She smiled with sweet mischief.
"Oh, Miss Benette, thank you a thousand times! for whether it is to be true or not, I think it is a very good fortune to be told. Has she told you yours?"
"Yes, often; at least as much as she told you about yourself, she has revealed to me."
"Can she tell all people their fortunes?"
"I will ask her."
She turned to our bright Fate and spoke. On receiving a short, low reply, as Thoné left the room, she again addressed me. "She says, 'I cannot prophesy for the pure English, if there be any, because the letters of their characters are not distinct. All I know in all, is how much there is of ours in each.'"
"I don't know what she means."
"No more do I."
"Oh, Miss Benette, you do!" For her arch smile fluttered over her lips.
"So I do; but, Master Auchester, it is getting very late,—you must go, unless I may give you some tea. And your mother would like you to be home. Therefore, go now."
I wanted to shake hands with her, but she made no show of willingness, so I did not dare, and instantly I departed. What a wonderful spell it was that bound me to the dull lane at the end of the town! Certainly it is out of English life in England one must go for the mysteries and realities of existence. I was just in time for our tea. As I walked into the parlor the fire shone, and so did the kettle, singing to itself; for in our Englishlife we eschewed urns. Clo was reading, Lydia at the board, Millicent was cutting great slices of homemade bread. I thought to myself, "How differently we all manage here! If Millicent did but dare, I know she would behave and talk like Miss Benette."
"How is the young lady this afternoon, Charles? I wish you to ask her to come and drink tea with us on Sunday after service."
"Yes, mother; is Mr. Davy coming?"
"He promised the other night."
"And Charles," added Clo, "do not forget that you must go with me to-morrow and be measured for a jacket."
"I am to wear one at last, then?"
"Yes, for now you are really growing too tall for frocks."
I was very glad; for I abjured those braided garments, compassing about my very heels with bondage, with utter satisfaction. Still, I was amused. "I suppose it is for this party I am going to," thought I.
The next day at class, Laura's place still being empty, I watched eagerly for Clara. The people were pouring in at the door, and I, knowing their faces, could not but feel how unlike she was to them all, when in the way she appeared, so bright in her dark dress, with her cloudless forehead and air of ecstatic innocence. She spoke to me to-day.
"How are you?"
"Quite well; and you, Miss Benette? But I want you to listen to me presently; seriously, I have something to say."
"I'll wait," and she took her seat.
Davy extolled our anthem, and did not stop us once, which fact was unprecedented. We all applaudedhimwhen he praisedus, at which he laughed, but was evidently much pleased. In fact, he had already made for himself a name and fame in the town, and the antagonistic jealousy of the resident professors could not cope therewith, without being worsted; they had given him up, and now let him alone,—thus his sensitive nature was less attacked, and his energy had livelier play. When the class divided, Miss Benette looked round at me: "I am at your service, Master Auchester."
I gave her my mother's message. She was sweet and calm as ever, but still grave, and she said, "I am very grateful to your mother, and to those young ladies your sisters; but I never do go anywhere out to tea."
"But, Miss Benette, you are going to that party at the Redferns'."
"I am going to sing there,—that is different. It is very hard to me not to come, but I must not, because I have laid it upon myself to do nothing but study until I come out. Because, you see, if I make friends now, I might lose them then, for they might not like to know me."
"Miss Benette!"—I stamped my foot—"how dare you say so? We should always be proud to know you."
"I cannot tell that," she retorted; "it might be, or it might not. Perhaps you will think I am right one day. I should like to have come," she persisted bewitchingly. But I was inwardly hurt, and I daresay she thought me outwardly sulky, for it was all I could do to wish her good-evening like a "young gentleman," as she had called me.
I said to Millicent, when we were walking the next morning, that I had had my fortune told. We had a long conversation. I saw she was very anxious to disabuse me of the belief that I must necessarily be what, in myself, I had always held myself ready to become, and I laughed her quite to scorn.
"But, Charles," she remonstrated, "if this is to be, you must be educated with a direct view to those purposes."
"So I shall be; but when she said medicine she did not mean I should be an apothecary, Millicent," and I laughed the more.
"No, I rather think it is music you ought to profess. But in that case you will require high as well as profound instruction."
"I mean to profess an instrument, and I mean to go to Germany and learn all about it."
"My dear boy!"
"Yes, I do, and I know I shall; but as I have not chosen my instrument yet, I shall wait."
Millicent herself laughed heartily at this. "Would you like to learn the horn, Charles? or the flute? or perhaps that new instrument, the ophicleide?" And so the subject dwindled into a joke for that while. I then told her in strict confidence about Laura. I scarcely ever saw her so much excited to interest; she evidently almost thought Clara herself angelic, and to my delight she at length promised to call with me upon her, if I would ascertain that it would be convenient. I shall never forget, too, that Millicent begged for me from my mother some baked apples, some delicate spiced jelly, and some of her privately concocted lozenges, for Laura. I do think my mother would have liked to dispense these lastà la largesseamong the populace. I carried these treasures in a small basket to Miss Benette, and saw her just long enough to receive her assurance that she should be so pleased if my sister would come and look at her work.
Sweet child! as indeed she was by the right of Genius (who, if Eros be immortal youth, hath alone immortal fancy),—she had laid every piece of her beauteous work, every scrap of net or cambric, down to that very last handkerchief, upon the table, which she had covered with a crimson shawl, doubtless some relic of her luxurious mother conserved for her. And with the instinct of that ideal she certainly created in her life, she had interspersed the lovely manufactures with little bunches of wild-flowers and green, and a few berries of the wild rose-tree, ripe and red.
I was enchanted. I was proud beyond measure to introduce to her my sister; proud of them both.Millicent was astonished, amazed; I could see she was quite puzzled with pleasure, but more than all she seemed lost in watching Clara's calm, cloudless face.
"Which of the pieces do you like best?" asked Miss Benette at last, after we had fully examined all.
