Sandra Belloni by George Meredith, v5

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Not only did she know herself now a face of many faces; but the life
within her likewise as a soul of many souls. The one Emilia, so
unquestioning, so sure, lay dead; and a dozen new spirits, with but a dim
likeness to her, were fighting for possession of her frame, now occupying
it alone, now in couples; and each casting grim reflections on the other.
Which is only a way of telling you that the great result of mortal
suffering--consciousness--had fully set in; to ripen; perhaps to debase;
at any rate, to prove her.

To be of worth was still her fixed idea--all that was clear in the
thickening mist. "I cannot be ugly," she said, and reproved herself for
simulating a childish tone. "Why do I talk in that way? I know I am not
ugly. But if a fire scorched my face? There is nothing that seems
safe!" The love of friends was suggested to her as something to rely on;
and the loving them. "But if I have nothing to give!" said Emilia, and
opened both her empty hands. She had diverted her mind from the pressure
upon it, by this colloquy with a looking-glass, and gave herself a great
rapture by running up notes to this theme:--

"No, no, no, no, no!--nothing! nothing!"

Clear, full, sonant notes; the notes of her true voice. She did not
attempt them a second time; nor, when Sir Purcell requested her to sing
in the course of the evening, did she comply. "The Signora thinks I have
a cold," she said. Madame Marini protested that she hoped not, she even
thought not, though none could avoid it at this season in this climate,
and she turned to Sir Purcell to petition for any receipts he might have
in his possession, specifics for warding off the frightful affliction of
households in England.

"I have now twenty," said Madame, and throwing up her eyes; "I have tried
all! oh! so many lozenge!"

Marini and Emilia laughed. While Sir Purcell was maintaining the fact of
his total ignorance of the subject against Madame's incredulity, Emilia
left the room. When she came back Madame was pressing her visitor to be
explicit with regard to a certain process of cure conducted by an
application of cold water. The Neapolitan gave several shudders as she
marked him attentively. "Water cold!" she murmured with the deepest
pathos, and dropped her face in her hands with narrowed shoulders.
Emilia held a letter over to Sir Purcell. He took it, first assuring
himself that Marini was in complicity with them. To Marini Emilia
addressed a Momus forefinger, and Marini shrugged, smiling. "Water
cold!" ejaculated Madame, showing her countenance again. "In winter!
Luigi, they are mad!" Marini poked the fire briskly, for his sensations
entirely sided with his wife.

The letter Sir Purcell held contained these words:

"Be kind, and meet me to-morrow at ten in the morning, at that place
where you first saw me sitting. I want you to take me to one who
will help me. I cannot lose time any more. I must work. I have
been dead for I cannot say how long. I know you will come.

"I am, for ever,
"Your thankful friend,

"Emilia."

CHAPTER XXXIX

The pride of punctuality brought Sir Purcell to that appointed seat in
the gardens about a minute in advance of Emilia. She came hurrying up to
him with three fingers over her lips. The morning was cold; frost edged
the flat brown chestnut and beech leaves lying about on rimy grass; so at
first he made no remark on her evident unwillingness to open her mouth,
but a feverish look of her eyes touched him with some kindly alarm for
her.

"You should not have come out, if you think you are in any danger," he
said.

"Not if we walk fast," she replied, in a visibly-controlled excitement.
"It will be over in an hour. This way."

She led the marvelling gentleman toward the row, and across it under the
big black elms, begging him to walk faster. To accommodate her, he
suggested, that if they had any distance to go, they might ride, and
after a short calculating hesitation, she consented, letting him know
that she would tell him on what expedition she was bound whilst they were
riding. The accompaniment of the wheels, however, necessitated a higher
pitch of her voice, which apparently caused her to suffer from a
contraction of the throat, for she remained silent, with a discouraged
aspect, her full brown eyes showing as in a sombre meditation beneath the
thick brows. The direction had been given to the City. On they went
with the torrent, and were presently engulfed in fog. The roar grew
muffled, phantoms poured along the pavement, yellow beamless lights were
in the shop-windows, all the vehicles went at a slow march.

"It looks as if Business were attending its own obsequies," said Sir
Purcell, whose spirits were enlivened by an atmosphere that confirmed his
impression of things.

