CHAPTER XVIII

He was beside her before she was aware of it, in the great music-room at Lady Hales’s house. She had not seen him approach her—she could not have done so without turning round, for he had approached her from behind, and slipped into the chair that Esther had vacated in order to play to the company. Esther’s husband, who had been in the seat beyond her, had been led away some time earlier by Mr. Linley’s clever son in order that he might give an opinion respecting one of the songs in a piece named The Duenna, which was about to be produced at Drury Lane.

He was beside her and whispering in her ear, though she had not even known that he was to be present.

Of course he went through the pantomimic form of inquiring how it was that she was alone—this was, she knew, for the benefit of anyone who might be watching them and suspect an assignation. The idea of anyone seriously fancying that Dr. Burney’s daughter would have an assignation with Signor Rauzzini in such a place and in the midst of such a company! But Signor Rauzzini came from a land of intrigue, and his experience of England led him to believe that he had come to another; and so he made those gestures of inquiry, and she gave him a few words of explanation, so that no one might suspect! But, for that matter, their chairs were in the least conspicuous place in the room, and the shadow of the heavy hangings of a window fell half across them both.

“And we have not met for months,” said he in French.

“Nay, have you forgotten our evening at the Pantheon?” she asked.

“Forgotten it? But that is months ago—ages. And it was all unfinished—broken off: when at its best—mutilated. That hour we had! Oh, was it a melody suddenly interrupted when it was approaching its best? Was it a poem snatched away by some ruthless hand just when we had begun a deathless line?”

“What I remember best is your singing of ‘Waft her.’ I am not quite sure that I have yet returned to the earth from those regions whither I felt myself wafted. Are you conscious of having any part in Dido into which you can throw yourself with the same spirit?”

“Dido! pah! Dido is a paltry playhouse—Maestro Handel’s work is a Sistine Chapel—ah, more—more—a noble cathedral. When other composers built their garden houses in imitation of Greek temples, he spent all his time raising cathedrals. His genius is his own—mighty—overpowering! Every time I approach the great maestro I feel that I should put off my shoes from my feet. It is holy ground—it is—ah, mademoiselle, it was you who led me to chatter of myself and my music when we were last together, and I had no wish to do so; I meant to talk of yourself alone, but we had parted before I had the chance again. I have been wondering ever since if such a chance would return—if I had not thrown it away; and now you have lured me once more toward the golden net of music; but I have seen it spread: I will not step into it. I want to talk to you of love—love and you—and—me.”

He had restrained his voice so that it was no more than a whisper, and he had chastened his gestures until he seemed rigid. Fanny knew that even if their chairs had not been far away from the next that were occupied, his words could reach no ears but her own; but the effort that he was making to restrain his gestures—oh, was it not more significant to any observant eye than his most florid action would have been? With bent head she was conscious of the quivering of the muscles of his clenched hands—of the tremulous earnestness of his expressive face. Surely everyone who so much as glanced at him would know what was the subject of his discourse—and hers—hers—but what should hers be? What answer was she to make to such a man whispering such a word as love?

“I am afraid,” she said. “You make me afraid. Is this the place? Is this the time? Am I the one?”

“Every place is the place—every time is the time—and you—you are the only one,” said he, becoming more fervent every moment. “If you and I were alone—but we are alone—our love isolates us—we are alone in the splendid isolation of our love. What are these people who are about us? They are nothing to us—less than nothing. What are the people in a church to the devout one who enters and keeps his eyes fixed upon the lovely face of the saint to whom he prays. The saint and he are in communion together, and their communion isolates them though the church is crowded? I keep my eyes of devotion upon your face, my beautiful saint, and I am rapt with the glory of this hour—we are carried away on the wings of our love until the world is too far beneath us to be seen—only the heaven is revealed to us—to me—I look into your face and I have a glimpse of heaven itself! Ah, gentle saint, you will not deny me a response—one word—only lift up your eyes—let our eyes meet and it will be as if our lips had met. I am but a mortal, but I feel, gazing into the face of my saint, as if I were immortal—immortal and crossing the threshold of the heaven that is hers—I feel that we are equal—”

She drew in her breath—the sound was something like a gasp—the gasp of one who has been swept away into the midst of a swirling sea and made breathless. She had been swept away on the amazing flood of his words; it was not until he had said that word “equal” that she felt herself swirled into the air once more, so to speak, and gave that gasp for breath: he, too, was breathless after his long and fervid outburst, repressed as to tone, but sounding therefore all the more passionate. Her gasp sounded like a sigh; his like a sob.

“Not yet—not yet,” she said in a whisper—disjointed and staccato. “I cannot listen to you yet. I dare not—I have my pride.”

“Pride? What is pride? How have I wounded your pride?” he said. “Ah, my God! you cannot think that I would propose anything that is not honourable? You do not look on me as such a wretch? Ah, you cannot.”

“Oh, no, no,” she said quickly. “I would trust you. I have looked into your face. I have heard you sing.”