"Oh! it is really impossible to say; but if I could prefer, I should confess, perhaps, that this is the most exquisitely imagined;" and Millicent pointed to a veil of thin white net, with the border worked in the most delicate shades of green floss silk, a perfect wreath of myrtle-leaves; and the white flowers seemed to tremble amidst that shadowy garland. I never saw anything to approach them; they were far more natural than any paintings.
Miss Benette took this veil up in her little pink hands, and folding it very small, and wrapping it in silver paper, presented it to Millicent, saying, in a child-like but most touching manner, "You must take it, then, that you may not think I am ungrateful; and I am so glad you chose that."
As Millicent said, it would have been impossible to have refused her anything. I quite longed to cry, and the tears stood in my tender-hearted sister's eyes; but Clara seemed entirely unconscious she had done anything touching or pretty or complete.
If I go on in this way, raking the embers of reminiscence into rosy flames, I shall never emancipate myself into the second great phase of my existence. It is positively necessary that I should not revert to that veil at present, or I should have to delineate astonishment and admiration that had no end.
At last the day came, and having excited myself the whole morning about the Redferns, I left off thinking of them, and returned to myself. Although it portends little, I may transmit to posterity the fact that my new clothes came home at half-past three, and my mother beheld me arrayed in them at five. Davy had all our parts and the songs of Miss Benette, for she was to sing alone if requested to do so, and was to be ready, when I should call, to accompany me.
I was at length pronounced at liberty to depart,—that is, everybody had examined me from head to foot. I had a sprig of the largest myrtle in the greenhouse quilted into the second and third button-holes, and my white gloves were placed in my pocket by Clo, after she had wrapped them in white paper. I privately carried a sprig of myrtle, too, for Miss Benette: it was covered with blossom, and of a very fine species. Thoné never answered the door in St. Anthony's Lane, but invariably the same extraordinary figure who had startled me on my first visit. She stared so long with the door in her hand, this time, that I rushed past her and ran up the stairs.
Still singing! Yes, there she was, in her little bonnet, but from head to foot enveloped in a monstrous cloak; I could not see what dress she wore. It was November now, and getting very dusk; but we had both expressed a wish to walk, and Davy always preferred it. Howcurious his shell looked in the uncertain gleam! The tiny garden, as immaculate as ever, wore the paler shine of asters and Michaelmas daisies; and the casement above, being open, revealed Davy watching for us through the twilight. He came down instantly, sweeping the flower-shrubs with his little cloak, and having locked the door and put the key into his pocket, he accosted us joyously, shaking hands with us both. But he held all the music under his cloak too, nor would I proceed until he suffered me to carry it. We called for Mr. Newton, our companion tenor, who lived a short way in the town. He met us with white gloves ready put on, and in the bravery of a white waistcoat, which he exhibited through the opening of his jauntily hung great-coat. I left him behind with Davy, and again found myself with Miss Benette. I began to grow nervous when, having passed the shops and factories of that district, we emerged upon the Lawborough Road, lit by a lamp placed here and there, with dark night looming in the distant highway. Again we passed house after house standing back in masses of black evergreen; but about not a few there was silence, and no light from within. At length, forewarned by rolling wheels that had left us far behind them, we left the gate of the Priory and walked up to the door.
It was a very large house, and one of the carriages had just driven off as Davy announced his name. One of three footmen, lolling in the portico, aroused and led us to a room at the side of the hall, shutting us in. It was a handsome room, though small, furnished with a looking-glass; here were also various coats and hats reposing upon chairs. I looked at myself in the glass while Davy and our tenor gave themselves the last touch, and then left it clear for them. I perceived that Miss Benette had notcome in with us, or had stayed behind. She had taken off her bonnet elsewhere, and when we were all ready, and the door was opened, I saw her once more, standing underneath the lamp. I could not find out how she was dressed; her frock was, as usual, black silk, but of the very richest. She wore long sleeves, and drooping falls upon her wrists of the finest black lace; no white against her delicate throat, except that in front she had placed a small but really magnificent row of pearls. Her silky dark hair she wore, as usual, slightly drooped on either temple, but neither curled nor banded. I presented her with the myrtle sprig, which she twisted into her pearls, seeming pleased with it; but otherwise she was very unexcited, though very bright. I was not bright, but very much excited; I quite shook as we walked up the soft stair-carpet side by side. She looked at me in evident surprise.
"You need not be nervous, Master Auchester, I assure you!"
"It is going into the drawing-room, and being introduced, I hate; will there be many people, do you think?"
She opened her blue eyes very wide when I asked her, and then, with a smile quite new to me upon her face, a most enchanting but sorely contemptuous smile, she said,—
"Oh! we are not going in there,—did you think so? There is a separate room for us, in which we are to sip our coffee."
I was truly astonished, but I had not time to frame any expression; we were ushered forward into the room she had suggested. It was a sort of inner drawing-room apparently, for there were closed folding-doors in the wall that opposed the entrance. An elegant chandelierhung over a central rosewood table; on this table lay abundance of music, evidently sorted with some care. Two tall wax-candles upon the mantelshelf were reflected in a tall mirror in tall silver sticks; the gold-colored walls were pictureless, and crimson damask was draperied and festooned at the shuttered window. Crimson silk chairs stood about, and so did the people in the room, whom we began, Clara and I, to scrutinize. Standing at the table by Davy, and pointing with a white kid finger to the music thereon arranged, was an individual with the organs of melody and of benevolence in about equal development; he was talking very fast. I was sure I knew his face, and so I did. It was the very Mr. Westley who came upon us in the corridor at the festival. He taught the younger Miss Redferns, of whom there was a swarm; and as they grew they were passed up to the tuition of Monsieur Mirandos, a haughtily-behaved being, in the middle of the rug, warming his hands, gloves and all, and gazing with the self-consciousness of pianist primo then and there present. It was Clara who initiated me into this fact, and also that he taught the competent elders of that exclusively feminine flock, and that he was the author of a grand fantasia which had neither predecessor nor descendant. Miss Benette and I had taken two chairs in the corner next the crimson curtain, and nestling in there we laughed and we talked.
