Part 2, Chapter XIII
Contrary Winds

“Oh, well for him whose will is strong!”

“Rosa! you were mistaken! He loves me – he says so. Oh, I am so happy – he is so good!” cried Violante, as she ran to meet her sister and threw herself into her arms. Timid as the southern maiden might be she had none of the proud, reticent “shamefastness” that would have led an English girl to conceal her joy even from herself. It was all right and natural; and as Rosa, aghast, dropped into a chair she knelt beside her, her sweet, pathetic eyes and lips transfigured as a flower by the sun.

“What did he say to you?” exclaimed Rosa.

“He loves me – he is coming back again. He does not mind about my singing – Ah, I cannot tell you,” and the bright face drooped with sudden bashfulness.

“Oh!” cried Rosa, passionately, as she pulled off her hat and fanned herself with it; “what a foolish world this is! What has he said? what has he done?” she repeated, almost fiercely.

“He asked me to marry him,” said Violante, with a sort of dignity.

“Oh, dear! he is a very foolish young man. What is to come of it? – what can come of it? Nothing but trouble.”

Violante gazed at her, mute and frightened; then her face brightened with an incredulous smile.

“Oh, if you had never seen him!”

“Rosa!” cried Violante, springing to her feet, “rather than that, I would be miserable for ever – rather than that, I would die.”

“Because you are as silly as the rest! Oh, you unlucky child! don’t you see that it is impossible? Either he will go back to his own people and they will talk him out of it, or he will marry you in spite of them. But no, he shall never do that!”

“But he said it would be right,” said Violante; then, as Rosa laughed bitterly, she went on, pleadingly: “Oh, Rosa mia, it is you who are silly. He will make it right. Indeed, I am happy; but I cannot bear to see you cry. I will act, I shall not care now, and you must keep father from being vexed.” There was much in Violante’s speech of the unconscious selfishness of one to whom the part of comforter was a strange reversion of ordinary life; but her caresses were very sweet to Rosa, who, recovering herself with an effort, said:

“Well, Violante, you can’t expect me to believe in him as you do! I never thought it would come to this!”

“But, Rosa, you will not try to stop it?” Rosa hesitated. Even supposing Hugh entirely faithful, what doubtful happiness lay before her sister; and, if not, what a blank of disappointment, what hopeless injury, what misery how unendurable to the girl who shrank and trembled at a harsh word!

Rosa sat upright and gazed straight before her, while Violante watched, unable to understand her face.

“No!” at length she exclaimed, “you must take your chance with the rest of us. How can I or anyone help it? But – but – I’ll never stop anyone’s love – oh, my little darling, my little darling!” and Rosa broke down into tears, hiding her face in the girl’s soft hair.

“Rosa, you think I could not bear any trouble; but I could – for him.”

There was a new fervour in her voice, and Rosa yielded to it. “Oh, I hope you will be happy,” she said.

“Why, you see I am happy!” said Violante, with a childish laugh. “Father is late; let us have some coffee – you are so hot and tired, I will get it. There is no terrible opera to-night. Maddalena! Maddalena!”

“Ah! signorina, I know who nearly broke the china bowl.”

“Why, I did, Maddalena! I threw it down,” said Violante, as she tripped about after the old woman, whose gold hair-pins were quivering with sly triumph. “But it is quite safe – not a crack in it.”

The coffee was finished; the bright, hot sun went down; and the sisters sat long by the open window in the warm, pleasant twilight. Violante fell into dreamy silence; Rosa also. But there was a great gulf between their meditations, though they were thinking of the same subject and, partly, of the same person.

“There’s father!” cried Violante, as a step sounded. “Oh, I will run away, and you shall tell him.”

“No, no, you little coward; he will be sure to ask for you – stay a minute.”

Violante leant back against the window-sill, her eyes drooping, her breast heaving, and yet her face flushing and dimpling, – the new confidence almost conquering the old fear. Rosa looked far the more frightened of the two. Signor Mattei’s step came up the great staircase quick as a boy’s; he seemed almost to skate across the polished floor, so instantaneously did he bear down on his daughters. In a moment his roll of music was cast aside in one direction, his great white umbrella in another; and, with accents rising every moment into higher indignation, he exclaimed: “Violante, what folly is this that I hear? Is this what all your idleness and obstinacy mean? I’ll not hear a word of it. A lover, indeed! Never let me hear of it again!”

Violante stood breathless, but Rosa interposed:

“Has Mr Crichton been talking to you, father?”

“Ay, and a fine story he brought me. Talking of promises, indeed! How dare she dream of making promises? And you – what have you been doing? Taking care of your sister? No! No! Encouraging her in disobedience and deceit!”

Now Signor Mattei was wont, on all occasions of domestic disturbance, to relieve his feelings by the most voluble scoldings that the Italian temperament could suggest and the Italian tongue express. Had Violante broken the china bowl she would probably have heard nearly as many reproaches; but no amount of experience ever accustomed her to these outbreaks; and, though practically she had never been ill-treated, she feared her father far more than: he guessed; while Rosa usually answered him back more promptly than respectfully, and, loving him better than Violante did, often ended by having her own way. Now she said:

“Why are you angry with Violante, father? She has done nothing wrong. Is it her fault if Mr Crichton loves her and has asked her to marry him?”

“Asked her – asked her! How dared he ask her? Now, most undutiful, most ungrateful child, how long has this conspiracy lasted?”

“He came to-day,” stammered Violante.

“To-day? You tell me this folly has begun to-day! You, who have been secretly sighing for this stranger, sighing for him instead of singing! Ah – shame on you! – tell me – tell me —tell me!” in a rapid crescendo, as he seized her wrist and pulled her towards him.

