FullReads

Thus far had she got in her meditations when she felt herself addressed in clear, half-mocking tones:

“And how, this evening, is Madamigella Ruth?”

So he had seen her this evening binding his corn.

“I am quite well, padrone,” she said, smiling shyly.

The two old ladies looked on amazed, for of course they were not in the secret.

“Signor Graziano, Miss Goneril Hamelyn,” said Miss Prunty, rather severely.

Goneril felt that the time had come for silence and good manners. She sat quite quiet over her embroidery, listening to the talk of Sontag, of Clementi, of musicians and singers dead and gone. She noticed that the ladies treated Signore Graziano with the utmost reverence, even the positive Miss Prunty furling her opinions in deference to his gayest hint. They talked too of Madame Lilli, and always as if she were still young and fair, as if she had died yesterday, leaving the echo of her triumph loud behind her. And yet all this had happened years before Goneril had ever seen the light.

“Mees Goneril is feeling very young!” said the signorino, suddenly turning his sharp, kind eyes upon her.

“Yes,” said Goneril, all confusion.

Madame Petrucci looked almost annoyed–the gay, serene little lady that nothing ever annoyed.

“It is she that is young!” she cried, in answer to an unspoken thought. “She is a baby!”

“Oh, I am seventeen!” said Goneril.

They all laughed, and seemed at ease again.

“Yes, yes; she is very young,” said the signorino.

But a little shadow had fallen across their placid entertainment: the spirit had left their memories; they seemed to have grown shapeless, dusty, as the fresh and comely faces of dead Etruscan kings crumble into mould at the touch of the pitiless sunshine.

“Signorino,” said Madame Petrucci, presently, “if you will accompany me we will perform one of your charming melodies.”

Signor Graziano rose a little stiffly and led the pretty, withered little diva to the piano.

Goneril looked on, wondering, admiring. The signorino’s thin white hands made a delicate, fluent melody, reminding her of running water under the rippled shade of trees, and, like a high, sweet bird, the thin, penetrating notes of the singer rose, swelled, and died away, admirably true and just even in this latter weakness. At the end Signor Graziano stopped his playing to give time for an elaborate cadenza. Suddenly Madame Petrucci gasped; a sharp discordant sound cracked the delicate finish of her singing. She put her handkerchief to her mouth.

“Bah!” she said, “this evening I am abominably husky.”

The tears rose to Goneril’s eyes. Was it so hard to grow old? This doubt made her voice loudest of all in the chorus of mutual praise and thanks which covered the song’s abrupt finale.

And then there came a terrible ordeal. Miss Prunty, anxious to divert the current of her friend’s ideas, had suggested that the girl should sing. Signor Graziano and madame insisted; they would take no refusal.

“Sing, sing, little bird!” cried the old lady.

“But, madame, how can one–after you?”

The homage in the young girl’s voice made the little diva more good-humouredly insistent than before, and Goneril was too well-bred to make a fuss. She stood by the piano wondering which to choose, the Handels that she always drawled or the Pinsuti that she always galloped. Suddenly she came by an inspiration.

“Madame,” she pleaded, “may I sing one of Angiolino’s songs?”

“Whatever you like, cara mia.”

And, standing by the piano, her arms hanging loose, she began a chant such as the peasants use working under the olives. Her voice was small and deep, with a peculiar thick sweetness that suited the song, half humourous, half pathetic. These were the words she sang:

“Vorrei morir di morte piccinina,
Morta la sera e viva la mattina.
Vorrei morire, e non vorrei morire,
Vorrei veder chi mi piange e chi ride;
Vorrei morir, e star sulle finestre,
Vorrei veder chi mi cuce la veste;
Vorrei morir, e stare sulla scala,
Vorrei veder chi mi porta la bara:
Vorrei morir, e vorre’ alzar la voce,
Vorrei veder chi mi porta la croce.”