Hugh Crichton's Romance. Coleridge Christabel Rose

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      “I venture to set myself up as a rival to your art, and I ask you for – Violante. Indeed, I don’t think she will regret the fame she gives up.”

      Hugh was so sure that it was better for Violante to marry him, an English gentleman, than to sing at all the operas in Europe, he felt that he was making so good an offer, and yet he wanted her so much, that the humility born of passionate desire conquered his sense of his own merits, and he finished pleadingly:

      “If I can help it she never shall.”

      “Signor, my daughter is already promised, and the arrangements for her marriage will shortly be begun.”

      “That is impossible,” exclaimed Hugh; “she has given her promise to me.”

      “Her promise?” cried Signor Mattei; “the promise of a little, foolish, most foolish, girl! No, sir, she knows what my views are, and she is Signor Vasari’s promised wife.”

      “She knows!” She – the loving, trustful child whom he had seen kiss his white flowers, who had given herself to him without one word of misgiving. Impossible, indeed.

      “She shall not be sacrificed,” cried Hugh, in his turn stopping short. “She has told me that she loves me. Whatever you may have intended her to do is without her will or knowledge.”

      Now, in thus asserting Violante’s individuality Hugh made a great mistake. The Italian father did not think that it made much difference if Violante had told Hugh that she loved him twenty times. It was his part to arrange a marriage for her; and her little wishes, her foolish tongue, went for nothing.

      “I do not believe Mademoiselle Mattei is aware of your wishes,” said Hugh again, hotly.

      Now this was an assertion which Signor Mattei could fairly face. Violante was well aware of her father’s wishes. That she was involved in any positive promise she could not know, insomuch as the promise had been made for her at the very time when she had been making a far different one for herself. Nor had she fully known her danger, since Rosa, for the sake of peace and composure, had carefully kept the subject out of sight.

      “Nevertheless, she is aware of them,” said Signor Mattei; and while Hugh paused, silenced for the moment, he went on, not without dignity:

      “Signor, I thank you. Your proposal honours my little girl, and honours you, since you mean to sacrifice much to win her. But I know your country and your manners, and I will not give up my daughter. Your noble ladies will not receive her well.”

      “There is nothing of the sort – we have no rank at all,” interposed Hugh, “and I will answer for my mother.”

      “My daughter, sir, has a great future before her; she shall not sacrifice it. She shall not marry out of her class and away from her country and give up what Fortune has laid at her feet. Your fancy, Signor, will pass as it came, and hers – pshaw – she has nothing strong in her but her voice, her voice of an angel.”

      Signor Mattei was a single-minded man, though he had not dealt singly with Hugh. The good match for his daughter shrank to nothing compared to the career from which it would shut her out. That underneath lurked some consciousness of the advantage to himself is true; but never would he have dreamed of claiming any like advantages from this other suitor.

      Hugh walked on by his side pale and bewildered, a horrible doubt of Violante weakening his arguments and chilling his entreaties. At last he said, desperately, “Signor Mattei, after what has passed I cannot take my answer from you. She told me nothing of a former promise. She must tell me that she has made none, and then I swear to you her life shall have none of the trials you dread. I will either go home and bring you my mother’s words of welcome – my mother herself,” he continued, rashly, “or I will seek no consent at all – none is needed. I would marry her to-morrow if you care for such a test.”

      “You in England, Signor, may marry spite of a parent’s curse.”

      “Curse! nonsense,” said Hugh, impatiently.

      “But here a father’s word is enough. She can give you no answer but mine.”

      “I will have an answer from her,” said Hugh; “and if she can tell me she is not promised to that fellow I will never give her up till – till I have persuaded you to take a different view of this.”

      “But she is promised, sir, and I refuse to entertain your proposals for her.”

      “She never told me so!”

      “She is timid,” said Signor Mattei, with a shrug, “timid, and, like all girls, a fool. Enough; I can say no more, Signor. I have the honour to wish you good evening.” And, with a rapidity for which Hugh was unprepared, Signor Mattei darted down a side street, and left him to himself.

      Baffled as he was, Hugh did not mean to rest satisfied with his answer. He could not believe that the opposition would hold out after he had proved himself to be thoroughly in earnest. If only the horrible doubt of Violante’s own fair dealing could be removed! – and removed it should be the first time he had the chance of a word with her. For Hugh was not a suspicious person, and it would have been hard indeed to doubt the shy yet passionate tenderness of Violante’s voice and face. He did not understand the entanglement, but he was not going to convict her without a trial. Still, this later interview had effectually brought him down to earth; and he went back to the Consulate with the arguments which were to bring James over to his side by no means in such order as he had hoped. He found the ladies drinking coffee and James discoursing on the delights of his afternoon ramble.

      “I assure you, Miss Tollemache, she had eyes like a gazelle, and her smile – there was intelligence and intellect in it; you could see by the way that she smiled that she had a mind, you know.”

      “But flower-girls always do smile, Mr Crichton.”

      “Ah, but how different this was from the made-up smiles you see in England – such a sense of art, too, in her white handkerchief – no hats and feathers. She only said, ‘Grazie, signor!’ but there was a sort of recognition, you know, of one’s interest in her.”

      “I shall go and look at her,” said Emily.

      “Now, if one lived in a simpler state of society,” pursued Jem, “what curious intercourse one might have with such a being – how much she might add to one’s knowledge of existence! How one can imagine the great men of old – Raphael in search of the Beautiful – dancing in the evening! Oh, Hugh, I didn’t see you! Where have you been?”

      “Where have you been would be more to the point,” retorted Hugh. “In one of Bulwer’s novels?”

      “He has fallen in love with a flower-girl,” said Emily.

      “Emily, my dear,” said her mother, “Mr Crichton was only describing an artistic effect. It is very desirable to cultivate a love of nature.”

      “Very,” said Jem. His enthusiasm had been perfectly genuine, though he had not been without a desire to interest his audience; and he could not resist a side glance at Hugh, who looked hot and cross.

      “Have you seen any flower-girls, Mr Crichton?” said Emily, wickedly.

      “No, Miss Tollemache, nothing so interesting;” and then a sudden sense of the extreme falsity of his words came over him; and he blushed in a violent, foolish way, which completed his annoyance with things in general.

      James СКАЧАТЬ