Chapter XI: A First Encounter

"Blest, too, is he who can divine
Where real right doth lie,
And dares to take the side that seems
Wrong to man's blindfold eye.

Then learn to scorn the praise of men,
And learn to lose with God;
For Jesus won the world through shame,
And beckons thee His road."
FABER.

"I have something to say to you, _carina_; let us linger behind the others; there is no hotter place on earth than these streets of Pompeii, and I think we know them well enough."

The whole party had driven over early on the Monday morning to show Mr. Britton the more recent excavations; he had been to Pompeii before, but many years ago.

To Carlo and Francesca, however, those old gray streets and ruined temples were perfectly familiar, and Francesca was not sorry to follow out Carlo's suggestions, and despatched Sibyl to tell the others that they would wait in the Temple of Venus till their return.

"At which message you may be sure Uncle George will laugh," she said. "Had we been wise in our generation, Carlo, we should have chosen the Temple of Isis, but then this is my favorite, and, after all, we are proof against teasing now."

Carlo smiled sadly, as he looked across the beautiful expanse of country. On one side, beyond the ruined streets, lay the verdant _Campagna_ bounded by Vesuvius and Somma; on the other was a yet more lovely view of sea and mountains, with the white houses of Castellamare gleaming in the sunshine.

"We have not chosen a very shady place," said Francesca. "But, see, there is just a little patch of shadow down there. Let us come."

"Do you know what that is?" said Carlo, repressing a shudder.

"Why, yes, to be sure," she replied gayly; "it's the altar of sacrifice. How fond Clare used to be of poking about in here--don't you remember? I wish she had come with Uncle George."

"And I, too; I would have given anything to have had her here--for your sake, _carina_."

There was something so unusual in his tone that Francesca looked up quickly.

"Carlo _mio_, you frighten me! What do you mean? Don't lean on the altar like that! Come and sit down on this step by me in the shade. Why do you wish Clare here for my sake? What do I really want with any one now that I have you?"

"But if, as we were saying last night, there was a battle to fight and I had to leave you?"

"Carlino! what do you mean? Surely there is not going to be a revolution--a war?"

"Oh, no, it is much tamer than that," he said, with a slightly bitter smile. Then, a sudden light illumining his face, he put his arm round her and held her closely.

"My dear one," he said, speaking rapidly and with great earnestness,--"my own true love, you gave me fresh courage last night by your words. _Carina_, there are other wars than those between nations; there is the great war in which you and I have vowed our service; you would not wish me, I know, to prove coward in that--to be a deserter. I must tell you, in plain words, the actual case, even though it is hard to do it,--even though I would give the world to keep all knowledge of such evil from you. Francesca, do you know what killed my mother? I will tell you. It was the knowledge that Anita was living in hourly peril of proving unfaithful to her husband! He--that one who would ruin her--that one who dares to call his foul passion by the name of love, is actually a member of Merlino's company. Merlino himself suspects nothing, if he did he would half kill Anita. I have thought of every possible plan for getting rid of this villain without betraying my sister; but, darling, there is only one way that will answer, and it is this: to get rid of this man--this baritone--I must take his place myself."

"You must offer," said Francesca, faintly; "but perhaps Signor Merlino will not accept you."

"The post has already been offered to me by Merlino, and on Wednesday, Francesca _mia_, I must let him know whether I accept his offer or not."

"Ah!"

She locked her hands together convulsively, but only that one sob of intense, intolerable pain escaped her.

There was silence--a silence so deep that the distant sounds of the workmen busy over the excavations seemed quite near. A little lizard darted across the pavement close to their feet, and plunged into the maidenhair that fringed the altar.

Francesca opened her eyes.

"My love! my love!" she cried, "don't look like that! See, Carlo _mio_, I am going to keep my word. I will say, like the wives in the old days, 'Go and help,' and I'll not cry; I promise you I'll not cry. And yet--yet--oh! how can I help it when you set me so bad an example?"

With a stifled sob she broke off and hid her face on his breast. The sight of her suffering had unnerved him, but quickly he regained that strange self-mastery which was all the more remarkable because it was combined with an ardent, emotional, highly-strung temperament.

