Colomba

CHAPTER V

The next day, a short time before the sportsmen came back, Miss Nevil, returning with her maid from a walk along the seashore, was just about to enter the inn, when she noticed a young woman, dressed in black, riding into the town on a small but strong horse. She was followed by a sort of peasant, also on horseback, who wore a brown cloth jacket cut at the elbows. A gourd was slung over his shoulder and a pistol was hanging at his belt, his hand grasped a gun, the butt of which rested in a leathern pocket fastened to his saddle-bow—in short, he wore the complete costume of a brigand in a melodrama, or of the middle-class Corsican on his travels. Miss Nevil’s attention was first attracted by the woman’s remarkable beauty. She seemed about twenty years of age; she was tall and pale, with dark blue eyes, red lips, and teeth like enamel. In her expression pride, anxiety, and sadness were all legible. On her head she wore a black silk veil called a mezzaro, which the Genoese introduced into Corsica, and which is so becoming to women. Long braids of chestnut hair formed a sort of turban round her head. Her dress was neat, but simple in the extreme.

Miss Nevil had plenty of time to observe her, for the lady in the mezzaro had halted in the street, and was questioning somebody on a subject which, to judge from the expression of her eyes, must have interested her exceedingly. Then, as soon as she received an answer, she touched her mount with her riding-switch, and, breaking into a quick trot, never halted till she reached the door of the hotel in which Sir Thomas Nevil and Orso were staying. There, after exchanging a few words with the host, the girl sprang nimbly from her saddle and seated herself on a stone bench beside the entrance door, while her groom led the horses away to the stable. Miss Lydia, in her Paris gown, passed close beside the stranger, who did not raise her eyes. A quarter of an hour later she opened her window, and saw the lady in the mezzaro still sitting in the same place and in the same attitude. Not long afterward the colonel and Orso returned from hunting. Then the landlord said a few words to the young lady in mourning, and pointed to della Rebbia with his finger. She coloured deeply, rose eagerly, went a few paces forward, and then stopped short, apparently much confused. Orso was quite close to her, and was looking at her curiously.

“Are you Orso Antonio della Rebbia?” said she in a tremulous voice. “I am Colomba.”

“Colomba!” cried Orso.

And taking her in his arms he kissed her tenderly, somewhat to the surprise of the colonel and his daughter—but in England people do not kiss each other in the street.

“Brother,” said Colomba, “you must forgive me for having come without your permission. But I heard from our friends that you had arrived, and it is such a great consolation to me to see you.”

Again Orso kissed her. Then, turning to the colonel:

“This is my sister,” said he, “whom I never should have recognised if she had not told me her name—Colomba—Colonel Sir Thomas Nevil—colonel, you will kindly excuse me, but I can not have the honour of dining with you to-day. My sister—”

“But, my dear fellow, where the devil do you expect to dine? You know very well there is only one dinner in this infernal tavern, and we have bespoken it. It will afford my daughter great pleasure if this young lady will join us.”

Colomba looked at her brother, who did not need much pressing, and they all passed together into the largest room in the inn, which the colonel used as his sitting and dining room. Mademoiselle della Rebbia, on being introduced to Miss Nevil, made her a deep courtesy, but she did not utter a single word. It was easy to see that she was very much frightened at finding herself, perhaps for the first time in her life, in the company of strangers belonging to the great world. Yet there was nothing provincial in her manners. The novelty of her position excused her awkwardness. Miss Nevil took a liking to her at once, and, as there was no room disengaged in the hotel, the whole of which was occupied by the colonel and his attendants, she offered, either out of condescension or curiosity, to have a bed prepared in her own room for Mademoiselle della Rebbia.

Colomba stammered a few words of thanks, and hastened after Miss Nevil’s maid, to make such changes in her toilet as were rendered necessary by a journey on horseback in the dust and heat.

When she re-entered the sitting-room, she paused in front of the colonel’s guns, which the hunters had left in a corner.

“What fine weapons,” said she. “Are they yours, brother?”

“No, they are the colonel’s English guns—and they are as good as they are handsome.”

