Chapter XXIII: "clare."

"But when I met him he was still the same;
The quiet, happy face that lighted up
As from a sunshine in the heart within,
Rejoicing whomsoever looked on it,
But far more whomsoever it looked on."
_Ugo Bassi_: MRS. HAMILTON KING.

The schoolroom at Merlebank was one of those comfortable, nondescript sort of rooms, which have a charm for most people; it was a room where you did not feel bound to be on your best behavior,--a room where you could read with both elbows on the table, or lounge in unconventional ease by the fireside. It was essentially a snug room, its green Brussels carpet was comfortably shabby, its curtains were old-fashioned and faded, its walls were crowded with frameless oil paintings, which the girls had brought home from the School of Art, and the books in its crowded bookshelves had evidently seen good service. Miss Claremont loved the room, and it was in a great measure her presence which helped to make it one of the pleasantest retreats in the house. In lesson hours she knew well enough how to make any unwary visitor feel himself _de trop_, but at all other times, on half holidays, or on Sundays, or in the long evenings, she liked nothing better than to sit and talk to any one who chose to seek her out. She had now been at Merlebank for many years, and had given to each of the children the "mothering" they so much needed. In person Clare was short and slight, she was an insignificant-looking little woman, and took scant pains with her dress. But all these details were observed only by strangers; to those who knew her she was just "Clare," the one being in the world whose sympathy was always available, the only person who could brighten up a dull dinner, or entertain stupid visitors, or find good points in those whom the girls themselves condemned as odiously vulgar.

All the troubles and anxieties of the household gravitated by a natural law to the schoolroom. Clare would sit by the fire in winter, or by the open window in summer, and would listen to Mr. Britton's anxieties about the children, or to the grandmother's grief about her failing eyesight, or to Kate's difficulties in her district, or to the boy's hopes and fears with regard to examinations, or first loves, or vanished pocket-money. Her clear, light-blue eyes could sparkle with fun, or grow soft with pity, or become thoughtful and patient, as she weighed the pros and cons of some puzzling question; she was the most delightful of confidantes, and her wide circle of friends did not scruple to work her pretty hard, for Clare was always supposed to like to hear every one's woes. Probably she really did like it, and few went away from her uncomforted, for somehow you were apt to leave the schoolroom feeling as if she had removed a crape veil from before your eyes, so that the most common and trivial matters of every-day life became far more interesting than you had imagined them to be.

Late on that March evening Mr. Britton, returning from Ashborough, made all speed towards the schoolroom, and as he had hoped, found Clare still sitting over the fire reading.

"The children have all gone to bed," she explained; "Kate waited till half-past ten, but she was tired with her choir practice."

"I am glad to find you up," said Mr. Britton, "for I have a message to you from an old friend of yours, who, to my great astonishment, proves to be in England."

"Not Francesca!" exclaimed Clare.

"Her next-door neighbor, young Donati; he sends you his kind regards and is very anxious to see you."

"Well, that is really a delightful surprise," said Clare. "I should like so much to meet him again, for as a boy he interested me a good deal. What can have brought him to England?"

"He has developed a voice, and has turned into an operatic singer. That quite explains my brother's determination to have less to do with him, for you know the Captain disapproves of the stage as much as you do. However, I think I have managed to put two and two together, and to form a pretty shrewd guess as to Donati's reason for his sudden change of profession. It seems he has a sister; did you know her?"

"She was being educated in a convent when I was in Italy, but I saw her once or twice. Poor girl! she made some very foolish marriage, I believe, not long after we came to England. I never heard the rights of the story, but I know she eloped with some one."

"Oh, that was it! Well, she seems to have paid dearly for her folly, poor thing! for her husband is a brute, a more sullen, ill-tempered fellow I never saw. He is the Impresario of this travelling company which Donati has joined; the sister, Madame Merlino, is the prima donna. Let me see, what did he call her? Nita, I think."

"That was her name. I remember her as a demure little girl, shocked at Francesca's freedom."

