CHAPTER VI

"My father is one of the most wonderful men in the whole world!"

Wilfrid lifted an eyelid.

"He is one of the first-violins at the Italian Opera!"

The gallant cornet's critical appreciation of this impressive

announcement was expressed in a spiral ebullition of smoke from his

mouth.

"He is such a proud man! And I don't wonder at that: he has reason to be

proud."

Again Wilfrid lifted an eyelid, and there is no knowing but that ideas of

a connection with foreign Counts, Cardinals, and Princes passed hopefully

through him.

"Would you believe that he is really the own nephew of Andronizetti!"

"Deuce he is!" said Wilfrid, in a mist. "Which one?"

"The composer!"

Wilfrid emitted more smoke.

"Who composed--how I love him!--that lovely "la, la, la, la," and the

"te-de, ta-da, te-dio," that pleases you, out of "Il Maladetto." And I am

descended from him! Let me hope I shall not be unworthy of him. You will

never tell it till people think as much of me, or nearly. My father says

I shall never be so great, because I am half English. It's not my fault.

My mother was English. But I feel that I am much more Italian than

English. How I long for Italy--like a thing underground! My father did

something against the Austrians, when he was a young man. Would not I

have done it? I am sure I would--I don't know what. Whenever I think of

Italy, night or day, pant-pant goes my heart. The name of Italy is my

nightingale: I feel that somebody lives that I love, and is ill-treated

shamefully, crying out to me for help. My father had to run away to save

his life. He was fifteen days lying in the rice-fields to escape from the

soldiers--which makes me hate a white coat. There was my father; and at

night he used to steal out to one of the villages, where was a good, true

woman--so they are, most, in Italy! She gave him food; maize-bread and

wine, sometimes meat; sometimes a bottle of good wine. When my father

thinks of it he cries, if there is gin smelling near him. At last my

father had to stop there day and night. Then that good woman's daughter

came to him to keep him from starving; she risked being stripped naked

and beaten with rods, to keep my father from starving. When my father

speaks of Sandra now, it makes my mother--she does not like it. I am

named after her: Emilia Alessandra Belloni. 'Sandra' is short for it. She

did not know why I was christened that, and will never call me anything

but Emilia, though my father says Sandra, always. My father never speaks

of that dear Sandra herself, except when he is tipsy. Once I used to wish

him to be tipsy; for then I used to sit at my piano while he talked, and

I made all his words go into music. One night I did it so well, my father

jumped right up from his chair, shouting "Italia!" and he caught his wig

off his head, and threw it into the fire, and rushed out into the street

quite bald, and people thought him mad.

"It was the beginning of all our misfortunes! My father was taken and

locked up in a place as a tipsy man. That he has never forgiven the

English for! It has made me and my mother miserable ever since. My mother

is sure it is all since that night. Do you know, I remember, though I was

so young, that I felt the music--oh! like a devil in my bosom? Perhaps it

was, and it passed out of me into him. Do you think it was?"

Wilfrid answered: "Well, no! I shouldn't think you had anything to do

with the devil." Indeed, he was beginning to think her one of the

smallest of frocked female essences.

"I lost my piano through it," she went on. "I could not practise. I was

the most miserable creature in all the world till I fell in love with my

harp. My father would not play to get money. He sat in his chair, and

only spoke to ask about meal-time, and we had no money for food, except

by selling everything we had. Then my piano went. So then I said to my

mother, I will advertize to give lessons, as other people do, and make

money for us all, myself. So we paid money for a brass-plate, and our

landlady's kind son put it up on the door for nothing, and we waited for

pupils to come. I used to pray to the Virgin that she would blessedly

send me pupils, for my poor mother's complaints were so shrill and out of

tune it's impossible to tell you what I suffered. But by-and-by my father

saw the brass-plate. He fell into one of his dreadful passions. We had to

buy him another wig. His passions were so expensive: my mother used to

say, "There goes our poor dinner out of the window!" But, well! he went

to get employment now. He can, always, when he pleases; for such a touch

on the violin as my father has, you never heard. You feel yourself from

top to toe, when my father plays. I feel as if I breathed music like air.

