Chapter IV: A Cloudless Betrothal

"Let my voice be heard that asketh
Not for fame and not for glory;
Give for all our life's dear story,
Give us Love and give us Peace."
JEAN INGELOW.

Villa Bruno was a smaller house than Casa Bella. It was lacking, too, in the air of cozy English comfort which the Brittons had managed to impart to their rooms, and the furniture was scanty, though handsome of its kind. Carlo walked through the veranda and entered by the open window of the _salotto_, treading lightly, as he saw that his mother lay asleep on her couch. He stole up to her, and stood in silence, watching the beautiful but worn face of the invalid. He thought how great a happiness was in store for her, and smiled. He imagined Francesca bringing that English air of home into this room, and thought how sweet it would be when he rode home each evening to picture those two together waiting for him. Looking on into the sunny future, he forgot the present; his mother had opened her eyes, and had watched him for some moments before he saw that she was awake.

At last he looked down at her, and met her eyes shining into his with perfect comprehension.

"Carlino, you bring me good news!" she exclaimed, drawing his face down to hers, and kissing the smooth, ruddy-brown cheek.

"The best news, mother--the best!" he replied, returning her embrace. "Oh, mother! I'm the happiest man in Italy."

"Francesca----" began the Signora.

"Francesca is mine--is mine!" he broke in. "She is coming--you will see her soon, _madre mia_."

"And her father?"

"Was kindness itself. He will bring her in this evening to see you. No one could have been more friendly. I saw him first, and then--then he told me I might speak to her--that I should find her in the garden. Afterwards, her first thought was for you. Oh, mother, she will be to you the daughter you have so much needed."

The tears started to the mother's eyes.

"_Insomma!_ Now I have grieved you, and made you think of poor Nita; happiness made me forget all else. Forgive me, little mother; I did not mean to make you think of the past."

"Ah!" sobbed the Signora Donati. "How can I help thinking of it, Carlino, when the contrast is so sharp--you coming to me thus with your joy as a son should, and Nita bringing me only shame and grief and disgrace--not even sending me one line of love or regret all these years?"

"She will come back, little mother,--she will come back," he said soothingly. "Some day she will feel her need of you. Don't cry to-night, of all nights in the year. I shall take it as a bad omen."

Years had raised no barrier between these two; Carlo was as frank and open with his mother as when he had been a child; she had shared all his hopes and fears during his long time of probation, and now she shared his joy, and was soon coaxed back to cheerfulness, as he told her more of what had passed at the Casa Bella. She was quite herself again as she went in to dinner upon his arm, her grief was forgotten, she laughed merrily at his account of Enrico's philosophical counsels, and felt a glow of pride and happiness as she looked across the table at the son who had been all in all to her for so many years. Carlo was too happy to be hungry, but he pledged his mother over a bottle of Orvieto, and they drank Francesca's health, and clinked glasses, and made merry.

The _tête-à-tête_ dinner at the Casa Bella was quieter, but happy, too, in its way. The old Captain beamed silently from behind the sirloin. Francesca looked radiant. They talked fitfully of the weather, of the orange crop, of the silkworms, of the last letter from England--of everything, in fact, except the one subject that was nearest their hearts; but, then, old Dino was waiting, and it behoved them to keep up appearances. Their tongues were unloosed by the appearance of Sibyl and the dessert, and the disappearance of the servant.

"Sibyl," said the Captain, taking the little girl on his knee, "what would you think if we were to have a wedding here?"

"A wedding, father?" Sibyl clapped her hands with delight. "Oh, may I be the bride, father? May I be the bride?"

"No," said the father, laughing, "that character is bespoken. You will have to be my little housekeeper. Francesca is to be the bride. There, you must drink her health: Long life and happiness to the future Signora Donati."

Sibyl obediently repeated the words, but made a wry face over the claret.

"What horrid stuff, Daddy; do give me a bit of your orange, quick." Then, with her mouth very full, "But Fran can't be Signora Donati."

"Oh, yes, she can when she marries Carlo," said the Captain.

"Marries Carlo?" echoed Sibyl, in astonishment. "Dear me, will Carlo be married? What a bother! I suppose he'll never play games and be jolly any more?"