"You are helping me to keep my word," he said, drawing her yet closer to him. "As a child I promised my father on his death-bed that I would shield Nita, and my mother's last entreaty you heard."

"Do I help you?" she said, eagerly; "do I really help? Then I am no longer unhappy. It was the thought of your going quite away where I could do nothing--_nothing_ for you--it was that broke my heart. If, even away, I can help you--if even in this we can work together--then I can bear it."

"Your father," he said, hesitatingly, "I must tell him at once,--and, _carina_, he will not see things in the light you see them."

"He will not approve of your going on the stage," said Francesca. "He will be vexed and annoyed, but he cannot help seeing that it is the only thing to be done."

Carlo made a faint gesture of dissent. The last sentence was so like Francesca, so unlike the Captain.

"He will most naturally wish that I had never spoken to you. Indeed, I myself could almost wish it, darling; for what have I brought you but trouble, and grief, and the shadow of a disgrace?"

"You have brought me yourself, Carlino," she said, with a sweet mirthfulness in look and tone; "you don't seem to think much of the gift, it is true."

"And yet if I had kept silence a week longer all would have been different. I should have gone off with Merlino's company and there would have been no discussion and remonstrance; I should not have vexed your father--should not have felt that I had spoiled your life. You would have been free, and the pain would have been mine alone."

"Why, you vain boy!" she exclaimed, half laughing, half crying, "do you think it was that tale you told me in the belvedere that made me love you? You know quite well I have loved you for years and years! And then you talk of going away in silence and leaving me free and happy. Carlino, I'm ashamed of you!"

Like two children, they forgot for a little while the dark future, and basked in the sunny present. Parting was a thought hardly to be conceived while they sat together in the old Temple of Venus, and made love to each other after the fashion of lovers in all ages and climes.

After a time they talked of Carlo's future life, he spoke warmly of Sardoni, quoted Piale's high opinion of Marioni, the conductor, and said all that could be said in Merlino's favor. He wanted to paint his new life in bright colors for her sake, and he talked cheerfully of winning Nita's love and confidence, speaking with more assurance than he really felt.

And yet Francesca remembered well enough his words a few weeks before about the wretched, roving life of a singer, and she knew that in his heart he shrank from it still.

"Shall you be in Italy, do you think?" she asked.

"No," replied Carlo, with a sigh. "Merlino will only stay here till he has got his chorus together again, and given his principals a short holiday. You see things are different here, travelling companies are not much in vogue."

"Then, where will you be?"

"In England for a time, then in America."

"America!" she could not repress the exclamation. "That will seem terribly far away--I hoped, as they had just come back, there would be no question of going there again."

"America is the great field for companies like Merlino's; I suppose a great deal of my life will probably be spent there."

Francesca sighed.

"Ah, well, after all it is chiefly in imagination that distance affects one--our letters will travel just as well across the Atlantic. You will have to send me all your changes of address, Carlino; and, as for me, I shall have to learn to write smaller, or there will never be space enough for all I shall have to say."

By the time the rest of the party joined them, they had grown accustomed to the thought of the change--had bravely faced the coming separation, each strengthening the other to endure; and Mr. Britton little guessed, as he gayly teased his niece about her indifference to the knew discoveries, what had passed during that hour in the Temple of Venus. Francesca only smiled and drew him into a description of all they had seen, while with her eyes she followed rather wistfully the lithe figure running with Sibyl down the steep old street which led out of Pompeii. They lunched in the little restaurant at the entrance; allowed Mr. Britton to be inveigled into the region of photographs, bronzes, and lava ornaments; then, in the cool of the afternoon, drove home again, Francesca nursing a _Dying Gladiator_ in terra-cotta, which was to go home to Clare in the _Pilgrim_.

If Captain Britton thought Carlo rather more silent than usual he put it down to constraint in the presence of a stranger,--the last thing Carlo would have been likely to experience. However, the worthy Captain liked him all the better for it, and talked to him in his bland, semi-patronizing way, chaffing him not a little on his light-hearted compatriots who thronged the road in their _festa_ clothes, closely packed in open carriages.