One day came news from Italy, all in the newspaper, of my father's

friends and old companions shot and murdered by the Austrians. He read it

in the evening, after we had a quiet day. I thought he did not mind it

much, for he read it out to us quite quietly; and then he made me sit on

his knee and read it out. I cried with rage, and he called to me,

'Sandra! Peace!' and began walking up and down the room, while my mother

got the bread and cheese and spread it on the table, for we were

beginning to be richer. I saw my father take out his violin. He put it on

the cloth and looked at it. Then he took it up, and laid his chin on it

like a man full of love, and drew the bow across just once. He whirled

away the bow, and knocked down our candle, and in the darkness I heard

something snap and break with a hollow sound. When I could see, he had

broken it, the neck from the body--the dear old violin! I could cry

still. I--I was too late to save it. I saw it broken, and the empty

belly, and the loose strings! It was murdering a spirit--that was! My

father sat in a corner one whole week, moping like such an old man! I was

nearly dead with my mother's voice. By-and-by we were all silent, for

there was nothing to eat. So I said to my mother, "I will earn money." My

mother cried. I proposed to take a lodging for myself, all by myself; go

there in the morning and return at night, and give lessons, and get money

for them. My landlady's good son gave me the brass-plate again. Emilia

Alessandra Belloni! I was glad to see my name. I got two pupils very

quickly one, an old lady, and one, a young one. The old lady--I mean, she

was not grey--wanted a gentleman to marry her, and the landlady told

me--I mean my pupil--it makes me laugh--asked him what he thought of her

voice: for I had been singing. I earned a great deal of money: two pounds

ten shillings a week. I could afford to pay for lessons myself, I

thought. What an expense! I had to pay ten shillings for one lesson! Some

have to pay twenty; but I would pay it to learn from the best

masters;--and I had to make my father and mother live on potatoes, and

myself too, of course. If you buy potatoes carefully, they are extremely

cheap things to live upon, and make you forget your hunger more than

anything else.

"I suppose," added Emilia, "you have never lived upon potatoes entirely?

Oh, no!"

Wilfrid gave a quiet negative.

"But I was pining to learn, and was obliged to keep them low. I could

pitch any notes, and I was clear but I was always ornamenting, and what I

want is to be an accurate singer. My music-master was a German--not an

Austrian--oh, no!--I'm sure he was not. At least, I don't think so, for I

liked him. He was harsh with me, but sometimes he did stretch his fingers

on my head, and turn it round, and say words that I pretended not to

think of, though they sent me home burning. I began to compose, and this

gentleman tore up the whole sheet in a rage, when I showed it him; but he

gave me a dinner, and left off charging me ten shillings--only seven, and

then five--and he gave me more time than he gave others. He also did

something which I don't know yet whether I can thank him for. He made me

know the music of the great German. I used to listen: I could not believe

such music could come from a German. He followed me about, telling me I

was his slave. For some time I could not sleep. I laughed at myself for

composing. He was not an Austrian: but when he was alive he lived in

Vienna, the capital of Austria. He ate Austrian bread, and why God gave

him such a soul of music I never can think!--Well, by-and-by my father

wanted to know what I did in the day, and why they never had anything but

potatoes for dinner. My mother came to me, and I told her to say, I took

walks. My father said I was an idle girl, and like my mother--who was a

slave to work. People are often unjust! So my father said he would watch

me. I had to cross the park to give a lesson to a lady who had a husband,

and she wanted to sing to him to keep him at home in the evening. I used

to pray he might not have much ear for music. One day a gentleman came

behind me in the park. He showed me a handkerchief, and asked me if it

was mine. I felt for my own and found it in my pocket. He was certain I

had dropped it. He looked in the corners for the name, I told him my

name--Emilia Alessandra Belloni. He found A.F.G. there. It was a

beautiful cambric handkerchief, white and smooth. I told him it must be a

gentleman's, as it was so large; but he said he had picked it up close by

me, and he could not take it, and I must; and I was obliged to keep it,

though I would much rather not. Near the end of the park he left me."

At this point Wilfrid roused up. "You met him the next day near the same

place?" he remarked.

She turned to him with astonishment on her features. "How did you know

that? How could you know?"

