Chapter XIII: "pazienza."

"We may not make this world a paradise
By walking it together, hand in hand,
With eyes that meeting feed a double strength.
We must be only joined by pains divine
Of spirits blent in mutual memories."
_Spanish Gipsy._

Captain Britton had seldom felt more ill at ease than when he walked that morning up to the door of the Villa Bruno. A sallow, wrinkled old servant, with a gay, scarlet neckerchief, was polishing the door-handle; she nodded to him cheerfully as he approached.

"Good-morning to you, signor; walk in. You'll find the master in the _salotto_."

She made no sign of leaving her door-handle and duster, and indeed the Captain had long ago asked leave to walk into his neighbor's house without ceremony, and the Signora Donati and Carlo, though disliking his unheralded intrusion, had been far too courteous to return a negative to the tactless request. He crossed the vestibule and was about to enter the _salotto_ when a sound of voices within made him pause, hesitate a moment, and then go instead into an adjoining room.

He had recognized the voice of Guido Donati, and guessed correctly that the uncle had driven over in hot haste from Naples on learning his nephew's startling plan. That he was exceedingly annoyed could be gathered from the tone of his voice and from the vehement and extraordinarily rapid utterance, which reminded the Captain of Carlo's tirade on the preceding night. At last the violent harangue came to an end, and Carlo's voice was heard; it was low but distinct, and the Captain could not avoid hearing the words--

"I am sorry to vex you, uncle, but my mind is made up."

"_Madonna Santissima!_ it is made up, is it?" said the other, furiously. "Then mine, too, is made up; and I am sorry to vex you, but not a penny of mine shall you ever inherit. Do you understand?"

There was a silence, but Captain Britton could well imagine the expressive gesture which Carlo would make.

"_Diavolo_!" cried the uncle. "You take it calmly. You think you will live comfortably enough on that voice of yours, and laugh at the rich old uncle. You will tell a different tale a few years hence, my fine fellow, when you have a wife and children to support!"

"I shall never marry," said Carlo, speaking more shortly than the Captain had ever before heard an Italian speak.

"What?" cried Uncle Guido. "Then you have thrown over your betrothal for this mad scheme? An apoplexy on you! I'll have no more to do with such a fool;" and with that he strode out of the room.

The Captain only waited till he was sure the angry man had really gone, and then he knocked at the door of the _salotto_. Nothing but a conscientious sense of duty could have induced him to face at that moment his guest of the previous evening; but there was a certain rugged loyalty about Francesca's father, and he walked sturdily into the room, bracing himself up to make the necessary apology. Carlo was standing at the side window, the sunlight fell full upon him, and revealed to the Captain a very different face to the one which had haunted him through the night--a face worn with suffering, but strong and resolute, spite of its haggard look.

"I beg your pardon for intruding, but the servant told me to come in," began the Captain, approaching him.

Carlo turned with an inarticulate exclamation, the blood rushed to his face, and a look of distress dawned in his eyes; he was tired out with all he had been through, and felt wholly unequal to another stormy discussion.

But he welcomed his visitor with native ceremoniousness, betraying only by additional courtesy any remembrance of the quarrel. The Captain remembered the letter of the morning, and all his kindly feelings returned to him, as he said heartily--

"Carlo, I have come to apologize for the words which escaped me yesterday. I regret them more than I can tell you. You had every excuse for your anger."

Carlo grasped his hand. "No, no," he said, quickly, "I was very much to blame. I am glad, sir--it is a great relief to me--that last night was not our parting. I am grateful to you for coming here to-day."

"I must also apologize for having inadvertently overheard some of your uncle's words," said the captain, who felt very uncomfortable when he remembered his involuntary eavesdropping.

"I knew Uncle Guido would be very much against this plan," said Carlo; and as he spoke he threw himself wearily into a chair facing Captain Britton's.

The Captain was struck by the look of extreme physical exhaustion both in the face and the attitude; he began to realize the difference between his own physique and that of the Italian, and faintly to understand that Carlo had a greater capacity for feeling pain than he had himself.

"Did you realize that this scheme of yours--this scheme which I still most strongly disapprove--would cost you so dear?" he asked abruptly. "Did you think your uncle would have disinherited you?"

"I didn't think about the money at all," said Carlo; "but I knew he would be annoyed."

"But does this make no change in your feeling? Are you willing to lose every single thing you possess, and even to forfeit the respect of your friends for the sake of this plan?"

"Yes," he said simply; "I am willing, sir."

When he had spoken he let his head drop wearily on to his hand; he was calm with the calm of blank bereavement, for like the princess in the poem, he had found that

"Not to fear because all is taken
Is the loneliest depth of human pain."

The Captain sighed. He was not angry now, only very much annoyed at the impossibility of inducing one bereft of common-sense to see reason.

