Vittoria met his eyes fiercely for an instant, and then, thinking of Orsino, she bent her head and went away, going back to her mother.
She found her conscious again, but exhausted, lying down on the couch and tended by the nurse, who had been in the house since the news of her son’s death had prostrated Maria Carolina. She looked at Vittoria with a vague stare, not exactly recollecting whether the girl had been in the room during her outburst of rage against Orsino or not. Vittoria had been behind her all the time.
‘Is he gone?’ asked Maria Carolina, in a faint and hollow voice. ‘I am sorry — I could have cursed him much more — —’
‘Mother!’ exclaimed Vittoria, softly and imploringly, and she glanced at the nurse. ‘You may go now,’ she said to the latter, fearing a fresh outburst. ‘I will stay with my mother.’
The nurse left the room, and the mother and daughter were alone together. They were almost strangers, as has been explained, Vittoria having been left for years at the convent in Palermo, unvisited by any of her family, until her uncle’s death had changed their fortunes. It was impossible that there should be much sympathy between them.
There was, on the other hand, a sort of natural feeling of alliance between the two women of the household as against the two men. Maria Carolina was mentally degraded by many years of a semi-barbarous life at Camaldoli, which had destroyed some of her finer instincts altogether, and had almost effaced the effect of early education. She looked up to Vittoria as to a superior being, brought up by noble ladies, in considerable simplicity of life, but in the most extreme refinement of feeling on all essential points, and in an atmosphere of general cultivation and artistic taste, which had not been dreamed of in her mother’s youth, though it might seem old-fashioned in some more modern countries. The girl had received an education which had been good of its kind, and very complete, and she was therefore intellectually her mother’s superior by many degrees. She knew it, too, and would have despised her mother if she had been like her brothers. As it was, she pitied her, and suffered keenly when Maria Carolina did or said anything in public which showed more than usual ignorance or provinciality.
They had one chief characteristic in common, and Ferdinando had possessed it also. They were naturally as frank and outspoken as the other two brothers were deceitful and treacherous. As often happens, two of the brothers had inherited more of their character from their father, while the third had been most like his mother. She, poor woman, felt that her daughter was the only one of the family whom she could trust, and looking up to her as she did, she constantly turned to her for help and comfort at home, and for advice as to her conduct in the world.
But since Ferdinando’s death her mind, though not affected to the extent described by Tebaldo in speaking with Orsino, had been unbalanced. Nothing which Vittoria could say could make her understand how the catastrophe had happened, and though she had formerly liked Orsino, she was now persuaded that he had lain in wait for her son and had treacherously murdered him. Vittoria had soon found that the only possible means of keeping her quiet was to avoid the subject altogether, and to lead her away from it whenever she approached it. It would be harder than ever to accomplish this since she had seen Orsino.
She lay on her couch, moaning softly to herself, and now and then speaking articulate words.
‘My son, my son! My handsome boy!’ she cried, in a low voice. ‘Who will give him back to me? Who will find me one like him?’
Her lamentations were like the mourning of a woman of the people. Vittoria tried to soothe her. Suddenly she sat up and grasped the girl’s arm, staring into her face.
‘To think that we once thought he might marry you!’ she cried wildly. ‘Curse him, Vittoria! Let me hear you curse him, too! Curse him for your soul’s sake! That will do me good.’
‘Mother! mother!’ cried the girl, softly pressing the hand that gripped her arm so roughly.
‘What is the matter with you?’ asked the half-mad creature fiercely, as her strength came back. ‘Why will you not curse him? Go down on your knees and pray that all the saints will curse him as I do!’
‘For Heaven’s sake, mother! Do not begin again!’
‘Begin! Ah, I have not ended — I shall not end when I die, but always while he is alive my soul shall pursue him, day and night, and I will—’ she broke off. ‘But you, too — you must wish him evil — you, all of us — then the evil will go with him always, if many of us cast it on him!’
