Hugh Crichton's Romance

On the present occasion, however, their only visitor was their sister Lucy. Mrs Compton and they were anxiously discussing the expected cousins.

“You see, Lucy,” said Beatrice, “we are not going to make any mysteries. We have told everyone how Violante was making quite a success in Italy when she lost her voice, and she’ll be quite a little lion for us.”

“Oh, yes, quite a catch,” said Mrs Compton. “And she would get endless pupils.”

“Yes; but you see Rosa writes that she is so very shy and childish she does not think it would be possible for her to go about teaching.”

“And so,” said Mrs Grey, “I have been writing about her to Miss Venning. I thought it well to be prepared before they came.”

“Dear me, mamma! You don’t think of sending her to school. Why, she would set the whole place by the ears.”

“I think she would break her heart,” said Mary.

“Rosa speaks of her as such a child.”

“Oh, don’t you believe it, mother. A girl can’t have been on the Italian stage, and brought up for it, and remain a child.”

“Well, Miss Venning says: ‘Your proposal is somewhat startling, but I have great confidence in your judgment; and if you feel that your niece would be suitable in herself, I will accept her antecedents, as Florence is wild to have her, and, of course, her music and Italian will be very useful.’”

“Well, I wish them joy of her, and she of them, though nothing could be nicer than dear old Rosa.”

“Yes,” said Miss Grey; “but do you remember her passion for going on the stage? She used to walk up and down my room and spout poetry till her eyes would flash! I can quite imagine that the little one might make an actress. But I daresay reality has destroyed that vision.”

“I hope so,” said Mrs Grey, “for I have heard of a very nice engagement for her after Christmas. Mrs Bosanquet’s little girls, you know, Lucy. Nothing would be better.”

“Well,” said Mrs Compton, “I always had an idea about Rosa. Do you remember that civil engineer – years ago – Dick Hamilton? He danced very well – was a partner of yours, Trixie. I always thought Rosa liked him.”

“I daresay she did,” said Miss Grey, calmly. “What became of him? He was very ugly, but had a sort of way – I remember.”

“Oh, I believe he went to India. I haven’t heard of him for ages. We met him, I recollect, at one of those delightful parties at the Stanforths. How are those dear people, by the way?”

“Very well. Mr Stanforth is doing some wonderful pictures. One always meets nice people there. Mary and Kitty made a new acquaintance the last time they went, and he has ripened very fast. He’s in a public office and adores art and music. Kitty sings him German songs.”

“He’s going to get up theatricals with the Stanforths – one of us is to help,” said Kitty.

“Oh, and you wish that ‘one’ may be you, I suppose,” said the married sister.

“What’s your friend’s name, and where does he belong?”

“Crichton – Spencer Crichton. I don’t know where he comes from. I don’t think his friends live in London.”

“Violante Mattei will cut you out, Kit,” said Mrs Compton, lazily.

“I daresay,” said Kitty. “It’s all right if she does. But we thought the Stanforths would be a good place to begin taking her to. They’re so kind and jolly, and they like oddities.”

“And you expect them any time now?”

“Yes; almost at any moment. I do hope we shall all get on together.”

“Oh, no fear,” said Kitty. “We can just let each other alone if we don’t.”

These good-natured girls fully intended their cousins to have a fair share of all their little amusements and excitements, including the admiration of their acquaintances and the possibility – it seemed a very distant one for these foreign, penniless girls – of admiration growing to something more, where the ground was not preoccupied. But, at any rate, Rosa and Violante should have their share of attention and pleasure, and should do their share in making the house and drawing-room the most agreeable in Kensington.

Being so agreeable, it was not strange that James Crichton, the most sociable of civil servants, should put it on his list of pleasant houses for dropping in at; since his own lodgings were about the last place where Jem ever thought of spending an evening; but it was, perhaps, a curious turn of fate that brought him to the Greys on this particular occasion, with some tickets for a popular play, right into the midst of the discussion on the Italian cousins. James had so many acquaintances in all sorts of worlds, that he had always orders and tickets, magazines and new books, with which to repay the civilities of his friends; and he was proceeding to criticise the actress whom they were going to see when Mary Grey said:

“We must take Violante.”

