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Rosa was well aware that she could not protect Violante from the approaching ordeal of her first appearance, and knew too of debts that rendered it necessary; but she interposed between her sister and many a reproof, and tried by her alternate coaxing, sympathy, and argument to diminish the girl’s dread of the future that lay before her. Violante had made fewer complaints of late, and Rosa hoped that she was becoming more reconciled to the inevitable.
On the present occasion Rosa’s pleasant cheerful voice was heard talking to Maddalena, who, besides doing all their housework, took Violante to her lessons and rehearsals when Rosa was busy, the latter retaining her English habit of walking alone. She reentered the room as her father quitted it, and began to divest it of its concert-room air, to put away music-stands and books, and to give once more a look of English comfort to the further end of it, where Violante had thrown herself into a big chintz-covered chair, turning her face towards the cushion, when Rosa said, —
“Well dear, you were very successful to-day. I never heard you in better voice.”
“I wish – I wish I had no voice at all.”
“Violante! That is really quite wrong. You should not despise such a glorious gift.”
“It only makes me wretched. Oh, what shall I do!”
Now Rosa had resolved against weak-minded sympathy, and had made up her mind that her sister must not, at this last moment, be permitted to flinch, so, though the hidden face and despairing attitude went to her heart, she replied briskly, —
“Do? Win a dozen bouquets and bring the house down. What a silly child you are, Violante!”
Violante lifted her head, astonished at the shadow of a reproof from Rosa, who little guessed at the tumult of feeling that was making the poor child’s heart beat so terribly.
“You angry, too, Rosa!” she said, for reproaches never made Violante angry, only miserable.
“Angry, my darling, no,” exclaimed Rosa. “I only want you to take heart and courage. My child, don’t cry so dreadfully. What is it, did father scold you?”
Violante crept into the warm comforting embrace, and, laying her head on Rosa’s shoulder, wept so bitterly that her sister could only think how to soothe her; till Violante’s sobs grew quieter and she put up her quivering lips to be kissed, while Rosa smoothed back her hair and began to try the effect of argument.
“You see, darling, father is so anxious. When Tuesday is over and he sees how successful you are, he will be delighted. And you will feel quite differently. Just think of the pleasure of seeing everyone hanging on your voice, and of hearing the applause, and seeing the bouquets thrown at you!” (Violante shivered.) “Oh! it would be worth living for.”
“Oh, Rosa mia, if the voice was yours!”
“Ah, if – But, darling, I shall be as much pleased to see your triumph as if it were mine.”
“But if I fail – and my bad acting – ”
“You won’t fail. And as for the acting, you will act much better when you are less nervous. People will care for your voice and your beauty – they won’t be hard on you.”
“Rosa, you are so different, you cannot understand. I should not mind so much about failing if it did not vex father. It is doing it at all. When I stand up to sing it is as if all the eyes turned me cold and sick, and my own eyes get dizzy so that I cannot see, and if they applaud – even here at the class – it is like the waves of the sea, and I cannot sleep at night for thinking of it.”
“You don’t know how pleasant the real applause will be,” said Rosa, feeling as if she were telling a snowdrop to hold up its head, for the sun was so pleasant to stare at. What could she say to the child, who had no vanity and no ambition – nothing but a loving heart.
“You will like to please me and father?”
“Yes,” said Violante, “but if I should cry, father would – would – ”
“Oh, nonsense, you won’t cry.”
“If father would let me – I would rather teach singing all day!”
“But you know you could not make nearly so much money in that way. And father wants the money, Violante, indeed he does.”
“Oh yes – I know it must be done – I will not make a fuss.”
“That’s a good child. And you will not have to sing only to strangers. Think how kind the Tollemaches are to us, how pleased they will be with you.”
Violante flushed to her very finger tips, and Rosa felt her heart throb.
“They will not like me then,” she murmured.
“Not like you, what can you mean? Why should they not like you?”
“English people don’t like actresses.”
“Well, but you don’t suppose Mrs Tollemache has any prejudice of that sort?”
“She would not like Emily to do it.”
“Emily! Of course not. Young ladies like Emily don’t sing in public. She would not be a governess or do anything to get her living. But they would think it quite right for you. Why, you will have Mr Crichton and his brother to throw bouquets at you!”