"Why not?" said Francesca, laughing.

"Oh, he won't," said Sibyl, looking wise and elderly, "I know he won't; I asked nurse the other day what it meant to be married, and she said it was when people grew steady and settled down."

The two elders laughed heartily.

"But he will be your brother, you know, Sibyl, and brothers always play," said Francesca.

"Carlo, my brother?"

"Your brother-in-law."

"Oh, yes, I know about that--that's what he had put on his cards," said Sibyl, triumphantly; "so he must have known he was going to be my brother before he came here; Dino said that long word was in-law."

Then before Captain Britton had done laughing, Sibyl convulsed her companions by solemnly raising the glass to her lips again, and repeating in the gravest way imaginable,--

"Long life and many games to my future brother--in-law."

Francesca was eager to go in quickly to see Signora Donati, but she had to wait till Sibyl was tucked up in bed and her father had finished his after-dinner nap. Then she threw a white, woolly shawl about her head and shoulders, slipped her arm into the Captain's, and crossed over to the Villa Bruno. The Signora was alone; she came forward to meet them with the prettiest little greeting imaginable. Francesca loved her dearly, and returned her embraces with all possible warmth; but above the soft and tender assurances of the Signora's delight in the news which Carlo had brought her, she was conscious of her lover's voice singing out in the garden. The joyous ring about the old Neapolitan song, the unmistakable rapture of the singer, filled her heart with happiness. The sweet, familiar air always brought back to her memory that first perfect evening at the Villa Bruno.

"He has done nothing but sing since he came back from you," said the Signora, as the singer drew nearer, every word distinctly heard in that clear atmosphere:

"_O dolce Napoli,
O suol beato
Dove sorridere
Voile il creato,
Tu sei l' impero
Dell' armonia,
Santa Lucia! Santa Lucia!_"

The last note still echoed in the air as Carlo stepped into the dimly-lighted room through the open window, bearing in his hand a bunch of red roses and myrtle-blossom. It was the picture he had so often imagined which met his gaze, for Francesca stood beside his mother, the lamplight shedding a soft glow over her sweet, fair face. She was dressed in some kind of soft, white dress which made him think of a baby's robe, her wavy brown hair was a little ruffled by the white shawl which she had thrown aside, in her sweet, pure happiness she was exquisite.

"I did not know you had come," he exclaimed, hastening towards her; "how was it I never heard you?"

"We came without ceremony, there was no ringing of bells," said Francesca.

"And Carlo was singing at the top of his voice," said the mother, laughing. "I foresee, Francesca, that he will now be like my canary, who is so happy that he sings all day long, and I have sometimes to extinguish him."

"We have been wondering what Signor Piale will say," replied Francesca, smiling; "you know he looks upon love as the supreme obstacle in the way of art."

"Then he should not compose music to such words as these," said Carlo, taking up a song from the open piano.

"Is that his last? I have not heard it," said Francesca. "Ah, he has dedicated it to me as he promised."

"Go and sing it, Carlo; it suits you well," said his mother.

"I am not well acquainted with your Tennyson," she continued, turning to Captain Britton, "but it seems to me that these words are melodious and well adapted for music."

The Captain was not poetical, but he at once launched into an account of how he had once met the Laureate at Lord Blamton's, while Carlo and Francesca wandered off to the piano, Francesca glancing through the accompaniment to see if she could manage it.

Even in that land of beautiful voices, Carlo Donati's voice was most remarkable. But Piale was the only person who quite knew what it was worth, and he had issued strict orders that his pupil was to sing nowhere save at home and at his lessons. He knew well enough that if Carlo once sang at a Neapolitan party he would be allowed no peace, but would become the spoilt and overworked amateur, and fail altogether to do justice to the severe but excellent training which he had now almost completed. The voice was a baritone of unusual power and sweetness; Piale's music suited the pathetic words admirably:

"Love is come with a song and a smile,
Welcome love with a smile and a song;
Love can stay but a little while.
Why cannot he stay? They call him away;
Ye do him wrong, ye do him wrong;
Love will stay for a whole life long."