Jem’s attention was so evidently arrested by the name that Mrs Grey said:

“We are expecting some Italian cousins, Mr Crichton. My husband’s sister married an Italian gentleman devoted to music. His daughters, Rosa and Violante Mattei, are coming to stay with us. We expect them to-night.”

Words would fail to express James’s utter amazement. He said:

“Indeed – exactly so. Are they?” in tones of conventional interest. He would have been scarcely more surprised if the blue china cat on the cabinet before him had jumped off and purred in his face.

The solemn and sorrowful events that had occurred since his tour in Italy had greatly obliterated from his mind the recollection of his brother’s holiday romance. It seemed to have no connection with anything that had come before or after it; and James was of opinion that they were all well out of a great difficulty in which Hugh’s inconvenient intensity of feeling had nearly plunged them. His remembrance had been revived by Arthur’s letter about Violante, which he had answered with great caution, merely stating that he had seen Violante act, and that Hugh had attended her father’s singing classes – the last place where Arthur would have expected to hear of him. For Jem regarded Hugh with some awe, and Hugh’s feelings as a sort of tinder that might flame up on the smallest provocation. But evidently she had not married the manager, whom James had frequently blessed in his heart as a perfect safeguard. What would Hugh say when he knew this – would Arthur tell him? James was not in the habit of corresponding with Hugh; if he wrote him a letter on purpose it would look as if he thought the encounter of consequence. However, as the letter was consolatory as regarded Arthur’s health and spirits, he satisfied his conscience by sending it on to Hugh, merely writing across it, “Odd, isn’t it? How people do turn up!” and Hugh had made no response to the communication at all!

But this turn of affairs was certainly odder still.

“I have seen those young ladies,” he said, after a moment’s consideration. “I joined my brother last May in Civita Bella, and I saw Mademoiselle Mattei make her first appearance.”

“Indeed, did you really? Ah, poor child! Her health failed and she lost her voice. Such a destruction to her prospects! Everything seemed turning out well for her. However, we hope she may ultimately return to Italy and to her profession.”

“Does that mean the manager?” thought Jem, while one of the girls said:

“Do tell us what she is like.”

“I only saw her once off the stage,” said Jem, in a dry way, unlike his usual effusive manner. “Her voice was very beautiful.”

“Oh, but you will be quite an old friend among strangers. And your brother – but he doesn’t live in London, I think?”

“No; in the country,” said Jem, for once incommunicative. “My people don’t often come to London, and lately we have been in trouble at home. But I shall be in your way if there is any chance of their arriving to-night. Mrs Grey, let me wish you good evening.”

“Well, you must look in some day and talk about Italy to my nieces.”

“Oh, thanks – very happy – I’m sure,” said Jem, getting away as fast as he could, in a much-disturbed frame of mind.

If the story had concerned anyone but his brother he would have liked nothing better than an encounter with a beautiful girl with this semi-sentimental tie between them – with half-allusions to the past, sympathy, confidence, mutual recollections – the shadowy lover would have made the flirtation both safe and interesting. “But,” as he said to himself, “there was never any knowing how old Hugh would take things!” he had not seen him for some time, as Hugh had declined various invitations to London, and had remained entirely by himself at the Bank House. It was Mrs Spencer Crichton’s intention to spend Christmas at Bournemouth, where George and Frederica were to join her for the holidays, Hugh preferring to remain at Oxley; but directly afterwards she had determined to return to Redhurst and begin home life again.

“After his taking no notice of the letter,” thought Jem, as he came into the club, “must I go and insist on forcing them on him? What can have brought them to England? Any idea of finding him, I wonder? I think I’ll run down and mention it casually. Wish I’d never got acquainted with those people. Hallo! why, Hugh – Hugh! What brings you here?”

“I was obliged to come up on business, and I thought I should find you here – sooner or later,” said Hugh, thinking his brother’s excitement unnecessary.

“Of course. Delighted to see you! Do you go back to-night? You’ll have some dinner? Here, waiter!”

While James gave his orders and uttered various inconsecutive remarks he furtively watched his brother, whom he had not seen since they had parted in the general break-up nearly three months before. He thought that Hugh looked aged, and, though he did not appear to be exactly ill or miserable, there was an absence of brightness or comfortableness about him, which Jem hardly thought accounted for by the fact that he was probably cold and hungry.

