The Masked Singer
The Masked Singer
The only objection which Edward Randall had to his new bachelor apartments was found in the fact, that they looked out upon some very dingy, dull, and gloomy houses opposite. This had been his chief obstacle in deciding to take these rooms, but there were advantages which soon proved a sufficient offset.
The fact that he was the only lodger in Mrs. Green’s extremely well-ordered house, and that the elderly widow had a delicate feeling for his old china and other perishable property, and looked after the cleaning and arranging of his rooms, herself, was a great thing for him; and the fact, also, that his back windows looked out upon a beautiful little bit of old garden and a wealth of greenery made the other outlookseem comparatively unimportant. He had the whole of Mrs. Green’s second floor, and beyond the sitting-room there was a pleasant, vine-screened porch supplied with hammocks and easy chairs, where, when the weather was mild, he could sit and smoke with his friends, or read or meditate, as the humor of the hour dictated.
He was not over thirty-five, and yet the fact was universally conceded that he was a confirmed bachelor—a matter of some regret to those of his friends who held that in that condition his good income, personal attractions, and lovable domestic qualities were more or less wasted.
The front view from his chambers being unpleasing to him, and the back view decidedly pleasing, he rarely drew aside the curtains of the former room, but one morning when he was rather idle, and also in a state of some uncertainty about the weather, he went to look out into the street to help him to decide whether or notto go out before lunch. It was Sunday and rather cloudy, and it seemed to him that the shabby buildings opposite looked duller and dingier than ever, when his attention was caught by the opening of the door of the house directly facing him, and the appearance on the threshold of a young girl. She, too, it seemed, was in some uncertainty about the weather, for she came out on the steps and turned her face upwards to investigate the clouds. In this way, Randall was enabled to get a full and satisfactory view of this upturned face, which was very beautiful—so beautiful, in fact, that he felt the survey all too brief, and was conscious of a sense of strong protest when the girl, with an air of decision, shook out the folds of a thick blue veil and fastened it around her hat, then taking up her umbrella and a little book, which she had laid aside in order to pin on her veil, quickly descended the steps and walked away.
Randall watched her as far as he could,and noted carefully every detail of her dress, which certainly bordered on shabbiness, and was poor and plain in material, and yet had for him a certain charm. It could only have been her figure and her movements which gave this impression, for, contrasted with some very smart young ladies who walked in front of her, she was an object dull and colorless enough. These young ladies had their faces frankly bared to observation, but Randall turned from them with distaste, to recall the pure young beauty of the face now closely screened behind that thick veil.
He wondered much about the young girl, for she was undoubtedly rarely beautiful, and there was an impression caught from her appearance which distinctly charmed him. The sight of the little book in her hand, together with the ringing of the church bells, assured him that she was on her way to church, and for the first time for a very long while, he felt like going to church, himself.
It was much too late to think of this, however, for his toilet was not begun, and so he turned back within the room, and lounging in dressing-gown and slippers, spent an hour reading the morning papers and smoking. At the end of that time, he started up suddenly and began his toilet, with an air of haste and impatience. As soon as he was dressed, he took his hat and gloves and went downstairs. Just as he opened the front door, he caught sight of the young girl mounting the steps opposite, on her return home. She was in the act of taking off her veil, and Randall thought she did so with a certain air of relief from a bondage which irked her. Once more he got a brief impression of that young and exquisite face, and then, without having looked at him at all, she opened the door with a latch-key and entered the gloomy old house, and the dingy door closed behind her.
Randall went his way, and presently found himself seated at a beautifully appointedlunch table with a party of gay and brilliant people, among whom he was made very welcome, and where he laughed and chattered for an hour, but throughout it all he could not shake off the impression that this girl had made upon him, and her pure, young face, and plain, dark garments rose before his vision, as alien to this scene as the impression of some rapt, ascetic nun.
