oh, I will run away, and you shall tell him.”
“No, no, you little coward; he will be sure to ask for you – stay a minute.”
Violante leant back against the window-sill, her eyes drooping, her breast heaving, and yet her face flushing and dimpling, – the new confidence almost conquering the old fear. Rosa looked far the more frightened of the two. Signor Mattei’s step came up the great staircase quick as a boy’s; he seemed almost to skate across the polished floor, so instantaneously did he bear down on his daughters. In a moment his roll of music was cast aside in one direction, his great white umbrella in another; and, with accents rising every moment into higher indignation, he exclaimed: “Violante, what folly is this that I hear? Is this what all your idleness and obstinacy mean? I’ll not hear a word of it. A lover, indeed! Never let me hear of it again!”
Violante stood breathless, but Rosa interposed:
“Has Mr Crichton been talking to you, father?”
“Ay, and a fine story he brought me. Talking of promises, indeed! How dare she dream of making promises? And you – what have you been doing? Taking care of your sister? No! No! Encouraging her in disobedience and deceit!”
Now Signor Mattei was wont, on all occasions of domestic disturbance, to relieve his feelings by the most voluble scoldings that the Italian temperament could suggest and the Italian tongue express. Had Violante broken the china bowl she would probably have heard nearly as many reproaches; but no amount of experience ever accustomed her to these outbreaks; and, though practically she had never been ill-treated, she feared her father far more than: he guessed; while Rosa usually answered him back more promptly than respectfully, and, loving him better than Violante did, often ended by having her own way. Now she said:
“Why are you angry with Violante, father? She has done nothing wrong. Is it her fault if Mr Crichton loves her and has asked her to marry him?”
“Asked her – asked her! How dared he ask her? Now, most undutiful, most ungrateful child, how long has this conspiracy lasted?”
“He came to-day,” stammered Violante.
“To-day? You tell me this folly has begun to-day! You, who have been secretly sighing for this stranger, sighing for him instead of singing! Ah – shame on you! – tell me – tell me —tell me!” in a rapid crescendo, as he seized her wrist and pulled her towards him.
Violante burst into tears.
“Father! how can you speak to her so?” cried Rosa. “Let her go – and I will tell you. Mr Crichton never said a word to her till to-day. Why will you not consent to their encasement?”
“Because I know my duty as a father better. But it is all over. Do you hear, Violante? I have ended it for ever!”
“Oh, father,” cried Violante, holding out her hands imploringly, “I will not neglect my singing, I will practise all day long; but you would break my heart – oh, dear father, I love him;” and the poor child, with unwonted courage, went up to her father and put her arms round his neck with a look and gesture that, could she have called them up at will, would have settled her stage difficulties for ever.
“No, Violante!” Signor Mattei said. “You know what my wish has been. You were not free to promise yourself; and to-day I have made my arrangements with Signor Vasari and have promised you to him.”
“Father, father, I would kill myself first!” cried Violante, dropping on her knees and hiding her face. “Oh, Rosa – Rosa – help me!”
“Hugh, hush, my child. Stand up and control yourself,” said Rosa, with English dislike to a scene – a kind of self-consciousness shared by neither father nor sister. “Go away – go into our room. I will talk to father first.”
Violante rushed away with her hands over her face, and then the other two prepared for war.
Signor Mattei divested himself of his neck-tie, rubbed his hands through his hair, marched up and down the room, and said:
“Now, Rosa, be reasonable, be dutiful, and hear what I have to say.”
Rosa sat down by the table, with a red spot on each cheek, and took up her knitting.
“Yes, father, that is just what I wish. I want to know what has happened.”
“Am I a cruel father? Do I beat or starve you, or do I work all day for my ungrateful children?”
“I think you were cruel to Violante, father, when you called her deceitful.”
“Violante is a little fool. Now, once for all, Rosa, I will have no disputes. This very day I have promised her to Vasari.”
“Father!” cried Rosa, in high indignation. “It is one thing to forbid her engagement to Mr Crichton, and quite another to insist on her marrying Vasari. I would not stand it.”
“But you, figlia mia, have the sense to decide for yourself,” said Signor Mattei, with a little flattery inexpressibly provoking to the downright Rosa. “Your sister is a child, and cannot judge. Consider. This young Englishman goes home. The proud ladies of his house would see him mouldering in his grave before they blessed his betrothal.”
