Chapter XXIX: Convalescent

"Look not on thine own loss, but look beyond,
And take the Cross for glory and for guide."
MRS. HAMILTON KING.

When the excitement of Sardoni's visit was over, Carlo flagged a little, but the weariness and languor were far less trying to bear than what followed. He could live patiently enough through those days--could even enjoy the family life going on around him--could be quietly amused at Kate's efforts to conform him to her own ideal of what a young man should be--could find comfort in talking to Clare about the old days at Casa Bella, and about his mother.

But by-and-by, when his strength returned, there came very different days--days when he felt that to live any longer without Francesca was more than mortal man could bear--days when in very truth his own words to her in the belvedere were fulfilled, and to be without her was to be crucified. His love for Francesca was no light sentiment, no passing fancy; it was the strongest, most ardent love that man can feel for woman. He loved her with his whole being--with the passionate warmth of a southern nature--with the force of a pure and noble soul--with the lofty, undying devotion of an awakened spirit. It was inevitable that he should suffer; and though of course such times were nothing new to him, he could not in his present state plunge into work, or into the affairs of other people, as in his ordinary life he had found comfort in doing.

Worst of all, he knew that his kindly host--the only one able to guess what was the matter with him--desired nothing so much as to see him quitting the stage and marrying his niece.

But if pain was inevitable, failure was not so. He loved as a man loves at four-and-twenty, but he had the strength of one who has resolutely denied himself and honestly tried to be true to his profession; "his strength was as the strength of ten." And when Mr. Britton urged his view of the case upon him with the best and kindest of intentions, he always fell back on the certainty that his duty had been made clear to him, and on the faith which was his great stronghold, and which, in its fearless unselfishness, differed as much from credulity as day from night.

Strangely enough, the man to whom he instinctively turned most at this time was Sardoni's father. He disagreed with the Vicar on politics, on many theological points, on the question of the stage, and on most other things, and yet there was something in the man's great goodness which made all else quite a secondary consideration, which even made one forget his tendency to lay down the law, and only delight in the sense of his devotion. Without that touch of dogmatism he would have been a saint; his failing interfered a good deal with his influence in most quarters, but with Carlo hardly at all. The beautiful goodness of the man attracted him too strongly, and quite eclipsed all else. It was a relief, too, when he was allowed to go out again for the briefest of airings on sunny days when the wind was favorable; and after a time he was able to read Dante with Kate and Lucy, and to study Zampa, and, little by little, to find that the outer world was not so altogether flavorless as in his dark days it had seemed.

One sunny spring day, when the doctor had allowed him to go for a short drive, Clare and Kate took him for the first time outside the Merlebank grounds, and drove him through the little village of Cleevering. By this time he had himself pretty well in hand--had schooled himself into a sort of content with incompleteness--had worked himself round to the state in which he could feel that it was at any rate something to be with Francesca's relations, to hear her name every now and then, to be at least certain of knowing if she were in any particular need or trouble.

"We may as well call for the letters as we are passing the post-office," said Kate, drawing up at the village shop. She sprang out of the chaise, Carlo offering to hold the pony for her. He had neither ridden nor driven since he had left Italy, and the mere feeling of the reins between his fingers awoke new life within him; it was long since he had been able really to desire any attainable thing, but now he was seized with a strong desire to ride once more, and the mere capability of wishing was a relief. He had an almost boyish pleasure in feeling the movements of the pony's head as it champed the bit, in hearing the impatient pawing of the ground.

"Two letters for you, Clare," said Kate, reappearing; and Clare took them rather anxiously, and opening the one from her home began to read.

"None for me?" asked Carlo.