"Well, she seems to be one of those pretty helpless, unhappy wives who stand in such grave need of a protector. Now, when I was at Naples I heard nothing at all about this sister, but on the Sunday, Donati was introduced to me by my brother as one of the most promising young advocates at the Neapolitan bar, and his praises were sung to me in a way which I own rather prejudiced me against him. I couldn't help liking the fellow when I saw him, however; and you can imagine my surprise when, on the Tuesday morning, I found that my brother had quarrelled with him, and that their friendship was at an end. He had decided on some course of action which the Captain disapproved, and said you would also disapprove. However, the matter was a private affair of Donati's and he bound me over to silence, telling me however, that I should soon see all for myself, and should then agree with him. I got quite on a wrong tack, and thought it was some political difference, but surely this is the true explanation. I appeal to you now, Miss Claremont, as a reader of romances:--given a pretty actress, with a brute of a husband, and doubtless some not too reputable admirers, is it not conceivable that circumstances might arise which should induce her father or her brother to sacrifice everything in order to save her?"

"Quite," said Clare; "and Carlo Donati would be the very man to throw himself into the breach in that way; there was something chivalrous about him, something one doesn't often meet with nowadays. Do you remember Mrs. Browning's lines?

"'The world's male chivalry has perished out,
But women are knights-errant to the last.'

I always thought she wouldn't have written that if she had known Carlo."

"I think there is no doubt that he is playing the part of knight-errant now," said Mr. Britton, musingly; "and that he has a hard time of it. I doubt if he will succeed, though. The sister seemed to be a very shallow, heartless little woman. He is a noble fellow, much too good to be wasted on such a life."

He gave Clare a detailed account of what had passed that afternoon.

"I am sorry he has gone on the stage," she said. "I hoped he would have done great things. It seems to me that a man like that might have wonderful influence in public life."

"And yet in some ways he is admirably fitted for his present work," said Mr. Britton. "His voice is very fine, and his acting really first-rate; I went to hear him to-night, and was delighted with him. Would you care to see him to-morrow? I want you to look him up, for I think, poor fellow, he is leading the life of a dog; and he seemed so pleased at the thought of meeting you again. I have promised that the carriage shall take the Vicar into Ashborough in the afternoon; he preaches at St. Cyprian's in the evening. Would you like to go in, too? You might, perhaps, go for a drive with young Donati."

"It would be the best chance of seeing him alone," said Clare. "Thank you, I think I will go, and on Sunday I suppose he is sure to be disengaged."

Accordingly the next day Clare, having set down the Vicar at St. Cyprian's parsonage, drove to the Royal Hotel, and sent in her card with a little pencilled message asking Carlo to come for a drive. As she waited there she felt a little anxious, and even shy, for after all it was many years since she had seen Carlo. Would time have raised a barrier between them? Would Signor Donati, the public singer, be less approachable than the frank, light-hearted, Italian boy, who at one time had almost worshipped her? The first glimpse of him, however, dispelled all her fears; he came quickly forward with the same eager boyish manner which she recollected so well, and took both her hands in his.

"How good, how kind of you to come!" he exclaimed. "This is the greatest pleasure I have had for a long time. Gigi," he turned to pick up a small boy, "this is Miss Claremont. Should you mind, Clare, if I brought him with me? Sunday has come to be considered his special property."

Clare was delighted to welcome the little fellow, and made many inquiries about his narrow escape of the previous day.

"What a great pleasure it must be to you now to feel that you saved him!" she said. "I have often wondered how a rescuer would feel afterwards."

"It's a satisfaction to feel that I have not failed in one thing undertaken," said Carlo, rather sadly.

At first sight Clare had thought him hardly altered, but on looking more closely at him she saw that his face, when in repose, bore signs of friction; and, though still very young-looking, told plainly of grief and sorrow undergone.

"That is a sad way of putting it," she said. "I thought, too, that you had had such very great success,--Mr. Britton led me to believe so."

"You see," he replied, "every artist leads a double life; just at that moment I was thinking more of my own personal side of the question, but really sometimes I think I'm making a failure of both."

"But you have surely had a very rapid success?"

"Don't think I am ungrateful for my reception," he said. "I know I have made what the world calls a success, but I'm not yet satisfied with myself; and each time I go on the stage I feel that I may fail utterly. An artist's life is a life of eternal anxiety. But then to counterbalance that we have moments of inspiration, and they are worth all."

