Chapter XVII: A Farewell

"Here once my step was quickened,
Here beckoned the opening door,
And welcome thrilled from the threshold
To the foot it had known before.

Ah me! where the past sowed heart's ease,
The present plucks rue for us men!
I come back; that scar unhealing
Was not in the churchyard then."--LOWELL.

The summer season at the Mercadante was over, Piale and Merlino were well satisfied with its result, and the Neapolitans talked of little else but their new baritone. They were justly proud of him, and grumbled sorely on learning that he was to leave them for an indefinite time. Carlo, during the series of representations, had studied hard, appearing as Rigoletto, as Count Rodolpho, as Plunketto, as Guillaume Tell, as Enrico, as Figaro in the _Barbiere_, as the Conte di Luna, and twice in his favorite character of Valentino. It was with a feeling of deep regret that, on the morning after his final appearance, he awoke to the recollection that it would be long before he should again sing to an audience of his fellow-citizens.

Gigi, who had a provoking habit of waking very early, had for some time been amusing himself with the flowers and wreaths piled on the table, and now, sitting on the edge of the bed, was trying to crown himself with one of the laurel wreaths, which continually baffled his efforts by slipping down on to his neck.

"Never mind, my Gigi," said Carlo, laughing. "It is too big for both of us. We must grow to our crowns."

"Did they give them you last night? How lucky you are! I wish people threw me such nice things."

"_I_ throw them to you," said Carlo, making a long arm and tossing one trophy after another across to the child. Gigi laughed with delight.

"Will they alluse give you such a lot, do you fink?" he asked, anxiously.

"No; make hay while the sun shines," said Carlo, adroitly throwing a wreath so that it alighted on the child's brown head. "Crowns and enthusiasm will not be met with out of Naples."

With a sigh he recollected that he had but one more day left in his native country. His heart felt very heavy as he wondered how long it would be before he again set foot on Italian soil, and he began to consider what he should do with the time which remained to him. Nita had promised to go with her husband to see one of his relatives at Sorrento; therefore he was quite free to do what he pleased. He lay musing sadly, glancing now and then at the funny little figure on the other bed sporting about in the tiniest of nightshirts among the flowers and laurels.

"Well," he reflected, "It will be a black day for me. I'll do what I can to make it bright to the child."

"Gigi," he said, "I am going to Pozzuoli to-day. Will you come with me?"

Gigi sprang to his feet and executed a _pas seul_ of ecstatic delight.

An hour or two later they had reached the familiar little town with its domes and campaniles, its irregular white houses, its groups of antiquity-sellers, and its air of quiet, picturesque decay. Carlo wandered through the well-known streets, feeling like a ghost returned to its old home.

Every now and then he would be stopped by some passer-by, and questioned and congratulated, but the return made him realize more than he had yet done how entirely he had separated himself from his past. Gigi was crazy to see the boat-building, and they stood for some time on the beach, in the very place that had been Carlo's favorite haunt as a boy; then they made their way to the Villa Bruno, and wandered about in the garden, and finally went to the house to ask for some water for Gigi.

"I made sure you were the Count, signor," said the peasant in charge. "He said he should be coming to see the place again to-day."

"What Count?" asked Carlo, quickly.

"Count Carossa, signor. He has been twice to see the Villa, and they say he is sure to take it now."

Carlo knitted his brows.

Why did Count Carossa choose to settle down in so out-of-the-way a place? If he wanted a summer house, why did he not choose one at Portici or Posilipo? And then, like lightning, there flashed through his mind the recollection of the Count's eagerness to know Captain Britton, of his prompt acceptance of the invitation to dine at Casa Bella, of his evident admiration of Francesca. Even at the time he had wondered sorrowfully whether Captain Britton's patience would long prefer the claims of a poor and absent lover, to the importunity of the dozens of wealthy suitors who would doubtless besiege him with offers for his daughter's hand.