After lunch there was a general demand that Mr. Randall should play to them, and rather more obligingly than usual he yielded to the request, and, going to the piano, he began with certain powerful chords and impressive pauses, that soon compelled the company to perfect silence and attention. He was a fine musician, and quite accustomed to having his playing treated deferentially, but he did not often take the trouble to play to people as he was playing now. His audience had expected something light and brilliant, and instead of that it was only sacred musicthat he played—harmonies and masses from the great masters of old, with an improvised arrangement and connection of his own.
He rose from the piano and said good-bye abruptly, hurrying away from the enthusiastic praise of his audience, and walking quickly back to his lodgings, where he spent the remainder of the day. Some men dropped in to see him, but either they were hurried, or they found him unamusing, for they presently went away, and at twilight he was left alone.
More than once, he had gone to look out on the opposite house, but the dull, gray front of that dismal structure was unsuggestive of the least hint of its radiant young inmate. When the lamps were lighted, at last, and the curtains drawn, and the servant, having attended to his comfort, had left him quite alone for the evening, he opened his piano and began to play. It must have been for hours that he sat there, with no music before him,playing on and on, thinking, thinking, thinking to those beautiful strains.
Of course, he did not fancy anything so absurd as that he was in love with this young girl, whose face and nearness so possessed him; that was out of the question. But what he did feel was that a quality in her face had roused to new being a certain ideal which had once held him, and which in recent years had been losing its hold.
Randall had an ardent and romantic nature, subdued by circumstance and rearing into conventional conformity. The passion of his life was music, and although he was a more or less earnest and successful lawyer, the hearing of good music and the cultivation of his own musical gift was the strongest interest of his life. His friends wondered that he had not married, and, to tell the truth, he wondered at that fact as much as they. If they were ignorant of his reason though, he, himself, was not. He knew well that it was becausehe had, so far in life, met no woman whose nature and personality made the appeal to him, and satisfied the desire of his soul, in the way that music appealed to and satisfied him, and what he wondered at was, that in all his wide acquaintance he had never seen this woman. He had grown tired of looking for her, at last, and had even deliberately considered the advisability of marrying a person who would have compelled a lowering of his ideal. A real, definite woman had been considered in this light, a woman with beauty, good breeding, position, and money, whom he thought he might win; but this woman not only was not musical herself, but she contradicted the ideal which seemed to go hand in hand with music in his soul.
No, certainly he was not in love with this opposite neighbor of his, but the remarkable effect which she had had upon him was to rouse in him the belief of the possibility of realizing this vanished ideal. There was something in her that seemedto tell him that what he had dreamed of might still be. It was her face only that had done this. He had not seen the outline of her figure, for that had been concealed by a long black cloak, that was loose from neck to hem. And even more than this, he had not heard her voice. Randall had always conceived that his ideal woman would sing, though that was not a necessity with him, but he was so susceptible to the influence of sound that a coarse, or nasal, or discordant voice, even in speaking, would have killed the most fiery love that charm or beauty could arouse. He suddenly felt a great desire to know if this exquisite girl could sing, or to hear her speak. It was not so much an emotional stirring of love which she had aroused in him, as a sort of spirit of intellectual investigation. He knew that she had a face that might belong to his ideal woman, and he wondered if her voice would carry out the idea.
These thoughts absorbed him, while hewas playing, and he began to imagine plans by which he might hear her speak or sing. He could think of nothing, except to follow her to church some Sunday, and get a seat near her in the hope that she might join in the hymns, but the girl evidently went out alone and unprotected, and he could not quite get his consent to following and watching her.
Well, whoever she was, and whatever her nature and qualities, she had certainly managed to make a greater impression on the not very susceptible mind of Mr. Edward Randall, than that mind had received for many a long day. He went to sleep that night with a sense of newness and strangeness upon him, and he waked next morning with a distinct impression that some important change had come into his life. When he remembered what it was he smiled at himself; but all the same, the impression remained.