"Not one," said Kate, tossing two or three envelopes on to the vacant seat. He instantly detected that one of them bore the blue stamp of Italy. Was it from Francesca? he wondered, or perhaps from Captain Britton to his brother? It was something to be staying in a house where letters were received from Casa Bella, and yet it was a sort of torture to him to sit quietly in the pony-chaise, obliged to content himself with studying the length of King Humbert's moustache and the big letters of "NAPOLI" on the postmark. Doubtless, he thought, the letter had been posted as they went in to church on Sunday, and he hardly knew whether the thought made him feel nearer to his love or more hopelessly cut off from her. He did not dare to ask any questions lest he should awaken Kate's suspicion, but he hoped against hope that she would speak and put him out of his suspense. Kate, however, talked of the scenery, and the weather, and the spring-green of the trees, and of every unimportant thing under the sun; but of that letter she said not a word, and he had to endure walking upstairs behind her when they reached the house and seeing her disappear with it into her own room.

It was hard; but then sore need had taught him to be thankful for small mercies, and he cheered himself with the reflection that at any rate he was now tolerably certain that the letter was from Francesca herself, that by this time she knew of his illness, for Clare had mentioned it in one of her letters, and that it was even remotely possible that the Captain might have permitted her to send some message. Torturing himself with hopes and fears after the manner of lovers, he waited as long as he could make himself wait upstairs, then, with the hope predominating and the impatience no longer to be resisted, found his way into the drawing-room and looked eagerly round for Kate. The room was empty, but on the mantelpiece there gleamed the blue King Humbert and the big "NAPOLI," and the direction in Francesca's own writing to "Miss Britton, Merlebank, nr. Ashborough, Inghilterra."

He longed to snatch it up and kiss it, but restrained himself because even the envelope was not his; with a sigh he crossed the room and tried to make the time pass by playing all Francesca's favorite airs, and after what seemed a long while the footman came in with the afternoon tea, and was soon followed by Mr. Britton.

"You are early home this afternoon," said Carlo, leaving the piano and shivering a little as he came over to the fire.

"I have an appointment at Cleevering at half-past five, and thought I would snatch a cup of tea on the way," said Mr. Britton. "You don't look quite so well; I'm afraid you have been overtiring yourself."

"Oh, no, thank you," said Carlo, wondering how his companion could stand within a yard of Francesca's letter and not notice it. "I have been for a drive to-day, and enjoyed it very much."

"That's right," said the shipbuilder, in his kindly voice. "We must begin to lionize you now that you are getting stronger. You ought to go over to Tancroft Castle: it is a fine old Norman ruin. You would find a great deal to interest you there."

Carlo thought differently; at any rate just at the present moment he was inclined to wish all fine old Norman ruins at the bottom of the sea. It was horrible to feel that he, with his ardent love, must be patiently polite, and must depend on others for the smallest scrap of tidings from Francesca. At length old Bevis, the deer-hound, came to his help by stretching up his head and licking his master's hand. Mr. Britton bent down to pat his old favorite, and as he raised his head again his eye was attracted by the foreign letter on the mantelpiece.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, "a letter from Casa Bella? What news?"

"I do not know," said Carlo. "I was not here when Miss Britton read it."

Something of the chafed, impatient craving, which was making tumult in his heart, found its way into his voice. Mr. Britton, understanding all perfectly well, felt very sorry for him. He took up the letter, and going out into the hall called his daughter.

Kate came running downstairs in reply to the summons, looking hurried and annoyed.

"How early you have come home, father!" she exclaimed "I was just trying to get the 'Mothers'-Meeting' accounts right."

"I am sorry to have interrupted you, my dear; but will you make tea, for I have to go down to the village directly?"

Kate, in no very good temper, approached the tea-table, perceived that the tray was crooked, and set it straight with a gesture betraying inward irritation. Carlo, as usual, offered his services with the kettle, but was so absent-minded that he was far from proving an efficient helper, and only made Kate feel that everything was conspiring together to annoy her. Surely only a lover could have been so absent as to go on filling a teapot till it overflowed, and to be deaf to repeated orders to stop? Was this tiresome Italian really going to fall in love with the daughter of his host like the hero of a novel?

All his apologies could not make her unbend from the chilly reserve in which she encased herself.

"What news from Casa Bella?" asked Mr. Britton, when the disaster on the tea-tray no longer engrossed the general attention.

"Oh!" said Kate, bestowing a cup of tea on Carlo with a frigid air that was quite lost on him, "Francesca writes to ask if she may come next week instead of in June. It's very provoking, for I shall be so busy just then, and there will be no tennis or anything to amuse her."