If Count Carossa really chose that house,--a house which in itself had no special recommendations,--he should regard it as a positive proof that he was in love with Francesca. And, if so, what might not follow? A vision rose before him, which would not so readily have presented itself to an Englishman, and he realized how attractive the handsome, wealthy nobleman would be to such a man as Captain Britton. He took up the tumbler of water which Gigi had relinquished, and hastily drained it; then he took the child back again to the garden, and threw himself down under an acacia, still with that distasteful vision before his eyes, till a sudden recollection of Uncle George's fine English face came to his aid.

"I am a fool!" he thought. "Whatever the Captain's faults, he would never be false to the traditions of his country. A forced marriage might well be among our own people, but the English feel very differently about such matters. Mr. Britton would do all that could be done to prevent it, even if the Captain had been too much taken by the title. And for the rest--should Francesca ever wish it--why, then, there would be nothing to be said. In that case,"--he smiled, because in his heart he was so perfectly sure of her unchangeable love--"in that case I suppose I should wish it myself, since her happiness would be mine."

With a sigh, he dismissed vague fears for the future, but the undeniable sorrows of the present were not so easily laid aside. Once more he lived through his last meeting with Francesca,--once more he recalled all that she had said to him in the Temple of Venus, and then saw again in imagination the solitary black-robed figure on the deck of the _Pilgrim_. If only he could have borne it all for her! But in that lay the really hard part of the lot he had chosen; he had deliberately made the choice which involved suffering, not only for himself, but for another.

It was hard, there was no gainsaying that; it was hard to think of leaving this dear, familiar garden, with its lovely glimpses of Ischia and of the blue sea in between; it was hard to leave the place where his happy childhood and boyhood had been spent; but it was far harder to think that Francesca would be left with an aching heart in the midst of all this loveliness, that the very beauty of the place would but remind her of past happiness. But then there came to his mind one of those golden maxims of Mazzini which had already done much to shape and color his life: "Ever act--even at the price of increasing her earthly trials--so that the sister soul united to your own may never need, here or elsewhere, to blush through you or for you." At least, he had tried so to act; he had gone forth in a good cause, and with a reasonable hope of success. And yet even now his temptations were not over, for, as he lay there in the shade watching Gigi, who was chasing a white butterfly down the moss-grown walk, there spoke to him the very devil himself, disguised under a specious show of common-sense and worldly wisdom.

"Have you not, after all, been unintentionally unjust?" urged the tempter. "Are you not making the innocent suffer for the guilty? Surely there must be a screw loose there--injustice can never be right! A word of warning to Merlino would have been quite enough to induce him to send Comerio about his business. Why should Francesca suffer in order to save Nita from a disagreeable scene with her husband, which she deserved?"

"But then," he reflected, "I could only have told Merlino through a deliberate breach of Nita's confidence. She would never have trusted me again; she would never have understood that I longed to help her; Comerio would have seemed her only protector; she would have been driven desperate, and would have gone to him. Would not Francesca have had cause to blush for me then? There could have been no happiness for us bought at such a price as that--besides, it would have been wilful disobedience to what I was told to do."

It had been a sharp encounter, but he had worsted his foe, and was left strong in the possession of that _mens conscia recti_ which had helped to bear him up through Captain Britton's insults and remonstrances, and Uncle Guido's anger. Moreover, there came to him one of those intervals of comfort which make all sorrow worth while, and he knew that it would be thus, too, with Francesca.

"San Carlo! San Carlo!" shouted Gigi, tearing up the path towards him. "I've caught it at last--just you see!"

His rosy face beamed with happiness, his eyes shone, and in his fat, little, brown hand he clasped the white butterfly.

"A souvenir of a happy day, and the first butterfly for our collection," said Carlo, showing Gigi how to dispose his treasure in one of the orthodox little boxes.

The child threw his arms round his neck.

"I do love you so!" he exclaimed. "There was no collections, or treats, or anything nice at all till you came."