"You make light of the loss of income," he said at length; "but how will you fare supposing you fall ill?"

Carlo looked up with an odd sort of a smile.

"Well, you will think me unpractical," he said; "but I have never been ill in my life, and I had not considered that possibility. However, my salary is a tolerably fair one for a novice, and if the worst comes to the worst there are always the hospitals."

"Carlo," broke in the Captain, "I can't bear to think of one who has led the life you have led going out into such a world. What would your poor mother have said to it?"

Carlo's face lighted up as if the suggestion had given him some unexpected comfort.

"At least our dead understand us," he said, fervently; "they know that I am trying to keep my promise."

The Captain felt that his small stock of patience would not last much longer, and Carlo, glancing at him, saw that their parting, though peaceful, would be final; he knew intuitively that although the Captain had taken back some of his harsh words, he still regarded him as at any rate a self-deceived deceiver, a man who under the cloak of duty veiled his craving for change and excitement, or, at best, as an enthusiast who could but be despised for giving up solid realities for foolish dreams. Their friendship was at an end; for, though love is undying, friendship is quite a different thing, and there are shocks which it will not survive.

"There is one other thing I wished to say," said Captain Britton, rising, "and that is, that if you wish you may have one more interview with Francesca."

Carlo caught eagerly at this boon, and the Captain suggested that he should return with him to Casa Bella.

"Does she know of----" he hesitated how to put it, "of your decision?"

"I have not spoken to her about it, but I know she infers it," said the Captain, rather coldly.

Carlo paced the room for a minute, struggling with his emotion; he was not sure whether he had strength to meet Francesca and tell her with his own lips that all was over between them.

"If you wish to see her we had better come at once," said the Captain. "My brother is unexpectedly called back to England, and we have much to see to to-day."

He was vexed that Donati did not show more gratitude for the concession he had made, for he was a man who liked to be thanked, and it had not been easy for him to retract what he had first said. Something in his tone stung Carlo; he drew himself together. "_Ebbene, signor_," he said gravely, forgetting his English, as he often did when much moved, and recovering it with an effort. "If you will permit it I will accompany you."

They walked away from the Villa Bruno in silence, Carlo thinking of the Captain's words, "We have much to see to to-day." How calmly he classed the supreme struggle of his life, the parting that was as death to him, with the trivial household commotion caused by Mr. Britton's journey.

But once back in his own house the Captain's kinder feelings returned; he took Carlo to the Rose-room, then held out his hand cordially.

"This had better be our final parting," he said, "I leave home on Thursday. Good-bye, Carlo. Should you even now see fit to give up this foolish scheme I should be quite willing to reconsider matters."

"My mind is made up, sir," said Carlo, turning sadly away.

"So it appears. Well, I will send Francesca to you."

He closed the door; and Carlo, with a choking feeling in his throat, looked round the dear, familiar room, the very untidiness of which breathed of Francesca. The "Dying Gladiator" for Clare reposed perilously on a shaky pile of books; a kitten was worrying a ball of red wool on the sofa; and the sock in process of knitting, and which he knew had been intended for him, lay at a little distance on the floor. He turned to the window, and looked out at his old friend Vesuvius with its cloud of smoke, and at the glimpses of blue sea visible here and there between the trees. Then, with an aching consciousness that these were left to him, but that he should never more stand in that little room, he turned and looked round it, as though he wished to stamp forever on his mind all its girlish decorations, all its familiar details. But the sound of footsteps without roused him and dispelled his calm; the door opened, and Francesca came quickly forward to greet him; she always entered a room more quickly, yet more gracefully than other people, but now she almost ran towards him, she wanted him not to notice her wan, tear-stained face.

If, however, in one sense love is blind, in another it is all-observant; in one glance he had read all, and in that glance there came to him the sharpest of his suffering.

Stifling the sobs that rose in his throat he held her in a long, close embrace, but to speak was impossible; and though there was comfort and rapture in her presence, yet there was also anguish which threatened to unman him. At length he put her gently from him, and turned away that he might fight down his emotion. For a few minutes there was silence, then he came and sat beside her on the sofa, and, putting his arm round her, drew her head down on to his shoulder.

"_Carina_," he said, and the mellow baritone voice was firm, yet terribly sad, "your father would not let me see you last night, but to-day he allows me this one more meeting with you. He said he had not spoken to you, but that you knew what had passed between us."

"Yes," she said, her tears raining down quietly, "I knew it must be so when I heard you go."

They talked sometimes in English, sometimes in Italian, as had been their custom ever since childhood.

"Darling," he said, tenderly, "I am bound to obey your father's decree; there could be no right betrothal for us without his consent, and so you stand free once more. You must try, _carina_, not to let these three short weeks spoil your life; you will try, my own, my darling, for it would break my heart if I thought I had ruined your happiness."

