Chapter XXXVIII: At Casa Bella

"Too divine to be mistook."--MILTON.

Early on the Thursday morning Captain Britton was roused from a short and uneasy sleep on the sofa in his study by the sound of voices on the staircase. He rose quickly, remembering that Francesca had taken Miss Claremont's place in the sick-room, and that he had promised to be at hand in case anything was needed.

"How is Madame Merlino?" he asked, going out into the hall, where Franzoni the doctor was just taking up his hat and cloak.

"Better for the time," replied the doctor, "but I doubt if she will last much longer; the shock has been too much for her and this suspense is the very worst thing. She has inherited her mother's constitution, you see, and when the heart is in question such a strain is killing work."

Francesca moved away from the speakers that she might hide her tears. A lamp which had burnt for many hours stood on the table, gleaming faintly in the early morning light. She turned it out, glad to have some little trivial household matter to attend to, and finding it, as most women do, a relief in trouble.

Captain Britton went out with the doctor, not sorry to escape for a few minutes from the burdened atmosphere of his own house, and Francesca, knowing that Father Cristoforo was with Nita, lingered beside the open door, glad for a few minutes to be alone with her grief. The sun had not yet risen, but rosy clouds floated in the soft, sheeny sky, and a delicious fragrance came from the garden, which was all wet with dew. Everything was still and peaceful, with the restful calmness of dawn; perhaps it unconsciously influenced Francesca, or perhaps it was mere exhaustion which quieted her throbbing pulses. Certainly the sound of footsteps on the road from Naples, which yesterday would have made her heart leap into her mouth, scarcely roused her now. She just looked up wearily, too heavy-hearted to hope any longer. But suddenly the blood surged through her veins, and with a low cry she rushed forward.

"Carlo! Carlo!" she sobbed, "you have come at last!"

Clinging to him in that first minute of rapture she forgot all else, but a second glance at his face reminded her of Nita, for he bore the look of a man who has passed through terrible suffering, and how much he knew of Comerio's plot she could not tell.

"Carlino," she said, tenderly, "try and prepare yourself for what I have to tell you."

"I am prepared," he said, in the voice of one whose work is over--one who knows that he has failed.

"Who can have met you so early? Oh, Carlo, we have tried to take care of her, but she is dying. She has been ill ever since that Monday night."

"Do you mean that Nita is here, with you? that she is safe?" he cried, eager hope dawning in his eyes. Then, as she told him all, a light, such as she had never before seen, shone in his face.

"God has been very good to us," he said, simply.

In a very few words he told her what had happened to him, and then, while she went to prepare Nita for his coming, he stayed below, receiving the warm-hearted greetings of the Captain, giving him a brief account of his imprisonment and release, and thanking him with tears in his eyes for having sheltered his sister. Somehow the old patronizing tone disappeared altogether from the Captain's voice as he struggled to reply.

"Do you thank us for what we have done?" he exclaimed with a choking sensation in his throat, and forgetting altogether to fear what people would say, forgetting even to regret the connection with the stage. "I wish it could have been more. I wish I had stood by you in the past, Carlo."

As he thought of the insults he had heaped on the Italian years ago the color mounted to his temples, and he would have given all in his power to have had over again the opportunity which he had wasted.

But before anything more had passed between them Francesca came to summon Carlo to the sick room, and not sorry to be free from the Captain's questions and congratulations, he followed her upstairs into a bedroom which he knew must be her own. It touched him to think that Nita should be in this place of all others, with its indescribable air of purity, and peace, and safety, with its English comforts with its girlish ornaments and pictures. The bed stood facing the window, with its white, mosquito-curtains drawn back, but he could not see Anita, for Father Cristoforo was bending over her.

"My daughter," the old man was saying, in his gentle, soothing voice, "be comforted. Our prayers are heard. Try to take this joy calmly, and as a pledge of your forgiveness."

Then he quietly drew back and, looking with loving reverence at his old pupil, signed to him to take his place.

One glance at Anita's worn, weary face showed Carlo that she was dying. He took both her outstretched hands in his, and bending down kissed her again and again. She was dying, but yet it was the sense that she was safe which outweighed all else.

For a long time perfect silence reigned in the room, then Nita spoke faintly.

"Why I liked the yacht," she said, half dreamily, "was because you were all so good--there was no temptation. I wanted to be good--only it was always too hard."

Worn out, exhausted, and fearful, she had none of that natural clinging to life which Carlo had so lately felt.