But Hugh, by word and letter, was imperturbably silent as to the history of those three solitary months, their morbid imaginings, their tortures of self-reproach, their loneliness and dulness, without the cheerful family life to which he was unconsciously accustomed. Hugh began by thinking that he was too miserable to care for anything external, and ended, though he was for from admitting it, by missing the children’s croquet and his mother’s wool-work and all the framework of home life. But he still felt a sort of fierce satisfaction in punishing himself, and would have been ashamed to grasp at the slightest relaxation, even if it had been without the knowledge of those whom he felt himself to have injured.

However, he allowed Jem to exercise his hospitality, which was an improvement on his old housekeeper’s mutton chops; and, in fact, was sufficiently well-occupied not to notice his brother’s unusual silence. At last James said:

“So, mother’s coming home after Christmas?”

“Yes, so she says.”

“I wonder what Arthur will do.”

“I don’t know,” returned Hugh, gravely.

“He writes in tolerable spirits. Odd, wasn’t it, his coming across those girls?”

“Very odd.”

“Things are– awfully odd. I’ve made a sort of acquaintance lately – some people called Grey – live at Kensington. They’re very musical and know all sorts of people.”

“Indeed!” said Hugh.

“Yes, I was there to-night. Such a nice house they have! One of the pleasantest places to drop in at – no stiffness or formality. They’ve got some cousins – Italians.” Here James began to stir the salt violently. “They’re expecting them to stay. Just imagine my surprise when I heard they were the two Matteis!”

Hugh set down his wine-glass, and looked entirely confounded. He did not speak a word, but fixed his eyes on his brother in silence.

“She lost her voice, it seems,” said James; “and they asked her to come for a change with her sister.”

“Is she still engaged to be married?” said Hugh, hurriedly.

“Why, that’s what I can’t make out,” said Jem. “Arthur thought not, you see; but, from what her aunt told me, I think there may be some idea of it. I don’t think it’s impossible – ”

“You need not alarm yourself,” suddenly interrupted Hugh. “The danger’s over. Whatever right I once thought I had to please myself in that way I have none now, and my life must have other objects.”

James was so horrified with this view of Hugh’s situation that he began vehemently to controvert it, and was ready to recommend a renewal of the acquaintance rather than the rejection of it on such a motive.

“What would they not be justified in saying now?” said Hugh – “and if not – I’m not the same man that – that – ”

Hugh paused and drooped his head low, a sudden rush of recollection revealing how much of the same man remained.

“I’ve got to catch the Oxley train,” he said, getting up.

“Why, you’re never going back to-night! And I say, Hugh, you’ve been there by yourself quite long enough. Shall I run down, or why don’t you go to Bournemouth?”

“I don’t want any change, thank you,” said Hugh. “Good night,” and he was gone before Jem had time to mutter to himself, “I don’t know how it would be if he saw her, though!”

But Hugh, as he went out into the cold night, felt his brain in a whirl. He had had a change, whether he wished for one or not – a change of thought, and feeling, and association; a wave of feeling that seemed to make him conscious of what he used to be like at that time that seemed now like his whole past. But it was past, so completely that he did not even argue with himself against its return. His words were so far true that he could not have pushed his recent life aside, and sought out Violante again.

Only, now and then, as the days went by, she seemed to steal like a vision into his solitary rooms. He saw her finger the quaint old ornaments of his grandmother’s drawing-room at the Bank House, or sit on its narrow window-seats at work. But Redhurst and all his outer life was haunted by another vision – haunted as truly as if a spirit with wet white dress and covered face had really wandered over the frosty autumn meadows, or seemed to float on the dull waters, which no summer sun awoke to sparkling light.

Part 4, Chapter XXXI

Relations New and Old

“The world is full of other folks.”

The Gayworthys.

It was a wintry morning, with pale sunshine struggling through the retiring fog. In the centre of the Greys’ pretty drawing-room, among all the ottomans, tables, and nick-knacks, stood Violante. She wore a dark-blue serge dress, with a linen collar and a little red necktie – attire intended by Rosa to be scrupulously that of a young English lady. Nor was the short hair, tied back with a ribbon, so unusual as to be peculiar. Yet she looked, as she stood glancing around, half shy, half observant, something like a hare in a flower-garden, just ready to dash away. In consideration of the fatigue of her journey, which had ended late the night before, she had had her breakfast upstairs, and was now really making and receiving her first impressions.