“How much I wish you had one like them!” said Colomba.

“One of those three certainly does belong to della Rebbia,” exclaimed the colonel. “He really shoots almost too well! To-day he fired fourteen shots, and brought down fourteen head of game.”

A friendly dispute at once ensued, in which Orso was vanquished, to his sister’s great satisfaction, as it was easy to perceive from the childish expression of delight which illumined her face, so serious a moment before.

“Choose, my dear fellow,” said the colonel; but Orso refused.

“Very well, then. Your sister shall choose for you.”

Colomba did not wait for a second invitation. She took up the plainest of the guns, but it was a first-rate Manton of large calibre.

“This one,” she said, “must carry a ball a long distance.”

Her brother was growing quite confused in his expressions of gratitude, when dinner appeared, very opportunely, to help him out of his embarrassment.

Miss Lydia was delighted to notice that Colomba, who had shown considerable reluctance to sit down with them, and had yielded only at a glance from her brother, crossed herself, like a good Catholic, before she began to eat.

“Good!” said she to herself, “that is primitive!” and she anticipated acquiring many interesting facts by observing this youthful representative of ancient Corsican manners. As for Orso, he was evidently a trifle uneasy, fearing, doubtless, that his sister might say or do something which savoured too much of her native village. But Colomba watched him constantly, and regulated all her own movements by his. Sometimes she looked at him fixedly, with a strange expression of sadness, and then, if Orso’s eyes met hers, he was the first to turn them away, as though he would evade some question which his sister was mentally addressing to him, the sense of which he understood only too well. Everybody talked French, for the colonel could only express himself very badly in Italian. Colomba understood French, and even pronounced the few words she was obliged to exchange with her entertainers tolerably well.

After dinner, the colonel, who had noticed the sort of constraint which existed between the brother and sister, inquired of Orso, with his customary frankness, whether he did not wish to be alone with Mademoiselle Colomba, offering, in that case, to go into the next room with his daughter. But Orso hastened to thank him, and to assure him they would have plenty of time to talk at Pietranera—this was the name of the village where he was to take up his abode.

The colonel then resumed his customary position on the sofa, and Miss Nevil, after attempting several subjects of conversation, gave up all hope of inducing the fair Colomba to talk, and begged Orso to read her a canto out of Dante, her favourite poet. Orso chose the canto of the Inferno, containing the episode of Francesca da Rimini, and began to read, as impressively as he was able, the glorious tiercets which so admirably express the risk run by two young persons who venture to read a love-story together. As he read on Colomba drew nearer to the table, and raised her head, which she had kept lowered. Her wide-open eyes, shone with extraordinary fire, she grew red and pale by turns, and stirred convulsively in her chair. How admirable is the Italian organization, which can understand poetry without needing a pedant to explain its beauties!

When the canto was finished:

“How beautiful that is!” she exclaimed. “Who wrote it, brother?”

Orso was a little disconcerted, and Miss Lydia answered with a smile that it was written by a Florentine poet, who had been dead for centuries.

“You shall read Dante,” said Orso, “when you are at Pietranera.”

“Good heavens, how beautiful it is!” said Colomba again, and she repeated three or four tiercets which she had remembered, speaking at first in an undertone; then, growing excited, she declaimed them aloud, with far more expression than her brother had put into his reading.

Miss Lydia was very much astonished.

“You seem very fond of poetry,” she said. “How I envy you the delight you will find in reading Dante for the first time!”

“You see, Miss Nevil,” said Orso, “what a power Dante’s lines must have, when they so move a wild young savage who knows nothing but her Pater. But I am mistaken! I recollect now that Colomba belongs to the guild. Even when she was quite a little child she used to try her hand at verse-making, and my father used to write me word that she was the best voceratrice in Pietranera, and for two leagues round about.”