Before long, Gigi discovered that he was hungry as well as thirsty. They had wandered along the deserted Baja shore in search of more butterflies, and the only place where food was to be had was the little Hotel de la Reine, to which they accordingly repaired, Gigi sturdily climbing the outside staircase and entranced to find a number of peasants seated at the inn table in the one available room. It was a _festa_; they all seemed very merry, and though the child could hardly understand their dialect, he liked to watch them; and indeed, though it made Carlo feel more than anything had yet done that his home was indeed gone, this visit to the wayside inn was not a little amusing to him. The breakfast itself was odd enough to make him laugh. First came some dubious-looking oysters from the Lucrine lake, and a long roll of sour bread of quite a venerable age. Then came a dish of eels and _spigali_--the latter fairly eatable; this was followed by maccaroni mashed with tomatoes, which was quite beyond Gigi's fastidious American palate; and, to crown all, there arrived an omelette soaked in rum, and a dish full of very grim snow to cool the _chianti_.

"I guess it's the queerest breakfast I ever had," said Gigi, at the close.

"It is our last in Italy," said Carlo. "Come, let us drink to our return;" and laughingly he clinked glasses with the child, and pushing the flask of _chianti_ towards the peasants, begged them to share it. Then, to Gigi's delight, every one clinked glasses, and all the peasants were eager to drink with San Carlo; and there was such bowing, and smiling, and good fellowship, as he had never before seen. Afterwards, amid much laughter, some game was begun, and Gigi, seeing that they all seemed to be counting their fingers, thrust out his brown little hand to the amusement of all present.

"What is it? Whatever are they doing?" he asked, laughing delightedly just because every one else laughed.

"What! don't you know how to play mora?" exclaimed Carlo; "you shall be initiated. With your permission, ladies and gentlemen, we will join your game!"

And so they did, and Carlo's enjoyment of the very mild diversion would certainly have surprised any onlooker who knew his story.

While they had been eating, a shabby-looking fellow with a guitar had been playing to them, and a hungry-eyed boy of fifteen had sung in a hard, tired, monotonous voice, one after another of the familiar songs of the country.

A sudden impulse seized Carlo, perhaps the doleful, unmelodious voice annoyed him,--perhaps he only yielded to his natural love of giving pleasure, but suddenly he sprang up, motioned to the musicians to take his place and finish the _chianti_, and taking the guitar, burst forth into one of his favorite national songs.

The host and hostess came running into the room to listen. It was whispered from one to another that the singer was none other than Signor Donati, the famous new baritone, and the merry peasants listened entranced. At the close there was quite a babel of thanks and applause.

"My friends," said Carlo, "to-morrow I leave Italy, and I have a great wish to hear once more Garibaldi's hymn sung as I know you can sing it,--will you join in the refrain?"

"We will! we will!" cried the peasants, excitedly.

He struck a few chords on the guitar, and then broke out into the soul-stirring hymn, and with one accord the men and women sprang to their feet and joined in the chorus.

Gigi, not at all understanding what it was that excited every one so much, slid down from his place at the long table and stood looking out of the open window across the lovely Bay of Baja, then glanced back into the room as once more the peasants shouted the refrain. He wondered what it could be that moved them so much, wondered why San Carlo's eyes shone with so bright a light, and why there was such a funny thrill in his voice as he sang the final verse of the song--a thrill which sent a sort of indescribable tingle through the child's veins and made the tears start to his eyes.

"What was it all about?" he asked, as after a chorus of farewells, and thanks, and good wishes from the peasants, Carlo took his hand and led him away from the little inn. "What could it have been about, San Carlo, that you should all look so eager?"

"It was about _La Patria_," said Carlo, gravely.

"Then that is why it made me tingle so," said Gigi, with a pleased look on his comical little face. "I really am Italian, though Signor Sardoni will call me a little Yankee. They was Yankees at Salem, and I don't want now to go back to Salem. I mean to be an Italian alluse, and stop with you."

"What!" said Carlo, with a laugh, "have you proved faithless to your old friends the pigs?"

"I don't want pigs now that I have got you," said Gigi. "I hope,--I do hope they won't never send me back to Salem!"

Carlo laughed.

"Since you are so fond of your country, it is a shame you should leave it without seeing the tarantella danced. Come with me, little one."