For several days Randall watched the house opposite, in the hope of seeing againthis charming girl; but it was in vain. Other people came and went, for the house was evidently let out to lodgers, but they were of the most uninteresting of the lodging-house class; indeed, as a rule, they were such people as it irked him to think of as living under the same roof with the lovely girl.
One afternoon, however, as he was going out he saw coming down the steps opposite a tall, slight figure in a long, black cloak, which he recognized at once, though this time the face was carefully veiled before coming into the street. This fact seemed a little singular, as it was getting on toward twilight of a mild spring day. He kept the tall figure well in sight, as he happened to be going the same way, and even crossed the street that he might observe her more directly. This fact put a wide space between them which even his rapid walking did not soon decrease, as the woman’s figure moved very swiftly, and as if with some definite and importantobject. When she came at last to one of the small public parks that relieved the sense of dense habitation of that part of the great city, Randall observed ahead of her a little gathering of people, mostly children, who had collected around an object which he at once recognized.
A cart and horse were drawn up to the sidewalk, and in this light wagon was a small, upright piano. The instrument was open, and a man with a small black mask concealing that part of the face which was not hidden by a black beard, sat on the stool before it, waiting. Randall had seen this sort of thing in London, but it was new to him here. It had no interest for him, however, and he would not have given the thing another thought had not the woman’s figure, which he was watching, crossed directly over to this cart and the man before the piano recognized her with a gesture of satisfaction. He further saw her go straight to the side of the cart, where she paused a moment to take off her veil, revealing thefact that she was masked, also. A close covering of black satin hid the upper part of her face, and a frill of black lace concealed the mouth and chin. The disguise was absolute, and he could have formed no idea of the appearance of the woman, had it not been for the vivid image stamped upon his memory.
He felt a sense of shock at seeing her placed in such a position—a girl with a face like that, a common street singer! True, the face was hidden from view, but that air of concealment and mystery made it seem almost worse. He rebelled, evidently, too, against the thought of the man with his shabby clothes and unkempt beard. He had half a mind to turn and fly, but if she was going to sing he must hear her voice. If it should not match her face, he would be bitterly disappointed—but if, on the other hand, it should, how could he bear her being in such a situation as the present one?
As he saw the tall, slight figure mountinto the cart, Randall felt so really agitated over the issue ahead of him, that he sank upon one of the benches in the square and waited with intense interest for the music to begin. Some chords were struck upon the piano, introducing a brief prelude, which the masked man executed in a way that proved him, to Randall’s cultivated ear, to be a well-trained pianist. But while the young man recognized this fact, he looked only at the woman. She wore above her mask a hat with a little brim, under which her hair was all concealed, and between this and the shape of the mask, which was so made as to stand a little out from the upper part of the face, he could not catch even a glimpse of her eyes. Randall had a swift mental vision of the loveliness, pureness, ideality of that hidden face, that stirred his heart with a vague sweetness, when suddenly upon this tender mood there fell a sound which made a discord in the harmony.
It was a woman’s voice, singing a popularair in a manner so finished and correct that the method of it startled him with surprise and appreciation, even while the voice itself repelled him. He listened intently to every note. What was the matter with this voice? It was that of a thoroughly trained and practiced singer, and yet it seemed as if, in some way, it had been hurt. The low notes were hard and husky, the high notes were thin and weak. All of this might be accounted for by some disastrous illness or throat trouble, but even while he made this allowance, there was something in the quality, or character, or individuality of the voice, itself, even when singing the middle notes, which caused no strain, that stung the man who listened with a sharp pang of disappointment—a certain quality of hardness, even commonness, which was the direct contradiction of that fair and sensitive young face.
The selection ended, and Randall, drawing a deep breath, roused himself andlooked around upon the crowd which had gathered. They were a motley throng, composed of children, nurses, tramps, policemen, and aimless idlers of various classes. When Randall remembered the girl’s face, his heart resented them all violently; when he thought of her voice, the tones of which still lingered in his ear, he did not care!