"Who is the man in a blue coat with bright buttons, now looking up at the chandelier?" I inquired.
"That is a man who has given his name an Italian termination, but I forget it. He has a great name for getting up concerts, and I daresay he will be a sort of director to-night."
So it was, at least so it seemed, for he at last left theroom, and returning presented us each with a sheet of pink-satin note-paper, on which were named and written in order the compositions awaiting interpretation. We looked eagerly to see where our first glee came.
"Oh! not for a good while, Master Auchester. But do look, here is that Mirandos going to play hisgrande fantaisie sur des motifs militaires. Oh! who is that coming in?"
Here Miss Benette interrupted herself, and I, excited by her accent, looked up simultaneously.
As for me, I knew directly who it was, for the gentleman entering at the door so carelessly, at the same time appearing to take in the whole room with his glance, had a violin-case in his hand. I shall not forget his manner of being immediately at home, nodding to one and another amiably, but with a slight sneer upon his lip, which he probably could not help, as his mouth was very finely cut. I felt certain it was Santonio; and while the gentleman upon the rug addressed him very excitedly, and received a cool reply, though I could not hear what it was, for all the men were talking, Davy came up to us and confirmed my presentiment.
"What a handsome gentleman he is, but how he stares!" said Clara, in a serious manner that set me laughing; and then Davy whispered "Hush!"
But it was of little use, for Santonio came up now to our corner, and deposited his case on the next chair to Miss Benette, looking at her all the while and at me, so that we could well see his face. It was certainly very handsome,—a trifle too handsome, perhaps, yet full of harmonious lines, and the features were very pure. His complexion was glowing, yet fair, and passed well by contrast into the hue of his eyes, which were of that musical gray more blue than slate-colored.Had he been less handsome, the Hebrew contour might have been more easily detected; as it was, it was clear to me, but might not have occurred to others who did not look for it. A brilliant person, such as I have seldom seen, he yet interested more by his gestures, his way of scanning, and smiling to himself, his defiant self-composure, something discomposing to those about him, than by his positive personal attractions. Having examined us, he examined also Davy, and said specially, "How are you?"
"Quite well, thank you," replied our master; "I had no right to expect you would remember me, Mr. Santonio."
"Oh! I never forget anybody," was the reply; "I often wish I did, for I have seen everybody now, and there is no one else to see."
"Oh!" thought I to myself, but I said nothing, "you have not seenone." For I felt sure, I knew not why, that he had not.
"Is this your son, Davy?" questioned he, once more speaking, and looking down upon me for an instant.
"Certainly not; my pupil and favorite alto."
"Is he for the profession, then?"
"What do you say, Charles?"
"Yes, Mr. Davy, certainly."
"If I don't mistake, it will not be alto long, though," said Santonio, with lightness; "his arm and hand are ready made for me."
I was so transported that I believe I should have knelt before Santonio but that, as lightly as he had spoken, he had turned again away. It was as if he had not said those words, so unaltered was his face, with those curved eyebrows; and I wished he had left me alone altogether, I felt so insignificant. It was a goodthing for me that now there entered footmen very stately, with silver trays, upon which they carried coffee, very strong and cold, and chilly green tea. We helped ourselves, every one, and then it was I really began to enjoy the exclusion with which we had been visited; for we all seemed shut in and belonging to each other. The pianist primo joked with Santonio, and Mr. Westley attacked Davy, while Newton and the man in the blue coat with bright buttons wore the subject of the festival to a thread; for the former had been away, and the latter had been there, and the latter enlightened the former, and more than enlightened him, and where his memory failed, invented, never knowing that I, who had been present, was listening and judging,—as Clara said, "he was making up stories;" and indeed it was a surprise for me to discover such an imagination dwelling in a frame so adipose.
Santonio at last attracted our whole attention by pouring his coffee into the fire, and asking a footman, who had re-entered with wafers and tea-cakes, for some more coffee that was hot; and while we were all laughing very loud, another footman, a shade more pompous than this, threw back the folding-doors that divided us from the impenetrable saloon. As those doors stood open we peeped in.
"How many people there are!" said I.
"Yes," said Clara, "but they are not very wise."
"Why do you suppose not?"
"First, because they have set the piano close up against the wall. Mr. Davy will have it out, I know."
"I see a great many young ladies in pink frocks,—I suppose the Miss Redferns."
"See that man, Master Auchester, who is looking down at the legs of the piano, to find out how they are put on."
And thus we talked and laughed until Santonio had finished his coffee, quite as if no one was either in that room or in the next.
"It was not warm, after all," said he to Mirandos; but this was in a lower tone, and he put on an air of hauteur withal that became him wonderfully. Then I found that we had all become very quiet, and there had grown a hush through the next room, so that it looked like a vast picture, of chandeliers all light, tall glasses, ruddy curtains, and people gayly yet lightly dressed. The men in there spoiled the picture, though,—they none of them looked comfortable: men seldom do in England at an evening party. Our set, indeed, looked comfortable enough, though Davy was a little pale; I very well knew why. At last in came the footman again; he spoke to the gentleman in the blue coat with bright buttons.Hebowed, looked red, and walked up to Davy. Miss Benette's song came first, I knew; and I declare the blood quite burned at my heart with feeling for her. How little I knew her really! Almost before I could look for her, she was gone from my side; I watched her into the next room. She walked across it just as she was used to cross her own little lonely room at home, except that she just touched Davy's arm. As she had predicted, he drew the piano several feet from the wall,—it was a grand piano—and she took her place by him. As serenely, as seriously, with that bright light upon her face which was as the sunshine amidst those lamps, she seemed, and I believe was, as serene, as serious, as when at home over her exquisite broidery. No music was before Davy as he commenced the opening symphony of one of Weber's most delighting airs. The public was just fresh from the pathos of Weber's early death, and everybodyrushed to hear his music. She began with an intensity that astonished even me,—an ease that so completely instilled the meaning that I ceased to be alarmed or to tremble for her. Her voice even then held promise of what it has since become, as perfectly as does the rose-bud, half open, contain the rose. I have seen singers smile while they sang; I have watched them sing with the tears upon their cheeks: yet I never saw any one sing so seriously as Miss Benette, calmly, because it is her nature, and above all, with an evident facility so peculiar that I have ceased to reverence conquered difficulties so much as I believe I ought to do for the sake of art. Everybody was very quiet, quieter than at many public concerts; but this audience was half stupefied with curiosity, as well as replete with the novelty of the style itself. Everybody who has enthusiasm knows the effect of candle-light upon the brain during the performance of music anywhere, and just as we were situated there was a strange romance, I thought. Santonio stood upon the rug; a very sweet expression sat upon his lips,—I thought evenhewas enchanted; and when Clara was silent and had come back again so quietly, without any flush upon her face, I thought he would surely come too and compliment her. But no, he was to play himself, and had taken out his violin.