"Love ought not to weaken us," she said tremulously, for in her heart she felt that apart from Carlo she should be like a rudderless boat. "These three weeks ought to give me courage for the rest."

There was indescribable sadness in the last two words.

"Ah, darling," cried Carlo, passionately, "don't speak of your beautiful young life like that."

And then he was silent again. All the strength and ardor of their mutual love seemed to rise up against the Captain's decree; if for the present they were fain to obey it and to part, yet hopes for the future would rise; perhaps each intuitively knew what was in the other's heart, but no words passed between them; indeed, when Carlo did speak it was almost as if he wished to reason away any brightness which might hover over their future.

"You see, my darling," he said, "even should this immediate danger no longer keep me from you, even if Nita no longer needed me, I shall have cut myself off from you hopelessly,--we must face that. I shall by that time, if I succeed at all, be to the world Donati the singer, and your father would certainly not choose me for his son-in-law. Then, again, Uncle Guido has disinherited me, so that if I give up the stage I should be penniless and more or less unfitted for work as an advocate."

"Has he indeed disinherited you? Oh, Carlino, what troubles you have had! Don't let me be another, darling. See, I'll not cry any more; we must think of what is still left us. The worst they can do to us is to keep us apart; they can't kill our love, they can't check our prayers for each other--the best part, the highest part no one can meddle with."

He held her closely, murmuring tender Italian words of endearment; and the clock on the mantel-piece ticked on inexorably, measuring all too quickly the time which, when they were parted, would move with leaden feet. Rosalind should surely have said "parting lovers" rather than a "thief going to the gallows" when asked, "Who gallops Time withal?" And still they lingered over the sweet, unwritable talk till the clock relentlessly struck twelve, and roused them to the recollection of the outer world.

Then Francesca drew off her engagement ring, and placed it in his hand.

"There, Carlo," she said, steadily, "I give you back the ring and your troth, and I will obey my father, and will neither hear from you nor write to you; but more than that no woman can promise, for love is not made and unmade to order."

Carlo put on the ring, which from a token of union had now become changed to a token of separation. He was too heart-broken to speak, and after a long pause it was Francesca who at length broke the silence.

"Tell me a little more of the sort of life you shall live," she said, gently.

So he told her all that he knew, which was little enough; how he should live with the Merlinos, try to win his sister's love, study hard for his profession, do his best to be a credit to Piale.

"And you?" he asked. "There will be new neighbors for you at Villa Bruno, but it is hardly likely that it will be used by another occupant except during the summer months."

"Ah! will it be let?" asked Francesca, her eyes filling. "Well, I hope we shall not know the people who take it. For the rest, darling, you can picture me as living the old life, going into Naples on Sunday, teaching Sibyl, rowing with Florestano. But for this next month we are to go for a cruise in the _Pilgrim_, and perhaps next year I may go to England."

"You would like to be with Clare?"

"Yes; though I suppose father will not like me to tell her now of these three weeks, and it will be hard that she should never know. Carlo, why should not you go to see Clare when you are in England?"

He shook his head.

"She would disapprove too strongly of my change of professions," he said; "and it is not a change that I can explain to all the world. Then, too, she lives in your uncle's house, and, after what has happened, he would hardly care to have me there."

"Uncle George likes you very much," said Francesca, quickly.

Carlo did not reply, but he thought differently. It was not then, however, that he could care to discuss so trifling a matter; time was passing, and he knew that Captain Britton must already be expecting him to go. The thought broke down all his self-control; his calmness gave place to a passionate outburst of love and grief, which recalled to Francesca his sudden change in the belvedere when he had first asked for her love.

She clung to him now as she had done then, but it was not of love and present bliss which she spoke.

"Patience, Carlo _mio_; patience," she whispered. "It is, after all, that which we need."

The word brought back to him the recollection of his dying father, and calmed the tumult of feeling. He held her sweet face between his hands, looked long into those pure eyes, and grew strong once more.

"_Pazienza!_" he murmured, clasping her again in his arms. "God have you in His keeping."

* * * * *

At the gate of Casa Bella Mr. George Britton, much to his dismay, chanced to encounter the owner of Villa Bruno, quite the last man he would have chosen to meet. All that he could do was to assume that nothing had happened, and to bid him a courteous farewell. He held out his hand.

Carlo turned upon him a face which haunted the kindly Englishman for many months to come. But, even in his anguish, he could not be otherwise than courteous; a look of effort passed over his deathly features, and

"With pale lips
That seemed to motion for a smile in vain,"

he said, as he bowed over the Englishman's hand, "_Buon viaggio, signor! A rivederci!_"