"Yes, yes, you Neapolitans are terrible pleasure-lovers," he said, laughingly. "Look there, now--ten people stowed away in that, and the horses all decked out with brass ornaments and bells; and yet they are people of the lower class, who, likely enough, will be hungry to-morrow!"

Francesca fully expected that the term, "lower class," would call forth a remonstrance from Carlo, but he let it pass, and the next moment she understood why. His eye had been caught by a poster on one of the walls of Portici in which Madame Merlino's name appeared in large letters.

Carlo was invited to dine at the Casa Bella that evening; he had not yet made up his mind whether he would tell all to Captain Britton face to face, or whether he would write him a letter. Though a very fluent speaker, he was not particularly fond of writing English, however; and if only a favorable opportunity could be found he rather inclined to an interview with the Captain.

The opportunity came. Dessert was over, Francesca had left the room, Mr. Britton excused himself soon after, as he had a great number of letters to write; the Captain drew his chair up to the table again and passed the wine to his guest. Carlo knew then that his time was come; the hand with which he helped himself to snow trembled a little, but his voice was firm and well modulated when he spoke.

"It seems a little ungracious to be glad that Mr. Britton's holiday should be invaded by business letters," he began, "but I particularly wanted a few words alone with you."

Captain Britton thought of his scheme for hastening on the marriage, and quite hoped that the same idea had occurred to Carlo. A kindly smile played about his broad mouth.

"I, too, have wanted to speak with you all day, but these family parties are no time for confidential talk."

Carlo thought of the Temple of Venus, and was silent. Captain Britton resumed:--

"The fact is I am anxious about you, my dear fellow; you look to me far from well. I wish that sister of yours was at the other side of the Atlantic, and that's the truth of it; it was a bad day for all of us when she returned. When do they leave Naples? You'll never be yourself again till you are rid of that brother-in-law."

"I am not likely to be rid of him for some time to come, I fear," said Carlo, plunging boldly into his subject. "It is about the step which I purpose taking that I wish now to speak to you."

Did he mean to propose that wedding journey which the Captain had planned? His face was grave almost to sternness, but then the Merlinos were quite enough to account for that.

"I know it is a step which you will disapprove," resumed Carlo. "And yet--there is no help for it--take it I must."

Captain Britton's hopes sank; he began to think apprehensively of all the things he should least like to happen.

"Well, short of turning Romanist again," he said, after a pause, "I don't think anything you are likely to do would disquiet me very much."

"It will, however, delay our marriage," said Carlo; "that is, I fear, quite inevitable."

"Well, well," said Captain Britton, thinking that he meant to study for some of the higher branches of the law, "you are both young, and I can assure you I'm in no hurry to get rid of my little Francesca. Have you discussed the matter with her?"

"Yes, and she agrees with me that I must go."

"Go! Where?"

"With Merlino's company; it is the only way in which I can keep my promise to my mother--the only possible way of shielding Anita."

Captain Britton was so much startled that for a minute he could not speak, only the color rose to his forehead and his eyes opened wider. In all his trouble and anxiety Carlo could not help observing that he bore a comical resemblance to the crimson shade over the lamp, with its owl's head and round, staring eyes. How was he to make this man, of all men in the world, understand Nita's position and sympathize with its difficulties? While he hesitated how best to put her case without divulging too much, the Captain recovered his breath.

"Do I understand that you mean to turn actor?" he asked in a sort of hoarse roar.

Tone and manner were alike overbearing.

Carlo made one of his dignified little bows and said gravely, "Merlino has offered me reasonable terms, and Piale has long wished that I should go on the stage. Had I only my own wishes to consult I should certainly not choose the career of a public singer; but, sir, I promised my mother to shield Anita, and I must do my best--I must think of her."

"I should have thought you were bound to think of your promised wife," said the Captain, wrathfully, "to consult her wishes."

"Francesca agrees with me," said Carlo; "she would never keep me back from a duty."

