“I don’t want to lose my voice,” sobbed Lisa, to whom Malibran was but an empty name.
“No. Yet you go just the right way to lose it. Come, cheer up, Si’ora. Eat much steaks, drink much stout, for the next three days. Andiamo adagio. Don’t sing a note till I come next Saturday afternoon to give you your lesson.”
Zinco’s policy prevailed. Lisa fretted sorely at the thought of losing that voice which was to be her fortune. She had told herself in her despair that fame and fortune would be useless without the man she loved—that she had only wished to succeed as a singer in order to please him. And now she began to see the situation in a new light. She wanted to be admired and famous like the singers whom she had seen at Covent Garden, curtsying behind a pile of bouquets, while the house resounded with applause. She wanted to be applauded like those famous singers, so that the cruel Smith might see her, and be sorry that he had refused her his heart. Who could tell? Perhaps seeing her so admired, hearing her voice ring clear and sweet through the theatre, he might abandon his tuneless English sweetheart, and come back to Lisa, come back as lover, as husband. Zinco had told her that a fashionable prima donna could not look too high. She would have all London at her feet. It would be for her to choose.
Lisa had a strong will, and a wonderful power of self-command when she really wanted to command herself; so she dried her tears, ate British beef, almost raw, and drank British stout; and under this régime her nerves speedily recovered from the rude shaking which passion had given them, and when the good little ’cello player came to give her the Saturday lesson, her voice rang out sound as a bell, and B natural was produced with perfect ease—a round and perfect note.
“We’ll wait till next Tuesday for the C,” said Zinco, “and we won’t try ‘Roberto’ for a week or so. Stick to the Solfeggi.”
“And I have not lost my voice, caro?”
“No more than I have lost a thousand pounds, poveretta.”
After this things went smoothly. Life seemed very dreary to Fiordelisa without the friend whose rare visits had been her delight; but her mind was braced and fortified by a steady purpose. She meant to win the great British public; and behind that indefinite monster there shone the image of the man she loved. He would go to the theatre where she sang. He would see her, and understand at last that she was beautiful and gifted, and worthy to be loved.
“And then he knows that I love him with all the strength of my heart,” she said to herself. “That ought to count for something. Yet when I told him of my love he shrank from me, as if he hated me for loving him. That is his cold English nature, perhaps. An Englishman does not like unasked love.”