“Yes!” exclaimed Violante, with sudden passion. “He will throw bouquets at me. He will ‘tell his friends I am pretty,’ and he will think – ”
“He? Mr Crichton? Violante, what can it matter to you what he thinks?”
Violante shrank away from her sister, and covered her face with her hands.
“Violante,” cried Rosa, too anxious to pick her words, “don’t tell me you have been so silly as to think about him – that you have let yourself care for him.”
“Oh – I do – I do, with all my heart,” cried Violante, with all the fervour of her Italian nature, speaking from her shining eyes and parted lips.
“What has he said to you – what has he done? He has not made love to you – child – surely.”
“I don’t know,” murmured Violante.
“Oh, I must have been mad – what have I been doing to let this go on?” cried Rosa, starting up and walking about in her agitation, while Violante cowered, frightened, into the great chair, but with a certain self-assertion in her heart, too.
“Now,” said Rosa, recovering prudence, and sitting down on the arm of the chair, “you see, I have not taken care of my pretty sister. Tell me all about it.”
“You are not angry with me, Rosa?”
“Angry, my little one,” said Rosa, while tears, rare in her eyes, fell on her cheeks – “no, only angry with myself. Now, tell me what it is; how long have you felt in this way? What has he said to you?”
“All, how can I tell? He looks at me – he gives me flowers – he speaks to my heart,” said Violante with downcast eyes, but lips that smiled and needed no sympathy in their satisfaction.
“Don’t be silly,” said poor Rosa, irritated both by the smile and the sentiment. “Is that all?”
“He told me of his home – he said we should be friends – he asked me for a rose, and kissed my hand for it – he said he thought it was Italian fashion.”
“Oh, Violante, why didn’t you tell me before?”
“Oh,” with a funny little air of superiority, “one does not think of telling.”
Rosa pressed Violante tight in her arms, and set her lips hard, and when she spoke it was very low and steadily.
“My child, you know how I love you, that I only think how to make you happy. Mr Crichton had no right to play with you so; but it was my fault for letting you be thrown in his way. Young men will do those things, just to amuse themselves.”
“Some will.”
“Some?” said Rosa bitterly. “You little foreign girl – he would think of you just as of a pretty flower, to please him for a time, and then he will go home and leave you to repent that you have ever known him!”
“Never – never,” cried Violante, clasping her hands. “Never – if my heart should break.”
Rosa stamped her foot, and hot, cruel tears, that burnt as they fell, half choked her.
“I dare say he has never thought that you would take what he said seriously. If he likes you, he could not marry you – he must marry some English girl of his own rank. You must put him out of your head, and I must take better care of you.”
Violante’s views of the future were scarcely so definite as these words implied, but she shivered, and a chill fell on her spirits.
“Now,” said Rosa, “I believe Signor Vasari does really care for you.”
“Signor Vasari! I hate him!” cried Violante. “Rosa, I will be good – I will act – I will sing – but I will not hear of Signor Vasari. If he kissed me, I would kill him!”
“For shame, Violante, that is a very improper way of speaking. Oh, my child, will you promise me to be good?”
Violante did not answer. Was there a secret rebellion in the heart that had always given Rosa back love for love?
“Violante mia – you don’t think me unkind to you?”
Violante looked up and smiled, and taking Rosa’s face between her two little hands, covered it with sweet, fond kisses.
“Rosa, carissima mia, shall you do anything?”
“No,” said Rosa, considering. “I think not. If you will be a good child, and steady – now father will be coming back.”
“Oh, you will not tell him?”
“No, no – certainly not; but you have not practised.”
“I could not sing a note!”
“No, not now,” said Rosa steadily. “You must drink some coffee, and go and lie down for a little. And then you must bathe your eyes, and put up your hair, and come and sing for as long as father wishes.”
Violante obeyed, and Rosa having administered the coffee, and seen that no more tears were likely to result from solitude, left her to rest, and came back to await her father and consider the situation. She did not like the look of it at all. Violante was a good, obedient child, who tried to do as she was told, and had no power to rebel against fate. But she knew nothing of self-conquest or of self-control, and when she was unhappy had no thought but to cling to Rosa, and cry till she was comforted; while under all her timidity lay the power of a certain fervour of feeling against which she had never dreamed of struggling. Sweet and humble, innocent and tender, yet with a most passionate nature, how could she contend with feelings which were more
“Than would bearOf daily life the wear and tear,”how endure the pangs of disappointment, added to the strain of an uncongenial life?