"Francesca is a fool, then. Duty, indeed! A duty to mix yourself up with a set of idle, profligate fellows! A duty to pander to the taste of the dissolute, and play the buffoon on the stage, and be clapped by all the scum of the town!"

Carlo by a great effort strangled the words of angry remonstrance which rose to his lips, and tried to understand the feelings of an Englishman with Puritan traditions. He would at least try to explain the state of affairs patiently.

"It is very hard for me to understand the view you take of the stage, sir," he began; "we Italians honor and respect our theatre; it is not, as you would say, the haunt of the dissolute, but the resort of the whole people----"

The Captain interrupted him, he was all the more angry because his companion had managed, so far, to exercise a well-bred restraint. Some devil prompted him to rouse the Italian's latent passion.

"Yes," he said, sneeringly, "I know your national tendencies well enough, but I had thought you were superior to your countrymen. I see I was wrong; you are as frivolous and pleasure-seeking as the rest of the lot; it was well said of you Italians that you were only fit for artists' models and the operatic stage."

Carlo sprang to his feet, fire flashing from his eyes.

"No man is called on to sit still and hear his country insulted," he cried. "The words are not worthy of you, sir; I am sure you will retract them."

"If I retract them in part I certainly still apply them to you," said Captain Britton. "What have you proved yourself but fickle and frivolous? You have altogether deceived me."

His patriotic feelings somewhat smoothed, Carlo grew a little calmer, the personalities were less intolerable. Again he made an effort patiently to put before the Captain the whole case; this time he was determined that he would make him fully comprehend it and hear it out.

"You condemn me, sir, before you have grasped the situation," he began, his voice so subdued by the strong restraint he was putting on himself that it sounded low and monotonous. In words plain enough to make the Englishman wince he briefly described the dilemma. "Knowing this," he went on,--"knowing, too, that my mother trusted to me to avert the danger, you surely cannot judge me harshly for taking this step. I knew the stage was dishonorable in your eyes, but I thought you would see in time that for me it was a necessity."

The Captain had risen, too, and was pacing the room with quick, irritated steps. Nita's story had been a severe shock to him, Carlo's plain-speaking still caused his ears to tingle, and the thought of any sort of connection with a family on the borders of such a scandal was unbearable to him. He had a just pride in his Britton ancestry, in his honest, God-fearing forefathers; his strong love of family, his sense of kinship, was the best part of the man. But virtues generally have their corresponding vices, and the Captain had an overweening idea of his own dignity, and a habit of looking on other men's affairs from a lofty height, which often made his judgment faulty.

He was blind now to Carlo's unselfishness, blind to his pain, he struck out remorselessly, thinking only how to rescue Francesca from further connection with Madame Merlino's brother.

"Don't talk to me of duty and necessity," he thundered; "you are a Jesuit in disguise, you are doing evil that good may come, if, indeed, there is any thought of good in the whole plan. My own belief is that you are tired of Francesca. If so you couldn't have set to work better. I shall certainly not give my daughter in marriage to an actor; you may consider your betrothal at an end."

For a minute the blow seemed to crush the very life out of Carlo, he turned deathly white. Twice he made as though he would speak, twice failed in the attempt, his lips refusing to frame the words. Captain Britton felt a pang of regret as he saw the result of his own work, but the regret was soon swallowed up in wrathful recollections.

"I don't think you in your heart believe all that you say of me, sir," said Donati, struggling even now to make excuse for Francesca's father. "All I can do is to bow to your decision. You will let me see Francesca?"

Something in his patient dignity, in his manly forbearance, struck a hard blow at the Captain's pride. What a contrast there was between his own behavior and the behavior of the Italian! The thought chafed him, and called forth a burst of passionate anger.

"I shall not dream of permitting you to see her," he cried furiously. "I'll have no more of your kissing and caressing for my daughter, you'll have enough of that at the theatre. Keep your caresses for the _prima donnas_!"