Rosa and Beatrice Grey were talking fast to each other in a rapid exchange of question and answer; while the aunt and younger cousins were studying this soft-eyed, fawnlike creature, so utterly unlike their self-possessed selves.

“So, my dear,” said her aunt kindly, “we have got you here at last. And you must tell the girls all you like best to do, that they may be able to amuse you.”

“I do not know what anyone does here exactly,” said Violante, afraid of her own voice, as she wondered if her English was very foreign.

“Hasn’t Rosa told you how we all get on?” said Kitty.

“Yes,” said Violante. “I thought I knew – but, after all, I did not imagine it.”

Kitty laughed kindly.

“You dear little thing!” she said, “you will soon find it all out. And you haven’t got the least bit of voice to sing to us with?”

“No – I cannot sing!” said Violante, shyly.

“All, we shall make you tell us all your history,” said Mary, wishing to set her at her ease; “all about your stage-life and its wonders.”

“That was not very wonderful,” said Violante, while Rosa interposed:

“She had very little time to judge of it before she was ill, and now I think she would be glad to forget it.”

“Ah, well, we must make her into an English girl,” said Mrs Grey. “We will talk of schools and pupils by and by; first we will show her a little of the world. Is she as fond of parties as you were, Rosa? How wild a dance made you, good, sober girl as you were.”

“She has never been to a party,” said Rosa, laughing; “and I am not sure if she can dance – off the stage.”

“Oh, yes, I can, Rosina – Maddalena taught me.”

“Do you remember going to parties at the Stanforths’, Rosa?” said Miss Grey curiously.

“Yes – very well. Do you know them still?” said Rosa.

“Oh, yes – ” and here followed details of old acquaintances and new pictures, to which Violante listened in silent wonder. The Greys were fond of little schemes and surprises, so they told their cousins nothing of the old acquaintance whom they expected them soon to meet; and nothing occurred to make all these perplexing novelties more perplexing still.

“Shall you be happy here, my darling?” said Rosa, anxiously, as, in the first interval of solitude, Violante sprang to her side and eagerly caressed her.

“Oh, yes! – yes!” said Violante; “quite happy when I see you. But how strange it would be to have so many sisters! How lousy they are, and how many things they can do! Rosa mia! I see now what everyone meant by saying that you were so English. But I like it.”

Violante’s life during the next week or two was not such as to make a figure in history. She was the prettiest plaything her cousins had ever seen. Her ignorance of ordinary life, her shy softness, and absence of self-assertion, made her seem to them as a specially-lovely kitten, and they never guessed that anything lay beneath. They interpreted all her actions in accordance with the impression that she had made on them. They were fond of reading aloud to each other, and when a passionate and mournful love-scene moved Violante, unused to the echoes of her own heart, to tears and blushes, they laughed at her naïveté and simplicity. When she shrank from questions about her theatrical life they concluded that she had nothing to tell of it, and they treated the idea of her teaching Italian at school as an absurd joke.

“But I must earn my living,” said Violante, gravely.

“You earn your living – you kitten!” said Beatrice.

“Yes – one must do something, and I cannot sing – or marry,” said Violante, and her cousins’ laughter at what seemed to the foreign girl a perfectly natural suggestion blinded them to the fact that there was more knowledge of the struggle of life in her words than had ever come to them over their drawing-room carpets. But they taught her to talk, and diminished her shyness so that she could not have been in a better atmosphere.

To Rosa the life came with no strangeness; rather her four years of Italy were like a dream. Surely – surely it was but yesterday that she had trimmed her dresses for other parties at the Stanforths’ and Comptons’, where Lucy was then so anxious to go. Was there now nothing to give the old zest to her preparations? Only the desire to set off Violante, and to see her enjoying herself. But Rosa’s world was, indeed, full of “other folks;” and she did not decide on her actions with regard to herself. And great questions were agitating themselves in her mind during these early and apparently peaceful days. Her aunt told her of the fortunate opening which she had found for her at Mrs Bosanquet’s.

“And you see, my dear, the money is as much as you would get anywhere. You could continue it if your father does come to England in the spring, as he proposes. It leaves you time for a few occasional pupils, and you would have your evenings at home – an inestimable advantage if Violante is with you.”

