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 aboutto 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 asort of peasant, also on horseback, who wore a brown cloth jacket cut atthe elbows. A gourd was slung over his shoulder and a pistol was hangingat his belt, his hand grasped a gun, the butt of which rested in aleathern pocket fastened to his saddle-bow--in short, he wore thecomplete costume of a brigand in a melodrama, or of the middle-classCorsican on his travels. Miss Nevil's attention was first attracted bythe woman's remarkable beauty. She seemed about twenty years of age; shewas tall and pale, with dark blue eyes, red lips, and teeth like enamel.In her expression pride, anxiety, and sadness were all legible. On herhead she wore a black silk veil called a _mezzaro_, which the Genoeseintroduced into Corsica, and which is so becoming to women. Long braidsof chestnut hair formed a sort of turban round her head. Her dress wasneat, 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 ona subject which, to judge from the expression of her eyes, must haveinterested her exceedingly. Then, as soon as she received an answer,she touched her mount with her riding-switch, and, breaking into a quicktrot, never halted till she reached the door of the hotel in which SirThomas Nevil and Orso were staying. There, after exchanging a few wordswith the host, the girl sprang nimbly from her saddle and seated herselfon a stone bench beside the entrance door, while her groom led thehorses away to the stable. Miss Lydia, in her Paris gown, passed closebeside the stranger, who did not raise her eyes. A quarter of an hourlater she opened her window, and saw the lady in the _mezzaro_ stillsitting in the same place and in the same attitude. Not long afterwardthe colonel and Orso returned from hunting. Then the landlord said a fewwords to the young lady in mourning, and pointed to della Rebbia withhis finger. She coloured deeply, rose eagerly, went a few paces forward,and then stopped short, apparently much confused. Orso was quite closeto her, and was looking at her curiously.
"Are you Orso Antonio della Rebbia?" said she in a tremulous voice. "Iam Colomba."
"Colomba!" cried Orso.
And taking her in his arms he kissed her tenderly, somewhat to thesurprise of the colonel and his daughter--but in England people do notkiss each other in the street.
"Brother," said Colomba, "you must forgive me for having come withoutyour permission. But I heard from our friends that you had arrived, andit 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 recognisedif she had not told me her name--Colomba--Colonel Sir ThomasNevil--colonel, you will kindly excuse me, but I can not have the honourof dining with you to-day. My sister--"
"But, my dear fellow, where the devil do you expect to dine? You knowvery well there is only one dinner in this infernal tavern, and we havebespoken it. It will afford my daughter great pleasure if this younglady will join us."
Colomba looked at her brother, who did not need much pressing, and theyall passed together into the largest room in the inn, which the colonelused as his sitting and dining room. Mademoiselle della Rebbia, on beingintroduced to Miss Nevil, made her a deep courtesy, but she didnot utter a single word. It was easy to see that she was very muchfrightened at finding herself, perhaps for the first time in her life,in the company of strangers belonging to the great world. Yet there wasnothing provincial in her manners. The novelty of her position excusedher awkwardness. Miss Nevil took a liking to her at once, and, as therewas no room disengaged in the hotel, the whole of which was occupied bythe colonel and his attendants, she offered, either out of condescensionor curiosity, to have a bed prepared in her own room for Mademoiselledella Rebbia.
Colomba stammered a few words of thanks, and hastened after Miss Nevil'smaid, to make such changes in her toilet as were rendered necessary by ajourney on horseback in the dust and heat.
When she re-entered the sitting-room, she paused in front of thecolonel'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 theyare handsome."
"How much I wish you had one like them!" said Colomba.
"One of those three certainly does belong to della Rebbia," exclaimedthe colonel. "He really shoots almost too well! To-day he fired fourteenshots, and brought down fourteen head of game."
A friendly dispute at once ensued, in which Orso was vanquished, tohis sister's great satisfaction, as it was easy to perceive from thechildish expression of delight which illumined her face, so serious amoment 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 plainestof 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 hisembarrassment.
Miss Lydia was delighted to notice that Colomba, who had shownconsiderable reluctance to sit down with them, and had yielded only ata glance from her brother, crossed herself, like a good Catholic, beforeshe began to eat.
"Good!" said she to herself, "that is primitive!" and she anticipatedacquiring many interesting facts by observing this youthfulrepresentative of ancient Corsican manners. As for Orso, he wasevidently a trifle uneasy, fearing, doubtless, that his sister mightsay or do something which savoured too much of her native village. ButColomba watched him constantly, and regulated all her own movements byhis. Sometimes she looked at him fixedly, with a strange expression ofsadness, and then, if Orso's eyes met hers, he was the first to turnthem away, as though he would evade some question which his sister wasmentally addressing to him, the sense of which he understood onlytoo well. Everybody talked French, for the colonel could only expresshimself very badly in Italian. Colomba understood French, andeven pronounced the few words she was obliged to exchange with herentertainers tolerably well.
After dinner, the colonel, who had noticed the sort of constraint whichexisted between the brother and sister, inquired of Orso, withhis customary frankness, whether he did not wish to be alone withMademoiselle Colomba, offering, in that case, to go into the next roomwith his daughter. But Orso hastened to thank him, and to assure himthey would have plenty of time to talk at Pietranera--this was the nameof the village where he was to take up his abode.
The colonel then resumed his customary position on the sofa, and MissNevil, after attempting several subjects of conversation, gave up allhope of inducing the fair Colomba to talk, and begged Orso to read hera canto out of Dante, her favourite poet. Orso chose the canto of theInferno, containing the episode of Francesca da Rimini, and began toread, as impressively as he was able, the glorious tiercets which soadmirably express the risk run by two young persons who venture to reada 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, andstirred convulsively in her chair. How admirable is the Italianorganization, which can understand poetry without needing a pedant toexplain 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 smilethat it was written by a Florentine poet, who had been dead forcenturies.
"You shall read Dante," said Orso, "when you are at Pietranera."
"Good heavens, how beautiful it is!" said Colomba again, and sherepeated three or four tierce
ts which she had remembered, speaking atfirst 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 delightyou 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 atverse-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 heardof the Corsican _improvisatrici_, and was dying to hear one. She beggedColomba, then, to give her a specimen of her powers. Very much vexednow at having made any mention of his sister's poetic gifts, Orsointerposed. In vain did he protest that nothing was so insipid as aCorsican _ballata_, and that to recite the Corsican verses after thoseof Dante was like betraying his country. All he did was to stimulateMiss 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 thetable-cloth, and then at the rafters of the ceiling; at last, coveringher eyes with her hand like those birds that gather courage, and fancythey are not seen when they no longer see themselves, she sang, orrather declaimed, in an unsteady voice, the following _serenata_: