A Roman Singer Part 6

"It is a relation of mine, signorina, a young fellow who is going to be an artist. I asked him as a favour to come here and sing to you to-night. I thought it might please you."

"A relation of yours!" exclaimed the contessina. And the others approached so that they all made a group in the disc of moonlight.

"Just think, my dear baroness, this wonderful voice is a relation of Signor Cardegna, my excellent Italian master!" There was a little murmur of admiration; then the old count spoke.

"Signore," said he, rolling in his gutturals, "it is my duty to very much thank you. You will now, if you please, me the honour do, me to your all-the-talents-possible-possessing relation to present." Nino had foreseen the contingency and disappeared into the dark. Presently he returned.

"I am so sorry, Signor Conte," he said. "The sacristan tells me that when my cousin had finished he hurried away, saying he was afraid of taking some ill if he remained here where it is so damp. I will tell him how much you appreciated him."

"Curious is it," remarked the count. "I heard him not going off."

"He stood in the doorway of the sacristy, by the high altar, Signor Conte."

"In that case is it different."

"I am sorry," said Nino. "The signorina was so unkind as to say, lately, that we Italians have no sense of the beautiful, the mysterious--"

"I take it back," said Hedwig, gravely, still standing in the moonlight. "Your cousin has a very great power over the beautiful."

"And the mysterious," added the baroness, who had not spoken, "for his departure without showing himself has left me the impression of a sweet dream. Give me your arm, Professore Cardegna. I will not stay here any longer, now that the dream is over." Nino sprang to her side politely, though, to tell the truth, she did not attract him at first sight. He freed one arm from the old cloak, and reflected that she could not tell in the dark how very shabby it was.

"You give lessons to the Signora von Lira?" she asked, leading him quickly away from the party.

"Yes--in Italian literature, signora."

"Ah--she tells me great things of you. Could you not spare me an hour or two in the week, professore?"

Here was a new complication. Nino had certainly not contemplated setting up for an Italian teacher to all the world when he undertook to give lessons to Hedwig.

"Signora--" he began, in a protesting voice.

"You will do it to oblige me, I am sure," she said, eagerly, and her slight hand just pressed upon his arm a little. Nino had found time to reflect that this lady was intimate with Hedwig, and that he might possibly gain an opportunity of seeing the girl he loved if he accepted the offer.

"Whenever it pleases you, signora," he said at length.

"Can you come to me to-morrow at eleven?" she asked.

"At twelve, if you please, signora, or half past. Eleven is the contessina's hour to-morrow."

"At half-past twelve, then, to-morrow," said she, and she gave him her address, as they went out into the street. "Stop," she added, "where do you live?"

"Number twenty-seven Santa Catarina dei Funari," he answered, wondering why she asked. The rest of the party came out, and Nino bowed to the ground, as he bid the contessina good-night.

He was glad to be free of that pressure on his arm, and he was glad to be alone, to wander through the streets under the moonlight, and to think over what he had done.

"There is no risk of my being discovered," he said to himself, confidently. "The story of the near relation was well imagined, and besides, it is true. Am I not my own nearest relation? I certainly have no others that I know of. And this baroness--what can she want of me? She speaks Italian like a Spanish cow, and indeed she needs a professor badly enough. But why should she take a fancy for me as a teacher. Ah! those eyes! Not the baroness'. Edvigia--Edvigia di Lira--Edvigia Ca--Cardegna! Why not?" He stopped to think, and looked long at the moonbeams playing on the waters of the fountain. "Why not?

But the baroness--may the diavolo fly away with her! What should I do--I indeed! with a pack of baronesses? I will go to bed and dream--not of a baroness! Macche, never a baroness in my dreams, with eyes like a snake, and who cannot speak three words properly in the only language under the sun worth speaking! Not I--I will dream of Edvigia di Lira--she is the spirit of my dreams. Spirto gentil--" and away he went, humming the air from the "Favorita" in the top of his head, as is his wont.

The next day the contessina could talk of nothing during her lesson but the unknown singer who had made the night so beautiful for her, and Nino flushed red under his dark skin and ran his fingers wildly through his curly hair, with pleasure. But he set his square jaw, that means so much, and explained to his pupil how hard it would be for her to hear him again. For his friend, he said, was soon to make his appearance on the stage, and of course he could not be heard singing before that. And as the young lady insisted, Nino grew silent, and remarked that the lesson was not progressing. Thereupon Hedwig blushed--the first time he had ever seen her blush--and did not approach the subject again.