"Sort of thing that generally happens," said Wilfrid.

"Yes; he was there," Emilia slowly pursued, controlling her inclination

to question further. "He had forgotten about the handkerchief, for when I

saw him, I fancied he might have found the owner. We talked together. He

told me he was in the Army, and I spoke of my father's playing and my

singing. He was so fond of music that I promised him he should hear us

both. He used to examine my hand, and said they were sensitive fingers

for playing. I knew that. He had great hopes of me. He said he would give

me a box at the Opera, now and then. I was mad with joy; and so delighted

to have made a friend. I had never before made a rich friend. I sang to

him in the park. His eyes looked beautiful with pleasure. I know I

enchanted him."

"How old were you then?" inquired Wilfrid.

"Sixteen. I can sing better now, I know; but I had voice then, and he

felt that I had. I forgot where we were, till people stood round us, and

he hurried me away from them, and said I must sing to him in some quiet

place. I promised to, and he promised he would have dinner for me at

Richmond Hill, in the country, and he would bring friends to hear me."

"Go on," said Wilfrid, rather sharply.

She sighed. "I only saw him once after that. It was such a miserable day!

It rained. It was Saturday. I did not expect to find him in the rain; but

there he stood, exactly where he had given me the handkerchief. He smiled

kindly, as I came up. I dislike gloomy people! His face was always fresh

and nice. His moustache reminded me of Italy. I used to think of him

under a great warm sky, with olives and vine-trees and mulberries like my

father used to speak of. I could have flung my arms about his neck."

"Did you?" The cornet gave a strangled note.

"Oh, no!" said Emilia seriously. "But I told him how happy the thought of

going into the country made me, and that it was almost like going to

Italy. He told me he would take me to Italy, if I liked. I could have

knelt at his feet. Unfortunately his friends could not come. Still, I was

to go, and dine, and float on the water, plucking flowers. I determined

to fancy myself in Venice, which is the place my husband must take me to,

when I am married to him. I will give him my whole body and soul for his

love, when I am there!"

Here the cornet was capable of articulate music for a moment, but it

resolved itself into: "Well, well! Yes, go on!"

"I took his arm this time. It gave me my first timid feeling that I

remember, and he laughed at me, and drove it quite away, telling me his

name: Augustus Frederick what was it? Augustus Frederick--it began with G

something. O me! have I really forgotten? Christian names are always

easier to remember. A captain he was--a riding one; just like you. I

think you are all kind!"

"Extremely," muttered the ironical cornet. "A.F.G.;--those are the

initials on the handkerchief!"

"They are!" cried Emilia. "It must have been his own handkerchief!"

"You have achieved the discovery," quoth Wilfrid. "He dropped it there

overnight, and found it just as you were passing in the morning."

"That must be impossible," said Emilia, and dismissed the subject

forthwith, in a feminine power of resolve to be blind to it.

"I am afraid," she took up her narrative, "my father is sometimes really

almost mad. He does such things! I had walked under this gentleman's

umbrella to the bridge between the park and the gardens with the sheep,

and beautiful flowers in beds. In an instant my father came up right in

our faces. He caught hold of my left hand. I thought he wanted to shake

it, for he imitates English ways at times, even with us at home, and

shakes our hands when he comes in. But he swung me round. He stood

looking angrily at this gentleman, and cried 'Yes! yes!' to every word he

spoke. The gentleman bowed to me, and asked me to take his umbrella; but

I was afraid to; and my father came to me,--oh, Madonna, think of what he

did! I saw that his pockets were very big. He snatched out potatoes, and

began throwing them as hard as he could throw them at the gentleman, and

struck him with some of them. He threw nine large potatoes! I begged him

to think of our dinner; but he cried "Yes! it is our dinner we give to

your head, vagabond!" in his English. I could not help running up to the

gentleman to beg for his pardon. He told me not to cry, and put some

potatoes he had been picking up all into my hand. They were muddy, but he

wiped them first; and he said it was not the first time he had stood

fire, and then said good-bye; and I slipped the potatoes into my pocket

immediately, thankful that they were not wasted. My father pulled me away

roughly from the laughing and staring people on the bridge. But I knew

the potatoes were only bruised. Even three potatoes will prevent you from

starving. They were very fine ones, for I always took care to buy them

good. When I reached home--"

Wilfrid had risen, and was yawning with a desperate grimace. He bade her

continue, and pitched back heavily into his seat.