The song ended, Francesca sat dreamily playing over the refrain which her lover had declaimed so passionately; he stood close to her, deftly arranging the flowers he had brought from the garden in her hair and dress. Then, after the thanks and praises of the listeners had been spoken, Captain Britton once more enlarged upon his meeting with the Laureate, and Carlo, foreseeing that the topic would last some time, looked longingly out into the dusky garden, then down at Francesca.

"The paths are quite dry, it is starlight," he said; "will you not come out?"

She smiled and nodded, let him wrap the white shawl about her, and crossed the room to the window. Carlo lingered a moment to slip a cluster of red roses into his mother's hand.

"We go into the garden for a few minutes, _madre mia_," he explained.

She smiled approvingly, perceiving that he meant to claim all the liberty which an English betrothal permits, and then turned again to the Captain with a question, in her pretty broken English, which she was well aware would keep him happy for some time to come.

"And this Lord Blamton, at whose house it occurred, is he your friend?"

The lovers, supremely indifferent to both Lords and Laureates, strolled out into the starlit garden. All was still and peaceful; through the olives they could catch glimpses of the yellow lights in Pozzuoli, and every now and then a lurid crimson flame and a column of vapor lit up by the fierce glare, revealed in the distance the conical form of Vesuvius and its peaceful neighbor, Somma. There was a delicious fragrance in the air; thyme, and myrtle, and mignonette filled the dewy garden with their sweetness; everywhere the peace of a great content seemed to brood. A stranger might have fancied something disturbing and incongruous in the burning mountain; but to Carlo Vesuvius was an old friend, not a terror. In his childhood he had fancied it a sort of symbol of the Deity, vaguely connecting it with that other pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night of which old Father Cristoforo had told him. Not a care, not the least shadow of anxiety, broke the bliss--the unclouded happiness of that evening.

Remembering Enrico's advice to keep his happiness to himself, Carlo took a holiday, and stayed at home till the end of the week, when, partly prompted by a conscientious wish to break the news to Piale, and to keep his usual appointment with the old Maestro on Saturday morning, partly because he wished to search for a betrothal ring to his mind, he ordered his horse and rode into Naples.

Piale lived over a shop in the Strada Mont' Oliveto. His apartments were furnished in a Spartan manner without the least attempt at comfort or picturesqueness. A marble floor, unrelieved by carpet or mat, walls painted in pale green, but bare of a single picture, a grand piano in the middle of the room, a table strewn with music-paper, books, and pens, and a few straight-backed chairs stiffly set round it, completed the furniture of this musical anchorite. When Carlo entered the room that morning he found the old man poring over the score of some opera, his shaggy gray hair tossed back from his broad forehead, and the shabbiness of his many-colored dressing-gown fully revealed by the sunshine which streamed in through the half-open _jalousies_. He looked up as Carlo entered, giving him a sharp, searching glance, as though to discover how the world went with him that morning. Convinced by the radiant happiness of his pupil's face that at present the sky was cloudless, he grunted out a rather surly "_Buon giorno_," and closed his book with an air of reluctance.

"I want your congratulations, Maestro," said Carlo, coming quickly forward. "Nothing but the most filial obedience and respect to yourself brought me away from my paradise this morning. You must mingle with praise your good wishes for our health and happiness."

"Hein!" exclaimed the old man, pretending not to catch his meaning. "You are an _avvocato_, I understand; young Ritter told me as much as that. _Corpo di Bacco!_ don't come to me for congratulations. You've mistaken your profession. You are wasting--yes, wasting, the noblest gift of God."

"But, Maestro, reflect; how is it possible for me to use my voice as you would have me? Would you wish me to leave my mother? And then, moreover, there are other considerations--I am about to be married."

"Married!" The Maestro turned away with a groan. "Ah, then I wash my hands of you! You are lost to art--lost to the noblest of the professions! Farewell to my hopes! All my efforts with you are thrown away! You might have been the pride of my old age and the delight of Europe. Instead you choose the career of a lawyer and the caresses of a woman."

"You speak scornfully, Maestro," replied the culprit, laughing. "I shall add two adjectives to your bald remark--'the useful career' and 'a perfect woman.' Why, signor, you who know Miss Britton should be ready to make excuse for me. What else could you expect? Is the Muse of Harmony to take precedence of such an one?"