“I think she will break her heart,” thought Rosa to herself. But then arose the consolatory thought that a life which seemed attractive to herself could not be so painful to her sister, and the probability that Violante’s feeling for her lover had not gone beyond the region of sentimental fancy.
Rosa, being naturally of a sanguine temperament, inclined to the latter opinion, and rose up smiling as her father came in.
“Well, and where is Violante – has she practised yet?” demanded Signor Mattei.
“No, father; she was too tired, she will come directly and sing for as long as you like.”
“The child is possessed,” muttered Signor Mattei.
“Now, father,” said Rosa, in a tone rather too decided to be quite filial, “you must leave Violante to me. I will manage her, and take care that she sings her best on Tuesday. But if she is scolded and frightened, she will break down. I know she will.”
“Well, figlia mia,” said Signor Mattei, somewhat meekly, for Rosa was the domestic authority, and was at that moment chopping up an excellent salad for him, and pouring on abundance of oil with her own hands. “But it is hard that my daughter should be such a little fool.”
“So it is,” said Rosa laughing, “but she will be good now. Now then, Violante,” opening the bedroom door.
There lay Violante, her sweet round lips smiling, her soft eyes serene, her own fears and Rosa’s warnings driven into the back-ground by the excitement of her confession, and by the thought of how Hugh had thanked her for her song.
She threw her arms round Rosa with a hearty, girlish embrace, quite different from the despairing clinging of an hour before.
“Yes, I am coming. My hair? Oh, father likes it so,” brushing it out into its native ripples. “There, my red ribbon. Now I will be buona – buonissima figlia.” And she ran into the sitting-room and up to her father, pausing with a full, sweeping curtsey.
“Grazie – mille grazie – signore e signori,” she said. “Is that right, padre mio?”
And her father, seeing her with her floating hair, her eyes and cheeks bright with the excitement that was making her heart beat like a bird in its cage, might well exclaim – “Child, you might bring the house down if you would. Come and kiss me, and go and sing ‘Batti batti,’ before you have your supper.”
Part 1, Chapter VI
Il Don Giovanni
Oh, the lute,For that wondrous song were mute,And the bird would do her part,Falter, fail and break her heart —Break her heart and furl her wings,On the inexpressive strings.“My dearest Hugh, —
“I write at once to tell you our good news. The class lists are out, and Arthur has got a second. I am sure he deserves it, for he has worked splendidly, and I always thought he would do well. I hope his success will not alter his wishes with regard to the bank where your dear father so much wished to see him take a place; but the life may seem rather hum-drum, and Arthur is naturally much flattered at all the things that have been said to him at Oxford. The girls are delighted. I am so glad you are enjoying yourself, but how much time you have spent at Civita Bella! When do you think of returning? I am going to give some parties as a sort of introduction for Mysie. The Clintons are coming. I don’t know if you admire Katie Clinton; she is a very nice girl, and she is thought a beauty. That fence by the oak copse is in a sad state; do you think James Jennings ought to mend it? We have a very good hay crop. I have had a rapturous letter from Jem, but you say less about your delights. I wish you would choose a present for me for each of the girls from Italy, and I should like to give Arthur something on his success, but I dare say he would rather choose some books for himself.
“Ever my dearest boy, —
“Your loving mother, —
“L. Spencer Crichton.”
Redhurst House, Oxley.
This letter was brought to Hugh Crichton as he was dressing for the performance of “Don Giovanni,” at which “Mademoiselle Mattei” was to make her first appearance before the public of Civita Bella. The Tollemaches were full of interest in her success; and Hugh and James had selected the bouquets which were to be thrown to her, with both the ladies to help them, and Hugh’s choice of white and scented flowers was declared by Emily to be remarkably appropriate to Violante.
