Yes, that was in Naples. In the confused glory of the shifting scenes some memories stood out clearly, and held Nancy's recollection. It was in Naples that no seat had been reserved for her in the immense and crowded concert-hall, and that the manager had told her of a lady who would give her a seat in her own box: box 5, tier 2—Nancy remembered it still. And when Anne-Marie, duly kissed and blessed, stepped out, violin in hand, upon the platform, Nancy was still running along the empty corridors of tier 2, looking for box 5. Here it was! There was a lady in it alone. Nancy bowed to her and took her seat, murmuring: "Grazie." Then, with tightly folded hands, she had whispered the little prayer she always said for God to help Anne-Marie. And, as always, the prayer was answered, for Anne-Marie played grandly and suavely, never even dreaming that help could be needed.
Nancy sat in the box, tense and terrified as usual, waiting for the tranquil eyes of Anne-Marie to wander round the auditorium and find her. There! They found her, and shone and twinkled. Then the Spirit of Music dropped its great wings between them, and carried away little Anne-Marie, swinging and singing her out of reach—out of reach of her mother's love, farther than Nancy could follow.
The lady in black took her pocket-handkerchief and pressed it to her eyes. Nancy was used to the gesture, but it always moved her. She put her hand lightly on the arm of the unknown woman whose heart her little girl's music had wrung.
The last piece was ended, and the well-known cries of applause were starting from all corners of the house, when Nancy rose quickly to go back to Anne-Marie. The woman in black put back her veil, and said:
"My name is Villari."
Nancy remembered the name. All that Aldo had told, all that Nino had not told, years ago swept into her mind. She looked curiously into the tired face, under its helmet of dark-red tinted hair. There were many lines in the face. Nancy thought it looked like a map, and along the many little lines Nancy's eyes seemed to travel into a sad and distant country. She put out her hand.
"I know your name well," said Nancy. "I salute the great artist."
The woman sighed deeply. "I salute the happy mother," she said. Then she pulled down her veil and turned away.
Nancy hastened along the crowded corridors, where people in groups were discussing her little daughter, and the words, "wonderful! marvellous! incredible!" beat with their accustomed soft wing on her ears.
"Happy mother!" Oh yes, she was a happy mother! She said it over and over again, and repeated it to herself as she tied the soft woollen scarf round Anne-Marie's head, and again as they made their way through the cheering crowd, and the outstretched hands, and the waving hats. She repeated it as she sat in the motor open to the balmy Neapolitan night, and held Anne-Marie tightly as she stood up on the seat, waving both small hands to the surrounding throng. The little standing figure swayed as the carriage moved swiftly down the street. Soon the shouting people were left behind, and Anne-Marie slid down to her place near her mother. Beyond the Gulf, Vesuvius breathed its glowing rhythmic breath, and the waters glittered. Nancy remembered that this was Aldo's birthplace; and then she forgot it in the lilt of the usual dulcet words:
"Did you like my concert, mother dear?"
The phrase had now become a formula which they repeated laughingly like the refrain of a song. Of all the hours of the rushing turbulent day, this was the hour of joy for Nancy. Anne-Marie, who was elfish and impish, made strange by her music, and made wild by the worship of many people, in this one hour became a little tender child again, softer and sweeter than the day-time Anne-Marie, nearer and more human than the concert Anne-Marie, who was a strange, inaccessible being that Nancy sometimes thought could not really belong to her.
Fräulein and Bemolle followed them in another carriage. No one since the impresario had ever dared to intrude upon this sacred starlit hour of their love.
Did Nancy's heart ever regret her own hopes of glory? Did she remember her unwritten Book? Did she feel the wounded place of the wings that she had torn out? Never! She lived for Anne-Marie and in Anne-Marie. Little by little the chimera of inspiration drew away from her. She forgot that she had once clasped Fame to her own breast. No words, no visions, no dreams haunted her any more. She breathed in the music Anne-Marie played. She dreamed the music Anne-Marie composed. The Pied Piper had passed her; his call dragged at her soul no more. The eagle of her genius no more shook and shattered her with the wild beating of his wings. She was like the Silent Violin—the music that her soul had not sung was dead.
XXV
It was in Paris that what Nancy had so often vaguely dreaded and expected happened at last. She was alone in the hotel in her own quiet sitting-room when the lift-boy knocked at the door, and on her careless response a visitor was ushered in. It was Aldo—Aldo with a square beard and a dangling eyeglass, hat in hand, and faultlessly attired.
He stood before her, gazing at her face. Then he put his hat on a chair, extended both hands, and said in a deep, fervent voice:
"Nancy!"
Nancy had risen with quick, indrawn breath, and stood, slim and pale, in her soft-tinted dressing-gown. He took another step towards her, still with both hands outstretched. Nancy put out a diffident hand, and her husband clasped it fervently in both his own. On his little finger was a diamond ring. He bent his sleek black head over Nancy's hand and kissed it.
"Thank God!" he murmured, and sank into a chair.
Nancy wondered what he was thanking God for. Aldo himself was not very clear about it, but it seemed an appropriate thing to say. And he had nothing else ready. The embarrassing silence was broken by Aldo. He said:
"Nancy, I have returned!"
Nancy said, "Yes," and thought disconnected thoughts about his beard and his diamond ring.
"You have thought cruel thoughts of me during all this time?"
No, Nancy had not thought cruel thoughts.
"You have left off loving me?"
Nancy looked at him with vague, dazed eyes, and smiled without knowing why. Aldo tried not to notice the smile. He said:
"Will you never forgive me?"
"Oh yes, I suppose so," said Nancy; and she smiled again.
She thought it funny that this strange man with the square beard and the dangling eyeglass should be asking her to forgive him, and questioning her about love. Nothing about him seemed in the least familiar. His hair, that used to be parted in the middle, now waved back from his forehead; his fan-shaped beard altered his face and made him look like a Frenchman; even his hat, square and high and narrow-rimmed, lying on her chair, had in it an element of utter strangeness.
"What are you laughing at?" said Aldo. And some tone of offended vanity in his voice startled her memory, and suddenly it was up and awake.
"I am not laughing," said Nancy, and she began to cry. That was the attitude that Aldo had expected, and knew how to cope with. A cold, light-eyed woman with an ambiguous smile was an uncomfortable and uncertain thing. But a woman in tears was a sight he had often seen, and he understood the meaning of the bowed head and the significance of the hidden face. He was beside her, his arm round her narrow shoulders. "Nancy, don't cry, don't cry! I have been a brute. But I will atone. I will repay you in happiness a thousandfold for all that you have suffered!"
Still she wept with her face hidden in her hands.
"I am rich. I have more money than we shall know how to spend."
The heaving shoulders stopped heaving. They seemed to be waiting, listening. There was distrust in those waiting shoulders, so he hurried out:
"It is all right. I have not gambled or done anything disreputable. The money has been left to me"—still the shoulders waited—"by a—by—an old person whom I befriended. She has died and left me her money. I deserved it. I was very good to her—"