“You place your faith in me? But you cannot do that unless you love me. And if you love me—have I been too headlong? Have I startled you? But surely you must have seen that on the very first day we met, before I had been an hour in your presence, my life was yours. I tell you that I knew it—not an hour—one glance was enough to tell me that I was all yours, and that for me no other one lived or would ever live in the world. What have you to say? Do not you believe me? What did you mean by that word ‘pride’? It does not seem to me that it had any connection with you or me.”

“Do not ask me to explain anything just now,” she said. “You would not like to be asked to explain how you came to—to—think of me—to feel in regard to me as you have said you do—”

“Why should I shrink from it?” he asked. “But no one who has seen you would put such a question to me. I loved you because you were—you. Is not that enough? It would be sufficient for anyone who knew you. I saw you sitting there—so sweetly timid—a little flower that is so startled to find itself awakened into life in the spring, that it would fain ask the earth to hide it again. I thought of you as that modest little flower—a violet trying to obscure its own charm by the leaves that surround it; but all in vain—in vain, for its presence has given a subtle perfume to the air, and all who breathe of its delicate sweetness take the spirit of the spring into their souls and know that a violet is there, though hidden from their view. That is how I saw you. I have always loved the violet, and felt that shyness and sweetness were ever one; and am I to be reproached if I have a longing to pluck my violet and have her ever with me?”

“This is madness—the poetry of madness,” she cried, and there was really a piteous note in her voice. “But if I did not believe that you feel every word that you have spoken, I would let you continue, and drink in the sweetness of every word that falls from your lips. It is because I know that you are speaking from your heart and because I also know my own unworthiness that I pray of you to say no more—yet.”

“Why should I not tell you the truth, if you confess that you believe I am speaking sincerely?”

“Sincerely, but in a dream.”

“Is all love a dream, then?—is that what is in your thought?”

“I do not want it to be a dream. I wish the love to continue with your eyes open, and therefore I say—not yet.”

“You wish my love to continue? Oh, never doubt that your wish shall be granted. But why that ‘not yet’? I am weary of this mystery.”

She was perplexed. Why should she hold out any longer against this impetuous Prince of the land of King Cophetua? Why should she not be as other girls who allow themselves to be lifted out of insignificance by the man who loves them. Why should that gift of being able to see more closely into the truth of things that most others accept without a question, be laid upon her as a burden?

She had a strong impulse to let her resolution go down the wind, and to put her hand in his, no matter who might be looking on, and say the word to him that would give him happiness. Who was she to suggest that his happiness would not endure—that her happiness would not endure?

She was perplexed. She had more than once been called prim; but that only meant that it was her nature to weigh everything in a mental balance, as it were, and her imagination was equal (she thought) to the task of assigning their relative value to the many constituents of human happiness. If she had been told that this meant that she had not yet been in love, and that she was not now in love, she would not have felt uneasy in her mind. She did not mistrust the feeling she had for the man who was beside her. Surely this was the very spirit of truth in loving, to be ready to sacrifice everything, so that unhappiness should not overtake him; and she had long ago felt that unhappiness only could result from his linking his life with one who was rather less than a mere nobody. The thought never once left her mind of what would be said when it was known that she had married him. A dunce’s triumph, the incident would be styled by the wits, and (assuming that the wits were masculine) how would it be styled by the opposite sex? She could see uplifted hands—incredulous eyebrows raised, while they discussed it, and she knew that the conclusion that everyone would come to was that to be the most divine singer in the world did not save a man from being the greatest fool in the world.

Was her love the less true because her intelligence insisted on her perceiving that such a man as Signor Rauzzini would not be happy if married to a nonentity like herself? “Surely not,” she would have cried. “Surely it is only the truest of all loves that would be ready to relinquish its object rather than bring unhappiness upon him! Is intelligence never to be found in association with true love? Must true love and folly ever be regarded as allies?”

Her intellect was quick in apprehending the strength of the position taken up by two combatants in an argument; but the juxtaposition of the Prim and the Passionate was too much for her. She was all intellect; he was all passion. Her mental outlook on the situation was acute; but his was non-existent. His passion blinded him; her intellect had a thousand eyes.

And there he was by her side; she could almost hear the strong beating of his heart in the pause that followed his question.

“What is this mystery?”

It was her feeling of this tumultuous beating of his heart that all but made her lose her intellectual foothold. His heart beating close to hers swayed her as the moon sways the tides, until for some moments she could not have told whether it was her heart or his that was beating so wildly—only for some moments, however; only long enough for that madness to suggest itself to her—to let her resolution fly to the winds—what did anything matter so long as she could lay her hand in his, and feel his fingers warm over hers? It was her first acquaintance with the tyranny of a heart aflame, and for a moment she bent her head before it. He thought that he had got the better of her scruples, whatever they were, by the way her voice broke as she said:

“Madness—it would be madness!”