"Hear him!" cried Piale, in despair; "great Heaven! and it is this ungrateful one that thou hast endowed with the voice of a seraph and the dramatic power of a Salvini!"

"My apologies to Salvini," said Carlo, laughing merrily, "but that, beloved Maestro, is bathos--a fine example."

His laughter was so infectious that Piale was obliged to join in it, then, with a shrug of the shoulders, he shuffled across to the piano.

"You are incorrigible! I wash my hands of you! But since you are in so jocular a mood at the prospect of settling down to so monotonous a life----"

"Maestro!" broke in Carlo, with indignation.

"Do I speak unadvisedly?" said Piale, with sarcasm; "not at all. Oh, I know well enough what it will be. You will sit under your vine and under your fig-tree, and you will count the olive branches round your table----"

"Signor Piale!"

"And you will say as you look, 'I must work hard,' and you will become the speaking-machine of the Neapolitan criminals, and you will use that divine gift for the proclamation of lies, and you will debase your fine dramatic genius and make it the tool of the worthless and the guilty. Since all this makes you in so gay a humor, come sing me your song from _Il Barbiere_."

Pursing up his lips the old professor began to play the accompaniment of _Largo al Factotum_; and Carlo, entering into the spirit of the thing, and with his sense of humor touched by the analogy between the barber's glorification of his profession and the words that had just passed, sang magnificently.

At the end there was unbroken silence. The old professor sat lost in thought, Carlo watched him with a smile on his lips. Then sauntering across the room, sang, _sotto voce_, the recitative which followed, throwing malicious meaning into the--

"_Ah! Che bella vita! Oh! Che mestiere!_"

"It could not have been better sung!" cried Piale, with a gesture of despair. "Carlo, perhaps I have dealt unfairly by you. I have never praised you, never told you what I thought of your powers; I feared to ruin that modesty which has endeared you to me! But now it is time that you seriously consider the matter. There, there, don't interrupt me! Marry if you will, and let your wife tend the Signora Donati in your absence. But do not allow so glorious a gift to rust unused."

"But, dear Maestro," said Carlo, gravely, "you do not realize that others do not think of the profession as you do. Captain Britton regards the theatre as the school for hell, the stage is an abomination to him. He fancies that all actors are like that villain Merlino. And, indeed, it is wonderful that he made no objection to having as son-in-law one who is so deeply compromised as I am. I suppose he hardly realized the fact, he has almost forgotten poor Nita's existence."

At the recollection of that sorrowful past he sighed. Piale was quick to note how the remembrance interfered with his present happiness.

"Well, only a brute would dream of holding you responsible for the sins of others," he said, warmly.

"Tell me," said Carlo, "have you seen any mention of my sister lately in any of the musical papers?"

"I heard that Merlino's company had been in America for the last two years, and that Madame Merlino had made a good impression there..... Well, I suppose I must say no more, lad, but it is hard on a master to have his best pupil lost to the world."

He changed the subject rather hastily. He could not bear to bring back that cloud to Carlo's brow by telling him the last news of his sister.

His lesson over, Carlo began to ransack the jewelers' shops, and having at last found a broad gold gypsy ring with a single diamond which satisfied him, he bent his steps towards his uncle's house, conscious that Guido Donati--a rather autocratic man--would require early notice of his nephew's engagement.

The interview passed off well. Uncle Guido thoroughly approved of the marriage, and treated his nephew in the most generous and paternal way, and Carlo came forth in excellent spirits. All seemed to promise well for his future life. Happy in his love, with the prospect of a fair inheritance, a hope which practically amounted to certainty of success in his profession, and with the best of mothers and the truest of friends, it seemed as if life could offer him nothing more. His face was radiant as he greeted Enrico Ritter.

"Well met!" he exclaimed, waylaying Enrico, who, in a fit of abstraction, would have passed him by.

"Oh, it is you!" exclaimed Enrico, looking him critically in the face. "Well, what news?"

"You will be requested to dance at my wedding before long," said Carlo, gayly.

"So!" Enrico whistled.

"I took your advice, you see, _amico mio_, and stayed at home, that you might not be afflicted with the trouble of congratulating me."