“I know my father thinks that, if her voice returns and we stay in England, she might sing at concerts and oratorios. But I don’t think she will ever be able to do anything in public.”

“Oh, dear me, Rosa, she is a child; she will be a different person in a year or two. But I agree with you, she is not suited for it, and must be well taken care of.”

“Indeed, I must take care of her!” Rosa said no more, and her aunt never supposed that she had any hesitation as to availing herself of the excellent opportunity before her; and, indeed, as Rosa listened, she felt that her alternative grew more remote. But it lost nothing in fascination.

After they had been about a week at Kensington some tickets were sent to Mrs Grey for ‘The School for Scandal’ – then being performed. Violante did not go: she shrank from the very thought of a theatre; and, as Rosa was by no means anxious to expose her to unnecessary cold and fatigue, she remained at home, while Mr Grey took his eldest daughter and Rosa.

It was a long time since Rosa had seen any acting, and she sat like one bewitched, with hot cheeks and bright eyes, her hands clasped before her – now delighted, now impatient – her lips moving in sympathy or correction – absorbed as she had not been for years. Mr Grey thought what a very handsome young woman his niece was, with her fine eyes and intense expression; but her cousin Beatrice, who had been in the old days more than anyone else her friend, watched her curiously, and when they came home said:

“Come into my room, and brush your hair, and then you will not disturb Violante! So you are as fond of acting as ever, Rosa?”

“Fond of it!” ejaculated Rosa. “Oh, Trixy, I must, I must! I can’t give it up again. Surely there must be some way!”

“Rosa! you don’t mean to say you are thinking of it seriously?”

“It would be just life to me,” said Rosa, passionately, and almost crying, as she brushed her hair over her face.

Miss Grey laid aside a modest portion of accessory plaits as she said, gravely —

“You see, Rosa, ‘life,’ as you call it, is just what most people don’t get. And I’m sure you would not like it; you are not the sort of girl.”

“Yes, I am!” said Rosa, with petulance. “Nobody understands. They think because I can work and teach, and take care of myself and other people, and look serious, that that’s all of me, and that I’m good and quiet. But I’m not, if being good means being contented in – in a pond with a fence all round it. I should like to knock about, have to take care of myself, and live in a lodging! I like the gas and the fun, and the ups and downs of it, and not being sure of succeeding; and if Violante was married I’d do it to-morrow!”

“But, Rosa – ”

“But, Trixy, I mean what I say. I can act as I can do nothing else; but whether it is possible for me to be an actress is another thing, I know very well. It couldn’t make much difference to all of you – could it?”

“Well, no,” said Beatrice, “I don’t think, we should consider that it did. But, Rosa, you would either have to begin in the smallest possible way, or else study for years; and how could you pay for getting yourself taught? You might ask Mr A – ,” mentioning an eminent actor of well-known kindness and respectability; “he sometimes comes here. But when there’s the other thing all ready for you!”

“Oh, Trixy, I know,” said Rosa. “But of course,” she added, “I can’t be expected to feel that it would be unsuitable. If I had a voice – oh! if I had – what it would have saved Violante and me!”

“You gave up the idea once before,” said Beatrice.

“Yes,” said Rosa, rather faintly.

“There was something then you would have liked better still, eh! Rose?”

“Yes,” said Rosa, with a sudden heart-throb.

“I’m afraid he wasn’t good for much, Rosy,” said her cousin, patting her hair.

“You never hear of him now?” said Rosa.

“Never. Everyone doesn’t get Lucy’s luck, you know, and when things go wrong one must put up with second-best.”

“I am to have neither first or second,” said Rosa.

“Well, there’s a good deal of third in the world, and one gets on with it.”

“The long and the short of it is,” said Rosa, as she stood up to go, “that that’s my wish, but I can’t turn the world upside down to get it, and I can live without it, as I’ve done before. Why, I almost forgot it till things went wrong with Violante. Anyhow, I must take care of her.”

Beatrice Grey, spite of her easy life, had not found the world accommodate itself so exactly to her wishes as to be surprised at the necessity for submission, but she was struck by Rosa’s last words, and said: “You’re the best girl I know, Rosa.”