"I never understood that till now," she said, glancing at the crucifix which Father Cristoforo held on the other side of the bed. "But now I see it all,--it is you that have made me see, Carlino."

His eyes filled with glad tears, and again he kissed her reverently.

"You will keep to the stage still," she said, after a time. "Let me at least feel that I have done that much for the profession. I've been no credit to it myself, but you, Carlino--you went into it for my sake, and they will respect you. You will not leave the stage?"

"No," he said, turning his thoughts to the future with an effort; "I shall not leave it."

"I should have liked to sing with you once more," she murmured dreamily. "When you hold me like that it makes me feel like Gilda. I tried to put you out the last time we sang that scene,--it was at New York, don't you remember the night of Sardoni's benefit, and I was cross because my white satin had got some paint on it."

"My daughter," said father Christoforo gently, "you will wear yourself out with talking."

"No matter!" she said, with a little impatient motion of the hand. "I am dying--I shall die as I please. Where is Gigi? Let me say good-bye to Gigi."

Francesca slipped out of the room and went to find the child, bringing him in just as he was, in his little night-shirt, and with his hair all rough and disordered. She had told him that his mother was very ill, and that he must be quiet, but in the glad surprise of seeing Carlo he forgot all else, and with a rapturous shout of "_Zio caro!_" sprang towards the bed. Carlo took him in his arms, trying to quiet him with kisses, and Nita watched them sadly.

"Well, it is natural enough he should care for you and not for me," she said wistfully. "I never liked to be troubled with him."

"No, no," said Carlo quickly; "he loves you, it is only that he does not understand illness."

And putting the child on the bed, he laid the little fat brown hands in between the cold white ones. Gigi looked at his mother with wondering eyes.

"Do you think he will have a voice?" she asked. "He surely will sing--I hope he will. But don't let Merlino be unkind to him, promise to care for him always."

"Always," said Carlo. "For your sake."

And Francesca bent down and kissed her, while the child, aware now that something was wrong, listened wistfully.

"I have been a bad wife," moaned Nita, "and a bad sister, and a bad mother. Oh, Gigi--my Gigi--you must not grow like me! Be good, _carino_,--be good!"

"Yes, mamma," said Gigi, simply.

With a sob she raised herself and caught him in her arms, but once more deadly faintness crept over her, and she fell back unconscious.

Francesca took Gigi away to Sibyl, and by the time she was able to return Anita had revived. Father Christoforo had thrown the window wide open; Francesca stole quietly across the room and stood beside it, listening now to the old priest's hushed voice, now to the birds in the garden below; the sun had risen, and sea, and trees, and houses glowed in the roseate light, contrasting strangely with the scene within. When the last offices were ended there was a long pause, broken at length by Anita's faint voice.

"Why are the footlights out?" she asked impatiently.

"Because the sun has risen," replied Carlo, smoothing back the fringe of dark hair from her cold forehead.

"I can't see," she said, with a little shudder.

Then after a minute, losing consciousness of the present, she sang just above her breath a little snatch from Faust:--

"_Oh del ciel angeli immortal!
Deh mi guidate con voi lassù._"

There was something inexpressibly touching in the faint yet still beautiful voice; Carlo's breast heaved and his eyes grew dim. Evidently she was wandering--fancying herself back once more in the old life.

"Well! it is over," she murmured, "and I'm tired--it's a long opera! How cold it is lying on this draughty stage! But Carlo will be waiting with my cloak, he always thinks of me, though I am so cross to him." Then, her voice rising to a cry, "Carlino! Carlino! Come back! Oh, God! I have killed him--my sin has killed him!"

"I am here, Nita, close to you," he replied, bending over her, while Father Cristoforo held the crucifix to her lips.

She came back to the present, and grew calmer.

"You see I never understood till you showed me," she whispered. "Oh, Carlo! how much you have borne for me!"

He held her more closely. "Don't you understand that I love you?" he said.

"Yet I wish that--I too--had loved!" she gasped, in a voice so sad that Francesca's heart ached for her.

After that she never spoke clearly again, only, as Carlo listened intently to the last long-drawn sighs, he caught one more faint whisper--"_Gesù!_"

Then he laid her down tenderly on the pillow, and closed her eyes, and folded her hands over the crucifix on her breast. The sun had fully risen, and golden rays played about him as he moved. Francesca noticed it, and would not draw down the blind.