The Venetians · Chapter 19 (3/3)

There had not been time for the gentlest pressure of her strong, broad hand, or for his tender “Addio, bellissima mia,” to be heard.

But to know where she lived was something gained, and as he walked homeward humming “La donna è mobile,” he meant to follow up that advantage. He had told her that he was her near neighbour. He had gone even further, and had asked her if she would sing for him at a little tea-party, were he to give one in her honour; on which she had only laughed, and said that she had never heard of a man giving a tea-party.

The acquaintance begun so auspiciously gave Wilfred Sefton a new zest for London life. He hailed the hardening frosts of February with absolute pleasure, he for whom that month had hitherto been the cream of the hunting season. He cared nothing that his latest acquisitions, the hunters in whose perfections he still believed, whose vices he had not had time to discover, were eating their heads off in his Sussex stables. He was in his stall at the Apollo every night; and Lisa’s singing and Lisa’s beauty, and the “quips and cranks and wanton wiles” which constituted Lisa’s idea of acting, were enough for his contentment.

He waited till Wednesday before he ventured to call upon his divinity. He would gladly have presented himself at her door on Monday afternoon; but he did not want to appear too eager. Tuesday seemed a long blank day to his impatience, although there was plenty to do in London for a man of intellect and taste; pictures, people, politics, all manner of interests and amusements.

Lisa had told him about the aunt who lived with her and kept house for her. There could be no impropriety in his visit. He made up his mind indeed to ask for the elder lady in the first instance; but all uncertainty was saved him, as it was la Zia who opened the door. Those diamonds of Lisa’s could not have been earned so speedily had the Venetians taken upon themselves the maintenance of a servant. What was she there for, argued la Zia⁠—when Hawberk suggested the necessity of a parlourmaid⁠—except to sweep and dust, and market and cook? An English servant, who would want butcher’s meat every day, and would object to the cuisine à l’huile, would be a ruinous institution.

La Zia was not too tidy in her indoor apparel, since her love for finery was stronger than her sense of the fitness of things. She had one gown at a time, a gown of silk or plush or velveteen, which she wore as a best gown till it began to be shabby or dilapidated, when Lisa bought her another fine gown, and the old one was taken for daily use.

Lisa’s taste had become somewhat chastened since she had lived at Chelsea. A casual word or two from Vansittart, whose lightest speech she remembered, had made her scrupulously plain in her attire⁠—save on such an occasion as Mrs. Hawberk’s party, when her innate love of finery showed itself in scarlet stockings and beaded shoes. This afternoon Sefton found her sitting on the hearthrug in front of the bright little tiled grate, in the black stuff gown she had worn when he first saw her, and with just the same touch of colour at her throat, and in her blue-black hair.

She and the little boy were sitting on the rug together, dividing the caprices of a white kitten, the plaything of mother and son, mother and son laughing gaily, with laughter which harmonized and sounded like music. The boy made no change in his sprawling attitude as Sefton entered; but he looked up at the stranger with large dark eyes, wondering, and slightly resentful.

“His boy,” thought Sefton, and felt a malignant disposition to kick the sprawling imp, hanging on to the mother’s skirts, and preventing her from rising to greet her visitor.

“Let go, Paolo,” said Lisa, laughing. “What with you and the kitten, I can’t stir.”

She shook herself free, transferred the kitten to the boy’s eager arms, rose, and gave Sefton her hand, with a careless grace which was charming from an artistic point of view, but which showed him how faint an impression all his attentions of Sunday night had made upon her. A woman who had thought of him in the interval would have been startled at his coming. Lisa took his visit much too easily. There was neither surprise nor gladness in her greeting.

“I saw you in the stalls,” she said, “last night, and the night before. Aren’t you tired of Fanchonette?”

“Not in the least.”

“You must be monstrously fond of music,” she said, always in Italian.

“I am⁠—monstrously; but I have other reasons for liking Fanchonette. I like to see you act, as well as to hear you sing.”

“So do other people,” she answered, with frank vanity, tossing up her head. “They all applaud me when I first come on, before I have sung a note. I have to stand there in front of the lights for ever so long, while they go on applauding like mad. And yet people say you English have no enthusiasm, that you care very little for anything.”

“We care a great deal for that which is really beautiful; most of all when it is fresh and new.”

“Ah! that’s what Mr. Hawberk says⁠—I am all the better because I am not highly trained like other singers. My ignorance is my strength.”