He led the child through a vineyard, spoke a few words to a peasant girl who appeared to know him, and soon Gigi found himself in a vast, gray, domed building, in which Carlo woke the echoes for his amusement. It was an old Roman ruin called the "Temple of Mercury." Presently the dark-eyed peasant girl came back again, followed by two younger and prettier sisters, and by an old woman in a very dingy, ragged dress, brightened by an orange handkerchief upon her head. She carried a guitar, and, leaning against the wall, she began to chant a monotonous air and to play in excellent time, while two of the barefooted girls began to dance the _tarantella_, relieved every now and then by the third, who took her turn while one of the beginners rested.

Gigi was delighted, and indeed the scene would have had charms for most people,--the weird-looking old ruin, which echoed loudly to the twanging guitar, the picturesque group of peasants who had sauntered in to look and listen, the stoical-looking musician, and the pretty peasant girls with their exquisitely graceful movements and their white feet twinkling through the mazes of the dance. Gigi clapped his hands and danced, too, for happiness, so that even the stolid old guitar-player nodded complacently at him, and the merry girls laughed, and danced with more spirit than ever, as if they enjoyed it with all their hearts.

The remembrance of the scene lingered long with Carlo. For days the familiar air rang in his ears and the harsh voice of the old woman, as she chanted,

"_E la luna mmiezu mare
Mamma mia maritame tu_."

Slowly they wandered back to Pozzuoli, passing through the familiar Piazza, pausing beside the fountain under the trees to speak to the philosophical-looking lame beggar, who had been a boy with Carlo, and was now eager in his congratulations. Then they made their way to the cemetery, that Carlo might visit the grave of his father and mother for the last time, and place upon it some of the wreaths and flowers he had received at the Mercadante. Gigi took much interest in this, and connected no sad thoughts with the graveyard.

"I do so like cemeteries; I think they are such lovely places," he said, happily. And as they walked between the graves he trotted along, contentedly chanting to himself the refrain of a game which he had learnt in America, "Here we come gathering nuts in May," so that Carlo could not help smiling, even in the midst of his sadness.

"There is one more pilgrimage I must make," he said, as he drove back to Naples, "and you shall come with me, little one,--you shall not leave Italy without seeing Carlo Poerio's cap and blouse."

"Who was he--a saint?" asked Gigi.

"He was a patriot, one who loved his country and suffered for it. And they shut him up in prison for years and years, and treated him cruelly, and would have killed him had they dared, only the people loved him so much."

"And did he get away from prison?"

"Yes, he got away. They were going to send him to prison in South America, but he managed to escape, and they never caught him again. My father knew him and loved him, and that is how I came by the name of Carlo."

"I wish my name was it too," said Gigi, wistfully. "I wish they had called me after that brave prisoner."

"Never mind; you were named Bruno, after my father, you know."

"Was he a patriot?"

"Yes, indeed he was."

"But they didn't put him in prison, did they?"

"No, but they killed him--wounded him in battle. He died for Italy."

Gigi looked awed, and with a sort of fearful delight gazed up at St. Elmo, which they were approaching. Carlo led him into the disused monastery of San Martino, to the room which he had visited, year by year, ever since he was Gigi's age, and there, within a glass case, they saw the red blouse and the cap which Carlo Poerio had worn in prison.

Gigi heaved a portentous sigh.

"I wish they hadn't been so cruel to him," he said, wistfully. "How ever did he bear it, do you think?"

"He thought about freeing his country from the bad men who were cruel to him and to the others; he loved Italy better than himself, and thought only of saving her."

"Did no one come and see how cruel they were to him in prison?" asked Gigi. "I wonder God didn't send some one!"

"Some one did come at last, a brave Englishman who was not afraid to speak out and make the world listen."

"Is that why you are so fond of Englishmen?"

Carlo smiled. "That is one reason."

"What was the Englishman's name?"

"His name was Gladstone."

"It's an easy name. I guess I'll remember it," said Gigi, to the amusement of a party of English tourists who were passing by.

"It is a name very dear to Italians," said Carlo. "But now, my Gigi, we must be going home."

