A Roman Singer Part 29

He looked like some forgotten creature of harm, suddenly galvanised into destructive life. It was well that Benoni was not within reach.

Hedwig stood calmly by the table, proud in her soul that her father should be roused to such fury. The old man paused in his walk, came to her, and with his hand turned her face to the light, gazing savagely into her eyes.

"You never told me a lie," he growled out.

"Never," she said, boldly, as she faced him scornfully. He knew his own temper in his child, and was satisfied. The soldier's habit of self-control was strong in him, and the sardonic humour of his nature served as a garment to the thoughts he harboured.

"It appears," he said, "that I am to spend the remainder of an honourable life in fighting with a pack of hounds. I nearly killed your old acquaintance, the Signor Professore Cardegna, this afternoon." Hedwig staggered back, and turned pale.

"What! Is he wounded?" she gasped out, pressing her hand to his side.

"Ha! That touches you almost as closely as Benoni's insult," he said, savagely. "I am glad of it. I repent me, and wish that I had killed him. We met on the road, and he had the impertinence to ask me for your hand,--I am sick of these daily proposals of marriage; and then I inquired if he meant to insult me."

Hedwig leaned heavily on the table in an agony of suspense.

"The fellow answered that if I were insulted he was ready to fight then and there, in the road, with my pistols. He is no coward, your lover,--I will say that. The end of it was that I came home and he did not."

Hedwig sank into the chair that her father had left, and hid her face.

"Oh, you have killed him!" she moaned.

"No," said the count shortly; "I did not touch a hair of his head. But he rode away toward Trevi." Hedwig breathed again. "Are you satisfied?" he asked, with a hard smile, enjoying the terror he had excited.

"Oh, how cruel you are, my father!" she said, in a broken voice.

"I tell you that if I could cure you of your insane pa.s.sion for this singer fellow, I would be as cruel as the Inquisition," retorted the count. "Now listen to me. You will not be troubled any longer with Benoni,--the beast! I will teach him a lesson of etiquette. You need not appear at dinner to-night. But you are not to suppose that our residence here is at an end. When you have made up your mind to act sensibly, and to forget the Signor Cardegna, you shall return to society, where you may select a husband of your own position and fortune, if you choose; or you may turn Romanist, and go into a convent, and devote yourself to good works and idolatry, or anything else. I do not pretend to care what becomes of you, so long as you show any decent respect for your name. But if you persist in pining and moaning and starving yourself, because I will not allow you to turn dancer and marry a strolling player, you will have to remain here. I am not such pleasant company when I am bored, I can tell you, and my enthusiasm for the beauties of nature is probably transitory."

"I can bear anything if you will remove Benoni," said Hedwig, quietly, as she rose from her seat. But the pressure of the iron keys that she had hidden in her bosom gave her a strange sensation.

"Never fear," said the count, taking his hat from the table. "You shall be amply avenged of Benoni and his foul tongue. I may not love my daughter, but no one shall insult her. I will have a word with him this evening."

"I thank you for that, at least," said Hedwig, as he moved to the door.

"Do not mention it," said he, and put his hand on the lock.

A sudden impulse seized Hedwig. She ran swiftly to him, and clasped her hands upon his arm.

"Father?" she cried, pleadingly.

"What?"

"Father, do you love me?" He hesitated one moment.

"No," he said, sternly; "you disobey me"; and he went out in rough haste. The door closed behind him, and she was left standing alone.

What could she do, poor child? For months he had tormented her and persecuted her, and now she had asked him plainly if she still held a place in his heart, and he had coldly denied it.

A gentle, tender maiden, love-sick and mind-sick, yearning so piteously for a little mercy, or sympathy, or kindness, and treated like a mutinous soldier, because she loved so honestly and purely,--is it any wonder that her hand went to her bosom and clasped the cold, hard keys that promised her life and freedom? I think not. I have no patience with young women who allow themselves to be carried away by an innate bad taste and love for effect, quarrelling with the peaceful destiny that a kind Providence has vouchsafed them, and with an existence which they are too dull to make interesting to themselves or to anyone else; finally making a desperate and foolish dash at notoriety by a runaway marriage with the first scamp they can find, and repenting in poverty and social ostracism the romance they conceived in wealth and luxury. They deserve their fate. But when a sensitive girl is motherless, cut off from friends and pleasures, presented with the alternative of solitude or marriage with some detested man, or locked up to forget a dream which was half realised and very sweet, then the case is different. If she breaks her bonds, and flies to the only loving heart she knows, forgive her, and pray Heaven to have mercy on her, for she takes a fearful leap into the dark.

Hedwig felt the keys, and took them from her dress, and pressed them to her cheek, and her mind was made up. She glanced at the small gilt clock, and saw that the hands pointed to seven. Five hours were before her in which to make her preparations, such as they could be.

In accordance with her father's orders, given when he left her, Temistocle served her dinner in her sitting-room; and the uncertainty of the night's enterprise demanded that she should eat something, lest her strength should fail at the critical moment. Temistocle volunteered the information that her father had gone to the baron's apartment, and had not been seen since. She heard in silence, and bade the servant leave her as soon as he had ministered to her wants. Then she wrote a short letter to her father, telling him that she had left him, since he had no place for her in his heart, and that she had gone to the one man who seemed ready both to love and to protect her. This missive she folded, sealed, and laid in a prominent place upon the table addressed to the count.

She made a small bundle,--very neatly, for she is clever with her fingers,--and put on a dark travelling dress, in the folds of which she sewed such jewels as were small and valuable and her own. She would take nothing that her father had given her. In all this she displayed perfect coolness and foresight.