It was a little violin, and he lifted it as if it had been a flower or an infant, and laid his head lovingly upon it while he touched the strings. They, even those pizzicato hints, seemed to me to be sounds borne out of another sphere, so painfully susceptible I became instantly to the power of the instrument itself.
"It is to be the Grand Sonata, I see."
"No, sir," said Davy, who had come back with Miss Benette.
"Yes, but I shall not play with Mirandos; we settled that, Miss Lawrence and I."
"Who is Miss Lawrence?"
"An ally of mine."
"In the room?"
"Yes, yes. Don't talk, Davy; she is coming after me. Your servant, Miss Lawrence!"
I beheld a young lady in the doorway.
"So, Mr. Santonio, you are not ready? They are all very impatient for a sight of you."
"I am entirely at your service."
"Come, then."
She beckoned with her hand. It was all so sudden that I could only determine the color of her hair, black; and of her brocaded dress, a dark blue. Her voice was in tone satirical, and she spoke like one accustomed to be obeyed. When Santonio entered, there began a buzzing, and various worthies in white kid gloves clustered round the piano. He drew the desk this side of the instrument, so that not only his back was turned to us, but he screened Miss Lawrence also; and I was provoked that I could see nothing but the pearls that were twisted with her braided hair. It was one of Beethoven's complete works to be interpreted, a divine duo for violin and piano, that had then never been heard in England, except at the Philharmonic concerts; and I did not know the name even then of the Philharmonic. And when it began, an indescribable sensation of awe, of bliss, of almost anguish, pervaded me,—it was the very bitter of enjoyment; but I could not realize it for a long time.
The perfection of Santonio's bowing never tempted him to eccentricity, and no one could have dreamed of comparing him with Paganini, so his fame was safe.But I knew nothing of Paganini, and merely felt from head to foot as if I were the violin and he was playing upon me, so completely was I drawn into the performance, body and soul,—not the performance merely, let me say; as a violinist now, my conviction is that the influence is as much physical as supernatural of my adopted instrument. That time my nerves were so much affected that I trembled in every part of me. Internally I was weeping, but my tears overflowed not my eyes.
Santonio'scantabile, whatever they say of Ernst or of Sivori, is superior to either. There is a manly passion in his playing that never condescends to coquette with the submissive strings; it wailed enough that night for anything, and yet never degenerated into imitation. I knew directly I heard him draw the first quickening, shivering chord—shivering to my heart—I knew that the violin must become my master, or I its own.
Davy, still pale, but radiant with sympathetic pleasure, continued to glance down upon me, and Clara's eyes were lost in drooping to the ground. I scarcely know how it was, but I was very inadvertent of the pianoforte part, magnificently sustained as it was and inseparable from the other, until Clara whispered to Davy, "Does she not play remarkably well, sir?"
"Yes," he returned; "I am surprised. She surely must be professional." But none of us liked to inquire, at least then.
I noticed afterwards, from time to time, how well the piano met the violin in divided passages, and how exactly they went together; but still those strings, that bow, were all in all for me, and Santonio was the scarcely perceptible presence of an intimate sympathy, veiled from me as it were by a hovering mist of sound.So it was especially in the slow movement, with its long sighs, like the voice of silence, and its short, broken sobs of joy. The thrill of my brain, the deep tumult of my bosom, alone prevented me from tears, just as the rain falls not when the wind is swelling highest, but waits for the subsiding hush. The analogy will not serve me out, nevertheless, for at the close of the last movement, so breathless and so impetuous as it was, there was no hush, only a great din, in the midst of which I wept not; it was neither time nor place. Miss Benette, too, whispered just at the conclusion, when Santonio was haughtily, and Miss Lawrence carelessly, retiring, "Now we shall go; but please do not make me laugh, Master Auchester."
"How can you say so, when it was your fault that we laughed the other night?"
And truly it did seem impossible to unsettle that sweet gravity of hers, though it often unsettled mine.
We went, and really I found it not so dreadful; and so was I drawn to listen for her voice so dear to me even then, that I forgot all other circumstances except that she was standing by me there, singing. I sang very well,—to my shame if it be spoken, I always know when I do; and the light color so seldom seen on Davy's cheek attested his satisfaction. Davy himself sang alone next, and we were cleared off every one, while he sang so beautiful a bass solo, in its delicacy and simplicity, as I had ever heard. Clara and I mutually agreed to be very nervous for our master. I am sure he was so, but nobody could have told it of him who did not know him inside and out,—not even Santonio, who, standing on the rug again, and turning down his wristbands, which had disappeared altogether while he played, said to Mirandos, "He seems very comfortable," meaning Davy. Then came a quartet, and we figured again.