"When I reached home and could be alone with my mother, she told me my

father had been out watching me the day before, and that he had filled

his pockets that morning. She thought he was going to walk out in the

country and get people on the road to cook them for him. That is what he

has done when he was miserable,--to make himself quite miserable, I

think, for he loves streets best. Guess my surprise! My mother was making

my head ache with her complaints, when, as I drew out the potatoes to

show her we had some food, there was a purse at the bottom of my

pocket,--a beautiful green purse! O that kind gentleman! He must have put

it in my hand with the potatoes that my father flung at him! How I have

cried to think that I may never sing to him my best to please him! My

mother and I opened the purse eagerly. It had ten pounds in paper money,

and five sovereigns, and silver,--I think four shillings. We determined

to keep it a secret; and then we thought of the best way of spending it,

and decided not to spend it all, but to keep some for when we wanted it

dreadfully, and for a lesson or two for me now and then, and a

music-score, and perhaps a good violin for my father, and new strings for

him and me, and meat dinners now and then, and perhaps a day in the

country: for that was always one of my dreams as I watched the clouds

flying over London. They seemed to be always coming from happy places and

going to happy places, never stopping where I was! I cannot be sorrowful

long. You know that song of mine that you like so much--my own composing?

It was a song about that kind gentleman. I got words to suit it as well

as I could, from a penny paper, but they don't mean anything that I mean,

and they are only words."

She did not appear to hear the gallant cornet's denial that he cared

particularly for that song.

"What I meant was,--that gentleman speaks--I have fought for Italy; I am

an English hero and have fought for Italy, because of an Italian child;

but now I am wounded and a prisoner. When you shoot me, cruel Austrians,

I shall hear her voice and think of nothing else, so you cannot hurt me."

Emilia turned spitefully on herself at this close. "How I spoil it! My

words are always stupid, when I feel.--Well, now my mother and I were

quite peaceful, and my father was better fed. One night he brought home a

Jew gentleman, beautifully dressed, with diamonds all over him. He

sparkled like the Christmas cakes in pastry-cooks" windows. I sang to

him, and he made quite a noise about me. But the man made me so

uncomfortable, touching my shoulders, and I could not bear his hands,

even when he was praising me. I sang to him till the landlady made me

leave off, because of the other lodgers who wanted to sleep. He came

every evening; and then said I should sing at a concert. It turned out to

be a public-house, and my father would not let me go; but I was sorry;

for in public the man could not touch me as he did. It damped the voice!"

"I should like to know where that fellow lives," cried the cornet.

"I don't know, I'm sure," she said. "He lends money. Do you want any? I

heard your sisters say something, one day. You can always have all that I

have, you know."

A quick spirit of pity and honest kindness went through Wilfrid's veins

and threatened to play the woman with his eyes, for a moment. He took her

hand and pressed it. She put her lips to his fingers.

"Once," she continued, "when the Jew gentleman had left, I spoke to my

father of his way with me, and then my father took me on his knee, and

the things he told me of what that man felt for me made my mother come

and tear me away to bed. I was obliged to submit to the Jew gentleman

patting and touching me always. He used to crush my dreams afterwards! I

know my voice was going. My father was so eager for me to please him, I

did my best; but I felt dull, and used to sit and shake my head at my

harp, crying; or else I felt like an angry animal, and could have torn

the strings.

"Think how astonished I was when my mother came to me to say my father

had money in his pockets!--one pound, seventeen shillings, she counted:

and he had not been playing! Then he brought home a new violin, and he

said to me, 'I shall go; I shall play; I am Orphee, and dinners shall

rise!' I was glad, and kissed him; and he said, 'This is Sandra's gift to

me,' showing the violin. I only knew what that meant two days afterwards.

Is a girl not seventeen fit to be married?"

With this abrupt and singular question she had taken an indignant figure,

and her eyes were fiery: so that Wilfrid thought her much fitter than a

minute before.