Emilia cried twice: "Oh! what cruel weather!" Her eyelids blinked,
either with anger or in misery.

They were set down a little beyond the Bank, and when they turned from
the cabman, Sir Purcell was warm in his offer of his arm to her, for he
had seen her wistfully touching what money she had in her pocket, and
approved her natural good breeding in allowing it to pass unmentioned.

"Now," he said, "I must know what you want to do."

"A quiet place! there is no quiet place in this City," said Emilia
fretfully.

A gentleman passing took off his hat, saying, with City politeness,
"Pardon me: you are close to a quiet place. Through that door, and the
hall, you will find a garden, where you will hear London as if it sounded
fifty miles off."

He bowed and retired, and the two (Emilia thankful, Sir Purcell tending
to anger), following his indication, soon found themselves in a most
perfect retreat, the solitude of which they had the misfortune, however,
of destroying for another, and a scared, couple.

Here Emilia said: "I have determined to go to Italy at once. Mr.
Pericles has offered to pay for me. It's my father's wish. And--and I
cannot wait and feel like a beggar. I must go. I shall always love
England--don't fear that!"

Sir Purcell smiled at the simplicity of her pleading look.

"Now, I want to know where to find Mr. Pericles," she pursued. "And if
you will come to him with me! He is sure to be very angry--I thought you
might protect me from that. But when he hears that I am really going at
last--at once!--he can laugh sometimes! you will see him rub his hands."

"I must enquire where his chambers are to be found," said Sir Purcell.

"Oh! anybody in the City must know him, because he is so rich." Emilia
coughed. "This fog kills me. Pray make haste. Dear friend, I trouble
you very much, but I want to get away from this. I can hardly breathe.
I shall have no heart for my task, if I don't see him soon."

"Wait for me, then," said Sir Purcell; "you cannot wait in a better
place. And I must entreat you to be careful." He half alluded to the
adjustment of her shawl, and to anything else, as far as she might choose
to apprehend him. Her dexterity in tossing him the letter, unseen by
Madame Marini, might have frightened him and given him a dread, that
albeit woman, there was germ of wickedness in her.

This pained him acutely, for he never forgot that she had been the means
of his introduction to Cornelia, from whom he could not wholly dissociate
her: and the idea that any prospective shred of impurity hung about one
who had even looked on his beloved, was utter anguish to the keen
sentimentalist. "Be very careful," he would have repeated, but that he
had a warning sense of the ludicrous, and Emilia's large eyes when they
fixed calmly on a face were not of a flighty east She stood, too, with
the "dignity of sadness," as he was pleased to phrase it.

"She must be safe here," he said to himself. And yet, upon reflection,
he decided not to leave her, peremptorily informing her to that effect.
Emilia took his arm, and as they were passing through the hall of
entrance they met the same gentleman who had directed them to the spot of
quiet. Both she and Sir Purcell heard him say to a companion: "There she
is." A deep glow covered Emilia's face. "Do they know you?" asked Sir
Purcell. "No," she said: and then he turned, but the couple had gone on.

"That deserves chastisement," he muttered. Briefly telling her to wait,
he pursued them. Emilia was standing in the gateway, not at all
comprehending why she was alone. "Sandra Belloni!" struck her ear.
Looking forward she perceived a hand and a head gesticulating from a cab-
window. She sprang out into the street, and instantly the hand clenched
and the head glared savagely. It was Mr. Pericles himself, in travelling
costume.

"I am your fool?" he began, overbearing Emilia's most irritating "How are
you?" and "Are you quite well?

"I am your fool? hein? You send me to Paris! to Geneve! I go over Lago
Maggiore, and aha! it is your joke, meess! I juste return. Oh capital!
At Milano I wait--I enquire--till a letter from old Belloni, and I learn
I am your fool--of you all! Jomp in."

"A gentleman is coming," said Emilia, by no means intimidated, though the
forehead of Mr. Pericles looked portentous. "He was bringing me to you."

"Zen, jomp in!" cried Mr. Pericles.

Here Sir Purcell came up.

Emilia said softly: "Mr. Pericles."