I was not glad to feel the intermitting tenor supplant that soprano. Truly, it seemed that the higher Clara sang, the nearer she got to heaven. The company applauded this quartet, mere thready tissue of sweet sounds as it was—Rossini's—more than even Santonio's violin; but twenty years ago there had been no universal deluge of education, as I have lived to see since, and, at least in England in the midland counties, people were few who could make out the signs of musicalgenius so as to read them as they ran. Perhaps it was better that the musician then only sought for sympathy among his own kind.
I knew Mirandos, and his fantasia came next, and hastily retreated, pulling Miss Benette by her dress to bring her away too; for I had a horror of his spreading hands. Santonio, impelled I daresay by the small curiosity which characterizes great minds in the majority of instances, came on the contrary forwards, and stood in the doorway to watch Mirandos take his seat. I could see the sneer settle upon his lips, subtle as that was; and I should have liked to stand and watch him, for I am fond of watching the countenances of artists in their medium moments, when I saw that Miss Benette had stolen to the fire, and was leaning against the mantelshelf her infantine forehead. Her attraction was strongest; I joined her.
"Now," said I, "if it were not for Santonio, would you not find this evening very dull?"
"It is not an evening at all, Master Auchester, it is a candle-light day; and so far from finding it dull, I find it a great deal too bright. I could listen forever to Mr. Davy's voice."
"What can it be that makes his voice so sweet, when it is such a deep voice?"
"I know it is because he has never sung in theatres. It does make a deep voice rough to sing in theatres, unless a man does not begin to sing so for a long, very long time."
"Miss Benette, is that the reason you do not mean to sing in theatres?"
"No; but it is the reason I sing so much in my little room."
"Mr. Davy says you don't mean to act."
"No more I do mean, but perhaps it will come upon me, and Thoné says, 'Child, you must.'"
"She thinks you have a special gift, then?"
"Who said to you about the special gift, Master Auchester? Do you ever forget anything you hear?"
"Never! I am like Mr. Santonio. But Mr. Davy told me the night I asked him your name."
"Oh, yes, I told him I had not a special gift. I thought the words so put together would please him, and I like to please him, he is good. I do not think it is a special gift, you know, Master Auchester, to act."
"What is it then, Miss Benette?"
"An inspiration."
"Mr. Davy called the conducting at the festival inspiration."
"Oh, yes; but all great composers are inspired."
"Do you consider our conductor was a great composer?"
"I daresay; but you must not ask me, I am not wise. Thoné is very wise, and she said to me the other day, after you were gone, 'He is one of us.'"
"But, Miss Benette, she is a gypsy, and I am not."
"We are not all alike because we are one. Can there be music without many combinations, and they each of many single sounds?"
Mirandos was putting on the pedal, and we paused at this moment, as he paused before theattacca. Santonio still remained in the doorway, and Davy was standing in the window against the crimson curtain, listening, and quite white with distress at the performance; for the keys every now and then jangled furiously, and a storm ofarpeggiseemed to endanger the very existence of the fragile wires.
Suddenly a young lady swept past Santonio, andglanced at Davy in passing into our retreat. Santonio, of course, did not move an inch; certainly there was just room enough to clear him! But Davy fell back into the folds of the curtain, frowning, not at the young lady, but at the fantasia.
It was Miss Lawrence; and lo! before I could well recognize her, she stepped up to me and said, without a bow or any introductory flourish, "Are you Mr. Davy's pupil?"
"We are both, ma'am," I answered foolishly, half indicating Miss Benette, who was bending her lashes into the firelight. Miss Lawrence replied lightly, yet seriously,—
"Oh, I knowsheis, but you first, because I knew you again."
I gazed upon her at this crisis. She had a peculiar face, dark yet soft; and her eye was very fine, large, and half closed, but not at all languid. Her forehead spread wide beneath jetty hair as smooth as glass, and her mouth was very satirical,—capable of sweetness, as such mouths alone are, though the case is often reversed. How satirical are some expressions that slumber in sweetness too exquisite to gaze on! And as for this young lady's manner, very easy was she, yet so high as to be unapproachable, unless she first approached you. Her accent was polished, or her address would have been somewhat brusque; as it was, it only required, not requested, a reply. She went on all this time, though,—
"I saw you in the chorus at the festival, and I watched you well; and I saw you run out and return with that water-glass I envied you in bearing. I hope you thought yourself enviable?"
"I certainly did not, because I could not think of myself at all."
"That is best! Now will you—that is, can you—tell me who the conductor was?"
I forgot who she was, and imploringly my whole heart said, "Oh, do pray tell us! We have tried and tried to find out, and no one knows."
"No one knows, but Iwillknow!" and she shook impatiently the rich coralnégligéethat hung about her throat. Again, with much bitterness in her tones, she resumed, "I think it was cruel and unjust besides not to tell us, that we at least might have thanked him. Even poor St. Michel was groaning over his ignorance of such a personage,—if indeed he be a wight, and not a sprite. I shall find a witch next."
"Thoné!" I whispered to Clara, and her lips parted to smile, but she looked not up.
And now a young man came in, out of the company, to look for Miss Lawrence.
"Oh, is Miss Lawrence here?" said Santonio, carelessly turning and looking over his shoulder to find her, though I daresay he knew she was there well enough. However, he came up now and took his stand by her side, and they soon began to talk. Rather relieved that the responsibility was taken off myself, I listened eagerly.
It was fascinating in the extreme to me to see how Miss Lawrence spurned the arm of the gentleman who had come to look for her and to conduct her back; he was obliged to retire discomfited, and Santonio took no heed of him at all. I could not help thinking then that Miss Lawrence must have been everywhere and have seen everything, to be so self-possessed, for I could quite distinguish between her self-possession and Clara's,—the latter natural, the former acquired, however naturally worn.
It was not long, nevertheless, before I received a shock. It was something in this way. Miss Lawrence had reverted to the festival, and she said to Santonio, "I had hopes of this young gentleman, because I thought he belonged to the conductor, who spoke to him between the parts; but he is as wise as the rest of us, and I can only say my conviction bids fair to become my faith."
