Hugh Crichton's Romance

“Violante! Will you never learn common-sense? Your want of manners will give perpetual offence. And let me tell you, English people of influence are not patrons to be despised. It is always well for a prima donna to have irreproachable private friends. If ever we should go to England, and the Signora Tollemache would notice you, it would be a great advantage; and not amiss that those young men should report well of you.”

“Oh, father!”

“Why! They see your name announced. They say, ‘Ah, Mademoiselle Mattei! We knew her in Italy – pretty – fine voice. My friend, you should go and see her.’ They take a bouquet and applaud you; and you become the fashion. You should be grateful, and show it. But you – you are a musical box! You sing like a statue, like a wax-doll. Ah, where is your fire and your expression? You have no soul – you have no soul!”

“Father, I did try.”

“Oh, I have no patience! Where is my music? I have a private lesson. Go and practise, child, and study your part better;” and off whisked Signor Mattei in a great hurry, and a much disturbed temper.

Such scenes had been frequent ever since one unlucky day, two years ago, when the great opera manager, Signor Vasari, had heard Violante sing, and had told her father that she promised to have the sweetest soprano in Italy, and he must educate her for the stage, where she would make her fortune. And the owner of this sweet soprano was so timid that her music-master made her tremble, and possessed so little dramatic power that she could scarcely give a song its adequate expression, and was lost when she attempted to act a part. But the music is all important in Italy, and the middle course of concerts and oratorios did not there lie open to her. Her father hoped that her voice and her beauty would carry off her bad acting, and that perpetual scolding would cure her fears, since he gloried in her talent, and much needed her gains.

He was, as has been said, fairly well born and well educated, and had chosen music as his profession. When quite young he had gone to England, where he played the violin in London orchestras, and gave private lessons on the piano. In England he fell in with a young lady, the daughter of a clergyman, who was governess in the family of Mr Tollemache’s uncle, where Signor Mattei taught. Rose Grey was unmistakably a lady, a quiet fair-faced girl, with her share of talent and originality and a passion for music. She fell in love with the handsome enthusiastic Italian, and, having no prospects and no friends to object, she married him. They lived for some time in England, where Rosa was born, and finally returned to Italy. The world went fairly well with them, but they were not without debts and difficulties, and when Rosa grew up, and Madame Mattei’s brother, now a London solicitor, wrote to offer her a year or two’s schooling in England, the proposal was gladly accepted, since she had no voice and could not be made useful at home. Rosa went to England, went to school, taught Italian and music, and learnt the usual branches of education, spent her holidays with her uncle, and finally helped to educate her cousins, till, three years before our story opens, her mother died, and Rosa came home to take care of the little Violante, a girl of fourteen. Rosa was then twenty-two, entirely English in manner, accent, and appearance, with pretty brown hair, a sensible face, bright hazel eyes, full of force and character, grave manners, a sweet smile, and a strong will of her own which she was not afraid to enforce if necessary. She had a warm heart, too, with nothing much just then to fill it. She almost idolised the little sister, who clung to her, sobbing out, “Oh Mamma mia!” and from that day forward guarded, petted, and, it must be confessed, spoiled her.

Violante was delicate and sensitive, with a certain Italian fervour of temperament beneath her timidity, which expended itself in the warmest affection for her sister. She was more Italian than Rosa in appearance, and though she spoke fluent English, and they used either language when together, her low sweet tones were unmistakably foreign. Her musical education was so pressed on her and took up so much of her time that she learnt little else, and at seventeen was sadly ignorant of much which she ought to have known.

The two sisters belonged to their mother’s Church, which unfortunately had the practical effect of their belonging to none at all. When Rosa went to England she did as others did, but it was not her lot to come across anyone of sufficient depth to influence her practical self-reliant temper, and, though a very good and conscientious girl, her education had made her indifferent to the outward duties of religion. She thought that she did her duty by Violante when she prevented her from attending Roman Catholic services unless the music was very fine, and heard her read a chapter in the Bible on Sunday, while the rest of the day was spent as usual. Madame Mattei had never had health or opportunity to attend English services, and the two girls only went occasionally; though lately, under Mrs Tollemache’s influence, they had been a little more conscious of their nationality and the duties involved in it. Rosa impressed Violante with a strong sense of the necessity of doing right, and believed that circumstances absolved her from attending to anything further. Violante was of a different mould, and when she saw beautiful ritual and devout worshippers she felt sad, she did not know why.

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.