Hugh Crichton's Romance. Coleridge Christabel Rose

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СКАЧАТЬ sat down also; and, shaking the drops from the roses and oleanders, held them to him one by one.

      She felt quite happy; past and future had floated away from her. She did not think of saying anything; the flowers were enough.

      “I don’t think I understand much about arranging flowers,” said Hugh.

      “They were dying, or I should not have taken them to pieces,” said she, with a glance at the white bouquet.

      “You had a white bouquet?”

      “Oh – I had so many – this beautiful one – all roses,” said Violante, trying, in her heightened spirits, this elementary piece of coquetting.

      “Too many to count?”

      “Oh, yes – quite too many. There were three red ones and this – all colours – and one white.”

      She looked at Hugh, seized with a sudden fear. Perhaps he had not thrown the white one, after all!

      “Your trophies, Mademoiselle Mattei. Were you very proud of them as you were counting the spoils?” said the equally foolish Hugh, as he thought: “Of course, she does care for it, after all.”

      Violante blushed intensely and her lips quivered.

      “I like the flowers,” she said.

      “And the applause?” said Hugh, jealously. “Don’t you know you had a great triumph? We shall all boast of your acquaintance.” Violante bent her head low, her lashes heavy and wet.

      “Still, you don’t like it,” cried Hugh; and suddenly the tones were tender. “Does it still frighten you so much, Violante?”

      “Oh yes – so much!”

      “Ah, I saw you were frightened. It was Violante, not Zerlina, that I was looking at.”

      “Yes, that’s the worst of it.”

      “The worst of it?”

      “I never act enough, they say. I can only sing.”

      “Well, what more would anyone have? You sing like an angel. And Violante is much better worth looking at than Zerlina, any day.”

      “Ah,” said Violante, more brightly, “but you would not think so if you were Signor Rubini.”

      “What – Masetto – shouldn’t I?”

      “He said,” continued Violante, with penitence, “that he would rather act with a wax-doll, and – and that I show off my own voice and do not think of his. But I cannot help it, indeed.”

      “What an insolent scoundrel! You shall – why do you ever act with him again?”

      “Oh, but it is a great honour! I ought to please him if I could. But I don’t know how.”

      The sorrowful, contrite tones, and the droop of her lip were almost more than Hugh could bear. James had told him that it would be cruel to make this poor little child unhappy by the uncertainties of an engagement that could not be immediately-fulfilled. Would she be any happier if he left her to cry over her bad acting, and to be criticised by Italian singers? He was coming to a resolution, but for a moment he held it back.

      “Give yourself airs,” he said. “Say you’ll never sing again if they find fault with you! See what they will say then.”

      “I?” said Violante, opening round eyes of amazement. “How could I?”

      “All,” said Hugh, with growing excitement, “but one of these days you will say, ‘I will not act with Signor Rubini!’ We are going home, you know, when I come back – ”

      He paused, and Violante turned cold and sick, as when the eyes of the whole theatre were fixed upon her. He was going away! Hugh started up and walked away from her for a moment; then he came back and stood before her, and spoke.

      “No, you cannot say that. I will tell you what to say. Say you have promised to be my wife, my darling; and it does not matter if you act well or ill. Listen to me one moment. Signorina, I love you; though I cannot tell you so in persuasive words. If you will trust me for a little while, I will come back and bring my mother, who will welcome you and love you. Can you care for me, Violante?”

      Hugh, scrupulous and self-conscious, wasted many words. He had said within himself that he would show more deference to Violante than he would have thought necessary to a princess; that with his first words he would make it plain, both that there were difficulties, and that he would overcome them. There was a suppressed fire in the eyes generally so quiet, and a sort of courtliness in the manners that were sometimes so stiff, a deference that would soon be tender, an earnestness just held back from passionate force.

      Violante heard but three words: “I love you.” Shy as she was, she was utterly trustful, and was too innocent and too fervent for any pretence of coyness.

      “Do you love me, Violante?”

      “Oh, yes!” and she let him take her in his arms, while her tears fell with the soft relief of having found a comforter. She was won, this little southern Juliet, won – ah, how easily! – and Hugh vowed to himself that he would justify her innocent trust, and give her all she knew not how to demand.

      “You are not frightened now, my child?”

      “Oh, no!”

      “Let me look and see;” and, as Hugh drew away the veiling fingers, she did not shrink from the kiss that came in their stead.

      “What will father say?” murmured she presently.

      Now, it would have suited Hugh better could he have left Signor Mattei in ignorance until he had settled the affair with his own people; but he was too generous to involve Violante in the toils of a secret. Never should she be tempted by him to one doubtful action. So he answered —

      “That I will soon find out; and to do so, my darling, I must go.”

      And so, with many tender words, and with a wonderful delight in his own love as well as in the sweet child who had awakened it, Hugh took his leave for the present; and she, who was conscious of no delight but ill him, watched him for a moment, then came and turned the old lock of the door, which he suddenly found so perplexing; so that, as he went away, he saw her standing in the dim, lofty corridor, with the sunlight shining halo-wise behind her hair, and the still brighter aureole of his passionate fancy glorifying her innocent face.

      Part 2, Chapter IX

      Contrasts

      “There’s none so sure to pay his debt.

      As wet to dry, and dry to wet.”

      Part 2, Chapter X

      The Time of Roses

      “When all the world was young, lad,

      And all the trees were green.”

      While the bright southern sunshine was filling the old palace with its rays; and while, beneath the blue Italian sky, Hugh Crichton was arranging Violante’s flowers; the same fair summer weather was making life enchanting in the English county where СКАЧАТЬ