"Your conviction that you related to me in such a romantic narrative?" asked Santonio, without appearing much interested. But he warmed as he proceeded. "The wind was very poor at the festival, I heard."
"They always say so in London about country performances, you know, either at least about the wind or the strings, or else one luckless oboe is held up to ridicule, or a solitary flute, or a desolate double-bass."
"But if the solitary flute or bass render themselves absurd, they should be ridiculed far more in a general orchestra than in a particular quartet or so, for the effect of the master-players thus goes for nothing. I never yet heard a stringed force go through an oratorio, and its violent exercises for thetutti, without falling at least a tone."
"Oh, theprimiwere very well! and in fact, had all been flat together, it would have been unnoticeable; while thetempiwere marked so clearly, no one had time to criticise and analyze. But the organ had better have been quiet altogether; it would have looked very well, and nobody would have known it was not sounding."
"I beg your pardon, every one would then have called out for more noise."
"Not so, Mr. Santonio; there was quite body enough. But there sat Erfurt, groping, as he always does, for the pedals, and punching the keys, while the stops, all out,could very often not be got in in time, and we hadfortissimoagainst the fiddles."
"I wonder your conductor did not give one little tap upon Erfurt's skull. So much for his own judgment, Miss Lawrence."
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Santonio; the grand point was making all go together, such as it was, so that no one realized a discrepancy anywhere. Interruptions would not only have been useless, they would have been ignorant; but in this person's strange intimacy with the exigencies of a somewhat unsteady orchestra, his consummate triumph was achieved."
"Well, I believe he will be found some time hence, in some out-of-the-way hole, that shall deprive you all of enchantment."
"I do believe he is my wizard of Rothseneld."
"You are very credulous if you can so believe."
And they said much more. But what shocked me, had been the denuding treatment of my all-glorious festival,—my romance of perfectibility, my ideal world. How they talked—for I cannot remember the phrases they strung into cold chains, at much greater length than I record—of what had been for me as heaven outspread above in mystery and beauty, and as a heaven-imaging deep beneath, beyond my fathom, yet whereon I had exulted as on the infinite unknown! they making it instead a reality not itself all lovely,—a revelation not itself complete. I had not been mixed in the musical world; for there is such a world as is not heaven, but earth, in the realm of tone, and tone-artists must pass, as it were, through it. How few receive not from it some touch, some taint of its clinging presence! How few, indeed, infuse into it—while in it they are necessitated to linger—the spirit of their heavenly home!Dimly, of a truth, had the life of music been then opened to my ken; but it seemed at that moment again enclosed, and I fell back into the first darkness. It was so sad to me to feel thus, that I could not for an instant recover my faith in myself. I fancied myself too insignificantly affected, and would, if I could, have joined in the anti-spiritual prate of Miss Lawrence and Santonio. Let me do them no injustice; they were both musicians, but I was not old enough to appreciate their actual enthusiasm, as it were by mutual consent a sealed subject between them.
I am almost tempted, after all, to say that it is best not to tamper with our finest feelings,—best to keep silence; but let me beware,—it is while we muse, the fire kindles, and we are then to speak with our tongues. Letthembe touched too, though, with the inward fire, or we have no right to speak.
Oh, shame upon me, thus to ramble, when I should be restoring merely!
After the shock I mentioned, the best thing happened to me possible,—we had to sing again; and Clara's voice arising, like the souls of flowers, to the sun, became actually to me as the sun unto those flowery souls. I revived and recovered my warmth; but now the reaction had come, and I sang through tears. I don't know how my voice sounded, but I felt it return upon me, and Davy grew rather nervous, I knew, from his manner of accompanying. And I did not say that while Miss Lawrence had stood and chatted with Santonio, a noiselessrentréeof footmen had taken place,—they bearing salvers loaded with ices and what are called "creams" at evening parties.
A sort of interlude this formed, of which the guests availed themselves to come and stare in upon us; and as they looked in we peeped out, though nobody ventured on our side beyond the doorway. So our duet had happened afterwards, and the music was to be resumed until twelve o'clock, the supper-hour. And after our duet there was performed this coda, that Miss Redfern requested Miss Lawrence to play with her, and that Miss Lawrence refused, but consented, at Santonio's suggestion, to play alone. As soon as she was seen past our folding-door, the whole male squadron advanced to escort her to the piano; but as she was removing hergloves leisurely, she waved them off, and they became of no account whatever in an instant. She sat down very still and played a brilliant prelude, a more than brilliant fugue, short and sharp, then a popular air, with variations, few, but finely fingered; and at last, after a few modulations, startling from the hand of a female, something altogether new, something fresh and mystical, that affected me painfully even at its opening notes. It was a movement of such intense meaning that it was but one sigh of unblended and unfaltering melody, isolated as the fragrance of a single flower; and only the perfumes of Nature exhale a bliss as sweet, how far more unexpressed! This short movement, that in its oneness was complete, grew, as it were, by fragmentary harmonies intricate, but most gradual, into another,—aprestissimo, so delicately fitted, that it was like moonlight dancing upon crested ripples; or for a better similitude, like quivering sprays in a summer wind. And in less than fifty bars of regularly broken time—how ravishingly sweet I say not—the first subject in refrain flowed through the second, and they interwoven even as creepers and flowers densely tangled, closed together simultaneously. The perfect command Miss Lawrence possessed over the instrument did not in the least occur to me; I was possessed but by one idea. Yet too nervous to venture into that large room, I eagerly watched her, and endeavored to arrest her eye, that I might beckon her among us again; so resolute was I to ask her the name of the author. Santonio, as if really excited, had made a sort of rush to her, and was now addressing her, but I heard not what they said, though Davy did, for he had followed Santonio. To my surprise, I saw that Miss Benette had taken herself into a corner, and when I gazed upon her she was wiping hereyes. I was reminded then that my own were running over.
Scarcely was I fit to look up again, having retreated to another corner, when I beheld Miss Lawrence, in her blue brocade, come in and look about her. She absolutely advanced to me.