There was the form of a bow of moderate recognition between them, but
other hats were off to Emilia. The two gentlemen who had offended Sir
Purcell had insisted, on learning the nature of their offence, that they
had a right to present their regrets to the lady in person, and beg an
excuse from her lips. Sir Purcell stood white with a futile effort at
self-control, as one of them, preluding "Pardon me," said: "I had the
misfortune to remark to my friend, as I passed you, 'There she is.' May
I, indeed, ask your pardon? My friend is an artist. I met him after I
had first seen you. He, at least, does not think foolish my
recommendation to him that he should look on you at all hazards. Let me
petition you to overlook the impertinence."

"I think, gentlemen, you have now made the most of the advantage my
folly, in supposing you would regret or apologize fittingly for an
impropriety, has given you," interposed Sir Purcell.

His new and superior tone (for he had previously lost his temper and
spoken with a silly vehemence) caused them to hesitate. One begged the
word of pardon from Emilia to cover his retreat. She gave it with an air
of thorough-bred repose, saying, "I willingly pardon you," and looking at
them no more, whereupon they vanished. Ten minutes later, Emilia and Sir
Purcell were in the chambers of Mr. Pericles.

The Greek had done nothing but grin obnoxiously to every word spoken on
the way, drawing his hand down across his jaw, to efface the hard pale
wrinkles, and eyeing Emilia's cavalier with his shrewdest suspicious
look.

"You will excuse,"--he pointed to the confusion of the room they were in,
and the heap of unopened letters,--"I am from ze Continent; I do not
expect ze pleasure. A seat?"

Mr. Pericles handed chairs to his visitors.

"It is a climate, is it not," he resumed.

Emilia said a word, and he snapped at her, immediately adding, "Hein?
Ah! so!" with a charming urbanity.

"How lucky that we should meet you," exclaimed Emilia. "We were just
coming to you--to find out, I mean, where you were, and call on you."

"Ough! do not tell me lies," said Mr. Pericles, clasping the hollow of
his cheeks between thumb and forefinger.

"Allow me to assure you that what Miss Belloni has said is perfectly
correct," Sir Purcell remarked.

Mr. Pericles gave a short bow. "It is ze same; I am much obliged."

"And you have just come from Italy?" said Emilia.

"Where you did me ze favour to send me, it is true. Sanks!"

"Oh, what a difference between Italy and this!" Emilia turned her face
to the mottled yellow windows.

"Many sanks," repeated Mr. Pericles, after which the three continued
silent for a time.

At last Emilia said, bluntly, "I have come to ask you to take me to
Italy."

Mr. Pericles made no sign, but Sir Purcell leaned forward to her with a
gaze of astonishment, almost of horror.

"Will you take me?" persisted Emilia.

Still the sullen Greek refused either to look at her or to answer.

"Because I am ready to go," she went on. "I want to go at once; to-day,
if you like. I am getting too old to waste an hour."

Mr. Pericles uncrossed his legs, ejaculating, "What a fog! Ah!" and that
was all. He rose, and went to a cupboard.

Sir Purcell murmured hurriedly in Emilia's ear, "Have you considered what
you've been saying?"

"Yes, yes. It is only a journey," Emilia replied, in a like tone.

"A journey!"

"My father wishes it."

"Your mother?"

"Hush! I intend to make him take the Madre with me."

She designated Mr. Pericles, who had poured into a small liqueur glass
some green Chartreuse, smelling strong of pines. His visitors declined
to eject the London fog by this aid of the mountain monks, and Mr.
Pericles warmed himself alone.

"You are wiz old Belloni," he called out.

"I am not staying with my father," said Emilia.

"Where?" Mr. Pericles shed a baleful glance on Sir Purcell.

"I am staying with Signor Marini."

"Servente!" Mr. Pericles ducked his head quite low, while his hand swept
the floor with an imaginary cap. Malice had lighted up his features, and
finding, after the first burst of sarcasm, that it was vain to indulge it
toward an absent person, he altered his style. "Look," he cried to
Emilia, "it is Marini stops you and old Belloni--a conspirator, aha! Is
it for an artist to conspire, and be carbonaro, and kiss books, and, mon
Dieu! bon! it is Marini plays me zis trick. I mark him. I mark him, I
say! He is paid by young Pole. I hold zat family in my hand, I say! So
I go to be met by you, and on I go to Italy. I get a letter at Milano,--
"Marini stop me at Dover," signed "Giuseppe Belloni." Ze letter have
been spied into by ze Austrians. I am watched--I am dogged--I am
imprisoned--I am examined. 'You know zis Giuseppe Belloni? 'Meine
Herrn! he was to come. I leave word at Paris for him, at Geneve, at
Stresa, to bring his daughter to ze Conservatoire, for which I pay. She
has a voice--or she had.'"