But the voice was beginning again, and again he turned and listened. This time it was Schubert’s serenade that she sang, and her technique seemed to him absolutely perfect. Her voice, however, was colder, poorer, more expressionless than before, and he rose as it ended, with an impatient desire to get away. He could have stood any fault of method, had the voice itself been beautiful and sympathetic, but the voice distinctly antagonized him. Before he had moved from his place, however, he saw the woman getting out of the cart with a little basket in her hand, and he remembered that he was supposed topay for the feast of which he had just partaken. He sat down again, and waited for her to come to him.
As she drew nearer, and he heard the small coins clinking lightly in the basket, a feeling of what was almost disgust took possession of him. He saw looks of bold curiosity turned upon her from every side. He even heard certain comments, which, when he thought of the face upturned to the sky that Sunday morning, made him hot with indignation. When he recalled the voice, however, he was able to control himself.
As the singer approached him, he saw that her eyes, of which he sought eagerly to catch a glimpse, were uniformly cast down, so that even when the light fell so as to enable him to penetrate the shadows of the mask, he saw only a pair of lowered lids.
An idea struck him, and as she came toward him he took a silver dollar from his pocket and dropped it into the basket.He hoped that the unusual size of the coin might cause her to look up, but it did not. She made a little gesture of acknowledgment, as she had done for the pennies and dimes already received, and walked swiftly on. Even the hand that held the basket was covered by a thick glove, which revealed nothing of its shape or character.
As she remounted to her place, handing the basket over to the man, who poured the contents into his pocket, Randall walked away. His pace quickened suddenly, as he heard behind him the voice that had so repelled him, singing with that beautiful method, which compelled admiration in spite of himself, the words and music of “After the Ball.”
The effect of this experience upon Randall was to make him resolve to put his opposite neighbor completely out of his head, a thing he might have accomplished, but for a circumstance which occurred the very next morning.
The day was very mild and beautiful,and his front windows had been left wide open by the maid who had done up his room. Randall went to one of them, and stood with the lace curtains shoved aside by his elbows, his hands resting lightly in his pockets. The people over the way seemed to be making the most of the spring sunshine also, for the windows were open all along, and in some cases, even the doors. The streets, still damp from yesterday’s rainfall, were sending up a faint steam under the warm sunshine, and there seemed to be a perfect epidemic of pavement cleaning in progress. Servant maids with hose or brooms were working away vigorously, and the fresh young green on the budding branches rose above all this, as if the toilets of the trees had been completed before those of the pavements were begun.
Randall had determined to forget his neighbor with the beautiful face and unbeautiful voice, and in order that he might emphasize this resolution, he looked hardat the door of her house, which happened to be one of those that stood open.
He could not penetrate far into the dark chasm of a hall which the opening revealed, but as he looked, out of the darkness there sprang a jet black object, which, as it bounded into the street, he saw to be a rather large black kitten. He knew from its precipitous rush that someone must be after it, and the someone proved to be the beautiful young girl.
If she had been beautiful before, with her long dark cloak and the severe little hat that hid both her head and her hair, what was she now, in a fresh pink cotton gown that revealed every curve of her slight and exquisite young figure, and her lovely face, surmounted by a rippling mass of bright gold-brown hair.
As Randall looked down on her through the budding green of the trees, she seemed of a piece with them, as if she might be the bloom that was the consummation of all their verdant leafage. Instinctively, hestepped back behind the curtains, and concealing himself, carefully watched the scene that followed. The black kitten, evidently used to games of romps with its mistress, had scudded wildly down the steps and scrambled up into the veranda of the next house, where it sat complacently on the railing, to see what was to follow. The girl, with a look that was a compound of desperation and amusement, sat down on the steps, with the evident intention of coaxing the kitten to come to her.
