Chapter XXVIII: A Restoration

"Some say that the age of chivalry is past. The age of chivalry is never past as long as there is a wrong left unredressed on earth, and a man or woman left to say, 'I will redress that wrong, or spend my life in the attempt.' The age of chivalry is never past so long as men have faith enough in God to say, 'God will help me to redress that wrong; or if not me, surely He will help those that come after me. For His eternal will is to overcome evil with good.'"--CHARGES KINGSLEY.

Kate Britton was an indefatigable worker; parish work was her delight, and to her mind the luckless wight who did not go district-visiting, who was not an ardent teetotaler, who could not show a well-ordered Sunday-school class as the visible fruits of persevering work, hardly deserved toleration. Like all workers who are worth much she was full of enthusiasm, and would have been greatly missed in the village; but she was "ill to live with" because she had not yet learnt to see things from any point of view but her own, and had an overweening idea of her own importance. Carlo Donati was just now much on her mind; she had a feeling that he must have been brought to Merlebank for some special purpose; and as it was Kate's way to think always of the impression she might make on others, rather than of the impression she might receive from them, she began to consider how she could bring her influence to bear on the Italian, and her enthusiasm was roused by an idea which came to her one day as she mused over his life. What a glorious thing it would be if she could convince him that he was leading a life unworthy of a true man, and induce him to give up his profession!

With this in view, Kate put up with the infliction of the invalid's presence, and when in a fortnight's time he was well enough to spend most of the day in the morning-room, which adjoined his bedroom, she was really glad to have an opportunity for beginning her operations. As a rule she cordially disliked young men, and the one thorn in the otherwise perfect bliss of her parish-work was the inevitable curate; in her fear that she might be supposed to make her work an excuse for flirtation, she ran to the opposite extreme, openly avowed herself as a man-hater, and snubbed the entire biennial succession of deacons, who were ordained to the title of the quiet little country parish, but at the close of their two years' novitiate invariably passed on to larger spheres of work.

The morning-room was a bright, sunny, cheerful room facing south, and Carlo enjoyed his change of quarters very much; he was glad to see Kate, too, for she interested him, and he delighted in tracing the slight likeness to Francesca, which he had noticed when he first came to Merlebank. Kate, who was inordinately self-conscious, quickly perceived that his eyes followed her as she moved about the room arranging flowers in the vases, and she felt provoked, for it would be so horribly like a story-book if the invalid were to fall in love with her; yet she could not snub him as she snubbed the curate, because she wanted to influence him for his good, and longed for the honor and glory of persuading him to quit the stage. Reflecting that this was the Monday in Holy-week, she thought she would supply him with suitable literature--at any rate the offer of books would make a good opening for conversation. So she began boldly, yet with an effort that surprised her; somehow, although she had astonishing theories as to the universal depravity of young men, she had an undefined consciousness that Carlo Donati was not so immeasurably beneath her as the curates and the men to be met with at dances and tennis-parties. This perception did not please her.

"Clare said your things had been put in here," she began; "but I don't see anything but music, no books at all."

"I don't think I have any," said Carlo: "I am not much of a reader."

Kate felt dismayed, she could hardly conceive that any one could get on in life without her particular little library of good books. It was a slight relief to her to discover that among the pile of operas, wedged in between _Masaniello_ and _Semiramide_, were a shabby little Italian Testament and a very minute English Prayer-book.

Carlo on seeing this last gave a quick exclamation.

"Did I leave that out? Will you give it me, please?"

"And even this is not yours, but Francesca's!" she said, laughing, as accidentally she dropped the book and noticed her cousin's name on the fly-leaf.

He colored.

"She lent it to me the first time I went to the English church, and since then I have always had it," he explained.

"It is dreadful print," said Kate, in her matter-of-fact way. "You had better let me lend you a clearer one."

But Carlo held out his hand for it, and his fingers closed over it jealously.

"It will do very nicely," he said. "I don't suppose I shall read it."

Which illogical statement would possibly have roused Kate's suspicion had she not been racking her brain for the devotional books most appropriate to his case.