"Has!" exclaimed Emilia.

"Had!" Mr. Pericles repeated.

"She has!"

"Zen sing!" with which thunder of command, Mr. Pericles gave up his
vindictive narration of the points of his injuries sustained, and,
pitching into a chair, pressed his fingers to his temples, frowning
attention. His eyes were on the floor. Presently he glanced up, and saw
Emilia's chest rising quickly. No voice issued.

"It is to commence," cried Mr. Pericles. "Hein! now sing."

Emilia laid her hand under her throat. "Not now! Oh, not now! When you
have told me what those Austrians did to you. I want to hear; I am very
anxious to hear. And what they said of my father. How could he have
come to Milan without a passport? He had only a passport to Paris."

"And at Paris I leave instructions for ze procuration of a passport over
Lombardy. Am I not Antonio Pericles Agriolopoulos? Sing, I say!"

"Ah, but what voices you must have heard in Italy," said Emilia softly.
"I am afraid to sing after them. Si: I dare not."

She panted, little in keeping with the cajolery of her tones, but she had
got Mr. Pericles upon a theme serious to his mind.

"Not a voice! not one!" he cried, stamping his foot. "All is French. I
go twice wizin six monz, and if I go to a goose-yard I hear better. Oh,
yes! it is tune--"ta-ta-ta--ti-ti-ti--to!" and of ze heart--where is zat?
Mon Dieu! I despair. I see music go dead. Let me hear you, Sandra."

His enthusiasm had always affected Emilia, and painfully since her love
had given her a consciousness of infidelity to her Art, but now the
pathetic appeal to her took away her strength, and tears rose in her eyes
at the thought of his faith in her. His repetition of her name--the
'Sandra' being uttered with unwonted softness--plunged her into a fit of
weeping.

"Ah!" Mr. Pericles shouted. "See what she has come to!" and he walked
two or three paces off to turn upon her spitefully. "she will be
vapeurs, nerfs, I know not! when it wants a physique of a saint! Sandra
Belloni," he added, gravely, "lift up ze head! Sing, 'Sempre al tuo
santo nome.'"

Emilia checked her tears. His hand being raised to beat time, she could
not withstand the signal. "Sempre;"--there came two struggling notes, to
which another clung, shuddering like two creatures on the deeps.

She stopped; herself oddly calling out "Stop."

"Stop who, donc?" Mr. Pericles postured an indignant interrogation.

"I mean, I must stop," Emilia faltered. "It's the fog. I cannot sing in
this fog. It chokes me."

Apparently Mr. Pericles was about to say something frightfully savage,
which was restrained by the presence of Sir Purcell. He went to the door
in answer to a knock, while Emilia drew breath as calmly as she might;
her head moving a little backward with her breathing, in a sad mechanical
way painful to witness. Sir Purcell stretched his hand out to her, but
she did not take it. She was listening to voices at the door. Was it
really Mr. Pole who was there? Quite unaware of the effect the sight of
her would produce on him, Emilia rose and walked to the doorway. She
heard Mr. Pole abusing Mr. Pericles half banteringly for his absence
while business was urgent, saying that they must lay their heads together
and consult, otherwise--a significant indication appeared to close the
sentence.

"But if you've just come off your journey, and have got a lady in there,
we must postpone, I suppose. Say, this afternoon. I'll keep up to the
mark, if nothing happens...."

Emilia pushed the door from the hand of Mr. Pericles, and was advancing
toward the old man on the landing; but no sooner did the latter verify to
his startled understanding that he had seen her, than with an exclamation
of "All right! good-bye!" he began a rapid descent, of the stairs. A
distance below, he bade Mr. Pericles take care of her, and as an excuse
for his abrupt retreat, the word "busy" sounded up.