Carlo did not dare to raise his eyes lest the wild rapture of hope which was filling them should become visible to Kate. He sat mechanically stirring his tea, making so strong an effort to control his face and keep his joy secret, that he felt as if his features must have become as expressionless as a block of wood.

"I don't fancy she is much of a tennis-player," said Mr. Britton. "Is there no enclosure for me?"

"Oh, yes, I beg your pardon, father; I quite forgot; there is a line for you from Uncle Britton and a little note from Francesca, too."

Mr. Britton glanced through them, then deliberately handed Francesca's note to Carlo, possibly intending his daughter to draw her own conclusions from the act.

"I am glad she comes earlier, you two are old friends, and it would be a pity that you should not meet."

But Kate observed nothing, for she was full of her preconceived theory. She did not notice the quick flush which rose to Carlo's brow as he took the letter; instead, she was secretly resolving to lose no opportunity of snubbing the Italian, and proving that she was quite indifferent to him, and was above that despicable feminine weakness of falling in love with a handsome face and a fine voice.

"Will you have any more tea, Signor Donati?" she asked in her coldly polite voice.

"No more, thank you," said Carlo, looking up for a moment from the letter.

His eyes startled her, there was an expression in their dark liquid depths which she had never seen before in the eyes of any man. She got up quickly.

"If you'll excuse me, father, I will just finish those accounts," she said. "Clare and the girls will be down directly."

Meanwhile, Carlo, feeling like one in a beautiful dream, which is only marred by the dim consciousness that there there must be an awaking, read and re-read the following note:--

"DEAR UNCLE GEORGE,--Thank you so much for your letters; I never thought it possible that father would let me come, but something in your note to him has made him consent; and also, perhaps, something that has happened here makes him see that I had better leave home for a little while. It was just like you to keep your promise in that way, and be Carlo's friend, and just like you, too, to write so often, for I have been dreadfully anxious. Father says, can you conveniently meet me, or send some one to meet me at Charing Cross by the tidal train on Wednesday morning? He does not much like me to come such a long way alone, and the lady with whom I travel from Naples only goes as far as London.

"Ever, dear Uncle, your loving niece.
"FRANCESCA BRITTON."

He had his moments of unalloyed bliss, then came the inevitable awaking.

"Do you think I ought to go away?" he said, returning the letter to Mr. Britton.

There was something so appealing in his tone that Mr. Britton felt a genuine thrill of pleasure in being able to answer, with a clear conscience,--

"Certainly not; the most scrupulous sense of honor can't demand that, since her father is perfectly well aware that you are staying with us."

"What do you think makes him willing to let us meet?" said Carlo, anxiously.

"Well, to speak quite frankly, I think that probably Francesca has just refused some good offer of marriage, and that my brother finds that it is hopeless to see her settled in life as he would wish while her heart is here at Merlebank. Very possibly he hopes,--as I, too, confess I hope,--that circumstances will lead you to see that it is useless for you to continue any longer on the stage, and that all may end well, and you and Francesca be 'very happy ever after,' as they say in the stories."

Carlo was silent, for suddenly, in that comfortable English drawing-room, there flashed across his mind the old temptation, which he thought could never have risen again after the decisive blow dealt it in the garden at Villa Bruno. This time the strong point of his character, his genuine humility, was appealed to.

"See," urged the tempter, "you are wrecking Francesca's life and your own all from an overstrained notion of self-sacrifice. Is it likely you will succeed in saving Anita? leave that to better and wiser people. All the best men and women you know think you are mistaken,--think that you will fail. Are you going to be so headstrong and conceited as still to persist in this unnecessary sacrifice? You have tried your best, and have failed,--you know that you have miserably failed. To go on longer would be mere presumption and vanity."

He turned away and stood in the window, looking out at the mellow western sky and at the grassy slopes beneath the trees in the park, where sheep were peacefully feeding. The sight made him think of the thorn-crowned Shepherd. But instantly the fiend turned even this to his advantage, and beset him more vigorously than ever.