She went across to her own particular bookshelf, and, to do her justice, chose out a few books really worth reading, eschewed a _Treasury of Devotion_ as likely to be uncongenial to one of Carlo's turn of mind, and returned bearing _The Christian Year_, Taylor's _Holy Living and Dying_, and a book of meditations for Holy-Week, of which she was fond. He thanked her, but when later in the morning she saw him again, she found to her great disgust, that he was poring over _Les Huguenots_, and that her books were pushed aside.

"You didn't like them?" she said, with a touch of disappointment in her tone.

"I'm afraid I didn't read much," he said, apologetically; "you see to have this music within reach was more than I could resist. We have not yet done _Les Huguenots_, but we shall rehearse it in the summer, and give it in America this autumn. Do you know it well?"

"I have never heard an opera in my life," said Kate feeling annoyed at his astonishment. "Do you really mean to go back to such a life? It must surely be very bad for you."

"But you see the doctor quite gives me hope of being as strong as ever again," replied Carlo, thinking she must refer to his health.

"I didn't mean that," replied Kate; "I meant it must surely be a very bad life in other ways."

"It is very much like other lives, I fancy; it is what you like to make it," he replied, quietly. He did not feel that he could very well enter into a discussion with a young girl on the special temptations of stage-life, and there was a silence.

"But surely all the applause and praise must be very trying?" said Kate.

"Applause always makes me think of a _méringue_," said Carlo, laughing a little; "sweet and evanescent, and leaves you longing for more. I don't deny that it is a great pleasure, and a great help, but I think it is a very innocent and legitimate pleasure."

"It must surely make you very vain?"

"Well, I hope not," said Carlo, smiling. "Of course, every artist has to be careful not to get into the way of thinking that his powers are merits instead of gifts. Years ago I heard Togni play at Naples, and you know when our people applaud they applaud tremendously; I shall never forget the deafening outburst; but it seemed to me like a great thanksgiving to God who had given such power to men. It was not Togni we applauded, it was the wonderful beauty and power which he had unfolded for us."

"But clearly," said Kate, "the life must be full of excitement. Surely your constant craving to get back to it again shows how engrossing and dangerous it must be."

He could not explain to her that it was no anxiety for applause which made him so eager to be back once more in Merlino's troupe, so he turned the conversation, and Kate naturally concluded that her remark had struck home. She despised him for evading the subject, but noticing that he looked tired, offered to read to him.

He seemed relieved at the proposal, and opening the _Christian Year_, asked her to read over again something which had taken his fancy.

"Exactly like his perverseness to choose the Tuesday in Whitsun-week on the Monday in Holy-week," she reflected, knowing nothing of his Whitsuntide associations. Moreover, the poem was the last one she would have expected him to like; it seemed a mockery to her that a man who was "fooling away his life on the stage" should be struck with the lines,

"And whereso'er on earth's wide field
Ye lift for Him the red-cross shield,
Be this your song, your joy and pride--
'Our Champion went before and died.'"

It had never occurred to her as a possibility that an operatic singer could appreciate sentiments of that sort. And she would have been scandalized and dismayed could she have known of the unconscious, matter-of-fact way in which Carlo would go from the altar to the theatre, or, if it suited him better as to time, from the theatre to the altar.

Very much perplexed as to the Italian's character, she walked that afternoon down to the village, but had scarcely left the grounds when she encountered the Vicar.

"I was just coming to your house," he remarked. "I hear you have a young Italian staying with you, and was coming to inquire after him. Is he better?"

"Oh, he is much better, thank you," said Kate. "I wish you would go to see him, for perhaps you who feel so strongly about such matters would be able to persuade him to leave the stage. I can't understand him at all; he seems quite wrapped up in his profession, and it is so sad to think of a really good man wasting his life in work of that sort."

"I shall be very happy to see him," said the Vicar; "it will be quite a treat to me to talk Italian again!" And without more delay he made his way to the house, smiling to himself a little at Kate Britten's eagerness to influence all she came across, and rather pleased at the prospect of a new acquaintance in his small and not very interesting parish. He had preached only a little while ago against theatres, and it was satisfactory to be brought face to face in this way with a veritable member of the profession.