She was like a terrible witch, with her pale face and dishevelled hair, and gaunt arms that made violent gestures.
‘Speak, child!’ she cried again. ‘Curse him for your dead brother!’
‘No. I will never do that,’ said Vittoria.
A new light came into the raving woman’s eyes.
‘You love him!’ she exclaimed, half choking. ‘I know you love him—’
With a violent movement she pushed Vittoria away from her, almost throwing her to the ground. Then she fell back on the couch, and slowly turned her face away, covering her eyes with both her hands. Her whole body quivered, and then was still, then shook more violently, and then, all at once, she broke into a terrible sobbing, that went on and on as though it would never stop while she had breath and tears left.
Vittoria came back to her seat and waited patiently, for there was nothing else to be done. And the sound of the woman’s weeping was so monotonous and regular that the girl did not always hear it, but looked across at the half-closed blinds of the window and thought of her own life, and wondered at all its tragedy, being herself half stunned and dazed.
It was bad enough, as it appeared to her, but could she have known it all as it was to be, and all that she did not yet know of her brother Tebaldo’s evil nature, she might, perhaps, have done like her mother, and covered her eyes with her hands, and sobbed aloud in terror and pain.
That might be said of very many lives, perhaps. And yet men do their best to tear the veil of the future, and to look through it into the darkened theatre which is each to-morrow. And many, if they knew the price and the struggle, would give up the prize beyond; but not knowing, and being in the fight, they go on to the end. And some of them win.
CHAPTER XVII
TEBALDO’S OWN AFFAIRS were by no means simple. He had made up his mind to get Miss Lizzie Slayback for his wife, and her fortune for himself; but he could not make up his mind to forget the beautiful Aliandra Basili. The consequence was that he was in constant fear lest either should hear of his devotion to the other, seeing that his brother Francesco was quite as much in love with the singer as he was himself, and but for native cowardice, as ready for any act of treachery which could secure his own ends. By that weakness Tebaldo held him, for the present, in actual bodily fear, which is more often an element even in modern life than is generally supposed. But how long that might be possible Tebaldo could not foresee. At any moment, by a turn of events, Francesco might get out of his power.
Aliandra’s season in Rome had been a great success, and her career seemed secured, though she had not succeeded in obtaining an immediate engagement for the London season, which had been the height of her ambition. She had made her appearance too late for that, but the possibility of such a piece of good fortune was quite within her reach for the ensuing year. Being in reality a sensible and conscientious artist, therefore, and having at the same time always before her the rather vague hope of marrying one of the brothers, she had made up her mind to stay in Rome until July to study certain new parts with an excellent master she had found there. She therefore remained where she was, after giving a few performances in the short season after Lent, and she continued to live very quietly with her old aunt in the little apartment they had hired. A certain number of singers and other musicians, with whom she had been brought into more or less close acquaintance in her profession, came to see her constantly, but she absolutely refused to know any of the young men of society who had admired her and sent her flowers during the opera season.
With all her beauty and youth and talent, she possessed a very fair share of her father’s profound common sense.
Of the two, she very much preferred Francesco, who was gentler, gayer, and altogether a more pleasant companion; but she clearly saw the advantage of marrying the elder brother, who had a very genuine old title, for which she could provide a fortune by her voice. There were two or three instances of such marriages which had turned out admirably, though several others had been failures. She saw no reason why she should not succeed as well as anyone.
Tebaldo, on his part, had never had the smallest intention of marrying her, though he had hinted to her more than once, in moments of passion, that he might do so. Aliandra was as obstinate as he, and, as has been said, possessed the tenacious instinct of self-preservation and the keen appreciation of danger which especially characterise the young girl of the south. She was by no means a piece of perfection in all ways, and was quite capable of setting aside most scruples in the accomplishment of her end. But that desired end was marriage, and there was no probability at all that she should ever lose her head and commit an irrevocable mistake for either of the brothers.