The pleasant commonplace letter came like a breath of fresh, sharp wind from Oxley into the midst of the soft Italian air, good in itself, may be, but incongruous. Arthur’s success? Hugh was gratified; but not immoderately so, and it crossed his mind to think “What a fuss every one will make! But he shall have his way about the bank; it is not fair to tie any one down to other men’s wishes. Katie Clinton! If the mother only knew!” If his mother had only known how his heart beat and his face burnt with excitement at the crisis in one little foreign girl’s life, if she knew how far Redhurst seemed away to him! If she knew that he had fallen entirely in love with Violante Mattei! Would she ever know? And Hugh, perhaps for the first time, saw that question and all it implied looming in the distance. Was it to be “all for love and the world well lost?” Would the world be lost? What did he mean to do? Hugh knew quite well what he would have advised Jem to do under similar circumstances. It was a foolish, unsuitable thing, likely to make every one unhappy, it – . “I must sing, but I am frightened, Signor Hugo.”
“Will she be so frightened to-night? She said she liked stephanotis. I wonder if they can see on the stage where a bouquet comes from! I have not seen her for days. We should all be at sixes and sevens. Well, there’s no time now for consideration; but this letter has given me a shake, and I’ll play neither with her nor myself,” and Hugh took up his bouquet, and resolved for the moment to do the one thing possible to him – look at and think of Violante.
The house was full, but the Tollemaches had taken care to secure good places. Emily was full of excitement, proud of having a private interest in the public singer, and eagerly wondering how Violante felt then. Jem discoursed to her on the various great stars whom he had seen fulfilling Zerlina’s part, nothing loth to show his acquaintance with little scraps of their history, and with some of the technicalities of their profession, for Jem was great in private and semi-public theatricals and concerts, and was much amused and interested by what he had seen and heard of Mademoiselle Mattei.
Hugh sat leaning forward on the front of the box, and during the two first scenes he kept his eyes fixed on the stage as if he had never seen an opera before, and though he was not continuously attending, he never all his life long heard a note of the music without recalling that little Italian opera-house, with its dim lights and imperfect scenery, its true sweet singers, and the throb of excitement and expectation as the third scene in which Zerlina makes her first appearance opened.
“There she is!” cried Emily, and there was nothing more in the theatre for Hugh but one little terrified face. Ah, so terrified, so white, he knew, under all its rouge, with eyes that saw nothing and looked through the carefully practised smiles as if longing and appealing for the help no one could give her. Hugh felt a wild desire to jump down and snatch her in his arms, stop the music, drive away all those fantastic figures – anything, rather than that she should suffer such fear. What right had anyone to applaud her, to look at her – ah! she was going to sing!
She sang; and after a few faint notes the exquisite quality of her voice asserted itself, and, with her look of extreme youth and shyness, excited an interest that made the audience lenient to the stiffness of her gestures and the gravity and formality of what should have been coquettish dalliance between the peasant and the noble lover.
The notes were true and pure as those of a bird; but in their beautiful inflexions was no human passion, no varieties of meaning. Her face was lovely; but it did not image Zerlina’s affectionateness, vanity, triumph, and hesitation, her mischievous delight in the new admirer, and her lingering concern for the old one; it spoke nothing to the audience, and to Hugh only Violante’s fear and pain. But the music was perfect, and Violante, with her gay dress and mournful eyes, was a sweet sight to look on; so she was well received enough, and Hugh, as he saw her mouth quiver, thought that the noisy plaudits would make her cry.
“Oh, doesn’t she look just as sweet as ever?” cried Emily.
“She looks just the same as ever; she has no notion of her part,” said Mr Tollemache, “but the voice is first-rate.”
“She would be a study for a picture, ‘The Unwilling Actress,’” said Jem. “What say you, Hugh?”
“Oh; it is a great success – it is very good,” said Hugh vaguely; but his face was crimson, and he felt as if he could scarcely breathe.
The piece went on, and when the famous songs were heard in those perfect tones, when it was only necessary for her to stand and sing instead of to act, her voice and her youth and her beauty gained the day, there was a storm of applause, and a shower of bouquets fell at her feet. Hugh flung his white one, and Don Giovanni took it up and put it in her hand. Then suddenly the eyes lit up, the face was radiant, and the real passion which she had no power to assume or to mimic seemed to change her being.
“By Jove, she is lovely!” cried Jem. The next moment she had hidden her face in the flowers, and her next notes were so faltering that they were hardly heard. Hugh felt a fury of impatience as the public interest turned to the other heroines of the piece, and yet he had time to watch Violante as she stood motionless and weary, forgetting the bye-play that should have kept her in view while she remained silent. Hugh did not think that she saw him; he could not catch her eye, and felt angrily jealous of the stage lovers.