Having received a message that Signor Donati would be very glad to see him, the Vicar followed the servant upstairs to the morning-room, where he found the invalid on a couch drawn close to the fire. He was surprised at his fluent English; his accent, too, was perfect, and it was only by a very slight peculiarity in the intonation, and every now and then by some unusual little bit of phraseology, that he betrayed his foreign birth. His face, however, was unmistakably Italian, and, though he was evidently weak and tired the Vicar thought him looking much less ill than might have been expected after so serious an attack. The formal greetings were only just over when Carlo, having thoroughly studied the strong, intellectual face of his visitor--his calm, deep-set eyes, and the sort of general air of "iron-gray" which characterized him--exclaimed, with an excitement which surprised the Vicar,--

"I believe, sir--indeed, I am quite sure--that we have met before!"

Now, the Vicar had at that moment been thinking of his sermon at St. Cyprian's, and admitting to himself that this actor, at any rate, did not at all fit-in with his preconceived notion of the members of the "unhallowed calling," so, naturally enough, he thought that Carlo must refer to this occasion.

"Can you have been in the congregation at St. Cyprian's when I preached there the other day!" he exclaimed. "I little thought I was addressing any one connected with the stage."

"Ah! was it indeed you who preached that sermon?" said Carlo, quickly. "Yes, I was there with my friend Sardoni, the tenor of the company; but we were quite at the back of the church, and could not even see the pulpit. Was it indeed you who preached? That is one of the oddest coincidences I ever knew."

"But when can you have met me before?" said the Vicar, looking puzzled. "Can I have met you in Italy and have forgotten?"

"Do you remember being in Naples last May, and going one afternoon into one of the _cafés_ in the Piazza Plebiscite, and talking with your companion as to the improvement of the world in general in the nineteenth century?"

"With Stanley!--yes, yes, I remember it quite well!" said the Vicar.

"Do you remember how you said that men were not more willing to live the life of the Crucified? Well, I was sitting close by and heard you, and I owe you much, for those words haunted me continually, and--but this will, I fear, shock you--they helped me to choose my present profession."

The Vicar smiled a little. He could just perceive, though not so clearly as Carlo perceived, the irony of the situation. Mr. Britton had given him a hint as to Donati's motive in going on the stage, and had expressed a hope that the Vicar, if he had any opportunity, would do his best to dissuade him from returning to it, feeling convinced that Madame Merlino's case was hopeless. And now to be told that it was in some degree owing to words of his that the choice had been made was, to say the least of it, startling, while the knowledge that the Italian had been listening in St. Cyprian's to his tirade against theatres vexed him not a little. The Vicar was a kind-hearted man, though many people considered him hard; but, as a matter of fact, the idea of having denounced such a man as Donati to his face, and having probably pained him, caused him serious annoyance.

"I have always disapproved of the stage," he said after a brief pause. "But I am exceedingly sorry that you heard that sermon the other night, for it must have seemed hard and unjust to you, I am afraid."

"I will tell you quite candidly just how it was," said Carlo. "It did vex me, I must allow, but then I was beginning to feel ill and overdone, and had had rather a rough time of it through the week, and it seemed hard to lose the sense of fellowship which one counts on getting, at any rate, in church. But what vexed me most of all, and perhaps made me exaggerate your denunciation, was that my friend Sardoni, who does not go in much for church services, happened that night to have come with me."

"Did it do him harm, do you think?" asked the Vicar.

Carlo hesitated.

"He was very angry about it," he said, at length; "unreasonably angry, I thought. But he has a good deal to trouble him, and there were reasons which made any attack from the Church on our profession specially painful to him."

He broke off as the door opened, and looked with feverish eagerness towards the servant who entered with the afternoon letters. Just at this time he seemed to live in perpetual craving for post-time; for not only was he terribly anxious to hear from Sardoni how matters were going on in the Company, but he had always an undefined hope that some one at Merlebank would hear from Francesca, and that at least some fragments of the letter might be read or quoted in his presence. This afternoon there arrived the letter from Sardoni for which he had looked and waited so long.

