Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  “Why did you come to-day?” she asked.

  “Because you desired it,” answered Nino, in some astonishment.

  “You need not have come,” she said, bending down to lean on the back of a silken chair. She folded her hands and looked at him as he stood not three paces away. “Do you not know what has happened?” she asked, with a smile that was a little sad.

  “I do not understand,” said Nino simply. He was facing the entrance to the room, and saw the curtains parted by the servant. The baroness had her back to the door, and did not hear.

  “Do you not know,” she continued, “that you are free now? Your appearance in public has put an end to it all. You are not tied to me any longer, — unless you wish it.”

  As she spoke these words Nino turned white, for under the heavy curtain, lifted to admit her, stood Hedwig von Lira, like a statue, transfixed and immovable from what she had heard. The baroness noticed Nino’s look, and springing back to her height from the chair on which she had been leaning, faced the door.

  “My dearest Hedwig!” she cried, with a magnificent readiness. “I am so very glad you have come. I did not expect you in the least. Do take off your hat, and stay to breakfast. Ah, forgive me; this is Professor Cardegna. But you know him? Yes; now that I think, we all went to the Pantheon together.” Nino bowed low, and Hedwig bent her head.

  “Yes,” said the young girl coldly. “Professor Cardegna gives me lessons.”

  “Why, of course; how bête I am! I was just telling him that, since he has been successful, and is enrolled among the great artists, it is a pity he is no longer tied to giving Italian lessons, — tied to coming here three times a week to teach me literature.” Hedwig smiled a strange icy smile, and sat down by the window. Nino was still utterly astonished, but he would not allow the baroness’s quibble to go entirely uncontradicted.

  “In truth,” he said, “the Signora Baronessa’s lessons consisted chiefly—”

  “In teaching me pronunciation,” interrupted the baroness, trying to remove Hedwig’s veil and hat, somewhat against the girl’s inclination. “Yes, you see how it is. I know a little of singing, but I cannot pronounce — not in the least. Ah, these Italian vowels will be the death of me! But if there is anyone who can teach a poor dilettante to pronounce them,” she added, laying the hat away on a chair, and pushing a footstool to Hedwig’s feet, “that someone is Signor Cardegna.”

  By this time Nino had recognised the propriety of temporising; that is to say, of letting the baroness’s fib pass for what it was worth, lest the discussion of the subject should further offend Hedwig, whose eyes wandered irresolutely toward him, as though she would say something if he addressed her.

  “I hope, signorina,” he said, “that it is not quite as the baroness says. I trust our lessons are not at an end?” He knew very well that they were.

  “I think, Signor Cardegna,” said Hedwig, with more courage than would have been expected from such a mere child, — she is twenty, but Northern people are not grown up till they are thirty, at least,— “I think it would have been more obliging if, when I asked you so much about your cousin, you had acknowledged that you had no cousin, and that the singer was none other than yourself.” She blushed, perhaps, but the curtain of the window hid it.

  “Alas, signorina,” answered Nino, still standing before her, “such a confession would have deprived me of the pleasure — of the honour of giving you lessons.”

  “And pray, Signor Cardegna,” put in the baroness, “what are a few paltry lessons compared with the pleasure you ought to have experienced in satisfying the Contessina di Lira’s curiosity. Really, you have little courtesy.”

  Nino shrank into himself, as though he were hurt, and he gave the baroness a look which said worlds. She smiled at him, in joy of her small triumph, for Hedwig was looking at the floor again and could not see. But the young girl had strength in her, for all her cold looks and white cheek.

  “You can atone, Signor Cardegna,” she said. Nino’s face brightened.

  “How, signorina?” he asked.

  “By singing to us now,” said Hedwig. The baroness looked grave, for she well knew what a power Nino wielded with his music.

  “Do not ask him,” she protested. “He must be tired, — tired to death, with all he went through last night.”