"Yes, yes," said Enrico, with a sarcastic smile. "That is your kind way of putting it--egoist that you are! You stayed to enjoy yourself, and now you want to make me believe that you were considering my comfort and not your own. An egoist! A double-dyed egoist!"

But his laughter was suddenly checked. They were passing a hoarding in the Strada S. Trinita, Carlo had glanced at one of the placards, and now he clutched his friend's arm.

"Enrico!" he gasped; "my sister's name--I thought I saw it. Look for me; I can't."

Huge black letters on a pink ground danced in wild confusion before his eyes; but surely it was that hateful name of Merlino which had suddenly darkened his sky, which had struck a blow at his heart and left him stunned and bewildered!

"Dear old fellow, you must come on," said Enrico. "I didn't know those cursed placards would be out yet; but it is true, alas! only too true."

Carlo walked on mechanically, feeling as though he were in a nightmare. His thoughts flew wildly from Francesca to Anita, from his mother to Captain Britton, from his uncle to Merlino. He had no definite ideas, only a giddy consciousness that the world, so bright but a minute before, was now overshadowed, and that a nameless fear filled his heart.

"Where?" he faltered, after a brief silence.

"The Mercadante," said Enrico, following his train of thought and understanding the laconic question as a friend should.

"Let us come there," said Carlo.

Enrico silently complied. After a time his friend looked up with another question,--

"You knew of this before, then?"

Enrico signed an assent.

"The day I last saw you," he added, after a pause.

"What? That thing you tore out of the _Piccolo_? Why did you try to keep it from me?"

"I wanted you to have a cloudless betrothal," said Enrico, rather reluctantly.

"Ah, _amico mio!_" exclaimed the other, gratefully. "You shield me thus, and then call yourself egoist!"

"Of course," said Enrico, who hated to be caught in a kindly action. "It was pure egoism. Naturally, I wish you to be happy, for it disturbs me and makes me uncomfortable to see you as you are now. Purely for my own sake I deferred the evil day."

Carlo could not help smiling, even then, at the energy with which his friend tried to establish his own selfishness for the sake of triumphing in his pet theory.

"I must find out whether they are yet in Naples," he said, growing grave once more, and trying hard to collect his thoughts. "Oh, Enrico, how shall I break the news to my mother? She is unfit to bear the least shock."

"I would keep it from her, then--at any rate, till you know what line your sister intends to take," said Enrico. "But, see, we are close to the Mercadante. Shall I make inquiries for you?"

"I wish you would," said Carlo, with a look of relief. "Ask when the Company arrives in Naples, and where they are to be found."

Enrico walked forward, Carlo following more slowly; on past two open-air _caffès_ with groups of idlers beneath a shady trellis-work of vine and euonymus; on past a stall gayly wreathed with lemons and greenery, where thirsty Neapolitans were drinking mineral water; on till the arsenal was in sight, and the red tower of the lighthouse, while in the foreground was the Teatro Mercadante. Little had he thought that the sight of its pink walls with their white facings would ever have caused him such strange emotion. Huge placards were posted here in all directions. He read them over and over in a sort of dream, taking in little but that one name in larger type, "MME. MERLINO." At length, Enrico came forth, having made his inquiries.

"They do not seem to know the exact date of their arrival," he said, in answer to Carlo's mute question. "The man was just going off to his _siesta_, and was not best pleased at being hindered. However, he wrote down the address for me. You will find them there, whenever they do arrive. It may be to-morrow or any day next week. They are coming from America, but by what route the fellow didn't know. However, you see by the placards there are no performances for another ten days."

Carlo took the paper, and read the address.

"I shall be here again to-morrow," he said. "I will call and see if they have arrived, and till then I shall say nothing to my mother."

"That would be wise," said Enrico. "Then she will be spared the worry and uncertainty. You look tired, _amico mio_. Come home with me, and have your _siesta_ in peace."

"No," said Carlo; "I want to go home. I want to tell Francesca."

"You can't ride back in this heat; you'll get a sunstroke."

But he only shook his head, and, with an unmistakable air of wishing to be alone, said good-bye to his friend, and went to order his horse.

Enrico turned to look after him. Profound dejection was expressed in his walk. The serpent had all too soon invaded his paradise.