Clare was surprised at his sudden fervor.

"You really like your new profession, then?" she said. "I remember you were always fond of music."

"I don't know how I should get on without it," he said. "It is not only the music that is such a great delight, it is the getting out of one's own world, the living in the characters of others, the sense of holding the attention of one's audience and playing upon their emotions, and the pleasure of giving pleasure. Besides, there is a kind of satisfaction in being what you were meant to be."

"Had you long intended to take up this way of life?"

"No; but Piale had fully educated me for it. I was an advocate, you know, though I had never practised."

"And I suppose it was your wish to be near your sister which prompted you to make the change?" she said.

He was surprised, and yet relieved, that she had guessed as much.

"It was my last promise to our mother," he said. But he was quite silent as to the sacrifice it had been to him to take up the profession; and Clare, who had not the faintest suspicion of his love for Francesca, could not, of course, realize what he had been through. She wondered whether his plan had been a wise one, and recalled Mr. Britton's description of Madame Merlino, and his conviction that in this case chivalry would not avail.

"I know you don't approve of the stage," he said. "Had I thought you would have seen things as I saw them I should have written to you when we first came to England, for I was horribly lonely then."

"I wish you had," she said, with warm sympathy. "Indeed, I should not have argued with you through the post! Nor will I argue now. It is quite impossible for me really to judge: I know too little about the stage."

"Yet you do disapprove in your secret heart," he said, rather wistfully. He could not help longing for Clare's benediction on his efforts.

"Perhaps it seems to me a little like doing evil that good may come," she said, hesitatingly. "But that may be only my British prejudice."

Then, seeing a sad look in his eyes, she added, quickly,--

"But, as I said before, Carlo, it is impossible for me to judge. What did Captain Britton say to it?"

"He shared in the British prejudice."

A look of such deep pain flashed across his face that her heart smote her; she had spoken without very much thought, forgetting that Carlo would probably feel sore-hearted still at the recollection of the quarrel with the Captain which Mr. Britton had mentioned. Of the true state of the case he had nothing to tell her, and the best of friends cannot avoid now and then wounding each other in the dark.

"As a matter of fact, you know," she said, in her sweet, bright way, "I am a very ignorant woman as to these matters. I have never been inside a theatre, I have never come across people connected with the stage, and I have no doubt that the evils connected with theatrical life are painted more darkly than they need be. Indeed, I should be very glad if you could convert me."

"Then this shall be the first step in your conversion," he said, smiling. "Look at these two ladies whom we are just going to pass on the left."

Clare looked, Gigi kissed his hand, and the ladies bowed and smiled as Carlo raised his hat.

"The tall one has a beautiful face!" exclaimed Clare. "So dignified and sweet."

"That is Mlle. Borelli, our contralto; she is one of the noblest women I know. The other is Mlle. Duroc, her great friend."

"A nice face, but not so striking as the other," was Clare's comment. "Well, Carlo, I am glad to have seen them. Perhaps you will some day convert me altogether and make me approve of theatres."

The talk turned on other matters, and before they parted Clare made Carlo promise to come over to Merlebank the next afternoon, and to bring Gigi with him.

Curiously enough, however, the question of theatrical life was to be handled once more that day, and not with Clare's moderation.

St. Cyprian's was some way from the Royal Hotel, but Carlo, having chanced upon a very dreary service in the morning at a neighboring church, was determined to go farther afield, and, hearing from Sardoni that it was considered one of the finest churches in England, resolved to seek it out.

"It's at least a mile," said Sardoni; "however, the choir is worth hearing, and if you're going I don't mind going with you."