"Are you so stupid and vain as to think the world needs such a man as you to take care of it? Go home to Italy, and live the peaceful life for which you are so much better fitted. Do you think the Good Shepherd needs your help? Do you think He can't get on just as well without you?"

But the vision of the Constant Shepherd would not fade, and a voice, less vehement but more familiar to him, said plainly, "Follow Me."

"Do you mean to say," resumed the fiend, "that you are going to bear all your life this miserable incompleteness? Remember what you have suffered this last fortnight! If you think you can bear such misery for long you are mistaken. All your life long--think of it!--think of it! If you dream of being strong enough to bear such a life you vastly over-rate your own powers."

But again, more clearly, the other voice repeated, "Follow Me!"

At this minute Clare and the younger girls entered the drawing-room.

"Have you had tea, Signor Donati?" said Molly, who dearly loved officiating at the tea-table in the absence of her elders and betters.

"Did you like your drive?" chirped Flo, dancing up to him in her free, childish fashion.

He came back with an effort to the outer life, and began to hand about plates of cake and bread-and-butter, and to wait upon every one, as was his wont, while Mr. Britton told Clare about Francesca's visit.

"Why that will seem delightfully natural to have both you and Francesca here with me," said Clare. "You will like to meet her again, and hear all the news from Pozzuoli."

"Yes, unless my doctor has permitted me by that time to set to work again," said Carlo, quietly.

"Oh, but he will not; you know he said nine weeks from the first."

"Yes, yes," said Mr. Britton, "you need at least three more weeks' rest before thinking of work,--myself I doubt if even then you will be fit for it; we shall see what Kavanagh says."

No more passed on the subject just then, but after dinner, when Harry had left the dining-room to escort Kate down to one of her evening classes in the village, Carlo spoke once more about it to Mr. Britton, having gained much in the interval.

"What I want to ask you is this," he began, in his direct, unembarrassed way; "Am I justified in staying on here in the same house with Francesca when I have not the least idea of renouncing the stage, when I hope to be able to resist all temptations to yield, when I sincerely believe that Captain Britton's expectations will be frustrated?"

"I like you the better for thinking out the matter so frankly," said Mr. Britton; "but it seems to me that the responsibility rests with my brother. If he chooses to send Francesca here I don't see that you are bound to trouble about his expectations. I suppose it will, at any rate, be some comfort to you both to meet even as ordinary acquaintances with other people around, and I advise you to get what pleasure you can out of the slight concession my brother has been willing to make. 'Take the goods the gods provide you.' You can certainly do that with a clear conscience."

"Thank you," said Carlo, gratefully, "it has been a great help to talk it over with you. I think I may stay."

The week of rapturous expectation that followed was the happiest he had known since the abrupt ending of his betrothal. He went about with a glad light in his eyes, which made Kate more and more repressive; his step was no longer the step of an invalid, his voice grew stronger each day, he felt in harmony with the delicious spring weather, for all cares had faded from his mind, and he was conscious once more of youth and hope,--conscious that of late he had felt preposterously old, and that now he felt ridiculously but delightfully young.

Counting the days, and indeed the very hours, he lived through the interval, and at length the day on which Francesca was expected came. But, to his surprise, as it advanced, the expectation changed to torment; he could only sit watching the clock, and from time to time looking from the window with a restless agitation which put happiness out of the question. At last the supreme moment arrived; he heard the wheels of the carriage and the sudden rush of girls from the schoolroom; then Clare looked in for a minute.

"She is just here; but don't come out into the hall, Carlo, for the wind is so cold to-day."

He made some sort of reply and felt relieved that Clare left the drawing-room door open as she hastened out to greet her pupil. Good heavens! how was he to meet her like an ordinary acquaintance! His breathing was labored, his heart throbbed, he trembled from head to foot; yet through it all he listened with longing indescribable. Ah, yes! that was her voice! above all the tumult within and without.

"How are you, dear Clare?" it said; and again, after a pause, "A beautiful crossing, thank you. Why, Flo, how you have grown!"