In an instant Carlo's whole bearing altered, the burning color rushed to his cheeks, his eyes blazed, all his pent-up wrath burst forth like a volcano. For an Italian nature is not unlike the Mediterranean itself; people are tempted to presume on that calm, blue peacefulness which looks as if it could never be broken, and then they find themselves suddenly overtaken by one of its sharp, characteristic storms; and, just in the same way, they presume on the infinite patience and the sweet nature of those Southerners whose only wish it has seemed to please, and are amazed when they find that sensitiveness and delicacy of perception has two sides.

Captain Britton had at length exhausted even the patience and courtesy of an Italian; he was alarmed now at the storm he had evoked.

Carlo's English had forsaken him, his voice, so subdued a minute before, was now eager and passionate, his gesticulations were vehement as he poured forth a torrent of angry remonstrance, a storm of words so rapidly uttered that to foreign ears they were hardly intelligible.

The Captain was only conscious of two things: that he deserved this burst of indignation, and that he must somehow get rid of his fiery guest. At such a moment, and in such agitation, he was not likely to weigh his words. At length Carlo paused for a moment, not because his wrath had cooled, but because his breath failed him. The Captain instantly snatched at his advantage.

"I will at least save my child from further contact with a deceiver!" he exclaimed hoarsely. "She is mine, and I owe it to her to shield her from such as you." They were words which could never be forgotten,--words which in their cruel injustice would rankle like a poisoned arrow. The same white-heat of passion which causes daily murders in the Santa Lucia district leapt now to Carlo's brain, yet through it all he was conscious of a voice in his heart which said, "Go, go at once while you can control your limbs. Go while there is yet time."

The habit of a lifetime prevailed; to turn and leave his foe was to him more bitter than death, but with a struggle worthy of his brave progenitors, he obeyed the voice, and strode out of the room without a word.

He did not dare to pause for a moment, lest he should see Francesca, or perhaps hear her voice in the distance and be overcome. With hurried steps he crossed the vestibule, snatched up his hat from the stand, flung his coat across his chest, and closed the door of Casa Bella behind him. Then he stopped for a minute, suddenly conscious that he felt sick and giddy, and that he was still trembling with passion. The fiend whom he had worsted assailed him in a new form.

"You treated him with great forbearance," it argued; "you proved yourself his superior in every way. He ought to apologize to you for what he said."

Carlo walked slowly home. The idea of bringing the Englishman to his feet and making him crave pardon soothed him a little. "This anger shall not get the mastery of me," he said to himself. "I will go in and make my preparations for leaving home just as if this had not happened."

And, with the sort of unreal strength which anger gives, he actually did begin his sorrowful task, called the servants together, told them that he was leaving Italy, paid them their wages, and dismissed them. Then, more tried by the sight of their grief and surprise than he fancied would be the case, he sat down to his desk and began to write letters. There was the lease of the Villa Bruno to be disposed of, it was his for another year; he wrote to a house-agent in Naples. There was the furniture to be sold; he wrote to an auctioneer, asking that an early date might be fixed for the sale. At any other time these letters must have cost him much to write, but now he felt little, for fierce anger crowded out grief and regret. He had not in the least realized that he was never again to see Francesca; he could realize nothing but that he had been insulted,--grossly insulted, by the man who should have been his best friend. And yet, though he was still beside himself with passion, he was all the time aware of an inner voice urging him to forgive. The idea made him laugh scornfully as he directed and stamped his envelopes. What! was he to forgive one so clearly in the wrong? He had never before felt the difficulty of forgiving, being naturally generous and sweet-tempered; but Captain Britton had wounded him too deeply. Words which might have been pardoned in a mere acquaintance, seemed unpardonable in a friend who had known him from boyhood. The recollection of them sent another of those maddening bursts of fury through his frame. He pushed back his chair and began to pace the room, wrestling with the demon of fierce hatred which possessed him. For Francesca's sake he could have forgiven her father almost anything, but so gross an insult to his love--the love which he knew to be pure, and sacred, and unblamable--was surely beyond forgiveness.