"Will you excuse me just for one minute?" he said. "This is from my friend Sardoni, of whom we were just speaking. If you will allow me--I am ashamed to ask such a thing--but I am very anxious to see how things are going with them."

He opened the envelope, tossed it aside, and began to read eagerly. Involuntarily the Vicar glanced at the handwriting of the direction. It was large and marked--a peculiar and thoroughly characteristic hand. The color rose to his forehead--his lips trembled. He waited, partly to recover his self-control, partly to allow Carlo time to glance through the letter, then, with undisguised eagerness, he exclaimed--

"This friend of yours, Signor Donati,--what did you say he was called?"

"Sardoni; he is the _primo tenore_ of our troupe. Such a good-hearted fellow! I don't know what I should do without him."

"But that perhaps is an assumed name! What is his true name? Is he not an Englishman?"

"He is English, but he keeps entirely to his _nom-de-guerre_," said Carlo.

"Even you, his friend, do not know his true name?"

"Yes, I do know it; but he does not wish it generally known. Have you any special reason for asking? Good heavens!" he exclaimed, as an idea suddenly occurred to him; "can it possibly be that which altered him so much after the sermon? Sir, I beg you to tell me your name? I have only heard you spoken of as the Vicar."

"My name is John Postlethwayte," said the Vicar, watching with anxiety indescribable the effect of his words on the Italian.

There was no mistaking the intense excitement which dawned in Carlo's face.

"You saw and recognized this writing?" he asked, breathlessly, pointing to the envelope; then as the Vicar signed an assent, "Thank God, I have come across you! I see there can be no doubt that you are his father!"

Tears started to the Englishman's eyes. Carlo observed this with relief. The Vicar did not seem nearly so hard and uncompromising as Sardoni had led him to expect.

"My son was here, then, in Ashborough!" he exclaimed--"was actually in the church that night, and never came near me! I have spent my life in looking for him!--have wandered all over the Continent in the hope of finding him once more!--and does he now avoid and shun me when we are in the same town?"

"It must have been that which made him feel the sermon so much," said Carlo. "He knew you disapproved of the stage; he was afraid you would not believe that he had turned over a new leaf--he told me that long ago; and then, of course, when he heard you speak so strongly against actors and their calling he would naturally be repulsed and disheartened!"

The Vicar paced the room in great distress. It was indescribably bitter to him to realize that his son should have happened to hear that one sermon, and to reflect that the whole course of his life might have been altered had his theme been of reconciliation and charity.

"But all will be well now," said Carlo; "for, if you have searched for him, then you must really care to be reconciled to him--and, indeed, he wishes your forgiveness. The very first day after we landed in England, he went straight to your old home, fully expecting to find you there. It was then he told me all about it, and gave me his true name. Poor Jack! I shall never forget his misery when he found a stranger in your place."

"Did he go, indeed, to the old home?" said the Vicar, eagerly. "My poor boy, if only I had been there to meet him! But surely he could have found out in the village where I had gone to?"

"He did send me to make inquiries," said Carlo, "and the old sexton told me you were at Cleevering, in Mountshire. But when Jack found how, through his fault, your home had been broken up and your work spoiled, he said he could not write to you or seek you out. Indeed, I doubt if we shall ever get him here unless we take him altogether by surprise. He would say that he would not come back to be a disgrace to you in a new parish."

"Then I must go to him!" said the Vicar.

Carlo hesitated. He pictured to himself the sort of meeting that might take place in one of the second-rate hotels, or in the dingy lodgings which Merlino's troupe frequented, where privacy was out of the question, and where Sardoni, because of his surroundings, would certainly not show to the greatest advantage. He thought of the gossip which would be set afloat in the troupe, and realized how distasteful it would all be to his friend.

"If you don't mind," he said, "I think it would be much better if I wrote to him and begged him to come down and see me; I think I could write urgently enough to bring him, and on Good Friday there will of course be no opera, and it is possible that he might even be able to arrange to stay over Easter Monday. Will you mind just handing me that pocketbook, and I will see where the Company will be? Ah, yes, I thought so; they will be at Worcester, and on the Saturday will be giving _Marta_. I have no doubt that Merlino will let Caffieri take Lionello in Jack's place; he did so once in the autumn."