“I don’t believe they would be so ridiculous! And he is quite independent. But I agree with you, father, that it would be a very unfortunate thing if he married her without his friends’ consent, and what we could not agree to. But he speaks confidently of being able to gain it.”
“He speaks!” echoed Signor Mattei, with scorn. “He speaks! He goes home – he sees his folly. Flattered by the flowers of his own aristocracy will he remember Violante?”
“I don’t believe he has anything to do with the aristocracy! Of course, father, I see all the risks – they are fearful ones; but the other way is such certain misery,” said Rosa, faltering. “How will she bear it!”
“Rosa, I am surprised at you. Can you not see the benefits of this marriage?”
“Yes, I know all that,” said Rosa, sturdily. “I know, if she could make up her mind to it, it would be a very good thing for her and for all of us. But, father, married or single, she will never make an actress, it will kill her; and she hates Vasari.”
Then Signor Mattei’s patience fairly gave way.
“Hates him! Don’t tell me of anything so absurd. How many girls, do you think, have hated their suitors and been happy enough! That is no reason.”
In spite of Rosa’s English breeding she had seen instances enough of the truth of this remark not to have an instant contradiction ready. It might turn out well; which was all that could be said in favour of Hugh Crichton; and yet Rosa felt that, had she been Violante, she would have willingly risked her all in favour of that one glorious possibility. “But it doesn’t always pay,” she thought, and while she hesitated, thinking how such a risk had once been run and run in vain, her father spoke again.
“Now, Rosa, listen. Mild as a lamb in daily life, in emergencies I am a lion; and my will is law, you cannot change it. Violante shall be Vasari’s wife. I have promised, I will perform.” Here Signor Mattei struck his hand on the table in a highly effective manner. “She will be raised above all the uncertainties of our profession, need not work beyond her strength, and we shall share in her success. To this she must agree, and if you will not promise to see that she does so I shall send her to Madame Cellini’s.”
Madame Cellini was a fine old opera-singer who had married and settled in Civita Bella. She had shown much kindness to the motherless girls and had not been an injudicious friend to them; but her contempt for Violante’s fears and her strenuous efforts to rouse her to a sense of her privileges had rendered her instructions and herself an object of dread; and Rosa answered, after a pause:
“I will promise to remain neutral. If Violante can be happy without Hugh Crichton I had far rather she did not marry him. But if she is sent away or too much coerced she will be utterly unable to act. Let her alone, and I don’t suppose she will hold out very long.”
“You will send no letters or messages?”
“No,” said Rosa; “I promise that I will not. I shall leave her to herself.”
To herself! To her weak will and her cowardly spirit! How long would they hold out?
Rosa went in search of her; and, as Violante sprang towards her exclaiming, —
“Oh, Rosa, you will help me!” she held her back.
“No, Violante, I cannot help and I will not hinder you. Father is determined, and you must do it, if do it you will, all yourself. If I move a finger, you will be sent away from me; but I will not try to persuade you either way.”
Violante stood still, with despair in her face. How could she resist her father for an hour? She crept away to bed, at Rosa’s suggestion; received her kisses with passive absence of offence; and, as she hid her face on her pillow, thought not of self-support but of the only help left to her. “He will come again to-morrow – they will listen to him.”
Part 2, Chapter XIV
Left to Herself
“As we have met, we shall not meet again
For ever, child, for ever!”
Left to herself! In the early morning Violante’s senses awoke from the confusion of disturbed and dreamy sleep; and, with burning eyes and throbbing temples, she sat upright and tried to think “for herself.”