Colomba cast an imploring glance at her brother. Miss Nevil had heard of the Corsican improvisatrici, and was dying to hear one. She begged Colomba, then, to give her a specimen of her powers. Very much vexed now at having made any mention of his sister’s poetic gifts, Orso interposed. In vain did he protest that nothing was so insipid as a Corsican ballata, and that to recite the Corsican verses after those of Dante was like betraying his country. All he did was to stimulate Miss Nevil’s curiosity, and at last he was obliged to say to his sister:

“Well! well! improvise something—but let it be short!”

Colomba heaved a sigh, looked fixedly for a moment, first at the table-cloth, and then at the rafters of the ceiling; at last, covering her eyes with her hand like those birds that gather courage, and fancy they are not seen when they no longer see themselves, she sang, or rather declaimed, in an unsteady voice, the following serenata:

“THE MAIDEN AND THE TURTLE-DOVE

“In the valley, far away among the mountains, the sun only shines for an hour every day. In the valley there stands a gloomy house, and grass grows on its threshold. Doors and windows are always shut. No smoke rises from the roof. But at noon, when the sunshine falls, a window opens, and the orphan girl sits spinning at her wheel. She spins, and as she works, she sings—a song of sadness. But no other song comes to answer hers! One day—a day in spring-time—a turtle-dove settled on a tree hard by, and heard the maiden’s song. ‘Maiden,’ it said, ‘thou art not the only mourner! A cruel hawk has snatched my mate from me!’ ‘Turtle-dove, show me that cruel hawk; were it to soar higher than the clouds I would soon bring it down to earth! But who will restore to me, unhappy that I am, my brother, now in a far country?’ ‘Maiden, tell me, where thy brother is, and my wings shall bear me to him.’”

“A well-bred turtle-dove, indeed!” exclaimed Orso, and the emotion with which he kissed his sister contrasted strongly with the jesting tone in which he spoke.

“Your song is delightful,” said Miss Lydia. “You must write it in my album; I’ll translate it into English, and have it set to music.”

The worthy colonel, who had not understood a single word, added his compliments to his daughter’s and added: “Is this dove you speak of the bird we ate broiled at dinner to-day?”

Miss Nevil fetched her album, and was not a little surprised to see the improvisatrice write down her song, with so much care in the matter of economizing space.

The lines, instead of being separate, were all run together, as far as the breadth of the paper would permit, so that they did not agree with the accepted definition of poetic composition—“short lines of unequal length, with a margin on each side of them.” Mademoiselle Colomba’s somewhat fanciful spelling might also have excited comment. More than once Miss Nevil was seen to smile, and Orso’s fraternal vanity suffered tortures.

Bedtime came, and the two young girls retired to their room. There, while Miss Lydia unclasped her necklace, ear-rings, and bracelets, she watched her companion draw something out of her gown—something as long as a stay-busk, but very different in shape. Carefully, almost stealthily, Colomba slipped this object under her mezzaro, which she laid on the table. Then she knelt down, and said her prayers devoutly. Two minutes afterward she was in her bed. Miss Lydia, naturally very inquisitive, and as slow as every Englishwoman is about undressing herself, moved over to the table, pretended she was looking for a pin, lifted up the mezzaro, and saw a long stiletto—curiously mounted in silver and mother-of-pearl. The workmanship was remarkably fine. It was an ancient weapon, and just the sort of one an amateur would have prized very highly.

“Is it the custom here,” inquired Miss Nevil, with a smile, “for young ladies to wear such little instruments as these in their bodices?”

“It is,” answered Colomba, with a sigh. “There are so many wicked people about!”

“And would you really have the courage to strike with it, like this?” And Miss Nevil, dagger in hand, made a gesture of stabbing from above, as actors do on the stage.

“Yes,” said Colomba, in her soft, musical voice, “if I had to do it to protect myself or my friends. But you must not hold it like that, you might wound yourself if the person you were going to stab were to draw back.” Then, sitting up in bed, “See,” she added, “you must strike like this—upward! If you do so, the thrust is sure to kill, they say. Happy are they who never need such weapons.”

She sighed, dropped her head back on the pillow, and closed her eyes. A more noble, beautiful, virginal head it would be impossible to imagine. Phidias would have asked no other model for Minerva.