  “Tired?” ejaculated Nino, with some surprise. “I tired? I was never tired in my life of singing. I will sing as long as you will listen.” He went to the piano. As he turned, the baroness laid her hand on Hedwig’s affectionately, as though sympathising with something she supposed to be passing in the girl’s mind. But Hedwig was passive, unless a little shudder at the first touch of the baroness’s fingers might pass for a manifestation of feeling. Hedwig had hitherto liked the baroness, finding in her a woman of a certain artistic sense, combined with a certain originality. The girl was an absolute contrast to the woman, and admired in her the qualities she thought lacking in herself, though she possessed too much self-respect to attempt to acquire them by imitation. Hedwig sat like a Scandinavian fairy princess on the summit of a glass hill; her friend roamed through life like a beautiful soft-footed wild animal, rejoicing in the sense of being, and sometimes indulging in a little playful destruction by the way. The girl had heard a voice in the dark singing, and ever since then she had dreamed of the singer; but it never entered her mind to confide to the baroness her strange fancies. An undisciplined imagination, securely shielded from all outward disturbing causes, will do much with a voice in the dark, — a great deal more than such a woman as the baroness might imagine.

  I do not know enough about these blue-eyed German girls to say whether or not Hedwig had ever before thought of her unknown singer as an unknown lover. But the emotions of the previous night had shaken her nerves a little, and had she been older than she was she would have known that she loved her singer, in a distant and maidenly fashion, as soon as she heard the baroness speak of him as having been her property. And now she was angry with herself, and ashamed of feeling any interest in a man who was evidently tied to another woman by some intrigue she could not comprehend. Her coming to visit the baroness had been as unpremeditated as it was unexpected that morning, and she bitterly repented it; but being of good blood and heart, she acted as boldly as she could, and showed no little tact in making Nino sing, and thus cutting short a painful conversation. Only when the baroness tried to caress her and stroke her hand she shrank away, and the blood mantled up to her cheeks. Add to all this the womanly indignation she felt at having been so long deceived by Nino, and you will see that she was in a very vacillating frame of mind.

  The baroness was a subtle woman, reckless and diplomatic by turns, and she was not blind to the sudden repulse she met with from Hedwig, unspoken though it was. But she merely withdrew her hand, and sat thinking over the situation. What she thought, no one knows; or at least, we can only guess it from what she did afterwards. As for me, I have never blamed her at all, for she is the kind of woman I should have loved. In the meantime Nino carolled out one love song after another. He saw, however, that the situation was untenable, and after a while he rose to go. Strange to say, although the baroness had asked Nino to breakfast and the hour was now at hand, she made no effort to retain him. But she gave him her hand, and said many flattering and pleasing things, which, however, neither flattered nor pleased him. As for Hedwig, she bent her head a little, but said nothing, as he bowed before her. Nino therefore went home with a heavy heart, longing to explain to Hedwig why he had been tied to the baroness, — that it was the price of her silence and of the privilege he had enjoyed of giving lessons to the contessina; but knowing also that all explanation was out of the question for the present. When he was gone Hedwig and the baroness were left together.

  “It must have been a great surprise to you, my dear,” said the elder lady kindly.

  “What?”

  “That your little professor should turn out a great artist in disguise. It was a surprise to
me, too, — ah, another illusion destroyed. Dear child! You have still so many illusions, — beautiful, pure illusions. Dieu! how I envy you!” They generally talked French together, though the baroness knows German. Hedwig laughed bravely.

  “I was certainly astonished,” she said. “Poor man! I suppose he did it to support himself. He never told me he gave you lessons too.” The baroness smiled, but it was from genuine satisfaction this time.

  “I wonder at that, since he knew we were intimate, or, at least, that we were acquainted. Of course I would not speak of it last night, because I saw your father was angry.”

  “Yes, he was angry. I suppose it was natural,” said Hedwig.

  “Perfectly natural. And you, my dear, were you not angry too, — just a little?”

  “I? No. Why should I be angry? He was a very good teacher, for he knows whole volumes by heart; and he understands them too.”