"Does my face frighten him?" Emilia thought. It made her look on herself
with a foreign eye. This is a dreadful but instructive piece of
contemplation; acting as if the rich warm blood of self should have
ceased to hug about us, and we stand forth to be dissected unresistingly.
All Emilia's vital strength now seemed to vanish. At the renewal of Mr.
Pericles' peremptory mandate for her to sing, she could neither appeal to
him, nor resist; but, raising her chest, she made her best effort, and
then covered her face. This was done less for concealment of her shame-
stricken features than to avoid sight of the stupefaction imprinted upon
Mr. Pericles.

"Again, zat A flat!" he called sternly.

She tried it.

"Again!"

Again she did her utmost to accomplish the task. If you have seen a girl
in a fit of sobs elevate her head, with hard-shut eyelids, while her
nostrils convulsively take in a long breath, as if for speech, but it is
expended in one quick vacant sigh, you know how Emilia looked. And it
requires a humane nature to pardon such an aspect in a person from whom
we have expected triumphing glances and strong thrilling tones.

"What is zis?" Mr. Pericles came nearer to her.

He would listen to no charges against the atmosphere. Commanding her to
give one simple run of notes, a contralto octave, he stood over her with
keenly watchful eyes. Sir Purcell bade him observe her distress.

"I am much obliged," Mr. Pericles bowed. "she is ruined. I have
suspected. Ha! But I ask for a note! One!"

This imperious signal drew her to another attempt. The deplorable sound
that came sent Emilia sinking down with a groan.

"Basta, basta! So, it is zis tale," said Mr. Pericles, after
an observation of her huddled shape. "Did I not say--"

His voice was so menacingly loud and harsh that Sir Purcell remarked:
"This is not the time to repeat it--pardon me--whatever you said."

"Ze fool--she play ze fool! Sir, I forget ze Christian--ah! Purcell!--I
say she play ze fool, and look at her! Why is it she comes to me now? A
dozen times I warn her. To Italy! to Italy! all is ready: you will have
a place at ze Conservatorio. No: she refuse. I say 'Go, and you are a
queen. You are a Prima at twenty, and Europe is beneas you.' No: she
refuse, and she is ruined. 'What,' I say, 'what zat dam silly smile
mean?' Oh, no! I am not lazy!' 'But you area fool!' 'Oh, no!' 'And
what are you, zen? And what shall you do?' Nussing! nussing! nussing!
And, dam! zere is an end."

Emilia had caught blindly at Sir Purcell's hand, by which she raised
herself, and then uncovering her face, looked furtively at the malign
furnace-white face of Mr. Pericles.

"It cannot have gone,"--she spoke, as if mentally balancing the
possibility.

"It has gone, I say; and you know why, Mademoiselle ze Fool!" Mr.
Pericles retorted.

"No, no; it can't be gone. Gone? voices never go!"

The reiteration of the "You know why," from Mr. Pericles, and all the
wretchedness of loss it suggested, robbed her of the little spark of
nervous fire by which she felt half-reviving in courage and confidence.

"Let me try once more," she appealed to him, in a frenzy.

Mr. Pericles, though fully believing in his heart that it might only be a
temporary deprivation of voice, affected to scout the notion of another
trial, but finally extended his forefinger: "Well, now; start! 'Sempre
al tuo Santo!' Commence: Sem--" and Mr. Pericles hummed the opening bar,
not as an unhopeful man would do. The next moment he was laughing
horribly. Emilia, to make sure of the thing she dreaded, forced the
note, and would not be denied. What voice there was in her came to the
summons. It issued, if I may so express it, ragged, as if it had torn
through a briar-hedge: then there was a whimper of tones, and the effect
was like the lamentation of a hardly-used urchin, lacking a certain music
that there is in his undoubted heartfelt earnestness. No single note
poised firmly for the instant, but swayed, trembling on its neighbour to
right and to left when pressed for articulate sound, it went into a
ghastly whisper. The laughter of Mr. Pericles was pleasing discord in
comparison.

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Am I ill? I must be hungry!
Depreciating it after the fashion of chartered hypocrites.
Fine Shades were still too dominant at Brookfield
He thinks that the country must be saved by its women as well
I know that your father has been hearing tales told of me
My voice! I have my voice! Emilia had cried it out to herself
She had great awe of the word 'business'

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