She saw clearly that Tebaldo was in love with her, as he understood love. She could see how his eyes lighted up and how the warm blood mantled under his sallow brown skin when he was with her, and how his hand moved nervously when it held hers. She could not have mistaken those signs, even if her aunt, the excellent Signora Barbuzzi, had not taken a lively interest in the prospects of her niece’s marriage, watching Tebaldo’s face as an old sailor ashore watches the signs of the weather and names the strength of the wind, from a studding-sail breeze to a gale.
What most disturbed Aliandra’s hopes was that Tebaldo was cautious even in his passion, and seemed as well able to keep his head as she herself. His brother often told her that Tebaldo sometimes, though rarely, altogether lost control of himself for a moment, and became like a dangerous wild animal. But she did not believe the younger man, who was always doing his best to influence her against Tebaldo, and whom she rightly guessed to be a far more dangerous person where a woman was concerned.
Francesco had once frightened her, and she was really afraid to be alone with him. There was sometimes an expression which she dreaded in his satyr-like eyes and a smile on his red lips that chilled her. Once, and she could never forget it, he had managed to find her alone in her room at the theatre, and without warning he had seized her rudely and kissed her so cruelly while she struggled in his arms that her lips had been swollen and had hurt her all the next day. Her maid had opened the door suddenly, and he had disappeared at once without another word. She had never told Tebaldo of that.
Since then she had been very careful. Yet in reality she liked him better, for he could be very gentle and sympathetic, and he understood her moods and wishes as Tebaldo never did, for he was a woman’s man, while Tebaldo was eminently what is called a man’s man.
Aliandra was, as yet, in ignorance of Miss Slayback’s existence, but she saw well enough that Tebaldo was concealing something from her. A woman’s faculty for finding out that a man has a secret of some sort is generally far beyond her capacity for discovering what that secret is. He appeared to have engagements at unusual times, and there was a slight shade of preoccupation in his face when she least expected it. On the other hand, he seemed even more anxious to please her than formerly, when he was with her, and she even fancied that his manner expressed a sort of relief when he knew that he could spend an hour in her company uninterrupted.
When she questioned him, he said that he was in some anxiety about his affairs, and his engagements, according to his own account, were with men of business. But he never told what he was really doing. He had not even thought it necessary to inform her of the sale of Camaldoli. Though she was a native of the country, he told her precisely what he told everyone in regard to Ferdinando Pagliuca’s death.
‘Eh — you say so,’ she answered. ‘But as for me, I do not believe you. There never was but one Ferdinando Pagliuca, he was your brother, and he was a friend of all the brigands in Sicily. You may tell these Romans about the Pagliuca di Bauso, but I know better. Do you take me for a Roman? We of Randazzo know what a brigand is!’
‘You should, at all events,’ answered Tebaldo, laughing, ‘for you are all related. It is one family. If you knew how many brigands have been called Basili, like you!’
‘Then you and I are also related!’ she laughed, too, though she watched his face. ‘But as for your brother, may the Lord have him in peace! He is dead, and Saracinesca killed him.’
Tebaldo shrugged his shoulders, but showed no annoyance.
‘As much as you please,’ he answered. ‘But my brother Ferdinando is alive and well in Palermo.’
‘So much the better, my dear friend. You need not wear mourning for him, as so many people are doing at Santa Vittoria.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Tebaldo, uneasily.
‘Did you ever hear of Concetta, the beautiful daughter of Don Atanasio, the apothecary?’ asked Aliandra, quietly smiling.
Tebaldo affected surprise and ignorance.
‘It is strange,’ continued the singer, ‘for you admire beauty, and she is called everywhere the Fata del’ Etna — the Fairy of Etna — and she is one of the most beautiful girls in the whole world. My father knows her father a little — of course, he is only an apothecary—’ she shrugged her shoulders apologetically— ‘but in the country one knows everybody. So I have seen her sometimes, as at the fair of Randazzo, when she and her father have had a biscuit and a glass of wine at our house. But we could not ask them to dinner, because the mayor and his wife were coming, and the lieutenant of carabineers — an apothecary! You understand?’