“Now’s the trial,” said Mr Tollemache. “Let us see how she will make a fool of Masetto.” Masetto was a fine actor as well as a good singer, and the part of Don Giovanni was played by Signor Vasari, the manager of the company himself. Even Hugh, preoccupied as he was, could not but perceive that Zerlina gave them few chances of making a point.
“I feel just as if it was Violante herself who was unhappy,” said Emily. “She looks as if Signor Mattei had been scolding her.”
Hugh, at any rate, felt as if it were Violante whom Don Giovanni was persecuting, and was utterly carried away by the excitement of the scene, till, just as the wild dance came to a climax, and Zerlina’s screams for help were heard, his brother touched his arm. Hugh started, and came suddenly to himself. James was gazing decorously at the stage. Hugh was conscious of having been so entirely absorbed as not to know how he might have betrayed his excitement. Of course he was in a rage with Jem for noticing it, but he sat back in his place and became aware that his hand trembled as he tried to put up his opera glasses, and that he had been biting his lip hard. He saw very little of the concluding scenes, and could not have told afterwards whether Don Giovanni died repentant or met the reward of his deeds. Even when the curtain dropped and Mademoiselle Mattei was led forward, to receive perhaps more bouquets and more “bravas” than she deserved, he felt a dull cold sense of disenchantment, though he clapped and shouted with the rest.
“It is all very well,” said Mr Tollemache, as he cloaked his mother; “her extreme youth and her voice attract for the present, but she is too bad an actress for permanent success.”
“She hasn’t the physical strength for it,” said Jem; “her voice will go.”
“It is to be hoped Vasari will marry her,” said Mr Tollemache.
“It is a very pretty opera,” said Hugh; “and I thought Donna Elvira had a fine voice.”
“The theatre was very hot,” said Mr Tollemache, when they reached home; “has it made your head ache, Mr Crichton?”
“No, thank you, but I’ll go to bed, I think. I don’t care for a smoke, Jem, to-night.”
“Jem,” said Mr Tollemache, as they parted after a desultory discussion of Violante, the opera, the Matteis, and the chances of Violante’s voice being profitable to Signor Vasari, “if you and Hugh care to go on and see a bit more of Italy, to push on to Rome, for instance, for the few days you have left, you mustn’t stand on ceremony with me.”
“Thank you,” said James. “I’ll see what Hugh says; I should like to see the – the Vatican, immensely.”
Part 1, Chapter VII
Brotherly Counsel
“They were dangerous guides, the feelings – ”
James Crichton had a certain taste for peculiarity, and anything unexpected and eccentric attracted him as much as it repels many other people. He piqued himself on his liberality, and had friends and acquaintances in many grades of society, to whom he behaved with perfectly genuine freedom and equality. He also loved everything that the word “Bohemian” implies to those classes who use it entirely ab extra. His mother’s vision of Jem’s daily life was a confused mixture of shabby velveteen, ale in queer mugs, colours which she was told to admire but thought hideous, mingled with musical instruments of all descriptions. He teased her to ask the Oxley photographer to dinner, and perpetually shocked her by revealing the social standing of acquaintances, whom he spoke of in terms of the greatest enthusiasm, till her dread was that he would marry some of “the sweet girls and perfect ladies” who supported their families by their own exertions in ways, which, though doubtless genteel, were not exactly aristocratic. She would have expected him to fall a victim to Violante at once.
But people do not always act in the way that is expected of them, and Mrs Crichton would have been saved much uneasiness had she known that Jem’s affections, so far as they were developed, were placed on the daughter of an Archdeacon, who dressed at once fashionably and quietly, did her hair in accordance with custom and not art, was such a lady that no one ever called her lady-like, and so exactly what she ought to have been that no one would have ventured to say she was dull. Jem had a great many flirtations, but if ever a vision of the wife that years hence might reward his devotion to his work at the Foreign Office, crossed his mind that vision bore the form of Miss Helen Hayward. It takes a great deal of theory and very strong opinions to contend in practice with the instincts to which people are born; but instincts have less chance where feeling and passion rise up to do battle with them.