He stayed for an hour or so, sipped half a cup of straw-coloured tea which Lisa fondly believed was made in the English manner, and then departed, promising to call again when he had found a singing-master.
“I shall be very particular in my choice, Signora,” he said gaily. “First and foremost, the Maestro must be old and ugly, lest you should fall in love with him; next, he must be a genius, for he is to teach you in a year what most people take three years to learn; and he must be a neglected genius, because we want to get him cheap.”
“I wish the good little man who taught me the mandoline were in London,” said Lisa.
Vansittart could not echo that wish, since the good little man must needs know the story of that midnight in the caffè, and he wanted no such Venetian in London.
“We shall find someone better than your professor,” he answered; “and that reminds me I have never heard you play on your mandoline.”
“Would you like?” asked Lisa, sparkling with almost as happy a smile as he remembered when she sat at the little table in the crowded Black Hat, before the beginning of trouble.
The mandoline was hanging against the wall, decked with a bunch of ribbons, red, white, and green. She took it down, and seated herself by the window, in the sunlight, and began to tinkle out “Batti, batti,” in thin, wiry tones, while the boy left his bricks on the floor and came and stood at her knee, open-mouthed, open-eyed, intently listening.
“Sing, Lisa, sing,” said la Zia.
Lisa laughed, blushed, looked shyly at Vansittart, as if she feared his critical powers, and then began that tenderest melody in a fresh young voice, whose every note was round and ripe and full of power. Nor was the singer lacking in expression; the tender legato passages were given with a pleading pathos that touched the listener almost to tears.
“Brava, Signora mia!” he cried, at the end of the song. “Your voice is worlds too good to be drowned in a middle-aged chorus. To my ear you sing ‘Batti, batti,’ as well as the most famous Zerlina I ever heard. Two years hence, or sooner perhaps, we shall have the new Venetian prima donna, Signora Vivanti, taking the town by storm. But we must make haste, and find our Maestro, able to coach you in all the great operas.”
He had to explain that word coach to Lisa, whose knowledge of English had made rapid progress during her residence in the country, and who had a quick apprehension of every new word or phrase.
He left her, charmed at the discovery that she could sing so well, and that her future was therefore so full of hope. He was pleased with her gentleness, her simplicity, her frank acceptance of his friendly services, pleased most of all by the thought that by his protection of these two lonely women he was in some measure atoning for his crime. Yet there were points upon which his conscience remained unsatisfied—questions that he wanted to ask—and to this end he dropped in upon the little family on the third floor three or four times before the Easter holidays.
He was not long in finding the ideal singing-master. An application to one of the chief music publishers and concert-givers brought him in relation with a Milanese musician, who played the cello at the Apollo, the new opera-house on the Embankment—the very man Vansittart wanted, ugly enough to satisfy the most jealous husband, elderly, but not old enough to fall asleep in the middle of a lesson; a man of character and talent, but not one of Fortune’s favourites, and therefore willing to give lessons on moderate terms.
This gentleman’s opinion of Signora Vivanti’s voice was most encouraging, and his manner of expressing that opinion seemed so modest and conscientious that Vansittart was fain to believe him.
“La Signora is absolutely ignorant of music,” said the Professor, “but if she is industrious and persevering she has a fortune in her throat.”
Lisa took very kindly to the Professor, and showed no lack of industry. She was an obedient pupil, and worked very patiently at her piano, which was a much harder ordeal for the untrained fingers than the solfeggi were for the birdlike voice. All her hours unclaimed by the theatre were free for study, since la Zia bore the whole burden of household cares, the marketing and cooking, and the looking after the little boy.
One afternoon, shortly before Easter, Vansittart, calling after a week’s interval, was admitted by Lisa instead of by her aunt, who usually opened the door.
La Zia had gone into London in quest of certain Italian comestibles, only procurable in the foreign settlements of Soho, and Fiordelisa was alone with her boy. It was an opportunity that Vansittart had been hoping for, the chance of questioning her about the dead man, whose manes, though in some wise propitiated as he thought, had a trick of haunting him now and again.
“Lisa,” he began gently, forgetting that he had forbidden himself that familiar address, “there is something that I want to talk about—if—if I were sure it would not grieve you too much. I want you to tell me—more—about the man you loved—the man I killed. I know what sorrow his death brought upon you; but, tell me, was there no one else to grieve for him? Had he no kindred in England—father, mother, brothers, sisters?”
“I think not,” she answered gravely. “He never
