And indeed it was not of Octavius Little, nor yet of Lady Adela"s novel, that Maurice Mangan was thinking as he carelessly walked away through the dark London thoroughfares, towards his rooms in Victoria Street. He was thinking of that quiet little Surrey village; and of two boys there who had a great belief in each other--and in themselves, too, for the matter of that; and of all the beautiful and wonderful dreams they dreamed while as yet the far-reaching future was veiled from them. And then he thought of Linn Moore"s dressing-room at the theatre; and of the paints and powder and vulgar tinsel that had to fit him out for exhibition before the footlights; and of the feverish whirl of life and the bedazzlement of popularity and fashionable petting; and somehow or other the closing lines of Mrs. Browning"s poem would come ever and anon into his head as a sort of unceasing refrain:
"The true G.o.ds sigh for the cost and pain,-- For the reed that grows nevermore again As a reed with the reeds in the river."
CHAPTER III.
NINA.
One morning Lionel was just about to go out (he had already been round to the gymnasium and got his fencing over) when the house-porter came up and said that a young lady wished to see him.
"What does she want?" he said, impatiently--for something had gone wrong with the clasp of his cigarette-case, and he could not get it right.
"What"s her name? Who is she?"
"She gave me her name, sir; but I did not quite catch it," said the factotum of the house.
"Oh, well, send her up," said he; no doubt this was some trembling _debutante_, accompanied by an ancient duenna and a roll of music. And then he went to the window, to try to get the impenitent clasp to shut.
But perhaps he would not have been so wholly engrossed with that trifling difficulty had he known who this was who had come softly up the stair and was now standing, irresolute, smiling, wondering, at the open door. She was a remarkably pretty, even handsome young lady, whose pale, clear, olive complexion and coal-black hair bespoke her Southern birth; while there was an eager and yet timid look in her l.u.s.trous, soft black eyes, and something about the mobile, half-parted mouth that seemed to say she hardly knew whether to cry or laugh over this meeting with an old friend. A very charming picture she presented there; for, besides her attractive personal appearance, she was very neatly, not to say coquettishly, dressed, her costume, which had a distinctly foreign air, being all of black, save for the smart little French-looking hat of deep crimson straw and velvet.
At last she said,
"Leo!"
He turned instantly, and had nearly dropped the cigarette-case in his amazement. And for a second he seemed paralyzed of speech--he was wholly bewildered--perhaps overcome by some swift sense of responsibility at finding Antonia Rossi in London, and alone.
"Che, Nina mia," he cried; "tu stai cca a Londra!--chesta mo, chi su credeva!--e senza manca scriverme nu viers" e lettere--Nina!--mi pare nu suonno!--"
She interrupted him; she came forward, smiling--and the parting of the pretty lips showed a sunny gleam of teeth; she held up her two hands, palm outwards, as if she would shut away from herself that old, familiar Neapolitanese.
"No, no, no, Leo," she said, rapidly, "I speak English now--I study, study, study, morning, day, night; and always I say, "When I see Leo, he have much surprise that I speak English"--always I say, "Some day I go to England, and when I see Leo"--"
The happy, eager smile suddenly died away from her face. She looked at him. A strange kind of trouble--of doubt and wonderment and pain--came into those soft, dark, expressive eyes.
"You--you not wish to see me, Leo?" she said, rather breathlessly--and as if she could hardly believe this thing. "I come to London--and you not glad to see me--"
Quick tears of wounded pride sprang to the long black lashes; but, with a dignified, even haughty inclination of the head, she turned from him and put her hand on the handle of the door. At the same instant he caught her arm.
"Why, Nina, you"re just the spoiled child you always were! Ah, your English doesn"t go so far as that; you don"t know what a spoiled child is?--_e la cianciosella_, you Neapolitan girl! Why, of course I"m glad to see you--I am delighted to see you--but you frightened me, Nina--your coming like this, alone--"
"I frighten you, Leo?" she said, and a quick laugh shone brightly through her tears. "Ah, I see--it is that I have no chaperon? But I had no time--I wished to see you, Leo--I said, "Leo will understand, and afterwards I get a chaperon all correctly." Oh, yes, yes, I know--but where is the time?--yesterday I go through the streets--it is Leo, Leo everywhere in the windows--I see you in this costume, in the other costume--and your name so large, so very large, in the--in the--"
"The theatre-bills? Well, sit down, Nina, and tell me how you come to be in London."
She had by this time quite forgiven or forgotten his first dismay on finding her there; and now she took a chair with much quiet complaisance, and sat down, and put her black silk sunshade across her knees.
"It is simple," she said, and from time to time she regarded him in a very frank and pleased and even affectionate way, as if the old comradeship of the time when they were both studying in Naples was not to be interfered with by the natural timidity of a young and extremely pretty woman coming as a stranger into a strange town. "You remember Carmela, Leo? Carmela and her--her spouse--they have great good-fortune--they get a grand prize in the lottery--then he says, "Carmeluccia, we will go to Paris--we will go to Paris, Carmeluccia--and why not Nina also?" Very kind, was it not?--but Andrea is always kind, so also Carmela, to me. Then I am in Paris. I say, "It is not far to London; I go to London; I go to London and see Leo." Perhaps I get an engagement--oh, no, no, no, you shall not laugh!" she broke in--though it was she herself who was laughing, and not he at all. "I am improved--oh, yes, a little--a little improved--you remember old Pandiani he always say my voice not bad, but that _agilita_ was for me very difficult."