  Soon they talked of other things, and the baroness was very affectionate. But though Hedwig saw that her friend was kind and most friendly, she could not forget the words that were in the air when she chanced to enter, nor could she quite accept the plausible explanation of them which the baroness had so readily invented. For jealousy is the forerunner of love, and sometimes its awakener. She felt a rival and an enemy, and all the hereditary combativeness of her Northern blood was roused.

  Nino, who was in no small perplexity, reflected. He was not old enough or observant enough to have seen the breach that was about to be created between the baroness and Hedwig. His only thought was to clear himself in Hedwig’s eyes from the imputation of having been tied to the dark woman in any way save for his love’s sake. He at once began to hate the baroness with all the ferocity of which his heart was capable, and with all the calm his bold square face outwardly expressed. But he was forced to take some action at once, and he could think of nothing better to do than to consult De Pretis.

  To the maestro he poured out his woes and his plans. He exhibited to him his position toward the baroness and toward Hedwig in the clearest light. He conjured him to go to Hedwig and explain that the baroness had threatened to unmask him, and thus deprive him of his means of support, — he dared not put it otherwise, — unless he consented to sing for her and come to her as often as she pleased. To explain, to propitiate, to smooth, — in a word, to reinstate Nino in her good opinion.

  “Death of a dog!” exclaimed De Pretis; “you do not ask much! After you have allowed your lady-love, your inamorata, to catch you saying you are bound body and soul to another woman, — and such a woman! ye saints, what a beauty! — you ask me to go and set matters right! What the diavolo did you want to go and poke your nose into such a mousetrap for? Via! I am a fool to have helped you at all.”

  “Very likely,” said Nino calmly. “But meanwhile there are two of us, and perhaps I am the greater. You will do what I ask, maestro; is it not true? And it was not I who said it; it was the baroness.”

  “The baroness — yes — and may the maledictions of the inferno overtake her,” said De Pretis, casting up his eyes and feeling in his coat-tail pockets for his snuff-box. Once, when Nino was younger, he filled Ercole’s snuff-box with soot and pepper, so that the maestro had a black nose and sneezed all day.

  What could Ercole do? It was true that he had hitherto helped Nino. Was he not bound to continue that assistance? I suppose so; but if the whole affair had ended then, and this story with it, I would not have cared a button. Do you suppose it amuses me to tell you this tale? Or that if it were not for Nino’s good name I would ever have turned myself into a common storyteller? Bah! you do not know me. A page of quaternions gives me more pleasure than all this rubbish put together, though I am not averse to a little gossip now and then of an evening, if people will listen to my details and fancies. But those are just the things people will not listen to. Everybody wants sensation nowadays. What is a sensation compared with a thought? What is the convulsive gesticulation of a dead frog’s leg compared with the intellect of the man who invented the galvanic battery, and thus gave fictitious sensation to all the countless generations of dead frogs’ legs that have since been the objects of experiment? Or if you come down to so poor a thing as mere feeling, what are your feelings in reading about Nino’s deeds compared with what he felt in doing them? I am not taking all this trouble to please you, but only for Nino’s sake, who is my dear boy. You are of no more interest or importance to me than if you were so many dead frogs; and if I galvanise your sensations, as you call them, into an activity sufficient to make you cry or laugh, that is my own affair. You need not say “thank you” to me. I do not want it. Ercole will thank you, and perhaps Nino will thank me, but that is different.

  I will not tell you about the interview that Ercole had with Hedwig, nor how skilfully he rolled up his eyes and looked pathetic when he spoke of Nino’s poverty and of the fine part he had played in the whole business. Hedwig is a woman, and the principal satisfaction she gathered from Ercole’s explanation was the knowledge that her friend the baroness had lied to her in explaining those strange words she had overheard. She knew it, of course, by instinct; but it was a great relief to be told the fact by someone else, as it always is, even when one is not a woman.