The castle became intensely quiet as the evening advanced. She sat watching the clock. At five minutes before midnight she took her bundle and her little shoes in her hand, blew out her candle, and softly left the room.

CHAPTER XX

I need not tell you how I pa.s.sed all the time from; Nino's leaving me until he came back in the evening, just as I could see from my window that the full moon was touching the tower of the castle. I sat looking out, expecting him, and I was the most anxious professor that ever found himself in a ridiculous position. Temistocle had come, and you know what had pa.s.sed between us, and how we had arranged the plan of the night. Most heartily did I wish myself in the little amphitheatre of my lecture-room at the University, instead of being pledged to this wild plot of my boy's invention. But there was no drawing back. I had been myself to the little stable next door, where I had kept my donkey, and visited him daily since my arrival, and I had made sure that I could have him at a moment's notice by putting on the c.u.mbrous saddle. Moreover, I had secretly made a bundle of my effects, and had succeeded in taking it un.o.bserved to the stall, and I tied it to the pommel. I also told my landlady that I was going away in the morning with the young gentleman who had visited me, and who, I said, was the engineer who was going to make a new road to the Serra. This was not quite true; but lies that hurt no one are not lies at all, as you all know, and the curiosity of the old woman was satisfied. I also paid for my lodging, and gave her a franc for herself, which pleased her very much. I meant to steal away about ten o'clock, or as soon as I had seen Nino and communicated to him the result of my interview with Temistocle.

The hours seemed endless, in spite of my preparations, which occupied some time; so I went out when I had eaten my supper, and visited my a.s.s, and gave him a little bread that was left, thinking it would strengthen him for the journey. Then I came back to my room, and watched. Just as the moonlight was shooting over the hill, Nino rode up the street. I knew him in the dusk by his broad hat, and also because he was humming a little tune through his nose, as he generally does. But he rode past my door without looking up, for he meant to put his mule in the stable for a rest.

At last he came in, still humming, and apologised for the delay, saying he had stopped a few minutes at the inn to get some supper. It could not have been a very substantial meal that he ate in that short time.

"What did the man say?" was his first question, as he sat down.

"He said it should be managed as I desired," I answered. "Of course I did not mention you. Temistocle--that is his name--will come at midnight, and take you to the door. There you will find this inamorata, this lady-love of yours, for whom you are about to turn the world upside down."

"What will you do yourself, Sor Cornelio?" he asked, smiling.

"I will go now and get my donkey, and quietly ride up the valley to the Serra di Sant' Antonio," I said. "I am sure that the signorina will be more at her ease if I accompany you. I am a very proper person, you see."

"Yes," said Nino, pensively, "you are very proper. And besides, you can be a witness of the civil marriage."

"Diavolo!" I cried, "a marriage! I had not thought of that."

"Blood of a dog!" exclaimed Nino, "what on earth did you think of?" He was angry all in a moment.

"Piano,--do not disquiet yourself, my boy. I had not realised that the wedding was so near,--that is all. Of course you will be married in Rome, as soon as ever we get there."

"We shall be married in Ceprano to-morrow night, by the sindaco, or the mayor, or whatever civil bishop they support in that G.o.d-forsaken Neopolitan town," said Nino, with great determination.

"Oh, very well; manage it as you like. Only be careful that it is properly done, and have it registered," I added. "Meanwhile, I will start."

"You need not go yet, caro mio; it is not nine o'clock."

"How far do you think I ought to go, Nino?" I inquired. To tell the truth, the idea of going up the Serra alone was not so attractive in the evening as it had been in the morning light. I thought it would be very dark among those trees, and I had still a great deal of money sewn between my waistcoats.

"Oh, you need not go so very far," said Nino. "Three or four miles from the town will be enough. I will wait in the street below, after eleven."

We sat in silence for some time afterwards, and if I was thinking of the gloomy ride before me, I am sure that Nino was thinking of Hedwig.

Poor fellow! I dare say he was anxious enough to see her, after being away for two months, and spending so many hours almost within her reach. He sat low in his chair, and the dismal rays of the solitary tallow candle cast deep shadows on his thoughtful face. Weary, perhaps, with waiting and with long travel, yet not sad, but very hopeful he looked. No fatigue could destroy the strong, manly expression of his features, and even in that squalid room, by the miserable light, dressed in his plain gray clothes, he was still the man of success, who could hold thousands in the suspense of listening to his slightest utterance. Nino is a wonderful man, and I am convinced that there is more in him than music, which is well enough when one can be as great as he, but is not all the world holds. I am sure that ma.s.sive head of his was not hammered so square and broad by the great hands that forge the thunderbolts of nations, merely that he should be a tenor and an actor, and give pleasure to his fellow-men. I see there the power and the strength of a broader mastery than that which bends the ears of a theatre audience. One day we may see it. It needs the fire of hot times to fuse the elements of greatness in the crucible of revolution. There is not such another head in all Italy as Nino's that I have ever seen, and I have seen the best in Rome. He looked so grand, as he sat there, thinking over the future. I am not praising his face for its beauty; there is little enough of that, as women might judge. And besides, you will laugh at my ravings, and say that a singer is a singer, and nothing more, for all his life. Well, we shall see in twenty years; you will,--perhaps I shall not.

"Nino," I asked, irrelevantly, following my own train of reflection, "have you ever thought of anything but music--and love?" He roused himself from his reverie, and stared at me.