Spite of his excitement and anxiety the Vicar could not but perceive that his visit was tiring the invalid.

"I am ashamed to have forgotten your illness in my own great joy," he said, rising to go. "I little thought what news awaited me when I came here."

"This is worth being ill for," said Carlo. "I shall write to Jack by the first post to-morrow."

Probably the doctor would highly have disapproved had he known of the little plot which was being worked out in his patient's room; but only Clare and Mr. Britton were taken into the secret, and in truth the excitement and hope acted like a sort of tonic, and Carlo forgot for a time his own anxieties in planning his various arrangements for that eventful Good Friday. Sardoni had written to say that he would come at half-past three in the afternoon, and Carlo awaited his arrival in some trepidation. Remembering the unpleasant sensation he had experienced at Piale's house of having been entrapped, he abandoned the rather stagey idea which had first suggested itself to him, of allowing Sardoni to be shown in upon his father without any preparation. Nevertheless, he was too thorough an Italian not to be dramatic, and the Vicar was glad enough to trust the management of all to one who really knew his son much better than he could pretend to do. He listened to the Italian's ideas with some surprise, but he did not call them in question. Sardoni might now be expected to arrive at any minute, and the Vicar, waiting with Carlo in the morning-room was enduring tortures of suspense and anxiety.

"When we hear him arrive," said Carlo, quietly, "I want you to go through that inner door into the next room; leave the door ajar. Then, when Jack comes, I will tell him the whole truth, and how I came across you, and how you recognized his writing. That being settled, I shall ask him to help me to my bedroom. When you hear us get up, then leave my room where you have waited by the other door, leading into the passage, and come back here. I know you are thinking me like a stage-manager, but, don't you see, this is the only means of getting me out of the way. You will now meet alone and unobserved; Jack will have been prepared, and will not feel that we have dealt unfairly by him; and yet he will in a sense be surprised when he goes back to find you there, because he will have been bracing up his mind to the idea of seeking you out at the Vicarage."

All these little considerations would never have occurred to Mr. Postlethwayte; he was dreadfully afraid that something would not work, that he should make a blunder and forget when to make his exit, or by what door. But Carlo seemed to have perfect confidence in his little plot; and when the supreme moment arrived, the Vicar, waiting in the inner room, began to feel confidence in the man who had planned all with such perfect appreciation of the feelings of others, and whose sole thought of himself had been how, when his work was over, he could best be got out of the way.

And now a brisk, familiar step was heard in the passage, the maid-servant announced in the most prim and ordinary way, "Signor Sardoni," and the next moment Jack strode into the room. The Vicar bit his lip hard as he heard the hearty, cheerful voice which had been silent to him for so many years.

"Well, old fellow, how are you? Why, you are looking almost yourself again. This is a case of Mother Hubbard's dog; I thought I should find you ready to make your last will and testament, as you were so anxious to see me once more. I shall take back good news for the troupe; we are all longing for you back again, though Comerio tries hard to be civil, and to win golden opinions. And that reminds me, Val; I've just hit upon a way of turning an honest penny."

"What's that?" said Carlo, getting in a word with difficulty.

"Why, I mean to write a sensational article for one of the Reviews, on the Italian Character. The motto to be the old nursery rhyme, adapted,

"'When they are good, they are very, very good,
And when they are bad they are horrid.'

That man is a fiend, his cunning and malice are beyond anything I ever knew."

"Presently I want you to tell me all," interposed Carlo, seizing at once on the momentary pause. "But, Jack, first of all, there is something I must tell you. What parish do you think this house is in?"

"Parish! How should I know?" said Sardoni.

"It is in the parish of Cleevering," said Carlo, quietly.

Sardoni sprang to his feet.

"Good God, Donati!--and did you bring me here for that reason? Have I not told you that nothing will induce me to revive the old disgrace? Look here! that attack we heard in the church the other night on the stage--that was spoken by my father! Do you think, after that, he would care to have me coming home?"