He remembered very well; but he also remembered that when he left Naples, Signorina Rossi was laboring away with the most pertinacious a.s.siduity at cavatinas full of runs and scales and _fiorituri_ generally; and he was quite willing to believe that such diligence had met with its due reward. But when the young lady modestly hinted that she had left her music in the hall below, and would like Leo to hear whether she had not acquired a good deal more of flexibility than her voice used to possess, and when he had fetched the music and taken it to the piano for her, he was not a little surprised to see her select Ambroise Thomas"s "Io son t.i.tania." And he was still more astonished when he found her singing this difficult piece of music with a brilliancy, an ease, a _verve_ of execution that he had never dreamed of her being able to reach.
"Brava! Brava! Bravissima!--Well, you _have_ improved, Nina!" he exclaimed. "And it isn"t only in freedom of production, it is in quality, too, in _timbre_--my goodness, your voice has ever so much more volume and power! Come, now, try some big, dramatic thing--"
She shook her head.
"No, no, Leo, I know what I do," she said. "I shall never have the grand style--never--but you think I am improved? Yes. Well, now, I sing something else."
He forgot all about her lack of a chaperon; they were fellow-students again, as in the old days at Naples, when they worked hard (and also played a little), when they comforted each other, and strove to bear with equanimity the grumbling and querulousness of that always-dissatisfied old Pandiani. Signorina Rossi now sang the Shadow Song from "Dinorah;" then she sang the Jewel Song from "Faust;" she sang "Caro nome" from "Rigoletto," or anything else that he could suggest; and her runs and shakes and scale pa.s.sages were delivered with a freedom and precision that again and again called forth his applause.
"And you have never sung in public, Nina?" he asked.
"At one concert, yes, in Naples," the young lady made answer. "And at two or three _matinees_" And then she turned to him, with a bright look.
"You know this, Leo?--I am offered--no--I was offered--an engagement to sing in opera; oh, yes; it was the _impresario_ from Malta--he comes to Naples--Pandiani makes us all sing to him--then will I go to Malta, to the opera there? No!"
"Why not, Nina? Surely that was a good opening," he said.
She turned away from him again, and her fingers wandered lightly over the keys of the piano.
"I always say to me, "Some day I am in England; the English give much money at concerts; perhaps that is better.""
"So you"ve come over to England to get a series of concert-room engagements; is that it, Nina?"
She shrugged her shoulders ever so slightly.
"Perhaps. One must wait and see. It is not my ambition. No. The light opera, that is--popular?--is it right?"
"Yes, yes."
"It is very popular in England," said the young Italian lady, with her eyes coming back from the music-sheets to seek those of her friend."
Well, Leo, if I take a small part to begin, have I voice sufficient?
What do you think? No; be frank; say to yourself, "I am Pandiani; here is Antonia Rossi troubling me once more; it is useless; go away, Antonia Rossi, and not trouble me!" Well, Maestro Pandiani, what you say?"
"So you want to go on the stage, Nina?" said he; and again the dread of finding himself responsible for this solitary young stranger sent a qualm to his heart. It was an embarra.s.sing position altogether; but at the same time the thought of shaking her off--of getting free from this responsibility by telling a white lie or two and persuading her to go back to Naples--that thought never even occurred to him. To shake off his old comrade Nina? He certainly would have preferred, for many reasons, that she should have taken to concert-room business; but if she were relying on him for an introduction to the lyric stage, why, he was bound to help her in every possible way. "You know you"ve got an excellent voice," he continued. "And a very little stage training would fit you for a small part in comedy-opera, if that is what you"re thinking of, as a beginning. But I don"t know that you would like it, Nina. You see, you would have to become under-study for the lady who has the part at present; and they"d probably want you to sing in the chorus; and you"d get a very small salary--at first, you know, until you were qualified to take one of the more important parts--and then you might get into a travelling company--"
"A small part?" said she, with much cheerfulness. "Oh, yes; why not? I must learn."
"But I don"t know that you would like it," he said, still ruefully. "You see, Nina, you might have to dress in the same room with two or three of the chorus-girls--"
"And then?" she said, with a little dramatic gesture, and an elevation of her beautifully formed black eyebrows. "Leo, you never saw my lodgings with the family Debernardi--you have only mount the stairs--"
"My goodness, Nina, I could guess what the inside of the rooms was like, if they were anything like those interminable and horrid stairs!" he exclaimed, with a laugh. "And you who were always so fond of pretty things, and flowers, and always so particular when we went to a restaurant--to live with the Debernardis!"
"Ah, Leo, you imagine not why?" she said, also laughing, and when she laughed her milk-white teeth shone merrily. "Old Pietro Debernardi he lives in England some years; he speaks English, perhaps not very well, but he speaks; then he teach me as he knows; and when it is possible I go on the _Risposta_ and sail over to Capri, and all the way, and all the return, I listen, and listen, and listen to the English people; and I remember, and I practise alone in my own room, and I say, "Leo, he must not ridicule me, when I go to England.""
"Ridicule you!" said he, indignantly. "I wish I could speak Italian as freely as you speak English, Nina!"
"Oh, you speak Italian very well," said she. "But why you speak still the Neapolitan dialetto--dialect, is it right?--that you hear in the shops and the streets? Ah, I remember you are so proud of it, and when I try to teach you proper Italian, you laugh--you wish to speak like Sabetta Debernardi, and Giacomo, and the others. That is the fault to learn by ear, instead of the books correctly. And you have not forgotten yet!"