The voice was drawing nearer and nearer, the oppression grew frightful. With an effort he rose to his feet, and at that instant caught the first glimpse of his love as she crossed the hall--the pure, sweet, delicate face, with its lovely coloring; the slight, lithe figure; the gray eyes, seeking him out eagerly, yet so shyly. He went quickly forward to meet her, unable to feel for very excess of feeling, bewildered and overpowered by the tumult that her presence caused.

And yet it was all over so soon, this meeting which he had rehearsed so often, both waking and sleeping; a conventional hand-clasp, a smile carefully regulated, a few quick words of Italian, since his native tongue came naturally to him, and for the moment he could not remember a single word of English. After that there was a pause which he did not dare to break because he knew he could not steady his voice, all he could do was to try to look and move naturally, and to get back the perception that his arms were his own in time to hand about the cups of tea which Kate, in her cool, business-like way, was preparing.

After a while he began to hear what the others were saying, and soon Francesca's sweet, low voice thrilled through him once more, and before long he was carried away by the happiness of the present, and, forgetting the past, dared to put in his oar, so that the conversation became general, he taking a natural share in it, and falling back to the old footing of the days when Francesca had been his playmate and friend.

At first the mere possibility of looking at her, talking to her, and waiting on her kept him happy. When Mr. Britton was present he was a little less at his ease, because he knew that the kindly host was well aware of their story; but by day, when only old Mrs. Britton, or Clare, or the girls were present, he seemed really able to ignore the past, and act as though their three weeks' betrothal had never been. The sense of helping her to play this part, the knowledge that he could shield and protect her, was no small incentive, though at times he half wished that Captain Britton had permitted Clare to be told, because her sympathy would have been so well worth having.

As to Kate, both the lovers were unable to help being amused by her, for Francesca quickly perceived her desire to convert Carlo to her own ideas, and Carlo instinctively knew that she had perceived it.

But one rainy morning, when the two girls were at work in the morning-room, Francesca found that there are times when an undeclared love-story has its disadvantages.

"I have hardly seen you alone, yet," began Kate, "and there is so much I wanted to talk to you about. But you see I have been so frightfully busy since you came; indeed it has been one incessant rush of work all through the spring, and having Signor Donati here takes up more time than people might fancy."

"It was so good of uncle to ask him here," said Francesca, keeping her eyes fixed on her needlework.

"Father is always doing that kind of thing. But we have never had a visitor here for so long whom I felt to understand so little; I don't think I like him very much."

"Don't you?" said Francesca, stifling a strong inclination to laugh.

"Well, he is so deceptive; he gives you the impression of being so good and thinking so much of other people, and yet I can't make out that he has done one single stroke of good, useful work in his life. He seems to me exactly like the figtree which had nothing but leaves. How can he bear to waste his life on the stage?"

"You must not malign my old friend," said Francesca, flushing crimson, yet still feeling more amused than angry, because Kate was so ludicrously mistaken, and so perfectly convinced that she must infallibly be right.

"Well, since you are his friend, do just candidly tell me,--Is he so good as Clare makes out? Is he really so delightful as my father seems to think?"

The sceptical stress on the "Is he?" made the question all the more embarrassing. To be coolly asked her unbiassed opinion of the man she loved was a new experience to Francesca; for a moment she lost her presence of mind. What in the world could she say? How was she to gain the composed tone needful for a reply?

"Oh, yes, indeed he is!" she said at length, in a tolerably natural tone. "I have known him for years and years, you know."

And then, because the answer seemed to her so absurdly inadequate, and because she was vexed with Kate for having asked such a question, she felt ready to cry.

But, luckily, Kate was not observant. She went on serenely, "Well, for my part, I don't understand that kind of man. I don't think I understand Italians at all."

At that moment Carlo entered, overhearing the last words. He at once guessed that Kate had been attacking Francesca as to his character, and knowing that they would feel uncomfortable, said in his easy way, "Not even after all our Dante readings, Miss Britton? Has not our great poet raised your opinion of his countrymen? I am afraid you are very hard on the South."

"Well, frankly," said Kate, "I don't understand southern natures; and why you are so wrapped up in your country I can't imagine."