"I know he would," said Carlo. "Don't be angry, Jack; just hear me quietly to the end. I did not betray you, but your father has found you out." He told him graphically just what had happened, then continued: "Do you think he was thinking of the 'disgrace' when he threw up everything to go and search for you on the Continent? Do you think he cares a rush for what people say when his first impulse was to go straight to Worcester and see you? Perhaps it would have been better, after all, if I had not suggested this other plan."

"No, no!" broke in Sardoni; "I could never have stood that. But yet, I doubt if I can do it, Val. It was hard enough last time with you. And alone! No, I can't do it! You'll never know what it is to an Englishman--the mere walking up to the house and ringing the bell!"

"But you would at least do as much as that for one who has tramped all over Europe for you?" said Carlo.

"It's not that," said Sardoni, brushing his hand impatiently across his eyes. "It's not that I mean! Upon my soul, Donati, I think you are too good to understand how it is with me."

Carlo replied only by one of his expressive gestures.

"Too tired to discuss the matter further, we will say. Give me an arm, will you, Jack? I will go to my room and rest, and will see you again later on."

"I forgot how ill you had been!" said Sardoni, with compunction. "And now I have tired you, and thought only of my own affairs, like the brute that I am!"

He helped him into the adjoining room, and Carlo, conscious of much the same sensation about the heart as he had felt on the night of his first appearance in public, dismissed him.

"If you ring the bell in the next room," he remarked, "they'll show you to your room, or, if you make up your mind to go to the vicarage, steer for the church tower, and you can't mistake the house, for they say there is none other near."

"I wish you were about, and could go there with me," said Sardoni, with a sigh.

"You are much better alone. I told you last time I should only have been in the way. Now for my _siesta_. _A rivederci!_"

Sardoni turned away slowly and with a sort of reluctance--almost as if he were already in imagination rehearsing that difficult return which Carlo had spoken of. To steer straight for the church tower! What a walk that would be!--what a fight would be involved in every step! He closed the door, and once more re-entered the morning-room. Was that Mr. Britton standing by the window? But at the sound of the shutting of the door the figure turned, and crossed the room in eager haste.

Sardoni's heart beat like a sledge hammer; the tears rushed to his eyes.

"Father!" he faltered. "Did you come?--are you here?"

And Carlo himself would have been satisfied could he have seen the manner of their meeting.

When they could speak, the Vicar replied to the incoherent question.

"It was your friend's doing! He thought this would be the best place."

"It is all his doing!" said Sardoni, in a choked voice.

There was a pause, broken at last by the father.

"Let us come home together!" he said.

And Carlo, lying tired-out in the next room, heard the door of the morning-room open, and knew that all was well, and pictured to himself how the two would walk together towards the house by the church, and how Sardoni would smile to himself when he found that there was no question as to ringing of bells, since the father would throw the door wide, and himself take him into the new home where even dark memories would not be allowed to enter and spoil the peace of their reconciliation.

But what passed he never actually knew, because there are things too sacred to be put into words--things which men learn to take on trust even with their closest friends.

Sardoni returned in the evening, and talked of Anita, and Comerio, and Gigi, and of the various vicissitudes of the Company in the last three weeks. But on Easter Eve, in the morning, when Carlo, like a true Neapolitan, desired to begin the _Festa_, the Vicar came true to his appointment, and with him came his son.

"You will have the necessary third without me," whispered Clare, thinking they would rather be alone. "I will go."

"No," said Carlo. "I should like to have you both, if you don't mind. Jack, this is my friend, Miss Claremont."

Clare welcomed him quietly, and the two friends just gripped each other's hands, and not another word passed between them till they had joined in their Easter communion.

The Vicar was a man of large experience, and he had learnt not to be very much surprised at the extraordinary coincidences of life, and to believe in the truth of the saying that it is the unexpected which happens. But, with all his knowledge of life, he would hardly have credited the words of one who had foretold to him that within a few weeks of his denunciation of the stage he should be under the deepest of obligations to an operatic singer, and should have joined with him, and with his long-lost son, in the most sacred act of worship and sign of fellowship.