“But she has worked,” interposed la Zia; “ah! how hard she has worked! At her piano; at the English language. She has such a strong will. She has but to make up her mind, and the thing is done.”

“One can read as much, Signora, in those flashing eyes; in that square brow and firmly moulded chin,” said Sefton, putting down his hat and cane, and establishing himself in one of the prettily draped basket-chairs. “And pray how did it happen that you two ladies made up your minds to seek your fortunes in London?”

“It was the impresario who brought us. We were at Milan, and we came to London to sing in the chorus at Covent Garden. It was good fortune which brought us so far from home.”

“And you hate London, no doubt, after Italy?”

“No, indeed, Signor. London is a city to love⁠—the wide, wide streets; the big, big houses; the great squares⁠—ah! the Piazza is nothing to your square of Trafalgar⁠—and the shops, the beautiful shops! Your sky is often gloomy, but there are summer days⁠—heavenly days⁠—when the wind blows down to the sea, and sweeps all the darkness out of the heavens, and your sky grows blue, like Italy. Those are days to remember.”

“True! They are rare enough to be counted on the fingers of one hand,” answered Sefton, stooping to take hold of the boy, who had been pursuing his kitten on all-fours, and had this moment plunged between Sefton’s legs to extract the animated ball of white fluff from under his chair. He felt nothing but aversion for the handsome, dark-eyed brat; but he felt that he must take some notice of the creature, if he wanted to stand well with the mother.

“Che sta facendo, padroncino?”

The boy was friendly, and explained himself in a torrent of broken speech. The cat was a bad cat, and wouldn’t stay with him. Would the Signor make him stay? Sefton had to stoop and risk a scratching from the tiny claws, in a vain endeavour to get hold of the rebellious beast, which rolled away from him, hissing and spitting, and finally scampered across the room and took refuge behind the piano. Sefton lifted the boy on to his knee, and produced his watch, that unfailing object of interest to infancy, usually denominated, on the principle of all slang nomenclature, “tick-tick.” Once interested in the opening and shutting of the “tick-tick,” Paolo sat on the visitor’s knee, comme un image, and allowed Sefton to talk to Lisa and her aunt.

He was careful to make himself agreeable to the elder lady, who was charmed to find an Englishman who understood her native tongue. She had contrived to learn a little English, but had made no such progress as her niece, and it was a labour to her to talk. What a pleasure, therefore, to find this suave, handsome Englishman, with his courtly manners, quick comprehension, and ready replies.

From la Zia he heard a good deal about Lisa’s early life; yet there was a certain wise reticence even on that loquacious lady’s part. She breathed no word of Lisa’s Englishman, the first Mr. Smith, or of the second. In all her talk of their old life, in Venice, at Milan, there was no hint of anyone but themselves. They appeared to have been alone, unprotected, dependent on their own small earnings.

After waiting in vain for any allusion to Vansittart, Sefton came straight to the point, with a direct question.

“I think you know a friend of mine, Signora,” he said to Lisa. “Mr. Vansittart?”

“Vansittart?”

Lisa repeated the name slowly, with a look of blank wonder.

“Have you never heard that name before?”

“Never.”

“So,” thought Sefton, “she knew him under an alias. That means a good deal, and confirms my original idea.”

He put the boy off his knee almost roughly, and rose to depart.

“Goodbye, Signora. You will let me call in again some day, I hope?”

“If you like. Why did you think I knew your friend, Mr. Van⁠—sit⁠—tart?”

“Because last May I saw you in Cheyne Walk talking to a man whom I took for Vansittart. A tall man, with fair hair. You seemed very friendly with him; your hands were clasped upon his arm: you were smiling up at him.”

This time Lisa blushed a deep carnation, and her face saddened.

“Oh, that,” she stammered⁠—“that was someone I knew in Italy.”

“Not Vansittart?”

“No.”

“But the gentleman has a name of some kind,” persisted Sefton.

“Never mind his name,” she answered abruptly. “I don’t want to talk about him. I may never see him again, perhaps.” And then, brushing away a tear, and becoming suddenly frivolous, she asked, “How did you come to remember me⁠—after so long?”

“Because that moment by the river yonder has lived in my memory ever since⁠—because no man can forget the loveliest face he ever saw in his life.”

With that compliment, and with a lingering clasp of the strong hand, he concluded his first visit to Saltero’s Mansion, la Zia accompanying him to the door and curtsying him out.