Hugh Crichton's Romance. Coleridge Christabel Rose

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      “English people don’t like actresses.”

      “Well, but you don’t suppose Mrs Tollemache has any prejudice of that sort?”

      “She would not like Emily to do it.”

      “Emily! Of course not. Young ladies like Emily don’t sing in public. She would not be a governess or do anything to get her living. But they would think it quite right for you. Why, you will have Mr Crichton and his brother to throw bouquets at you!”

      “Yes!” exclaimed Violante, with sudden passion. “He will throw bouquets at me. He will ‘tell his friends I am pretty,’ and he will think – ”

      “He? Mr Crichton? Violante, what can it matter to you what he thinks?”

      Violante shrank away from her sister, and covered her face with her hands.

      “Violante,” cried Rosa, too anxious to pick her words, “don’t tell me you have been so silly as to think about him – that you have let yourself care for him.”

      “Oh – I do – I do, with all my heart,” cried Violante, with all the fervour of her Italian nature, speaking from her shining eyes and parted lips.

      “What has he said to you – what has he done? He has not made love to you – child – surely.”

      “I don’t know,” murmured Violante.

      “Oh, I must have been mad – what have I been doing to let this go on?” cried Rosa, starting up and walking about in her agitation, while Violante cowered, frightened, into the great chair, but with a certain self-assertion in her heart, too.

      “Now,” said Rosa, recovering prudence, and sitting down on the arm of the chair, “you see, I have not taken care of my pretty sister. Tell me all about it.”

      “You are not angry with me, Rosa?”

      “Angry, my little one,” said Rosa, while tears, rare in her eyes, fell on her cheeks – “no, only angry with myself. Now, tell me what it is; how long have you felt in this way? What has he said to you?”

      “All, how can I tell? He looks at me – he gives me flowers – he speaks to my heart,” said Violante with downcast eyes, but lips that smiled and needed no sympathy in their satisfaction.

      “Don’t be silly,” said poor Rosa, irritated both by the smile and the sentiment. “Is that all?”

      “He told me of his home – he said we should be friends – he asked me for a rose, and kissed my hand for it – he said he thought it was Italian fashion.”

      “Oh, Violante, why didn’t you tell me before?”

      “Oh,” with a funny little air of superiority, “one does not think of telling.”

      Rosa pressed Violante tight in her arms, and set her lips hard, and when she spoke it was very low and steadily.

      “My child, you know how I love you, that I only think how to make you happy. Mr Crichton had no right to play with you so; but it was my fault for letting you be thrown in his way. Young men will do those things, just to amuse themselves.”

      “Some will.”

      “Some?” said Rosa bitterly. “You little foreign girl – he would think of you just as of a pretty flower, to please him for a time, and then he will go home and leave you to repent that you have ever known him!”

      “Never – never,” cried Violante, clasping her hands. “Never – if my heart should break.”

      Rosa stamped her foot, and hot, cruel tears, that burnt as they fell, half choked her.

      “I dare say he has never thought that you would take what he said seriously. If he likes you, he could not marry you – he must marry some English girl of his own rank. You must put him out of your head, and I must take better care of you.”

      Violante’s views of the future were scarcely so definite as these words implied, but she shivered, and a chill fell on her spirits.

      “Now,” said Rosa, “I believe Signor Vasari does really care for you.”

      “Signor Vasari! I hate him!” cried Violante. “Rosa, I will be good – I will act – I will sing – but I will not hear of Signor Vasari. If he kissed me, I would kill him!”

      “For shame, Violante, that is a very improper way of speaking. Oh, my child, will you promise me to be good?”

      Violante did not answer. Was there a secret rebellion in the heart that had always given Rosa back love for love?

      “Violante mia – you don’t think me unkind to you?”

      Violante looked up and smiled, and taking Rosa’s face between her two little hands, covered it with sweet, fond kisses.

      “Rosa, carissima mia, shall you do anything?”

      “No,” said Rosa, considering. “I think not. If you will be a good child, and steady – now father will be coming back.”

      “Oh, you will not tell him?”

      “No, no – certainly not; but you have not practised.”

      “I could not sing a note!”

      “No, not now,” said Rosa steadily. “You must drink some coffee, and go and lie down for a little. And then you must bathe your eyes, and put up your hair, and come and sing for as long as father wishes.”

      Violante obeyed, and Rosa having administered the coffee, and seen that no more tears were likely to result from solitude, left her to rest, and came back to await her father and consider the situation. She did not like the look of it at all. Violante was a good, obedient child, who tried to do as she was told, and had no power to rebel against fate. But she knew nothing of self-conquest or of self-control, and when she was unhappy had no thought but to cling to Rosa, and cry till she was comforted; while under all her timidity lay the power of a certain fervour of feeling against which she had never dreamed of struggling. Sweet and humble, innocent and tender, yet with a most passionate nature, how could she contend with feelings which were more

      “Than would bear

      Of daily life the wear and tear,”

      how endure the pangs of disappointment, added to the strain of an uncongenial life?

      “I think she will break her heart,” thought Rosa to herself. But then arose the consolatory thought that a life which seemed attractive to herself could not be so painful to her sister, and the probability that Violante’s feeling for her lover had not gone beyond the region of sentimental fancy.

      Rosa, being naturally of a sanguine temperament, inclined to the latter opinion, and rose up smiling as her father came in.

      “Well, and where is Violante – has she practised yet?” demanded Signor Mattei.

      “No, father; she was too tired, she will come directly and sing for as long as you like.”

      “The child is possessed,” muttered Signor Mattei.

      “Now, СКАЧАТЬ