“Minnie, Minnie, Minnie!” she said enticingly, holding out a lovely hand and making little curling gestures with the delicate fingers. At the sound of her voice, raised a little high, so as to reach the kitten, Randall started and caught his breath. It was musical, clear, refined, harmonious, the very complement of her face and figure! He had heard of such things, where some serious illness or injury had ruined a voice for singing, butleft its speaking quality untouched! Oh, why should she ever sing, he thought! And why should he ever have had the misfortune to hear her? All the time that he was thinking these thoughts, that vision of youthful loveliness was there before his eyes.
Her figure was charming, as she sat on the doorstep and continued to coax the kitten, in that beautiful voice of appeal; but it was more than charming, it was adorable, as she rose to her feet and, with stealthy motions of consummate grace, began to creep toward the kitten, which sat, with a wary pretense of unconsciousness, perched upon the railing. At last, when she was very near, and the kitten as still as a statue, she darted forward and had almost seized it, when with the agility of a squirrel, the little black creature, with one mad rush, sprang to the pavement, flew across the street, and scrambling up the rough trunk of an old wistaria vine, in a flutter of fun and excitement dartedthrough the open window, and jumped into Randall’s room.
In an instant he captured it, and running down stairs and out of the front door bareheaded, he swiftly crossed the muddy street to the detriment of his patent leather boots, and gave the kitten into the hands of its young mistress, who stood spellbound on the pavement, in startled wonderment at this sudden prank of her pet.
It was a quiet street, and there was no one in sight except, at a little distance, the servants, who were so busy with their swishing and sweeping that apparently they had not observed the little scene.
Randall, as he stood there, in the sweet spring sunshine, face to face with this creature of his dreams and thoughts, took in every detail of her blooming loveliness, more rich than ever now, by reason of a brilliant blush which had come into her face. As she received the kitten from his hands she said a demure, “Thank you.”
“Thankyou,” he answered, “for the opportunity of seeing such a feat. You could match your kitten with a squirrel, any day, and I’m afraid your chance of holding on to it, in a city, is very small.”
“O, I never let him get out!” she said with sudden anxiety. “He fooled me this time, but he shall not do it again,” and as she spoke she gave the offender a sharp little slap, which so excited it, that with a sudden wrench it sprang from her arms and bounded away, she and Randall following in mad pursuit. Randall had once done notable running in a football team at college, and in the frantic spurt with which he darted after the kitten, his old training told, and he quickly overtook and captured it. When he turned and faced the kitten’s mistress, both of them were flushed and laughing, and rather breathless.
“Oh, how kind you are! Oh, you little brute!” the girl exclaimed, addressing the man and the kitten in one breath. As she held out her hands to take thestruggling creature from him, he drew it back.
“No, I will take him as far as the door for you,” he said. “He’s not in the least to be trusted, and would be off and away now, if he could. Poor little beast! I fancy it’s hard to be shut up in a close house all the time, and the chance of escape was too much.”
“Yes, he misses the country so, and so do I! I ought to have pity on Tommy, for I’d run from the city, too, if I could, and if I saw an open door.”
They had reached the house now, and mounted the steps, side by side. He made her go inside and close the door, leaving just enough space for him to hand the wriggling Tommy through. As the little black object passed from his hands to hers, she looked up at him out of the gloom within, and said a fervent, “Thank you.” Her glance was frank and simple as a child’s, but, all the same, it sent him back across the street with a heart whose quick thumpingwas not wholly due to the rather violent exercise which he had had.
Randall returned to the meditations of his own room more puzzled than ever; and if his interest in the girl of whom he had simply had a glimpse from afar, had been great before, what was it now that he had seen, in the glaring sunlight, only a pace or two away from him, the exquisite perfection of her loveliness, and had heard the refined and educated utterance of a voice which lingered in his ear as one of the very sweetest to which he had ever listened? Then, too, her impetuously expressed longing for the country, and hatred of the city, seemed a strange note to be struck by this being, whom with his own eyes he had seen as a common street musician, truckling to the vulgar taste of a crowd of loafers, and holding out her hands to receive their dirty pennies. As he recalled the scene, the memory of that strident, ineffectual, hard, discordant voice came to him, and he found himself in a state of tempestuous protestagainst the whole thing. How could that fair, idyllic girl descend to the playing of such a part, and how could such singing go with such a face and figure? He had looked in vain for any signs of illness which might account for it. She seemed the emblem of eternal youth and health. Then came the memory of that look that she had flashed upon him from the gloom, and brought with it certain thoughts and aspirations, which had not been stirred within him for long and saddened years.