"Married!" she exclaimed. "My mother told me about that. You do not

belong to yourself: you are tied down. You are a slave, a drudge; mustn't

dream, mustn't think! I hate it. By-and-by, I suppose it will happen. Not

yet! And yet that man offered to take me to Italy. It was the Jew

gentleman. He said I should make money, if he took me, and grow as rich

as princesses. He brought a friend to hear me, another Jew gentleman; and

he was delighted, and he met me near our door the very next morning, and

offered me a ring with blue stones, and he proposed to marry me also, and

take me to Italy, if I would give up his friend and choose him instead.

This man did not touch me, and, do you know, for some time I really

thought I almost, very nearly, might,--if it had not been for his face!

It was impossible to go to Italy--yes, to go to heaven! through that face

of his! That face of his was just like the pictures of dancing men with

animals' hairy legs and hoofs in an old thick poetry book belonging to my

mother. Just fancy a nose that seemed to be pecking at great fat red

lips! He met me and pressed me to go continually, till all of a sudden up

came the first Jew gentleman, and he cried out quite loud in the street

that he was being robbed by the other; and they stood and made a noise in

the street, and I ran away. But then I heard that my father had borrowed

money from the one who came first, and that his violin came from that

man; and my father told me the violin would be taken from him, and he

would have to go to prison, if I did not marry that man. I went and cried

in my mother's arms. I shall never forget her kindness; for though she

could never see anybody crying without crying herself, she did not, and

was quiet as a mouse, because she knew how her voice hurt me. There's a

large print-shop in one of the great streets of London, with coloured

views of Italy. I used to go there once, and stand there for I don't know

how long, looking at them, and trying to get those Jew gentlemen--"

"Call them Jews--they're not gentlemen," interposed Wilfrid.

"Jews," she obeyed the dictate, "out of my mind. When I saw the views of

Italy they danced and grinned up and down the pictures. Oh, horrible!

There was no singing for me then. My music died. At last that oldish lady

gave up her lessons, and said to me, 'You little rogue! you will do what

I do, some day;' for she was going to be married to that young man who

thought her voice so much improved; and she paid me three pounds, and

gave me one pound more, and some ribbons and gloves. I went at once to my

mother, and made her give me five pounds out of the gentleman's purse. I

took my harp and music-scores. I did not know where I was going, but only

that I could not stop. My mother cried: but she helped to pack my things.

If she disobeys me I act my father, and tower over her, and frown, and

make her mild. She was such a poor good slave to me that day! but I

trusted her no farther than the door. There I kissed her, full of love,

and reached the railway. They asked me where I was going, and named

places to me: I did not know one. I shut my eyes, and prayed to be

directed, and chose Hillford. In the train I was full of music in a

moment. There I met farmer Wilson, of the farm near us--where your

sisters found me; and he was kind, and asked me about myself; and I

mentioned lodgings, and that I longed for woods and meadows. Just as we

were getting out of the train, he said I was to come with him; and I did,

very gladly. Then I met you; and I am here. All because I prayed to be

directed--I do think that!"

Emilia clasped her hands, and looked pensively at the horizon sky, with a

face of calm gratefulness.

The cornet was on his legs. "So!" he said. "And you never saw anything

more of that fellow you kissed in the park?"

"Kissed?--that gentleman?" returned Emilia. "I have not kissed him. He

did not want it. Men kiss us when we are happy, and we kiss them when

they are unhappy."

Wilfrid was perhaps incompetent to test the truth of this profound

aphoristic remark, delivered with the simplicity of natural conviction.

The narrative had, to his thinking, quite released from him his temporary

subjection to this little lady's sway. All that he felt for her

personally now was pity. It speaks something for the strength of the

sentiment with which he had first conceived her, that it was not pelted

to death, and turned to infinite disgust, by her potatoes. For sentiment

is a dainty, delicate thing, incapable of bearing much: revengeful, too,

when it is outraged. Bruised and disfigured, it stood up still, and

fought against them. They were very fine ones, as Emilia said, and they

hit him hard. However, he pitied her, and that protected him like a

shield. He told his sisters a tale of his own concerning the strange

damsel, humorously enough to make them see that he enjoyed her presence

as that of no common oddity.