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.”
“I mustn’t go to many plays if you are to hold that opinion long,” replied Rosa, as she went away.
“Did you enjoy yourself, Rosina mia?” said Violante, sleepily.
“Yes, my darling,” said Rosa, “so much so that next time you must come and look after me.”
Violante gave a little sleepy laugh at this absurd notion, as her sister, wakeful with excitement, lay down by her side.
Rosa was not exactly conscious of making a sacrifice: she rather felt herself yielding to a powerful necessity. Of course, the family well-being and Violante’s happiness must come first, whatever happened. She must act prudently. Life had taught her prudence; only her hot nature rebelled sometimes. Her age and experience taught her that she could live without being an actress. She lay thinking of her life and her sister’s—not cynically, but without any youthful illusions. Her first ambition seemed impracticable—her first love was a thing of the past.