A Romance of the Republic Part 27

"How do you know my perseverance would be useless?" asked Fitzgerald.

"Did she send you to tell me so?"

"She does not know of my coming," replied Mr. King. "I have told you that my acquaintance with Miss Royal is very slight. But you will recollect that I met her in the freshness of her young life, when she was surrounded by all the ease and elegance that a father's wealth and tenderness could bestow; and it was unavoidable that her subsequent misfortunes should excite my sympathy. She has never told me anything of her own history, but from others I know all the particulars. It is not my purpose to allude to them; but after suffering all she _has_ suffered, now that she has bravely made a standing-place for herself, and has such an arduous career before her, I appeal to your sense of honor, whether it is generous, whether it is manly, to do anything that will increase the difficulties of her position."

"It is presumptuous in you, sir, to come here to teach me what is manly," rejoined Fitzgerald.

"I merely presented the case for the verdict of your own conscience,"

answered his visitor; "but I will again take the liberty to suggest for your consideration, that if you persecute this unfortunate young lady with professions you know are unwelcome, it must necessarily react in a very unpleasant way upon your own reputation, and consequently upon the happiness of your family."

"You mistook your profession, sir. You should have been a preacher,"

said Fitzgerald, with a sarcastic smile. "I presume you propose to console the lady for her misfortunes; but let me tell you, sir, that whoever attempts to come between me and her will do it at his peril."

"I respect Miss Royal too much to hear her name used in any such discussion," replied Mr. King. "Good morning, sir."

"The mean Yankee!" exclaimed the Southerner, as he looked after him.

"If he were a gentleman he would have challenged me, and I should have met him like a gentleman; but one doesn't know what to do with such cursed Yankee preaching."

He was in a very perturbed state of mind. Rosabella had, in fact, made a much deeper impression on him than any other woman had ever made.

And now that he saw her the bright cynosure of all eyes, fresh fuel was heaped on the flickering flame of his expiring pa.s.sion. Her disdain piqued his vanity, while it produced the excitement of difficulties to be overcome. He was exasperated beyond measure, that the beautiful woman who had depended solely upon him should now be surrounded by protectors. And if he could regain no other power, he was strongly tempted to exert the power of annoyance. In some moods, he formed wild projects of waylaying her, and carrying her off by force. But the Yankee preaching, much as he despised it, was not without its influence. He felt that it would be most politic to keep on good terms with his rich wife, who was, besides, rather agreeable to him. He concluded, on the whole, that he would a.s.sume superiority to the popular enthusiasm about the new _prima donna_; that he would coolly criticise her singing and her acting, while he admitted that she had many good points. It was a hard task he undertook; for on the stage Rosabella attracted him with irresistible power, to which was added the magnetism of the admiring audience. After the first evening, she avoided looking at the box where he sat; but he had an uneasy satisfaction in the consciousness that it was impossible she could forget he was present and watching her.

The day after the second appearance of the Senorita Campaneo, Mrs.

Delano was surprised by another call from the Fitzgeralds.

"Don't think we intend to persecute you," said the little lady. "We merely came on business. We have just heard that you were to leave Rome very soon; but Mr. Green seemed to think it couldn't be so soon as was said."

"Unexpected circ.u.mstances make it necessary for me to return sooner than I intended," replied Mrs. Delano. "I expect to sail day after to-morrow."

"What a pity your daughter should go without hearing the new _prima donna_!" exclaimed Mrs. Fitzgerald. "She is really a remarkable creature. Everybody says she is as beautiful as a houri. And as for her voice, I never heard anything like it, except the first night I spent on Mr. Fitzgerald's plantation. There was somebody wandering about in the garden and groves who sang just like her. Mr. Fitzgerald didn't seem to be much struck with the voice, but I could never forget it."

"It was during our honeymoon," replied her husband; "and how could I be interested in any other voice, when I had yours to listen to?"

His lady tapped him playfully with her parasol, saying: "O, you flatterer! But I wish I could get a chance to speak to this Senorita.

I would ask her if she had ever been in America."

"I presume not," rejoined Mr. Fitzgerald. "They say an Italian musician heard her in Andalusia, and was so much charmed with her voice that he adopted her and educated her for the stage; and he named her Campaneo, because there is such a bell-like echo in her voice sometimes. Do you think, Mrs. Delano, that it would do your daughter any serious injury to go with us this evening? We have a spare ticket; and we would take excellent care of her. If she found herself fatigued, I would attend upon her home any time she chose to leave."

