Part 44

"Oh, si, quelquefois!"

"Cantez couelquécoze--zé vous accompagnerai sous la guitare!--n'ayez pas paoure--nous sommes indoulgents, elle et moi--"

"Oh--je m'accompagnerai bien moi-même comme je pourrai--" said Barty, and took the guitar, and sang a little French Tyrolienne called "Fleur des Alpes," which he could always sing quite beautifully; and the effect was droll indeed.

Marianina wept; the signore went down on his knees in a theatrical manner to him, and called him "maestro" and other big Italian names; the Frau signora, with tears in her eyes, asked permission to kiss his hand, which his modesty refused--he kissed hers instead.

"He was a great genius, a bird of God, who had amused himself by making fools of poor, innocent, humble, wandering minstrels. Oh, would he not be generous as he was great and be one of them for a few days, and take half the profits--more--whatever he liked?" etc.

And indeed they immediately saw the business side of the question, and were, to do them justice, immensely liberal in their conditions of partnership--and also most distressingly persistent, with adulations that got more and more fulsome the more he held back.

There was a long discussion. Barty had to be quite brutal at the end--told them he was not a musician, but a painter, and that nothing on earth should induce him to join them in their concert.

And finally, much crestfallen and somewhat huffed, the pair went out to post their placards all over the town, and Barty went for a bath and a long walk--suddenly feeling sad again and horribly one-eyed and maimed, and more wofully northless and homeless and friendless than ever.

Blankenberghe was already very full, and when he got back he saw the famous placards everywhere. And found his friends cooking their dinner, and was pressed to join them; and did so--producing a magnificent pasty and some hot-house grapes and two bottles of wine as a peace-offering--and was forgiven.

And after dinner they all sat on grain-sacks together in the large granary, and made music--with lady's-maids and valets and servants of the house for a most genial and appreciative audience--and had a very pleasant evening; and Barty came to the conclusion that he had mistaken his trade--that he sang devilish well, in fact; and so he did.

Whatever his technical shortcomings might be, he could make any tune sound pretty when he sang it. He had the native gift of ease, pathos, rhythm, humor, and charm--and a delightful sympathetic twang in his voice. His mother must have sung something like that; and all Paris went mad about her. No technical teaching in the world can ever match a genuine inheritance; and that's a fact.

Next morning they all bathed together, and Barty unheroically and quite obscurely saved a life.

The signore and his fat white signora went dancing out into the Sunny waves and right away seawards.

Then came Barty with an all-round shirt-collar round his neck and a white tie on, to conceal his seton, and a pair of blue spectacles for the glare. And behind him Marianina, hopping on and following as best she might. He turned round to encourage her, and she had suddenly disappeared; half uneasy, he went back a step or two, and saw her little pale-brown face gasping just beneath the surface--she had just got out of her depth.

He snatched her out, and she clung to him like a small monkey and cried dreadfully, and was sick all over him and herself. He managed to get her back on shore and washed and dried and consoled her before her people came back--and had the tact not to mention this adventure, guessing what fillips she would catch on her poor little pink nose for her stupidity. She looked her gratitude for this reticence of his in the most touching way, with her big black eyes--and had a cunning smile of delight at their common tacit understanding. Her rescuer from a watery grave did not apply for the "médaille de sauvetage"!

Barty took an immense walk that day to avoid the common repast; he was getting very tired of the two senior Veroneses.

The concert in the evening was a tremendous success. The blatant signore sang his Figaro song very well indeed--it suited him better than little feminine love-ditties. The signora was loud and passionate and dramatic in "Roberto"; and Belgians make more allowance for a German accent in French than Parisians; besides, it was not quite their own language that was being murdered before them. It may be, some day! I sincerely hope so. Je leur veux du bien.

Poor little Marianina stood on her six music-books and played with immense care and earnestness, just like a frightened but well-trained poodle walking on its hind-legs--one eye on her music and the tail of the other on her father, who accompanied her with his guitar. She got an encore, to Barty's great relief; and to hers too, no doubt--if she hadn't, fillips on the nose for supper that night! Then there were more solos and duets, with obbligatos for the violin.

Next day Veronese and his wife were in high feather at the Kursaal, where they had sung the night before.

A very distinguished military foreigner, in attendance on some august personage from Spain or Portugal (and later from Ostend), warmly and publicly complimented the signore on "his admirable rendering of 'Largo al factotum'--which, as his dear old friend Rossini had once told him (the General), he (Rossini) had always modestly looked upon as the one thing he had ever written with which he was almost pleased!"

Marianina also received warm commendation from this agreeable old soldier, while quite a fashionable crowd was listening; and Veronese arranged for another concert that evening, and placarded the town accordingly.

Barty managed to escape any more meals in the Casa Veronese, but took Marianina for one or two pleasant walks, and told her stories and sang to her in the grenier, while she improvised for him clever little obbligatos on her fiddle.

He found a cheap eating-house and picked up a companion or two to chat with. He also killed time with his seton-dressing and self dry-cupping--and hired French novels and read them as much as he dared with his remaining eye, about which he was morbidly nervous; he always fancied it would get its retina congested like the other, in which no improvement manifested itself whatever--and this depressed him very much. He was a most impatient patient.

To return. The second concert was as conspicuous a failure as the first had been a success: the attendance was small and less distinguished, and there was no enthusiasm. The Frau signora slipped a note and lost her temper in the middle of "Roberto," and sang out of tune and with careless, open contempt of her audience, and this the audience seemed to understand and openly resent. Poor Marianina was frightened, and played very wrong notes under the furious gaze of her papa, and finally broke down and cried, and there were some hisses for him, as well as kind and encouraging applause for the child. Then up jumps Barty and gets on the platform and takes the signore's guitar and twangs it, and smiles all round benignly--immense applause!

Then he pats Marianina's thin pale cheek and wipes her eyes and gives her a kiss. Frantic applause! Then "Fleur des Alpes!"

Ovation! encore! bis! ter!

And for a third encore he sings a very pretty little Flemish ballad about the rose without a thorn--"Het Roosje uit de Dorne." It is the only Flemish song he knows, and I hope I have spelt it right! And the audience goes quite crazy with enthusiasm, and everybody goes home happy, even the Veroneses--and Marianina does not get filliped that night.

After this the Veroneses tried humbler spheres for the display of their talents, and in less than a week exhausted every pothouse and beer-tavern and low drinking-shop in Blankenberghe! and at last they took to performing for casual coppers in the open street, and went very rapidly down hill. The signore lost his jauntiness and grew sordid and soiled and shabby and humble; the signora looked like a sulky, dirty, draggle-tailed fury, ready to break out into violence on the slightest provocation; poor Marianina got paler and thinner, and Barty was very unhappy about her. The only things left rosy about her were her bruised nose, and her fingers, that always seemed stiff with cold; indeed, they were blue rather than rosy--and anything but clean.