“You are looking at her—I, too, have been looking at her; she is divine,” came a voice beside her. She did not need to turn to see the speaker. She had been longing for the sound of his voice for many days. She had not even a chance of hearing him sing before this evening.
“She is St. Cecilia herself,” said she. “You have seen Sir Joshua’s picture?”
“My countryman, Piozzi, pointed it out to me,” he replied. “I was enraptured with the picture. But when the living St. Cecilia entered the room and I heard her story, I felt ready to throw myself at her feet and implore her as the guardian of poor singers to take me to her care. Her face has on it the bloom of a flower dropped fresh from the garden of God—angelic beyond the voice of man to describe.”
He spoke, as usual, in French to Fanny, but he had greeted Mrs. Burney in English, and he tried to translate his last phrase to her into the same language. He failed after the first word or two, and begged Miss Burney to complete his task for him. She did so, and her stepmother smiled and nodded in appreciation of his comment.
“She is indeed a beautiful creature,” said Mrs. Burney. “I heard her sing more than once at Bath. People went mad about her beauty and her singing, and truly I never heard any singing that so affected me. It was said that she hated to let her voice be heard in public. Her father, Mr. Linley, made her sing: she was a gold mine to Mr. Linley and he knew it.”
Signor Rauzzini had listened attentively and picked up all that she had said without the aid of a word from Fanny.
“But now she will never be heard again no more,” said he in English. “And she is right in making such a resolution, and her husband is a noble man to agree with her in this,” he continued, but in French to Fanny. “Picture that lovely creature placing herself on the level of such a one as the Agujari! sordid—vulgar—worldly! quarrelling daily with the impresario on some miserable question of precedence—holding out for the largest salary—turning a gift which should be divine into gold! Oh; she was right.”
“Signor Rauzzini no doubt thinks it a pity that such a voice should cease to give pleasure to the thousands it enchanted,” said Mrs. Burney, not being able to follow him in French.
“Oh, no, no; just the opposite,” cried Fanny. “He says he admires her the more for her resolution.”
“I am so glad. Pray tell him that I agree with him,” said Mrs. Burney. “A good woman will avoid publicity. Her home should be sufficient for her.”