After that he went to the house of the baroness, where he was evidently expected, for the servant asked his name and immediately ushered him into her presence. She was one of those lithe, dark women of good race, that are to be met with all over the world, and she has broken many a heart. But she was not like a snake at all, as Nino had thought at first. She was simply a very fine lady who did exactly what she pleased, and if she did not always act rightly, yet I think she rarely acted unkindly. After all, the buon Dio has not made us all paragons of domestic virtue. Men break their hearts for so very little, and, unless they are ruined, they melt the pieces at the next flame and join them together again like bits of sealing wax.

The baroness sat before a piano in a boudoir, where there was not very much light. Every part of the room was crowded with fans, ferns, palms, Oriental carpets and cus.h.i.+ons, books, porcelain, majolica, and pictures. You could hardly move without touching some ornament, and the heavy curtains softened the suns.h.i.+ne, and a small open fire of wood helped the warmth. There was also an odour of Russian tobacco.

The baroness smiled and turned on the piano seat.

"Ah, professore! You come just in time," said she. "I am trying to sing such a pretty song to myself, and I cannot p.r.o.nounce the words.

Come and teach me." Nino contrasted the whole air of this luxurious retreat with the prim, soldierly order that reigned in the count's establishment.

"Indeed, signora, I come to teach you whatever I can. Here I am. I cannot sing, but I will stand beside you and prompt the words."

Nino is not a shy boy at all, and he a.s.sumed the duties required of him immediately. He stood by her side, and she just nodded and began to sing a little song that stood on the desk of the piano. She did not sing out of tune, but she made wrong notes and p.r.o.nounced horribly.

"p.r.o.nounce the words for me," she repeated every now and then.

"But p.r.o.nouncing in singing is different from speaking," he objected at last, and, fairly forgetting himself and losing patience, he began softly to sing the words over. Little by little, as the song pleased him, he lost all memory of where he was, and stood beside her singing just as he would have done to De Pretis, from the sheet, with all the accuracy and skill that were in him. At the end, he suddenly remembered how foolish he was. But, after all, he had not sung to the power of his voice, and she might not recognise in him the singer of last night. The baroness looked up with a light laugh.

"I have found you out," she cried, clapping her hands. "I have found you out!"

"What, signora?"

"You are the tenor of the Pantheon--that is all. I knew it. Are you so sorry that I have found you out?" she asked, for Nino turned very white, and his eyes flashed at the thought of the folly he had committed.

CHAPTER V

Nino was thoroughly frightened, for he knew that discovery portended the loss of everything most dear to him. No more lessons with Hedwig, no more parties to the Pantheon, no more peace, no more anything. He wrung his fingers together and breathed hard.

"Ah, signora!" he found voice to exclaim, "I am sure you cannot believe it possible--"

"Why not, Signor Cardegna?" asked the baroness, looking up at him from under her half-closed lids with a mocking glance. "Why not? Did you not tell me where you lived? And does not the whole neighbourhood know that you are no other than Giovanni Cardegna, commonly called Nino, who is to make his _debut_ in the Carnival season?"

"Dio mio!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Nino in a hoa.r.s.e voice, realising that he was entirely found out, and that nothing could save him. He paced the room in an agony of despair, and his square face was as white as a sheet.

The baroness sat watching him with a smile on her lips, amused at the tempest she had created, and pretending to know much more than she did. She thought it not impossible that Nino, who was certainly poor, might be supporting himself by teaching Italian while studying for the stage, and she inwardly admired his sense and twofold talent if that were really the case. But she was willing to torment him a little, seeing that she had the power.

"Signor Cardegna"--she called him in her soft voice. He turned quickly, and stood facing her, his arms crossed.

"You look like Napoleon at Waterloo, when you stand like that," she laughed. He made no answer, waiting to see what she would do with her victory. "It seems that you are sorry I have discovered you," she added presently, looking down at her hands.

"Is that all?" he said, with a bitter sneer on his pale young face.

"Then, since you are sorry, you must have a reason for concealment,"

she went on, as though reflecting on the situation. It was deftly done, and Nino took heart.

"Signora," he said, in a trembling voice, "it is natural that a man should wish to live. I give lessons now, until I have appeared in public, to support myself."

"Ah, I begin to understand," said the baroness. In reality she began to doubt, reflecting that if this were the whole truth Nino would be too proud--or any other Italian--to say it so plainly. She was subtle, the baroness!