‘I understand nothing beyond what you say,’ said Tebaldo. ‘You did not consider the apothecary of Santa Vittoria good enough to be asked to meet the mayor of Randazzo. How does that affect me?’
‘Oh, not at all!’ laughed Aliandra. ‘But everything is known, sooner or later. Ferdinando, your brother, was at the fair, too — I remember what a beautiful black horse he had, as he rode by our house. But he did not come in, for he did not know us. Now, when Don Atanasio and Concetta went out, he was waiting a little way down the street, standing and holding his horse’s bridle. I saw, for I looked through the chinks of the blinds to see which way Concetta and her father would go. And your brother bowed to the ground when they came near him. Fancy! To an apothecary’s daughter! Just as I have seen you bow to the Princess of Sant’ Ilario in the Villa Borghese. She is Saracinesca’s mother, is she not? Very well. I tell you the truth when I tell you that Don Ferdinando took the two to dine with him in the best room at the inn. They say he thought nothing good enough for the apothecary’s daughter, though he was of the blood of princes! But now Concetta wears mourning. Perhaps it is not for him? Eh?’
Aliandra had learned Italian very well when a child, and was even taking lessons in French, in order to be able to sing in Paris. But as she talked with Tebaldo she fell back into her natural dialect, which was as familiar to him as to herself. He loved the sound of it, though he took the greatest pains to overcome his own Sicilian accent in order not to seem provincial in Rome. But it was pleasant to hear it now and then in the midst of a life of which the restraints were all disagreeable to him, while many of them were almost intolerably irksome.
‘How much better our language is than this stilted Roman!’ he exclaimed, by way of suddenly turning the conversation. ‘I often wish you could sing your operas in Sicilian.’
‘I often sing you Sicilian songs,’ she answered. ‘But it is strange that Concetta should wear mourning, is it not?’
‘Leave Concetta alone, and talk to me about yourself. I have never seen her—’
‘Do not say such things!’ laughed Aliandra. ‘I do not believe much that you say, but you will soon not let me believe anything at all. Everyone has seen Concetta. They sing songs about her even in Palermo — La Fata del’ Et
na—’
‘Oh, I have heard of her, of course, by that name, but I never remember seeing her. At all events, you are ten times more beautiful than she—’
‘I wish I were!’ exclaimed the artist, simply. ‘But if you think so, that is much.’
‘It would be just the same if you were ugly,’ said Tebaldo, magnanimously. ‘I should love you just as I do — to distraction.’
‘To distraction?’ she laughed again.
‘You know it,’ he answered, with an air of conviction. ‘I love you, and everything that belongs to you — your lovely face, your angelic voice, your words, your silence — too much.’
‘Why too much?’
‘Because I suffer.’
‘There is a remedy for that, my dear Tebaldo.’
‘Tell me!’
‘Marry me. It is simple enough! Why should you suffer?’
Her laughter was musical and sunny, but there was a little irony in its readiness to follow the words.
‘You know that we have often spoken of that,’ he answered, being taken unawares. ‘There are difficulties.’
‘So you always say. But then it would be wiser of you not to love me any more, but to marry where you do not find those difficulties. Surely it should be easy!’
She spoke now with a little scorn, while watching him; and as she saw the vulture-like droop of his eyelids she knew that she had touched him, though she could not quite tell how. She had never spoken so frankly to him before.
‘Not so easy as you think,’ he replied, with a rather artificial laugh.
‘Then you have tried?’ she asked. ‘I had thought so! And you have failed? My condolences!’
‘I? Tried to marry?’ he cried, realising how far she was leading him. ‘What are you making me say?’
‘I am trying to make you tell the truth,’ she answered, with a change of tone. ‘But it is not easy, for you are clever at deceiving me, and I wonder that you cannot deceive the woman you wish to marry.’
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 894