So the two set off together, arriving somewhat late, and having to content themselves with places at the very back of the church. Carlo felt strangely tired; but he was very happy in having met Clare and Mr. Britton once more, and he was glad Sardoni had volunteered to come with him. The beautiful building, and the music, and the service, which was always associated in his mind with Naples and Francesca, would, even in their mere external aspect, have been a refreshment; and he was gaining the rest he much needed when the sermon began, and startled him back into his working-day existence. For the preacher, sitting in his country vicarage, and well conversant with all the pleasures of the country, which seemed to him the only pleasures worth enumerating, had written a fierce diatribe against the pleasures of the town, and notably against theatre-going. Perhaps it had not occurred to him that members of the obnoxious theatrical profession might be numbered in his flock; apparently he considered them all to be reprobates, for he spoke of them in no measured terms, and denounced their profession as an unhallowed calling. Carlo was the more pained by the attack, because the preacher was evidently a man of great earnestness, a good, upright, honest man, not a mere denouncer. It was hard, too, to have his brief respite from work disturbed and spoiled by so untimely an assault. He tried not to listen, but the mere desire not to hear made it impossible for him to lose himself in other thoughts, and whether he would or no the words fell upon his ear.

"My brethren," continued the preacher, "I look at the hoardings in your town and see how, even in this solemn time of Lent, the world seeks to ensnare you. I see that, not content with the usual number of theatres, another must be opened for the performance of operas; and I fear that you may be tempted perhaps to snatch at a passing pleasure. Let me urge you to withstand the temptation; let me implore you, as you value the health of your own souls, to shun this false and ensnaring pleasure, the influence of which must be harmful--may be deadly. Most truly, most wisely do we sing the words--

"'Christian, dost thou see them
On the holy ground;
How the troops of Midian
Prowl and prowl around?'"

Carlo was for the moment so much tickled by the implied comparison between the wandering troupe of Merlino and the prowling troops of Midian, that he had some difficulty in keeping his countenance. He did not dare to look at Sardoni; but, taking up a book, read the rest of the hymn, reflecting sadly that even the much-abused members of the "unhallowed calling," did sometimes try their best to overcome "By the merit of the holy Cross." The attack grieved him; it seemed like the embodiment of the cause which had separated him from Francesca. He had learnt, moreover, to love his profession; he believed in it with all his heart; he knew that it need no more be an unhallowed calling than the calling of the poet, or the painter, or the sculptor, or the novelist. This preacher clearly failed to understand the highest meaning of art--he had no sense of the artistic side of life; neither had he any sense of humor, or he would instantly have perceived the ludicrous turn which might be given to his application of the "troops of Midian."

This particular Midianite began to wonder whether, if he from the stage had begged people to shun the church and to refrain from giving at the offertory, the preacher would not have denounced him as a man who wilfully robbed another of his daily bread. He went on to picture to himself the immediate consequences of any marked falling-off in the attendance at the theatre: he thought of the heavy loss to Merlino, the severe trial to his temper, the consequent misery and suffering of all about him, the possible effect on Anita. Then he went on to generalities, and tried to imagine the effect upon art if the best and purest followed the preacher's advice, and went no more to the theatre. He saw how the good, and the elevating, and the lofty in the drama would perforce fail for lack of support; and how the only thing that would pay would be that which pandered to the lowest and vilest tastes. He felt that the members of his profession, in such a state of things, would be placed in a grave dilemma; unfit for any other calling, they would be forced either to let their talents rust unused, and to sink into poverty and distress, or to debase themselves by taking work which they knew to be unworthy of them.

He would have liked to put such a case to the preacher, and he felt curious to see what sort of man he was; but they were quite at the back of the church, and an intervening pillar hid the pulpit from view.

Feeling, somehow, that the sermon had shut him out from the fellowship which he expected to find in a church, and had made him an alien even in the body to which he rightfully belonged, he made his way out again into the dark, dreary street, up which the March wind blew gustily. A sense of intolerable fatigue came over him.

"What a pace you are walking at, Jack!" he exclaimed. "One might think you were blessed with the seven-leagued boots, and were keeping up with Sirocco!"

Sardoni modified his pace; and Carlo, glancing at him, saw an expression about his mouth which boded no good.

"I'm sorry we came in for that sermon," he said.

"Well, at any rate, it will serve to show you what British prejudice is!" said Sardoni, speaking more fiercely than the occasion seemed to warrant. "I don't know what effect it will have as to theatre-going, but I know that I shan't darken the doors of a church again in a hurry!"

Carlo was silent, knowing that his companion was far too angry to be reasoned with; and not another word passed between them on their way back to the hotel.