"Did you like that little dream? That is my notion of the gentleman at the festival, do you know."
"Did you compose it?" I asked in a maze.
"No, I believe he did."
"Then you know who he is? Tell me, oh! tell me the name."
She smiled then at me with kindness,—a beneficent sweetness. "Come, sit down, and I will sit by you and tell you the story."
"May not Miss Benette come too?"
"Oh, certainly, if she is not more comfortable out there. I wish you would bring her, though, for I want to see her eyes." I slipped over the carpet. "Come, Miss Benette, and hear what Miss Lawrence is saying." She looked a little more serious with surprise, but followed me across the room and took the next chair beyond mine. Santonio came up too, but Miss Lawrence said, "Go,—you have heard it before;" and he, having to play again next, retired with careful dignity.
"You must know that once on a time,—which means about three months ago,"—began Miss Lawrence, as if she were reading the introductory chapter of a new novel, "I wanted some country air and some hard practice. I cannot get either in London, where I live, and I determined to combine the two. So I took a cottage in a lone part of Scotland,—mountainous Scotland; but no one went with me except my maid, and we tookcare together of a grand pianoforte which I hired in Edinburgh, and carried on with me, van and all.
"It was glorious weather just then, and when I arrived at my cottage I found it very difficult to practise, though very charming to play; and I played a great deal,—often all the day until the evening, when I invariably ascended my nearest hill, and inhaled the purest air in the whole world. My maid went always with me; and at such seasons I left my pianoforte sometimes shut, and sometimes open, as it happened, in my parlor, which had a splendid prospect, and very wide windows opening to the garden in front. I allowed these windows to remain open always when I went out, and I have often found Beethoven's sonatas strewed over the lawn when the wind blew freshly, as very frequently it did. You may believe I often prolonged my strolls until the sun had set and the moon arisen. So one time it happened, I had been at work the whole day upon a crabbed copy of studies by Bach and Handel that my music-seller had smuggled for me from an old bureau in a Parisian warehouse,—for you must know such studies are rarely to be found."
"Why not?" asked I, rather abruptly, just as if it had been Millicent who was speaking.
"Oh! just because they are rare practice, I suppose. But listen, or our tale will be cut off short, as I see Santonio is about to play."
"Oh, make haste then, pray!"
And she resumed in a vein more lively.
"The whole day I had worked, and at evening I went out. The sunshine had broken from dark, moist clouds all over those hills. The first steep I climbed was profusely covered with honeysuckle, and the rosy gold of the clusters, intermixed with the heather, just there aperfect surface, pleased me so much that I gathered more than I could well hold in both my arms. Victorine was just coming out,—that is, my handmaid,—and I returned past her to leave my flowers at home. It struck me first to throw them over the palings upon the little lawn, but second thoughts determined me to carry them in-doors for a sketch, or something. I got into my parlor by the glass door, and flung them all, fresh as they were, and glimmering with rain-drops, upon the music-stand of the pianoforte. I cannot tell you why I did it, but so it was; and I had a fancy that they would be choice companions for those quaint studies which yet lay open upon the desk.
"In that lone place, such was its beauty and its virtue, we never feared to leave the windows open or the doors all night unlocked; and I think it very possible I may have left the little gate of the front garden swinging after me, for Victorine always latched it, as she came last.
"At all events, I found her on the top of the honeysuckle height, carrying a camp-stool and looking very tired. The camp-stool was for her, as I always reposed on the grass, wrapped in a veritable tartan. And this night I reposed a good deal to make a flying sunset sketch. Then I stayed to find fault with my dry earth and wooden sky, and the heather with neither gold nor bloom upon it; then to watch the shadows creep up the hill, and then the moon, and then the lights in the valley, till it was just nine o'clock. Slowly strolling home, I met nobody except a shadow,—that is to say, as I was moving no faster myself than a snail, I suddenly saw a long figure upon the ground flit by me in the broad moonlight.
"'It was a gentleman in a cloak,' said Victorine.But I had seen no person, only, as I have said, a shadow, and took no note.
"'He had a sketching-book like Mademoiselle's, and was pale,' added Victorine. But I bade her be silent, as she was too fond of talking; still, I replied, 'Everybody looks pale by moonlight,'—a fact to be ascertained, if anywhere, on a moonlit moor.
"So I came home across the lawn, and got in at my window. I rang for candles; it was not dark, certainly, but I wanted to play. I stood at the window till the goodwife of the house, from her little kitchen, brought them up. She placed them upon the piano, as I had always ordered her to do, and left the room. After I had watched the moonlight out of doors for some time, being lazy with that wild air, I walked absently up to the instrument. What had taken place there? Behold, the Bach and Handel, discarded, lay behind the desk, having been removed by some careful hand, and on the desk itself, still overhung with the honeysuckle and heather I had hastily tossed about it, I found a sheet of music-paper. I could not believe my eyes for a long time. It was covered with close, delicate composition, so small as to fill a double page, and distinct as any printing. It had this inscription, but no name, no notice else: 'Heather and Honeysuckle; a Tone-wreath from the Northern Hills."'
"And that is what you played; oh, Miss Lawrence!" I cried, less in ecstasy at the sum of the story than at my own consciousness of having anticipated its conclusion.
"Yes, that is what I played, and what I very seldom do play; but I thought you should hear it!"
"I!" I cried, much too loud under the circumstances; but I could not have helped it. "It was verykind of you, but I don't know why you should. But it is byhimthen?"
"You have said!" answered Miss Lawrence, laughing,—"at least I think so. And if you and I agree, no doubt we are right."
"No, I don't see that at all," I replied; for it was a thing I could not allow. "I am only a little boy, and you are a great player, and grown up. Besides, you saw his shadow."
"Do you think so? Well, I thought so myself, though it may possibly have been the shadow of somebody else."
