A Roman Singer Part 14

And I will sit down comfortably--so. Now you must know that the baroness--_requiescat_!--was not poisoned by Nino, or by anyone else."

"Of course not! Go on."

"Piano--slow and sure. They had a terrific scene yesterday. You know?

Yes. Then she went out and tired herself, poor soul, so that when she got home she had an attack of the nerves. Now these foreigners, who are a pack of silly people, do not have themselves bled and drink malva water as we do when we get a fit of anger. But they take opium; that is, a thing they call chloral. G.o.d knows what it is made of, but it puts them to sleep, like opium. When the doctors came to look at the poor lady they saw at once what was the matter, and called the maid. The maid said her mistress certainly had some green stuff in a little bottle which she often used to take; and when they inquired further they heard that the baroness had poured out much more than usual the night before, while the maid was combing her hair, for she seemed terribly excited and restless. So they got the bottle and found it nearly empty. Then the doctors said, 'At what time was this young man who is now arrested seen to give her the gla.s.s of water?' The man-servant said it was about two in the afternoon. So the doctors knew that if Nino had given her the chloral she could not have gone out afterwards, and have been awake at eleven in the evening when her maid was with her, and yet have been hurt by what he gave her. And so, as Jacovacci was raising a thousand devils in every corner of Rome because they had arrested his princ.i.p.al singer on false pretences, and was threatening to bring suits against everybody, including the Russian emba.s.sy, the doctors, and the Government, if Nino did not appear in _Faust_ to-night, according to his agreement, the result was that, half an hour ago, Nino was conducted out of the police precincts with ten thousand apologies, and put into the arms of Jacovacci, who wept for joy, and carried him off to a late breakfast at Morteo's. And then I came here. But I made Nino promise to take a good walk for his digestion, since the weather has changed. For a breakfast at three in the afternoon may be called late, even in Rome. And that reminds me to ask you for a drop of wine; for I am still fasting, and this talking is worse for the throat than a dozen high ma.s.ses."

Mariuccia had been listening at the door, as usual, and she immediately began crying for joy; for she is a weak-minded old thing, and dotes on Nino. I was very glad myself, I can tell you; but I could not understand how Nino could have the heart to sing, or should lack heart so much as to be fit for it. Before the evening he came home, silent and thoughtful. I asked him whether he were not glad to be free so easily.

"That is not a very intelligent question for a philosopher like you to ask," he answered. "Of course I am glad of my liberty; any man would be. But I feel that I am as much the cause of that poor lady's death as though I had killed her with my own hands. I shall never forgive myself."

"Diana!" I cried, "it is a horrible tragedy; but it seems to me that you could not help it if she chose to love you."

"Hus.h.!.+" said he, so sternly that he frightened me. "She is dead. G.o.d give her soul rest. Let us not talk of what she did."

"But," I objected, "if you feel so strongly about it, how can you sing at the opera to-night?"

"There are plenty of reasons why I should sing. In the first place, I owe it to my engagement with Jacovacci. He has taken endless trouble to have me cleared at once, and I will not disappoint him. Besides, I have not lost my voice, and might be half ruined by breaking contract so early. Then, the afternoon papers are full of the whole affair, some right and some wrong, and I am bound to show the Contessina di Lira that this unfortunate accident does not touch my heart, however sorry I may be. If I did not appear all Rome would say it was because I was heart-broken. If she does not go to the theatre, she will at least hear of it. Therefore I will sing." It was very reasonable of him to think so.

"Have any of the papers got hold of the story of your giving lessons?"

"No, I think not; and there is no mention of the Lira family."

"So much the better."

Hedwig did not go to the opera. Of course she was quite right. However she might feel about the baroness, it would have been in the worst possible taste to go to the opera the very day after her death. That is the way society puts it. It is bad taste; they never say it is heartless, or unkind, or brutal. It is simply bad taste. Nino sang, on the whole, better than if she had been there, for he put his whole soul in his art and won fresh laurels. When it was over he was besieged by the agent of the London manager to come to some agreement.

"I cannot tell yet," he said. "I will tell you soon." He was not willing to leave Rome--that was the truth of the matter. He thought of nothing, day or night, but of how he might see Hedwig, and his heart writhed in his breast when it seemed more and more impossible. He dared not risk compromising her by another serenade, as he felt sure that it had been some servant of the count who had betrayed him to the baroness. At last he hit upon a plan. The funeral of the baroness was to take place on the afternoon of the next day. He felt sure that the Graf von Lira would go to it, and he was equally certain that Hedwig would not. It chanced to be the hour at which De Pretis went to the Palazzo to give her the singing lesson.

"I suppose it is a barbarous thing for me to do," he said to himself, "but I cannot help it. Love first, and tragedy afterwards."