“He will come and persuade father.” She repeated this watchword over and over again to herself; but the new confidence could hardly combat the old experience, and she could not realise that “father” would be over-persuaded – even by her lover. Childish as Violante was she had grown up too much in the constant discussion of ways and means not to be quite aware of the worldly advantages of Signor Vasari’s offer. Those attaching to Hugh Crichton’s were like a dim and distant dream, scarcely to be realised; nor had she, in the abstract, any sense that she would be unfairly treated by being deprived of her right of choice. Perhaps no creature ever entered on a conflict with less hope of success. She felt so sure that neither prayers nor tears would move her father that she never thought of trying their effect; while Signor Vasari seemed still more inexorable. If Hugh did not somehow set it right for her what remained but submission? “I had rather die; but I shall be so frightened, I shall say yes,” she thought. “They have always made me do what they wish. I could not help it! There’s no one to help me – no one!” Her cowardice and weakness had been so often cast in the poor child’s teeth that she had lost every scrap of confidence in her own powers. Her father said, “You shall give in,” Rosa said, “You cannot hold out;” and Violante knew nothing of a Strength not her own, of a Hand that would hold hers more firmly than sister’s or lover’s. Her love was the strongest thing about her: would it hold her up? She thought with a kind of ardour of resisting and refusing, of holding out and dying rather than yielding. But all the time she knew that she should yield; that she could not act and sing between the two fires of father and suitor; that the long days of conflict would not kill her all at once, but would each one be very miserable and hard to endure, and would each one wear out a little of her strength. For Violante had some experience of troublous times, and knew very well what it meant to be unhappy and in disgrace.
“He will come; he will help me.” She pushed aside the thought of what was to follow and resolved to please her father as much as possible, in the hope of protracting matters till Hugh should have time to interfere. So, to Rosa’s surprise, she appeared in a clean muslin dress and a pink ribbon and sat down to sing her scales, instead of lying in bed and crying, as inclination would have prompted. Nay, she carried her father his cup of chocolate, and kept her hand from trembling as he took it from her. Signor Mattei viewed all this as betokening intended submission: Rosa was puzzled. For the first time she could not understand Violante.
The morning hours wore away; there was, fortunately, no rehearsal. Violante sat in the window with some knitting in her lap. She did not say one word to Rosa of her fears or her intentions. Steps came up the stairs and across the corridor, and Signor Mattei ushered in the great Vasari himself. Rosa started up and came forward to receive him. Violante shrank into her corner; she grew white and cold, but she set her mouth, and under her long eyelashes her eyes looked hard and strange.
“Signor,” said Signor Mattei, “here is my daughter. I give her to you with profound pleasure, and assure you that she is sensible of the honour of your choice.”
Violante spoke not a word. She rose up, obedient to her father’s eye, and, perhaps, somewhat urged by the long habit of obedience to the manager. She dared not utter the refusal on her lips. What would they do to her; what would they say? It was better to submit – to submit till he came. Signor Vasari took her by the hand, bowed profoundly, and offered to her a handsome diamond cross and chain of pearls.
“Permit me, Signorina; they were the jewels of a princess.”
He fastened it on her neck, and then, putting his arm around her, drew her towards him as he had done before now – on the stage. Violante started and lifted her eyes. There stood Hugh Crichton within the door, his eyes fixed on her, his face as pale as hers.
“Signor Mattei, you were right, and I thank you,” he said in English, and in a hard, fierce voice. Then he turned and was gone, before anyone spoke a word.
Suddenly Violante wrenched herself out of Vasari’s grasp. She pulled the cross off her neck, scattering the pearls far and wide as she threw it on the floor.
“I hate you!” she said, “I hate you! And if you marry me I will kill you.”
“Signorina!” ejaculated the astonished manager.
“Violante, Violante!” cried Rosa.
“I hate, you!” she repeated, and then she threw herself on her knees.
“Father, father, father, kill me, kill me first.”
“Ungrateful, wicked child, you are driving a dagger into my breast!” cried Signor Mattei.
“I am deceived, I am deceived, but I will have my rival’s blood!” exclaimed Vasari.
“Signor Vasari, you are treading on that cross and spoiling it,” said Rosa. “Violante, for shame! You don’t know what you say.”
“I do know,” said Violante; but the quick reaction was coming, and she let Rosa lift her up and cowered into her arms, trembling and shivering. Her defiance was over, and had come, like the actions of most cowards, five minutes too late.
“Signor Vasari,” said Rosa, “I think you had better leave us and – and – come again when my sister is more herself. I will pick up the pearls, and – and, father, isn’t that best?”
“La Signorina has no lack of passion when it suits her turn,” said Vasari, with a sneer. “Yes, I will go – but, as to coming again, that is another matter.”
Then Signor Mattei broke out into a perfect storm of invective and adjuration, calling the Saints to witness his own honest dealing, and speaking of and to Violante in terms of such anger and contempt as were hardly calculated to excuse her to her lover. Violante shook like a leaf, but made no attempt at an answer, and Rosa at last pulled her away from the room, leaving her father still in the full flow of his eloquence and Signor Vasari stiff and upright with offended dignity, yet casting involuntary and half-unconscious glances at his scattered pearls.