Miss Lawrence here stopped, that she might laugh; and as she laughed, her deep eyes woke up and shone like fire-flies glancing, to and fro. Very Spanish she seemed then, and very Jewish withal. I had never seen a Spaniard I suppose then, but I conceive I had met with prints of Murillo's "Flower-girl;" for her eyes were the only things I could think of while Miss Lawrence laughed.
"At all events," she at last continued, "the 'Tone-wreath' is no shadow." I was astonished here to perceive that Clara had raised her eyes,—indeed, they looked fully into those of the speaker.
"He came from Germany, you can be sure at least."
"Why so, Miss Benette?" replied Miss Lawrence, graciously, but with a slight deference very touching from one so self-sustained.
"Because it is only in that land they call music 'Tone.'"
"But still he may have visited Germany and listened to the Tongedicht[11]of Beethoven; forheis not so long dead." And she sighed so deeply that I felt a deeppassion indeed must have exhaled that sigh. I got out of my chair and ran to Lenhart Davy, for I saw him yet in the curtain. He detained me, saying, "My dear little boy, do stay by me and sit a while, that you may grow calm; for verily, Charles, your eyes are dancing almost out of your head. Besides, I should like you toseeMr. Santonio while he plays."
"Will he turn his face this way though, Mr. Davy? For he did not before."
"I particularly requested him to do so, and he agreed, on purpose that you might look at him." In fact, Santonio had taken up the gilt music-stand, and very coolly turned it towards us, in the very centre of the company, who shrank with awe from his immediate presence, and left a circle round him. Then, as Mirandos, who had to play a trifling negative accompaniment to the stringed solo, advanced to the piano, the lord of the violin turned round and nodded at me as he himself took his seat.
We—that is, Miss Benette and Davy and I—came away from the Redferns all in a hurry, just before supper, Santonio having informed us that he intended to stay. He indeed, if I recollect right, took Miss Lawrence down, and I have a dim remembrance of Mirandos poking haughtily in the background. Also I remember our conversation on returning home, and that Davy informed us Miss Lawrence was immensely rich. She had lost her mother when a baby, he said; but I thought her very far from pitiable,—she seemed to do so exactly as she pleased. I had no idea of her age, and I did not think about it at all; but Miss Benette said, "She is as independent as she is gifted, sir; and she spoke to me like one who is very generous."
"Yes, I should think so," said Davy, cheerfully; "Santonio tells me she is a pupil of Milans-André."
"Oh!" I cried, "how I wish I had known that."
"Why so, my dear boy?"
"Because I would have asked her what he is like,—I do so want to know."
"She does not admire him so wonderfully, Santonio says, and soon tired of his instructions. I suppose the fact is she can get on very well alone."
"But I wish I had asked her, sir," I again said, "because we should be quite sure about the conductor."
"But you forget Miss Lawrence was at the festival, Charles, and that she saw you there. Come! my boy you are not vain."
"No, sir, I don't think I am. Oh! Miss Benette, you laughed!"
"Yes, Master Auchester, because you could be no more vain than I am."
"Why not, Miss Benette?"
"Because we could neither of us be vain, side by side with our tone-master," she answered, with such a childlike single-heartedness that I was obliged to look at Davy to see how he bore it. It was very nearly dark, yet I could make out the lines of a smile upon his face.
"I am very proud to be called so, Miss Benette; but it is only a name in my case, with which I am well pleased my pupils should amuse themselves."
"Master Auchester," exclaimed Miss Benette, without reply to Davy at all, "you can ask Miss Lawrence about Monsieur Milans-André, if you please, for she is coming to see my work, and I think it will be to-morrow that she will come."
"Oh, thank you, Miss Benette! I suppose Miss Lawrence said that to you when Mr. Davy called me away to him?"
"I did not call you, Charles; you came yourself."
"But you kept me, sir,"—and it struck me on the instant that Davy's delicate device ought not to have been touched upon; so I felt awkward and kept silence.
I was left at home first, and promised Clara I would come, should my mother and the weather agree to permit me. I was hurried to bed by Clo, who had sat up to receive me. I was disappointed at not seeing Millicent, with the unreasonableness which is exclusively fraternal;but Clo informed me that my mother would not permit her to stay out of bed.
"And, Charles, you must not say one word to-night, but eat this slice of bacon and this egg directly, and let me take off your comforter."
The idea of eating eggs and bacon! I managed the egg, but it was all I could do, and she then presented me with a cup of hot barley-water. Oh! have you ever tasted barley-water, with a squeeze of lemon-juice, after listening to the violin? I drank it off, and was just about to make a rush at the door when Clo stopped me.
"My dear Charles, Margareth is gone up to bed; stay until I can light you with my candle. And come into my room to undress, that you may not wake my mother by throwing your brush down."
I was marched off impotent, she preceding me upstairs with a stately step. But softly as we passed along, Millicent heard us; she just opened a little bit of her door, and stooped to kiss me in her white dressing-gown. "I have chosen my instrument," I said, in a whisper, and she smiled. "Ah, Charles!"
I need not recapitulate my harangue the next morning when I came down late and found only Millicent left to make my breakfast. I was expected to be idle, and the rest had gone out to walk. But I wondered, when I came to think, that I had been so careless as to omit asking Clara the hour fixed for Miss Lawrence's visit,—though, perhaps, was my after-thought, she did not know herself. I need not have feared, though; for while I was lying about on the sofa after our dinner, having been informed that I must do so, or I should not practise in the evening, in came Margareth with a little white note directed to "Master Charles Auchester."
"I am sure, Master Charles," said she, "you oughtto show it to my mistress, for the person that brought it was no servant in any family hereabouts, and looks more like a gypsy than anything else."
"Well, and so it is a gypsy, Margareth. Of course I shall tell my mother,—I know all about it."
Margareth wanted to know, I was sure, but I did not enlighten her further; besides, I was in too great a hurry to break the seal,—a quaint little impression of an eagle carrying in his beak an oak-branch. The note was written in a hand full of character, yet so orderly it made me feel ashamed. It was as follows:—