  CHAPTER VIII

  SEVERAL DAYS PASSED after the début without giving Nino an opportunity of speaking to Hedwig. He probably saw her, for he mingled in the crowd of dandies in the Piazza Colonna of an afternoon, hoping she would pass in her carriage and give him a look. Perhaps she did; he said nothing about it, but looked calm when he was silent and savage when he spoke, after the manner of passionate people. His face aged and grew stern in those few days, so that he seemed to change on a sudden from boy to man. But he went about his business, and sang at the theatre when he was obliged to; gathering courage to do his best and to display his powers from the constant success he had. The papers were full of his praises, saying that he was absolutely without rival from the very first night he sang, matchless and supreme from the moment he first opened his mouth, and all that kind of nonsense. I dare say he is now, but he could not have been really the greatest singer living, so soon. However, he used to bring me the newspapers that had notices of him, though he never appeared to care much for them, nor did he ever keep them himself. He said he hankered for an ideal which he would never attain, and I told him that if he was never to attain it he had better abandon the pursuit of it at once. But he represented to me that the ideal was confined to his imagination, whereas the reality had a great financial importance, since he daily received offers from foreign managers to sing for them, at large advantage to himself, and was hesitating only in order to choose the most convenient. This seemed sensible, and I was silent. Soon afterwards he presented me with a box of cigars and a very pretty amber mouthpiece. The cigars were real Havanas, such as I had not smoked for years, and must have cost a great deal.

  “You may not be aware, Sor Cornelio,” he said one evening, as he mixed the oil and vinegar with the salad, at supper, “that I am now a rich man, or soon shall be. An agent from the London opera has offered me twenty thousand francs for the season in London this spring.”

  “Twenty thousand francs!” I cried, in amazement. “You must be dreaming, Nino. That is just about seven times what I earn in a year with my professorship and my writing.”

  “No dreams, caro mio. I have the offer in my pocket.” He apparently cared no more about it than if he had twenty thousand roasted chestnuts in his pocket.

  “When do you leave us?” I asked, when I was somewhat recovered.

  “I am not sure that I will go,” he answered, sprinkling some pepper on the lettuce.

  “Not sure! Body of Diana, what a fool you are!”

  “Perhaps,” said he, and he passed me the dish. Just then Mariuccia came in with a bottle of wine, and we said no more about it, for Mariuccia is indiscreet.

  Nino thought nothing about his riches, because he was racking his brains for some good expedient whereby he might see the
contessina and speak with her. He had ascertained from De Pretis that the count was not so angry as he had expected, and that Hedwig was quite satisfied with the explanations of the maestro. The day after the foregoing conversation he wrote a note to her, wherein he said that if the Contessina de Lira would deign to be awake at midnight that evening she would have a serenade from a voice she was said to admire. He had Mariuccia carry the letter to the Palazzo Cormandola.

  At half-past eleven, at least two hours after supper, Nino wrapped himself in my old cloak and took the guitar under his arm. Rome is not a very safe place for midnight pranks, and so I made him take a good knife in his waistbelt; for he had confided to me where he was going. I tried to dissuade him from the plan, saying he might catch cold; but he laughed at me.

  A serenade is an everyday affair, and in the street one voice sounds about as well as another. He reached the palace, and his heart sank when he saw Hedwig’s window dark and gloomy. He did not know that she was seated behind it in a deep chair, wrapped in white things, and listening for him against the beatings of her heart. The large moon seemed to be spiked on the sharp spire of the church that is near her house, and the black shadows cut the white light as clean as with a knife. Nino had tuned his guitar in the other street, and stood ready, waiting for the clocks to strike. Presently they clanged out wildly, as though they had been waked from their midnight sleep, and were angry; one clock answering the other, and one convent bell following another in the call to prayers. For two full minutes the whole air was crazy with ringing, and then it was all still. Nino struck a single chord. Hedwig almost thought he might hear her heart beating all the way down the street.