It was only slowly and by degrees that he began to reap the fruits of his brave struggle for self-mastery. He grew a little calmer, and turned from the torturing recollection of the insult to an inward picture of Captain Britton himself. Almost dispassionately he began to consider that big, broad, massive figure, that bluff, weather-beaten face, with its calculating, far-seeing eyes and wide mouth. Genial and friendly as he had hitherto thought the Captain to be, he had never given him credit for much refinement of feeling; he had known well enough that the Englishman found it very hard to make allowance for anything outside his own circle; he had long been fain to admit in his own heart what he would never have admitted, even to Enrico Ritter, that there was in Francesca's father a slight, but unmistakable vein of vulgarity. It was, then, only too natural that the Captain should fail to understand the present state of things, and, so failing, should supply hideous motives for so unaccountable a step. Oh, yes, it was natural enough. He ought to have been prepared for it. But the perception of this brought him no nearer to forgiveness.

The night was now far advanced, but sleep was out of the question in his present state. He began to roam through the house, considering what things he should save from the sale; some were too precious to be lost, and must be left to Enrico's keeping; some were small enough to be reserved as souvenirs of home, to be taken away on his wanderings. Going up to his bedroom, his eye fell at once upon his father's sword, which hung above the mantel-piece, and beneath it a childish device of his own--a golden shield, and upon it, in red letters, the name of each battle in which the sword had been used. "Aspromonte," in larger letters curving up to the left and right to meet the shape of the shield, shone out conspicuously.

"I'll not be parted from that," he said to himself, a thrill of loving reverence passing through him and killing the anger and hatred. "I shall, perhaps, need a sword in my stage wardrobe, and so, after all, this will be needed to protect Nita. It would seem like desecration to the Captain to use it on the stage, yet it will surely be my own fault if it is less honorable than at Aspromonte."

His thoughts wandered back to that last vividly remembered scene beside his father's death-bed, and a glow of eager devotion warmed his heart as he pledged himself anew to keep that promise, to go forth bravely as the knights of old in defence of the weak and the tempted, to live the life of the Crucified.

Then, like lightning, it suddenly flashed upon him how grievously he had failed. Self had started to the front even in his self-sacrifice; he had borne but a few strokes from the enemy, and at the first personal insult had thrown down his colors; reviled, he had reviled again; suffering, he had threatened; wounded, he had sought to wound. In anguish he remembered that flood of scathing words, that fiery retort which had escaped him; and yet there was One who had borne the worst possible insults in strong silence, and he had vowed that he would live His life! Instead, he had suffered himself to be overcome by an unjust judgment, to be maddened by a few words spoken by a man who had also yielded to the same devil of pride and anger. How was he to face the difficulties of life in Merlino's troupe when at the very outset his temper had betrayed him? In bitter grief and self-reproach he had to learn, as all of us have to learn, that "We must be humbled utterly in our own conceits before we can be peacemakers."

After a while, he was seized with that strong desire to start afresh which comes to every wounded soldier, whether he fights in the legions of the Seen or the Unseen. His share of the wrong must first be set right; that was as clear as it was hard. He doubted if he could bring himself to do it, but he went so far as to go down to the _salotto_, take out his desk, and sit down with pen and paper before him. And at length, just as faint golden streaks appeared in the horizon heralding the day, the letter was finished and the struggle over.

Carlo could not rest till he had done all that could be done, so he went out into the cold dawn, and, making his way to the Casa Bella, dropped his missive in the letter-box. Then, when all was over, when he knew that for the last time he was leaving the house which contained all that he loved, his desolation suddenly broke upon him. Wrath had stilled grief, but now that his anger had passed Grief claimed him for her own. His betrothal was at an end; Francesca was no longer his; even a farewell was denied him. With heart-broken wonder he marvelled how it was that only now did he fully take in the idea. What was Captain Britton? What were all the insults in the world before the one bitter, desolating fact that he was parted from his love?

How he got home he never knew, but he vaguely remembered finding his way to his own room, and seeing through a mist the sword and the red letters of "Aspromonte" beneath. Then, in his great anguish, he had cried aloud, "Strengthen me, O God! that I, too, may be faithful till death."

But, afterwards, all was a blank, and when he came to himself the sun was far above the horizon, and he was lying at full length upon the floor, feeling stiff, and sore, and bruised.