He was not acute enough to perceive that she was talking to herself—trying to bring her reason to help her to hold out against the throbbing of her heart—his heart.

“It would indeed be madness for us to turn our backs upon happiness when it is within our reach,” said he. “That is what you would say, sweet saint?”

But she had now recovered herself.

“Indeed it is because I have no thought except for your happiness that I entreat of you to listen to me,” said Fanny.

“I will listen to you if you tell me in one word that you love me,” said he.

There was no pause before she turned her eyes upon him saying:

“You know it. You have never doubted it. It is because I love you so truly I wish to save you from unhappiness. I want to hold your love for ever and ever.”

“My sweet saint! You have heard my prayers. You are to make me happy.”

“All that I can promise as yet is to save you from supreme unhappiness. I am strong enough to do so, I think.”

“You can save me from every unhappiness if you will come to me—and you are coming, I know.”

“I hope that if you ask me three months hence I shall be able to say ‘yes’; but now—at this moment—I dare not. It is not so long to ask you to wait, seeing that I have let you have a glimpse of my heart, and told you that as you feel for me, so I feel for you.”

“Three months is an eternity! Why should it be in three months? Why not now?”

She shook her head.

“I cannot tell you. It is my little secret,” she said. “Ah, is it not enough that I have told you I love you? I shall never cease to love you.”

“Oh, this accursed place! These accursed people!” he murmured. “Why are we fated to meet only surrounded by these wretches? Why cannot we meet where I can have you in my arms, and kiss your lips that were made for kissing?”

There was something terrifying to her in that low whisper of his. He had put his head down to her until his lips were close to her ear. She felt the warmth of his face; it made her own burn. But she could not move her face away to the extent of an inch. Her feminine instinct of flight was succeeded by the equally feminine instinct of surrender. If it had been his intention—and it certainly seemed that it was—to kiss her in the presence of all the company, she would still have been incapable of avoiding such a caress.

He swore again in her ear, and Fanny, for all her primness, felt a regret deep down in her heart that her training would not allow of her expressing herself through the same medium.

But he did not come any nearer to her than that. He changed his phrases of abuse of their entourage to words of delight at her presence so close to him—alternately passionate and tender. His voice became a song in her ears, containing all such variations. His vocalism was equal to the demand put upon it. It was his métier to interpret such emotions, and now he did justice to his training, even if he fell short—and he was conscious of doing so—of dealing adequately with his own feelings. He called her once again his sweet saint who had heard his prayer; his cherished flower, whose fragrance was more grateful to him than all the incense burned in all the temples of the world was to the Powers above. It was, he repeated, her violet modesty that had first made him adore her. Her humility brought before his eyes the picture painted by Guido Reni—the Madonna saying: Ecce ancilla Domini. Ah, her humility was divine. And she was so like his mother—his dear mother who had died when he was a boy and who had taught him to sing. Ah, she was herself now singing in Paradise, and she would look down and approve his choice. She, too, had been as meek as a flower, and had never been so happy as when they had been together at a little farm in Tuscany with him by her side among the olives. Oh, she would approve his choice. And quite simply he addressed his dead mother, as though she were beside him, asking her if she could desire to have a daughter sweeter or more gentle. He had lapsed into his native Italian in this; but Fanny could follow his slow, devout words, and her eyes were full of tears, her heart of love.

She now perceived how simple and gentle a nature was that of the young Roman. He remained unspoilt by the adulation which he had received both in his own country and in England. Seeing him thus revealing a simplicity which she had not associated with him before, she was led to ask herself if there was, after all, so great a difference between them as she had believed to exist. She had forgotten all about his singing, and he was now in her eyes nothing more than a man—the man who loved her. Ah, that was enough. He loved her, and therefore she was bound to save him from the mortification of hearing the whispers of the people around them asking how he could ever have been stupid enough to marry a girl like herself, who was a nobody and without a fortune, when he might have chosen any girl in the world.

Her resolution came back to her with greater force than ever. Since he had made his nature plain to her, it would, she felt, be taking advantage of his simplicity to engage herself to him just as she was. She knew more of the world than he did. She knew how the world talked, and how it would talk regarding herself as well as regarding him in such a matter. He was simple and generous; it was necessary for her to take thought for both of them.

“Have you heard me?” he asked of her in a whisper.

“The tears are still in my eyes,” she replied. “Oh, my dear friend, cannot you see how bitter it is for me to be compelled to ask you to wait for these months that I spoke of? Cannot you see that it is a matter of conscience and honour? Ah, I should never forgive myself if I were to do other than I have done! If you—”

“Dear one,” said he, “I ask for nothing more than to hear you tell me that you love me. Who am I, that I should demand your secret? So long as you do not conceal your love from me, I do not mind if you have a score of secrets locked away in your white bosom. Tell me again that you love me and all must be well.”

She looked at him, but he knew that she could not see a feature of his face by reason of the tears that were still in her eyes.