So they vexed each other sorely; but Violante, forlorn and sorrowful as she was, could nestle in Rosa’s arms, and had Rosa’s pity, if not sympathy, in her grief; while her father, unkind and unreasonable as he might be, suffered alone a pang of disappointment all the keener because the baffled desire had been so vehement that to indulge it he had undertaken the one impossible task of life—to inspire an alien nature with his own ideal of happiness, his own loves, and his own ambitions.
He thought that it was love for Violante that made her misfortune so terrible to him, but in truth it was love of the ideal that he thought to see her fulfil. He grieved over what she might have been, but she was only a trouble and disappointment to him as she was. He did not intend to be unkind to her, but he could not forbear to reproach her; all the more because he instinctively knew that she did not regret her loss as he did. Violante did not resent this, but the worry and the depressing sense of inefficiency retarded her recovery. Rosa, meanwhile, set herself to consider the family fortunes. What could they do? Her father’s engagement to Signor Vasari was almost over and was not likely to be renewed. He often talked of trying new fields, and seeking employment in more important places than Civita Bella. And he was quite well enough known to be likely to find what he wanted. A wandering life would suit him well enough. But though he might have connections in half the towns of Italy, Rosa had none, and how could she afford to lose all her pupils? True, she and Violante might remain where they were, with Maddalena for a duenna but Rosa felt that a thorough change would do Violante more good than anything that could be proposed. She might then recover her strength, and, free from all present trials, would surely soon forget her ill-starred love story. For Rosa, with cool, clear judgment, reflected that Hugh Crichton, once set free from his entanglement, was very little likely ever to attempt to renew anything so undesirable. He had no means, so far as she knew, of tracing Violante’s future life, for the Tollemaches did not write to them after leaving Civita Bella; and of himself, beyond the fact of his profession, and that he lived with his mother at Redhurst, and was a man of some fortune, Rosa knew nothing. She had never even realised where Redhurst might be. As for Violante, unfamiliar with English names and images, she had imbibed no notions of her lover’s English home beyond a few descriptions of the garden and the river; of the great town, whose name even she forgot; and of various people whom she had hardly begun to think of as having any connection with herself—his own relations having been exceedingly uninteresting to Hugh at the period of his courtship. One day of actual betrothal and she would have known enough about them; as it was, Violante had no colours to paint her pictures of his present life, and Rosa felt that he had entirely gone out of theirs.
Under these circumstances she thought very favourably of various former invitations received from her uncle, Mr Grey, both to herself and Violante. She believed that she could find occupation of some sort in England; and perhaps an English home life for a time might prove beneficial to Violante. In the meantime old Madame Cellini came to the rescue, and offered to take the two girls to a little village called Caletto, some distance from Civita Bella, where she usually spent some weeks in the autumn. Here Violante would have both rest and change, and when she was fully recovered future plans would be more easily settled.
Part 4, Chapter XXVII.
Caletto.
“Grapes which swelled from hour to hour,
And tossed their golden tendrils to the sun
For joy at their own richness.”
After that stormy summer, with its joy and its suffering, its excitement and hard work, there ensued for Violante a time of perfect peace. Golden autumn sunshine, beautiful places, entire freedom and rest, could not give back a lost career, or a lost lover, but they were very conducive to the revival of health and spirits; and the absence even of anything peculiarly delightful was welcome to the exhaustion of worn-out nerves and spirits. Never to be scolded, never to be frightened, never to be forced to do what she dreaded and disliked, made a sort of Elysium for her, though even Elysium seems to have been sometimes a little objectless and dreary. Still, it was peace; and all the little tastes and occupations which had been crushed down by over-work, or rendered futile by the one absorbing interest of the past summer, began to spring up again; and Violante knitted and worked, picked flowers and arranged them, and made sweetmeats, salads, and coffee, as she had done in the days when the stage was a distant terror, and when Hugh Crichton had never been heard of. For, though she was very easily overwhelmed by storms, she was a flower that opened readily to a little sunshine, and Rosa caught herself wondering whether so soft and childish a creature had really retained the impression that had seemed so powerful. It was hard to tell, for Violante never spoke of her past troubles; the truth, perhaps, being that she took her sensations very much as they came, and never speculated about herself, nor realised her situation further than she felt it. Rosa hoped that the love, having been very brief, scarcely acknowledged, and utterly crushed at one blow, might really die of want of encouragement; and this was possible, even if its dying hours were soothed by the anodyne of a little unconscious secret hope in the vague future. Since Hugh had been mistaken as to Vasari, some day he might find it out; and in the meantime the sun shone, the flowers were sweet, she was the object of much petting, she felt fresh and well, and Vasari, his theatre and his diamonds, had all passed away like a bad dream.
Caletto, with its vineyards, its little lake, its distant hills, its peaceful and yet animated life, was new to the town-bred girl, and very delightful. It attracted a few visitors, but lay somewhat out of the beat of tourists, though it possessed many charms for them; one of the chief being a garden belonging to the great house of the place, but which, in the dwindling of the fortunes of the great family, and in their frequent and long absences, was open freely to the scanty public of Caletto. Nay, tables and chairs, where grapes could be eaten and cheap wine drunk, had been placed on the marble terrace that overlooked the lake by the enterprising innkeeper; and here, within sound of the plash of fountains, under the shade of tall oleander and pomegranate trees, Madame Cellini and her two young charges were wont to establish themselves to see the sun set over the lake and to enjoy the evening air; and here, in search of the picturesque, or perhaps of that soothing and refreshment which novelty and natural beauty might be supposed to give, arrived one evening an English traveller.