Prince Fortunatus. Black William
"My goodness, Nina, I could guess what the inside of the rooms was like, if they were anything like those interminable and horrid stairs!" he exclaimed, with a laugh. "And you who were always so fond of pretty things, and flowers, and always so particular when we went to a restaurant—to live with the Debernardis!"
"Ah, Leo, you imagine not why?" she said, also laughing, and when she laughed her milk-white teeth shone merrily. "Old Pietro Debernardi he lives in England some years; he speaks English, perhaps not very well, but he speaks; then he teach me as he knows; and when it is possible I go on the Risposta and sail over to Capri, and all the way, and all the return, I listen, and listen, and listen to the English people; and I remember, and I practise alone in my own room, and I say, 'Leo, he must not ridicule me, when I go to England.'"
"Ridicule you!" said he, indignantly. "I wish I could speak Italian as freely as you speak English, Nina!"
"Oh, you speak Italian very well," said she. "But why you speak still the Neapolitan dialetto—dialect, is it right?—that you hear in the shops and the streets? Ah, I remember you are so proud of it, and when I try to teach you proper Italian, you laugh—you wish to speak like Sabetta Debernardi, and Giacomo, and the others. That is the fault to learn by ear, instead of the books correctly. And you have not forgotten yet!"
"Well, Nina," he resumed, "I don't seem to have frightened you with the possibility of your having to dress in the same room with two or three chorus-girls whom you don't know; and in fact, if I happened to be acquainted with the theatre, I dare say I could get the manager to make sure you were to dress along with some nice girl, who would show you how to make-up, and all that. But you would get a very small salary to begin with, Nina; perhaps only thirty shillings a week—and an extra pound a week when you had to take up your under-study duties—however, that need not trouble you, because we are old comrades, Nina, and while you are in England my purse is yours—"
She looked at him doubtfully.
"Ah, you don't understand," he said, gently. "It's only this, Nina: I have plenty of money; if you are a good comrade and a good friend, you will take from me what you want—always—at any moment—"
The pretty, pale-olive face flushed quickly, and for a brief second she glanced at him with grateful eyes; but it was perhaps to cover her embarrassment that she now rose from the piano, and pretended to be tired of the music and of these professional schemes.
"It is enough of booziness," she said, lightly; "come, Leo, will you go for a small walk?—have you time?"
"Oh, yes, I have time," said he, "but you must not say booziness, Nina? it is bizness."
"Beezness!—beezness!" she said, smiling. "It is enough of beezness. You go for a walk with me—yes? How beautiful the weather!" she continued, in a suddenly altered tone, as she looked out at the sunlit foliage of the Green Park; and then she murmured, almost to herself, in those soft Italian vowel sounds:
"Ah, Leo mio, che sarei felice d'essere in campagna!"
It was a kind of sigh; perhaps that was the reason she had inadvertently relapsed into her own tongue. And as they went down the stairs, and he opened the door for her, the few words he addressed to her were also in Italian.
"The country!" he said. "We will just step across the street, Nina, and you will find yourself in what is quite as pretty as the country at this time of year. You may fancy yourself sitting in the Villa Reale, if you could only have a flash of blue sea underneath the branches of the trees."
But when they had crossed over and got into the comparative quiet of the Park, she resolutely returned to her English again; and now she was telling him about the people in Naples whom he used to know, and of their various fortunes and circumstances. Sometimes neither of them spoke; for all this around them was very still and pleasant—the fresh foliage of the trees and the long lush grass of the enclosures as yet undimmed by the summer dust; the cool shadows thrown by the elms and limes just moving as the wind stirred the wide branches; altogether a world of soft, clear, sunny green, unbroken except by here and there a small copper beech with its bronze leaves become translucent in the hot light. It is true that the browsing sheep were abnormally black; and the yellow-billed starlings had perhaps less sheen on their feathers than they would have had in the country; nevertheless, for a park in the midst of a great city this place was very quiet and beautiful and sylvan; and indeed, when these two sat down on a couple of chairs under a fragrant hawthorn, Nina's lustrous dark eyes became wistful and absent, and she said,
"Yes, Leo, it is as you say in the house—it all appears a dream."
"What appears like a dream to you?" her companion asked.
"To be in London, sitting with you, Leo, and hearing you speak," she answered, in a low voice. "Often I think of it—often I think of London—wondering what it is like—and I ask myself, 'Will Leo be the same after his great renown? Are we friends as before?' and now I am here, and London is not dark and terrible with smoke, but we sit in gardens—oh, very beautiful!—and Leo is talking just as in the old way—perhaps it is a dream?" she continued, looking up with a smile. "Perhaps I wake soon?"
"Oh, no, it isn't a dream, Nina," said he, "only it might pass for one, for you haven't told me how you managed to get here. It is all a mystery to me. Where are you staying, for example?"
"My lodging?" she said. "I have an apartment in the Restaurant Gianuzzi."
"Where is that?"
"Rupert Street," she answered, with a valiant effort at the proper pronunciation.
"My goodness! what are you doing, Nina?" he said, almost angrily. "Living by yourself in a foreign restaurant, in the neighborhood of Leicester Square! You'll have to come out of that at once!"
"You must not scold me, Leo," she said, in rather a hurt way. "How am I to know?"
"I am not scolding you," he said (indeed, he knew better than to do that; if once the notion had got into her little head that he was really upbraiding her, she would have been up and off in a moment, proud-lipped, indignant-eyed, with a fierce wrong rankling in her heart; and weeks it might take him to pet her into gentleness again, even if she did not forthwith set out for the South, resolved to return to this harsh, cold England no more). "I am not scolding you, Nina," he said, quite gently. "Of course you didn't know. And of course you were attracted by the Italian name—you thought you would feel at home—"
"They are very nice people, yes, yes!" she said—and still she was inclined to hold her head erect, and her mouth was a little proud and offended.
"Very likely indeed," he said, with great consideration, "but, you see, Nina, a single young lady can't stay at a restaurant by herself, without knowing some one, some one to go about with her—"
"Why," she said, vehemently, almost scornfully, "you think I not know that! An Italian girl—and not know that! Last night, hour after hour, I sit and think, 'Oh, there is Leo singing now—if I may go to the theatre!—to sit and hear him—and think of the old days—and perhaps to write home to the maestro, and tell him of the grand fame of his scholar.' But no. I cannot go out. There is no time yet to see about chaperon. When it comes eleven hour, I say, 'The theatre is ceased;' and I go to bed. Then this morning I know no person; I say, 'Very well, I go and see Leo; he will understand;' it is how I meet him in the Chiaja, and he says, 'Good-morning, Nina; shall we go for a little walk out to Pozzuoli'—it is just the same."
"Yes, I understand well enough, Nina," said he, good-naturedly, "and I wasn't scolding you when I said you must get some better place to stay at while you are in London. Well, now, I am going to tell you something. I don't know much about what actors and actresses are in Italy, but here in England they are exceedingly generous to any of their number who have fallen into misfortune; and a case of the kind happened a little while ago. An actor, who used to be well known, died quite suddenly and left his widow entirely unprovided for; whereupon there was a subscription got up for her, and a morning performance, too, in which nearly all the leading actors and actresses managed to do something