"It would be too exciting for her nerves," was Mrs. Delano's laconic answer.

"The fact is," said Mrs. Fitzgerald, "Mr. Green has told us so much about her, that we are extremely anxious to be introduced to her.

He says she hasn't half seen Rome, and he wishes she could join our party. I wish we could persuade you to leave her with us. I can a.s.sure you Mr. Fitzgerald is a most agreeable and gallant protector to ladies. And then it is such a pity, when she is so musical, that she should go without hearing this new _prima donna_."

"Thank you," rejoined Mrs. Delano; "but we have become so much attached to each other's society, that I don't think either of us could be happy separated. Since she cannot hear this musical wonder, I shall not increase her regrets by repeating your enthusiastic account of what she has missed."

"If you had been present at her _debut_, you wouldn't wonder at my enthusiasm," replied the little lady. "Mr. Fitzgerald is getting over the fever a little now, and undertakes to criticise. He says she overacted her part; that she 'tore a pa.s.sion to tatters,' and all that. But I never saw him so excited as he was then. I think she noticed it; for she fixed her glorious dark eyes directly upon our box while she was singing several of her most effective pa.s.sages."

"My dear," interrupted her husband, "you are so opera-mad, that you are forgetting the object of your call."

"True," replied she. "We wanted to inquire whether you were certainly going so soon, and whether any one had engaged these rooms. We took a great fancy to them. What a desirable situation! So sunny! Such a fine view of Monte Pincio and the Pope's gardens!"

"They were not engaged last evening," answered Mrs. Delano.

"Then you will secure them immediately, won't you, dear?" said the lady, appealing to her spouse.

With wishes that the voyage might prove safe and pleasant, they departed. Mrs. Delano lingered a moment at the window, looking out upon St. Peter's and the Etruscan Hills beyond, thinking the while how strangely the skeins of human destiny sometimes become entangled with each other. Yet she was unconscious of half the entanglement.

CHAPTER XXI.

The engagement of the Senorita Rosita Campaneo was for four weeks, during which Mr. King called frequently and attended the opera constantly. Every personal interview, and every vision of her on the stage, deepened the impression she made upon him when they first met.

It gratified him to see that, among the shower of bouquets she was constantly receiving, his was the one she usually carried; nor was she un.o.bservant that he always wore a fresh rose. But she was unconscious of his continual guardianship, and he was careful that she should remain so. Every night that she went to the opera and returned from it, he a.s.sumed a dress like the driver's, and sat with him on the outside of the carriage,--a fact known only to Madame and the Signor, who were glad enough to have a friend at hand in case Mr. Fitzgerald should attempt any rash enterprise. Policemen were secretly employed to keep the _cantatrice_ in sight, whenever she went abroad for air or recreation. When she made excursions out of the city in company with her adopted parents, Mr. King was always privately informed of it, and rode in the same direction; at a sufficient distance, however, not to be visible to her, or to excite gossiping remarks by appearing to others to be her follower. Sometimes he asked himself: "What would my dear prudential mother say, to see me leaving my business to agents and clerks, while I devote my life to the service of an opera-singer?--an opera-singer, too, who has twice been on the verge of being sold as a slave, and who has been the victim of a sham marriage!" But though such queries jostled against conventional ideas received from education, they were always followed by the thought: "My dear mother has gone to a sphere of wider vision, whence she can look down upon the merely external distinctions of this deceptive world.

Rosabella must be seen as a pure, good soul, in eyes that see as the angels do; and as the defenceless daughter of my father's friend, it is my duty to protect her." So he removed from his more eligible lodgings in the Piazza di Spagna, and took rooms in the Corso, nearly opposite to hers, where day by day he continued his invisible guardianship.

He had reason, at various times, to think his precautions were not entirely unnecessary. He had several times seen a figure resembling Fitzgerald's lurking about the opera-house, wrapped in a cloak, and with a cap very much drawn over his face. Once Madame and the Signor, having descended from the carriage, with Rosa, to examine the tomb of Cecilia Metella, were made a little uneasy by the appearance of four rude-looking fellows, who seemed bent upon lurking in their vicinity.