Hugh Crichton, on the other hand, had suffered since his interview with Signor Mattei, from a kind of doubt, not unnatural to a man treading on unknown ground. He would have had far more confidence in Violante had she been the Miss Katie Clinton whose cause his mother advocated, little as he would have believed anyone who had echoed the sentiment; and when Mr Tollemache came in before dinner and said that all the world was talking of Mademoiselle Mattei’s great good luck in her encasement to Signor Vasari, Hugh turned visibly pale, and James said:
“Is it a fact or a rumour, Mr Tollemache?”
“A fact, I believe. I had it from young Contarini, who haunts the musical world; and he said Vasari had told him of it himself.” Neither looked at Hugh, who sat still for a moment and then got up and went away. James could not help a look of consternation, and Mr Tollemache said:
“I assure you, Crichton, I had no notion anything serious was going on. Hugh’s the last fellow I should have suspected of – of – ”
“Making such a fool of himself?” said James. “Well – you see he never could take things in moderation.”
“He’s well out of the scrape, in my opinion.”
“Yes, poor old boy, I suppose he is. The rest of us are, at any rate.”
Dinner passed, of course, with no reference to the subject; nor did Hugh mention it till the next morning, when, alone with Jem, he said, with a nervous laugh but an odd twitch in his voice:
“Jem, you profess to understand young women. Which should you have said was the favoured one?”
Jem was driven into a corner. He certainly had thought that Violante had favoured Hugh. He thought so still, and felt pretty sure that she was not a free agent; but he did not wish to say so, and yet he could not but be touched by the eager wistful look with which Hugh regarded him.
“Well,” he said, “I thought she looked graciously on you; but you see the – ”
“If so,” interrupted Hugh, “I’d marry her to-morrow, spite of them all.”
“Good heavens, Hugh!” cried Jem. “Don’t think of such a thing! I don’t believe Tollemache would consent. It’s impossible!”
“Tollemache?”
“British Consul, you know. You can’t get married out here as if it was Gretna Green; and I won’t have a hand in it; I declare, Hugh, I won’t,” cried Jem. “It’s all very well, but I won’t, you know; and there’s an end of it.”
“I did not ask you,” said Hugh, coldly, but becoming conscious that to marry Violante without the consent of her friends or his was, under the circumstances, utterly impossible.
He said no more to James, but resolved to see Violante once again at all hazards. How he saw her, and what effect the scene he beheld had on a mind already full of doubts and suspicions, has been already told. Anger, intensified by the recollection of how he had once before been treated, swallowed up every other feeling. He went back to the Consulate and met his brother on the stairs.
“I shall go home, Jem,” he said. “I cannot stay here. You can explain and follow when you like. Yes, it’s all at an end. Never speak of it any more.”
James could obtain no word of explanation – no single particular – as he tried to help Hugh to pack up his things and to arrange some decent sort of leave-taking. Hugh was too desperate to care who was surprised at his proceedings. The ladies were out, and he wrote three lines of courteous thanks to Mrs Tollemache, but wished her son good-bye without any reason given, and never gave his brother a chance of sympathising with or restraining him.
“I am going straight home,” he said, as he went away.
“Well!” exclaimed Mr Tollemache, “who could have expected such a tornado?”
“Oh,” said Jem, “Hugh never could take circumstances into consideration. I believe the poor little thing was as much in love with him as she knew how. How could he expect her to tell the truth about the manager? Of course she liked Hugh, and of course she told fibs, and now she will cry her eyes out, and then marry Vasari after all. What else can she do, poor little victim? And then there’s Hugh, who won’t dance four times with a girl for fear of ‘exciting false expectations,’ has gone and broken her heart – if hearts ever are broken. Much he knows about the tricks girls will play to avoid an uproar! Poor little, pretty thing!”
“I don’t care for the girl,” said Mr Tollemache, “but it’s no joke about Hugh.”
“Poor old fellow, no; but those things pass off, you know; and, after all, anything’s better than that he should have married her.”
“Undoubtedly,” said Mr Tollemache.
“Poor little child!” repeated Jem, with a not unkindly pity, but which yet made small account of Violante beside the other interests involved.
And so Hugh Crichton went away from Civita Bella, and Violante was left behind him.