Violante burst into tears.

“Father! how can you speak to her so?” cried Rosa. “Let her go – and I will tell you. Mr Crichton never said a word to her till to-day. Why will you not consent to their encasement?”

“Because I know my duty as a father better. But it is all over. Do you hear, Violante? I have ended it for ever!”

“Oh, father,” cried Violante, holding out her hands imploringly, “I will not neglect my singing, I will practise all day long; but you would break my heart – oh, dear father, I love him;” and the poor child, with unwonted courage, went up to her father and put her arms round his neck with a look and gesture that, could she have called them up at will, would have settled her stage difficulties for ever.

“No, Violante!” Signor Mattei said. “You know what my wish has been. You were not free to promise yourself; and to-day I have made my arrangements with Signor Vasari and have promised you to him.”

“Father, father, I would kill myself first!” cried Violante, dropping on her knees and hiding her face. “Oh, Rosa – Rosa – help me!”

“Hugh, hush, my child. Stand up and control yourself,” said Rosa, with English dislike to a scene – a kind of self-consciousness shared by neither father nor sister. “Go away – go into our room. I will talk to father first.”

Violante rushed away with her hands over her face, and then the other two prepared for war.

Signor Mattei divested himself of his neck-tie, rubbed his hands through his hair, marched up and down the room, and said:

“Now, Rosa, be reasonable, be dutiful, and hear what I have to say.”

Rosa sat down by the table, with a red spot on each cheek, and took up her knitting.

“Yes, father, that is just what I wish. I want to know what has happened.”

“Am I a cruel father? Do I beat or starve you, or do I work all day for my ungrateful children?”

“I think you were cruel to Violante, father, when you called her deceitful.”

“Violante is a little fool. Now, once for all, Rosa, I will have no disputes. This very day I have promised her to Vasari.”

“Father!” cried Rosa, in high indignation. “It is one thing to forbid her engagement to Mr Crichton, and quite another to insist on her marrying Vasari. I would not stand it.”

“But you, figlia mia, have the sense to decide for yourself,” said Signor Mattei, with a little flattery inexpressibly provoking to the downright Rosa. “Your sister is a child, and cannot judge. Consider. This young Englishman goes home. The proud ladies of his house would see him mouldering in his grave before they blessed his betrothal.”

“I don’t believe they would be so ridiculous! And he is quite independent. But I agree with you, father, that it would be a very unfortunate thing if he married her without his friends’ consent, and what we could not agree to. But he speaks confidently of being able to gain it.”

“He speaks!” echoed Signor Mattei, with scorn. “He speaks! He goes home – he sees his folly. Flattered by the flowers of his own aristocracy will he remember Violante?”

“I don’t believe he has anything to do with the aristocracy! Of course, father, I see all the risks – they are fearful ones; but the other way is such certain misery,” said Rosa, faltering. “How will she bear it!”

“Rosa, I am surprised at you. Can you not see the benefits of this marriage?”

“Yes, I know all that,” said Rosa, sturdily. “I know, if she could make up her mind to it, it would be a very good thing for her and for all of us. But, father, married or single, she will never make an actress, it will kill her; and she hates Vasari.”

Then Signor Mattei’s patience fairly gave way.

“Hates him! Don’t tell me of anything so absurd. How many girls, do you think, have hated their suitors and been happy enough! That is no reason.”

In spite of Rosa’s English breeding she had seen instances enough of the truth of this remark not to have an instant contradiction ready. It might turn out well; which was all that could be said in favour of Hugh Crichton; and yet Rosa felt that, had she been Violante, she would have willingly risked her all in favour of that one glorious possibility. “But it doesn’t always pay,” she thought, and while she hesitated, thinking how such a risk had once been run and run in vain, her father spoke again.

“Now, Rosa, listen. Mild as a lamb in daily life, in emergencies I am a lion; and my will is law, you cannot change it. Violante shall be Vasari’s wife. I have promised, I will perform.” Here Signor Mattei struck his hand on the table in a highly effective manner. “She will be raised above all the uncertainties of our profession, need not work beyond her strength, and we shall share in her success. To this she must agree, and if you will not promise to see that she does so I shall send her to Madame Cellini’s.”

Madame Cellini was a fine old opera-singer who had married and settled in Civita Bella. She had shown much kindness to the motherless girls and had not been an injudicious friend to them; but her contempt for Violante’s fears and her strenuous efforts to rouse her to a sense of her privileges had rendered her instructions and herself an object of dread; and Rosa answered, after a pause:

“I will promise to remain neutral. If Violante can be happy without Hugh Crichton I had far rather she did not marry him. But if she is sent away or too much coerced she will be utterly unable to act. Let her alone, and I don’t suppose she will hold out very long.”

“You will send no letters or messages?”

“No,” said Rosa; “I promise that I will not. I shall leave her to herself.”

To herself! To her weak will and her cowardly spirit! How long would they hold out?

Rosa went in search of her; and, as Violante sprang towards her exclaiming, —

“Oh, Rosa, you will help me!” she held her back.

“No, Violante, I cannot help and I will not hinder you. Father is determined, and you must do it, if do it you will, all yourself. If I move a finger, you will be sent away from me; but I will not try to persuade you either way.”

Violante stood still, with despair in her face. How could she resist her father for an hour? She crept away to bed, at Rosa’s suggestion; received her kisses with passive absence of offence; and, as she hid her face on her pillow, thought not of self-support but of the only help left to her. “He will come again to-morrow – they will listen to him.”