But they soon recognized Mr. King in the distance, and not far from him the disguised policemen in his employ. The fears entertained by her friends were never mentioned to Rosa, and she appeared to feel no uneasiness when riding in daylight with the driver and her adopted parents. She was sometimes a little afraid when leaving the opera late at night; but there was a pleasant feeling of protection in the idea that a friend of her father's was in Rome, who knew better than the Signor how to keep out of quarrels. That recollection also operated as an additional stimulus to excellence in her art. This friend had expressed himself very highly gratified by her successful _debut_, and that consideration considerably increased her anxiety to sustain herself at the height she had attained. In some respects that was impossible; for the thrilling circ.u.mstances of the first evening could not again recur to set her soul on fire. Critics generally said she never equalled her first acting; though some maintained that what she had lost in power she had gained in a more accurate conception of the character. Her voice was an unfailing source of wonder and delight.

They were never weary of listening to that volume of sound, so full and clear, so flexible in its modulations, so expressive in its intonations.

As the completion of her engagement drew near, the manager was eager for its renewal; and finding that she hesitated, he became more and more liberal in his offers. Things were in this state, when Mr. King called upon Madame one day while Rosa was absent at rehearsal. "She is preparing a new aria for her last evening, when they will be sure to encore the poor child to death," said Madame. "It is very flattering, but very tiresome; and to my French ears their '_Bis! Bis_!' sounds too much like a hiss."

"Will she renew her engagement, think you?" inquired Mr. King.

"I don't know certainly," replied Madame. "The manager makes very liberal offers; but she hesitates. She seldom alludes to Mr.

Fitzgerald, but I can see that his presence is irksome to her; and then his sudden irruption into her room, as told by Giovanna, has given rise to some green-room gossip. The tenor is rather too a.s.siduous in his attentions, you know; and the _seconda donna_ is her enemy, because she has superseded her in his affections. These things make her wish to leave Rome; but I tell her she will have to encounter very much the same anywhere."

"Madame," said the young man, "you stand in the place of a mother to Miss Royal; and as such, I have a favor to ask of you. Will you, without mentioning the subject to her, enable me to have a private interview with her to-morrow morning?"

"You are aware that it is contrary to her established rule to see any gentleman, except in the presence of myself or Papa Balbino. But you have manifested so much delicacy, as well as friendliness, that we all feel the utmost confidence in you." She smiled significantly as she added: "If I slip out of the room, as it were by accident, I don't believe I shall find it very difficult to make my peace with her."

Alfred King looked forward to the next morning with impatience; yet when he found himself, for the first time, alone with Rosabella, he felt painfully embarra.s.sed. She glanced at the fresh rose he wore, but could not summon courage to ask whether roses were his favorite flowers. He broke the momentary silence by saying: "Your performances here have been a source of such inexpressible delight to me, Miss Royal, that it pains me to think of such a thing as a last evening."

"Thank you for calling me by that name," she replied. "It carries me back to a happier time. I hardly know myself as La Senorita Campaneo.

It all seems to me so strange and unreal, that, were it not for a few visible links with the past, I should feel as if I had died and pa.s.sed into another world."

"May I ask whether you intend to renew your engagement?" inquired he.

She looked up quickly and earnestly, and said, "What would you advise me?"

"The brevity of our acquaintance would hardly warrant my a.s.suming the office of adviser," replied he modestly.

The shadow of a blush flitted over her face, as she answered, in a bashful way: "Excuse me if the habit of a.s.sociating you with the memory of my father makes me forget the shortness of our acquaintance.

Beside, you once asked me if ever I was in trouble to call upon you as I would upon a brother."

"It gratifies me beyond measure that you should remember my offer, and take me at my word," responded he. "But in order to judge for you, it is necessary to know something of your own inclinations. Do you enjoy the career on which you have entered?"

"I should enjoy it if the audience were all my personal friends,"

answered she. "But I have lived such a very retired life, that I cannot easily become accustomed to publicity; and there is something I cannot exactly define, that troubles me with regard to operas. If I could perform only in pure and n.o.ble characters, I think it would inspire me; for then I should represent what I at least wish to be; but it affects me like a discord to imagine myself in positions which in reality I should scorn and detest."