In the afternoon, therefore, he sallied out, and went boldly to the Palazzo Carmandola. He inquired of the porter whether the Signor Conte had gone out, and just as he had expected, so he found it. Old Lira had left the house ten minutes earlier, to go to the funeral. Nino ran up the stairs and rang the bell. The footman opened the door, and Nino quickly slipped a five-franc note into his hand, which he had no difficulty in finding. On asking if the signorina were at home, the footman nodded, and added that Professor De Pretis was with her, but she would doubtless see Professor Cardegna as well. And so it turned out. He was ushered into the great drawing-room, where the piano was.

Hedwig came forward a few steps from where she had been standing beside De Pretis, and Nino bowed low before her. She had on a long dark dress, and no ornament whatever, save her beautiful bright hair, so that her face was like a jewel set in gold and velvet. But, when I think of it, such a combination would seem absurdly vulgar by the side of Hedwig von Lira. She was so pale and exquisite and sad that Nino could hardly look at her. He remembered that there were violets, rarest of flowers in Rome in January, in her belt.

To tell the truth, Nino had expected to find her stern and cold, whereas she was only very quiet and sorrowful.

"Will you forgive me, signorina, for this rashness?" he asked, in a low voice.

"In that I receive you I forgive you, sir," she said. He glanced toward De Pretis, who seemed absorbed in some music at the piano and was playing over bits of an accompaniment. She understood, and moved slowly to a window at the other end of the great room, standing among the curtains. He placed himself in the embrasure. She looked at him long and earnestly, as if finally reconciling the singer with the man she had known so long. She found him changed, as I had, in a short time. His face was sterner and thinner and whiter than before, and there were traces of thought in the deep shadows beneath his eyes.

Quietly observing him, she saw how perfectly simple and exquisitely careful was his dress, and how his hands bespoke that attention which only a gentleman gives to the details of his person. She saw that, if he were not handsome, he was in the last degree striking to the eye, in spite of all his simplicity, and that he would not lose by being contrasted with all the dandies and courtiers in Rome. As she looked, she saw his lip quiver slightly, the only sign of emotion he ever gives, unless he loses his head altogether, and storms, as he sometimes does.

"Signorina," he began, "I have come to tell you a story; will you listen to it?"

"Tell it me," said she, still looking in his face.

"There was once a solitary castle in the mountains, with battlement and moat both high and broad. Far up in a lonely turret dwelt a rare maiden, of such surpa.s.sing beauty and fairness that the peasants thought she was not mortal, but an angel from heaven, resting in that tower from the doing of good deeds. She had flowers up there in her chamber, and the seeds of flowers; and as the seasons pa.s.sed by, she took from her store the dry germs, and planted them one after another in a little earth on the window-sill. And the sun shone on them and they grew, and she breathed upon them and they were sweet. But they withered and bore no offspring, and fell away, so that year by year her store became diminished. At last there was but one little paper bag of seed left, and upon the cover was written in a strange character, 'This is the Seed of the Thorn of the World.' But the beautiful maiden was sad when she saw this, for she said 'All my flowers have been sweet, and now I have but this thing left, which is a thorn!' And she opened the paper and looked inside, and saw one poor little seed all black and shrivelled. Through that day she pondered what to do with it, and was very unhappy. At night she said to herself, 'I will not plant this one; I will throw it away rather than plant it.' And she went to the window, and tore the paper, and threw out the little seed into the darkness."

"Poor little thing!" said Hedwig. She was listening intently.

"She threw it out, and as it fell, all the air was full of music, sad and sweet, so that she wondered greatly. The next day she looked out of the window, and saw, between the moat and the castle wall, a new plant growing. It looked black and uninviting, but it had come up so fast that it had already laid hold on the rough gray stones. At the falling of the night it reached far up towards the turret, a great sharp-pointed vine, with only here and there a miserable leaf on it.

'I am sorry I threw it out,' said the maiden. 'It is the Thorn of the World, and the people who pa.s.s will think it defaces my castle.' But when it was dark again the air was full of music. The maiden went to the window, for she could not sleep, and she called out, asking who it was that sang. Then a sweet, low voice came up to her from the moat. 'I am the Thorn,' it said, 'I sing in the dark, for I am growing.'--'Sing on, Thorn,' said she, 'and grow if you will.' But in the morning when she awoke, her window was darkened, for the Thorn had grown to be a mighty tree, and its topmost shoots were black against the sky. She wondered whether this uncouth plant would bear anything but music. So she spoke to it.

"'Thorn,' she said, 'why have you no flowers?'