"I'm glad we came to see it," said Gigi, taking a last look into the glass case, "but it's a dre'ffly shabby old coat, isn't it?"

"Come here," said Carlo, "there is one more thing you must see."

They followed the English tourists and went out on to a little balcony which hung right over the cliff, and from which could be gained a most wonderful bird's-eye view of Naples. The tourists went their way, but Carlo lingered, looking with loving eyes at that vast expanse of white houses, with its lovely background of sea and mountain. Posilipo to the right, Castellamare and Sorrento to the left, and, out in the distance across the blue waters, Capri, made yet more beautiful by a rainbow which seemed to span it. How he loved it all! How lingeringly his eye dwelt on the domes and minarets below; how wonderful that vast subdued roar of the city sounded in his ears! To leave this place was, to him, as bitter as death.

Silently he walked back with the child to the Palazzo Forti, found that Nita was still at Sorrento, and went to seek Enrico that he might spend his last evening with his friend. Between ten and eleven Enrico returned with him, and the two made their way together up the long staircase.

"I will come in and see your friendly Englishman once more," said Enrico, "and will say good-bye to your sister, if she has come back."

But Nita and her husband were still out, and Sardoni had gone to the San Carlino; Carlo, however, fancying he heard his voice in the _sala_, entered quickly, receiving a severe shock when he saw that Gomez was not, as he had fancied, talking to the tenor. Seated at the table, facing the Spaniard, was a man with a high, rounded forehead from which the closely-cut hair receded so much that in profile the effect was most curious, so large was the expanse of pallid face, so small the expanse of dark, silky waves. The nose was hooked, the expression very quiet, the eyes cold, but capable of lighting up, for as soon as the stranger became aware of Carlo's presence a gleam kindled in them, and, turning to Gomez, he said politely, but with a smile which made Carlo shudder, "Pray introduce me to my rival, that I may have the pleasure of congratulating him on his great success."

Enrico wondered whether his friend would refuse to be introduced to Comerio. For an instant Carlo seemed startled out of his presence of mind, and there was a perceptible pause before he determined that his only plan would be to ignore what he really knew to Comerio's discredit and meet him, as far as was possible, like an ordinary stranger. For Nita's sake he must control the anger which the mere sight of the fellow had stirred up in his heart.

"Perhaps," said Gomez, with his usual stolid gravity,--"perhaps Signor Donati does not care to be introduced to so formidable a rival."

The speech, which had been intended to put Carlo in a still more awkward predicament, signally failed, for with ready courtesy he seized it and turned it to his advantage.

"As a rival I decline to be introduced to Signor Comerio," he said, in the pleasantest manner imaginable. "There can be no question of rivalry between a veteran and a novice; but as a fellow-artist I am happy to make his acquaintance."

He bowed. Comerio, with hatred in his heart and a smile on his lips, bowed in reply; the two men exchanged a few remarks on musical matters, and before long Comerio took leave, owning himself beaten. There was undoubtedly something in Donati's imperturbable courtesy and fearless honesty which baffled his malice.

As Sardoni had remarked, however, Comerio was not a man who could be beaten with impunity; he was a man who would have his revenge in the end, even if he had to nurse it for years, and Carlo felt this as he parted with him, and understood why the Englishman had spoken so strongly and had recommended caution. His foe was no mean antagonist, there was a "no-surrender" look about him, a sort of indomitable persistence stamped upon his pale face, and the future looked to Carlo darker and more perplexing after that meeting with his enemy.

Enrico tried, without much success, to rouse him from his depression, and Carlo, fully understanding his intention, tried hard to turn his thoughts to other matters.

Just at the last, he asked hesitatingly for the one thing upon which he had set his heart.

"You will sometimes see the Brittons," he said, his voice trembling ever so little, "write and tell me about it when you do, _amico mio_."

"Of course," said Enrico, shortly. Then, after musing for a minute over the situation, "_Madonna Santissima!_ it makes me mad to think that both you and Miss Britton should be sacrificed to such a fiend as Comerio."

"Write long, write often," pleaded Carlo. "Tell me everything,--the least thing about her."