"You see, to you, Italy is merely 'a geographical expression,' as Prince Metternich used to say. To me, it is the land for which my father, and his father before him, fought and died."

He broke off rather abruptly, afraid of repelling her English nature by too much warmth of utterance. He had not lived so much among English people without learning to restrain his speech, and bring it round pretty nearly to the conventional terseness of a true Briton. Francesca knew that, had they been alone, a torrent of Italian would have escaped his lips, and the full force of his eager patriotism would have been revealed.

"You will think me very blunt," said Kate, "but I really don't see what you Italians have to be so proud of. I don't see that you have any great men to boast of--except, of course, painters and musicians."

Carlo laughed. "You will at least allow us Dante?"

"Dante belongs to the world," said Kate.

"True, that might also be said of Shakespeare; yet Shakespeare is English and Dante is Italian."

"Dante counts among the artists," said Kate, in her decided tone. "You have no other great men."

Francesca sat watching the disputants, intensely amused at Kate's calm, argumentative manner; as to Carlo, he seemed gradually losing his English sobriety, and the more Kate attacked his nation the more Italian he became.

"What!" he exclaimed. "Do you then wish for greater men than Galileo, than Savonarola, than Columbus, than Daniele Manin, than Mazzini, than Garibaldi? Is it nothing to have produced a man of science like Galvani, a saint like Francesco of Assisi, patriots like Pellico and Poerio?"

Now Silvio Pellico was no hero to Kate; she smiled at the mention of his name. He only meant to her a long dull Italian book which she had struggled half through, until, to her delight, she had been promoted to _I Promessi Sposi_. She had not lived with Pellico in his stifling cell under the _piombi_ at Venice, or wearied with him through his long years in the Austrian fortress, as Carlo had done in his childhood.

"You care so much for your country," she remarked, "but after all, patriotism seems to me a very narrow thing--we ought instead to love the whole human race."

He started to his feet with a gesture that surprised her.

"Believe me!" he exclaimed, "you are mistaken. There is no true love of race till you love your own land; just as there is no 'charity,' in the wide sense of the word, till you have genuine love for those of your own family. For what else are we set in families and in nations? And how is it that we have any number of people vaguely longing to work for 'humanity' and sentimentalizing about the 'masses' in the humanitarian cant of the day, and a mere handful of men and women ready to make their own homes the heaven on earth that a home might be? It is because we all want to begin at the wrong end, to launch out on the great undertakings before we have been faithful to the smaller duties. Because we mistake the meaning of sacrifice, and choose our own way even in that, and hunger for the great, and the striking, and the picturesque, but are slow to sacrifice ourselves for one akin to us, or for a cause which is unattractive, or for a unit instead of a vague multitude."

There was a force and passion in what he said that appealed to Kate's honest nature. But the words struck home, because she knew only too well that, while ready to slave for her school-children or for the poor, she was often cross and tyrannical to her own brothers and sisters. She thought Carlo must be alluding to her, but, as a matter of fact, she was far from his thoughts; and what made him able to speak with so much fire on an abstract subject was that he spoke of the things which he knew, of the things which he had proved by fierce and long conflict.

"And yet," said Kate, angry at having the tables turned on her, "you, who speak so enthusiastically about sacrifice, and all the rest of it, can be content to sing, and act, and amuse people, while the poor are starving, and sinning, and dying! You can be content to fiddle like Nero while Rome is burning! Oh, it seems to me unworthy of you! You can't be content with such a life!"

He turned his clear, deep eyes full upon her.

"With what I make of it--no," he replied. "With the life itself, with my calling--quite content--quite! See! a year ago I talked Socialism, and theorized, and longed to solve the problems of the day, and thought that by speaking and agitating the Utopian age would be brought on. But I see now that it is quite possible to theorize about the better arrangement of the world, and all the time to be neglecting perhaps your own relations--to wish to reclaim all the waste lands, and to misuse your own tiny strip of garden."

But here the conversation was abruptly ended, for at that minute Miss Claremont and Lucy came in armed with Dante and dictionaries, and Carlo said no more, but opening his copy of the _Inferno_, began, at Clare's request, to read to them.