"'I am the Thorn of the World,' it answered, 'and I can bear no flowers until the hand that planted me has tended me, and pruned me, and shaped me to be its own. If you had planted me like the rest, it would have been easy for you. But you planted me unwillingly, down below you by the moat, and I have had far to climb.'

"'But my hands are so delicate,' said the maiden. 'You will hurt me, I am sure.'

"'Yours is the only hand in the world that I will not hurt,' said the voice, so tenderly and softly and sadly that the gentle fingers went out to touch the plant and see if it were real. And touching it they clung there, for they had no harm of it. Would you know, my lady, what happened then?"

"Yes, yes--tell me!" cried Hedwig, whose imagination was fascinated by the tale.

"As her hands rested on the spiked branches, a gentle trembling went through the Thorn, and in a moment there burst out such a blooming and blossoming as the maiden had never seen. Every p.r.i.c.k became a rose, and they were so many that the light of the day was tinged with them, and their sweetness was like the breath of paradise. But below her window the Thorn was as black and forbidding as ever, for only the maiden's presence could make its flowers bloom. But she smelled the flowers, and pressed many of them to her cheek.

"'I thought you were only a Thorn,' she said, softly.

"'Nay, fairest maiden,' answered the glorious voice of the bursting blossom, 'I am the Rose of the World for ever, since you have touched me.'

"That is my story, signorina. Have I wearied you?"

Hedwig had unconsciously moved nearer to him as he was speaking, for he never raised his voice, and she hung on his words. There was colour in her face, and her breath came quickly through her parted lips. She had never looked so beautiful.

"Wearied me, signore? Ah no; it is a gentle tale of yours."

"It is a true tale--in part," said he.

"In part? I do not understand--" But the colour was warmer in her cheek, and she turned her face half away, as though looking out.

"I will tell you," he replied, coming closer, on the side from which she turned. "Here is the window. You are the maiden. The thorn--it is my love for you"; he dropped his voice to a whisper "You planted it carelessly, far below you in the dark. In the dark it has grown and sung to you, and grown again, until now it stands in your own castle window. Will you not touch it and make its flowers bloom for you?" He spoke fervently. She had turned her face quite from him now, and was resting her forehead against one hand that leaned upon the heavy frame of the cas.e.m.e.nt. The other hand hung down by her side toward him, fair as a lily against her dark gown. Nino touched it, then took it. He could see the blush spread to her white throat, and fade again.

Between the half-falling curtain and the great window he bent his knee and pressed her fingers to his lips. She made as though she would withdraw her hand, and then left it in his. Her glance stole to him as he kneeled there, and he felt it on him, so that he looked up. She seemed to raise him with her fingers, and her eyes held his and drew them; he stood up, and, still holding her hand, his face was near to hers. Closer and closer yet, as by a spell, each gazing searchingly into the other's glance, till their eyes could see no more for closeness, and their lips met in life's first virgin kiss,--in the glory and strength of a two-fold purity, each to each.

Far off at the other end of the room De Pretis struck a chord on the piano. They started at the sound.

"When?" whispered Nino, hurriedly.

"At midnight, under my window," she answered, quickly, not thinking of anything better in her haste. "I will tell you then. You must go; my father will soon be here. No, not again," she protested. But he drew her to him, and said good-bye in his own manner. She lingered an instant, and tore herself away. De Pretis was playing loudly. Nino had to pa.s.s near him to go out, and the maestro nodded carelessly as he went by.

"Excuse me, maestro," said Hedwig, as Nino bowed himself out; "it was a question of arranging certain lessons."

"Do not mention it," said he, indifferently; "my time is yours, signorina. Shall we go through with this solfeggio once more?"

The good maestro did not seem greatly disturbed by the interruption.

Hedwig wondered, dreamily, whether he had understood. It all seemed like a dream. The notes were upside down in her sight, and her voice sought strange minor keys unconsciously, as she vainly tried to concentrate her attention upon what she was doing.

"Signorina," said Ercole at last, "what you sing is very pretty, but it is not exactly what is written here. I fear you are tired."

"Perhaps so," said she. "Let us not sing any more to-day." Ercole shut up the music and rose. She gave him her hand, a thing she had never done before; and it was unconscious now, as everything she did seemed to be. There is a point when dreaming gets the mastery and appears infinitely more real than the things we touch.

Nino, meanwhile, had descended the steps, expecting every moment to meet the count. As he went down the street a closed carriage drove by with the Lira liveries. The old count was in it, but Nino stepped into the shadow of a doorway to let the equipage pa.s.s, and was not seen.

The wooden face of the old n.o.bleman almost betrayed something akin to emotion. He was returning from the funeral, and it had pained him; for he had liked the wild baroness in a fatherly, reproving way. But the sight of him sent a home thrust to Nino's heart.