The Sunday after the episode with the kitten, Randall came out of his lodgings at a little before eleven o’clock, and saw across the street, just ahead of him, the well-known figure in the long black cloak, with the close veil around the face. He had watched the opposite house for days, but had not caught a glimpse of this figure. Other lodgers came and went (for the house seemed a crowded one), but not the one he sought. He had started out rather aimlessly this morning, and he saw noreason why, in taking his airing, he should not keep the graceful figure ahead of him in view, particularly as he, himself, could not have been observed by her. So, for a long distance he walked after her on the other side of the street, until at last she turned and joined the straggling stream of people that seemed setting toward a small new church—one of the little mission places so common now in our great cities. Randall quoted to himself the lines:
“She went to a cheap, cheap churchThat stood in a back, back street,”
“She went to a cheap, cheap churchThat stood in a back, back street,”
“She went to a cheap, cheap church
That stood in a back, back street,”
and smiled at the thought of the new complicatedness of the aspect of things. And when she joined the crowd and entered, a sudden wish to go to church himself came over him, and he saw no reason why he should not indulge it. He did so accordingly, and being told that the seats were all free, he presently found himself placed a little behind the young girl, so that he could have a distinct view of her profile during the entire service. He was securein the consciousness that he had not been observed, and his presence, therefore, could cause her no annoyance. He watched her furtively as she sank upon her knees, burying her veiled face in two exquisite little shabbily-gloved hands, and remained for some moments in silent prayer. What a wretch of a creature he suddenly felt himself to be, and what a yearning he had to ask her to pray for him!
When she got up presently and took her seat, his heart quickened to see her raise her hand to unfasten her veil. How odd it appeared that no one else seemed to be noticing or caring! The congregation was composed chiefly of people with stolid faces and rather dull expressions, and Randall was further surprised to see that no one manifested any interest when this beautiful young face was exposed to view. He had occasion, however, to congratulate himself upon this indifference, since it extended to himself, as well, and left him free to look toward his lovely neighbor veryoften. He had to admit that she was as unconscious of the rest of the congregation as he, though no one else that he could see betrayed such absorbed consciousness of the effect of the service. It was a high-church service, and this young girl went through all the rather elaborate forms with an intense devotion and absorption, that for some unknown reason almost made him feel resentful.
The more Randall looked at her, the more lovely and lovable did she appear. It was quite, quite the most beautiful face that he had ever seen, he decided, and his heart was somehow more attuned to worship to-day than he had felt it for many a year.
At last, a hymn was given out, and the congregation rose. Randall jumped up rather suddenly with a positive instinct of flight. He did not want to hear her sing. He could not bear to stand so near and see those most lovely lips part and send forth such a voice as he knew, alas, mustissue from them! But while he hesitated, the music began, and the sweet lips remained closed and immovable, except for a little tremor which he fancied he saw, as the girl’s eyes followed the words in her book.
When the hymn ended, and the congregation knelt, he saw the young girl hide her face in her handkerchief for a moment, and then, quickly take up her thick veil and pin it on securely.
He let her go ahead of him on leaving the church, as he did not wish to be observed. He did not follow her home, however, but went instead to the club, and joined a group of chattering men in a bay-window, and listened for half an hour to their vapid comments on the smartly-dressed men and women who went by, feeling all the time a dull ache in his heart for that sensitive, lonely, probably unhappy girl, whose loveliness, even in her shabby clothes in that little mission chapel, made the most fashionable of the women whopassed him seem trivial and vulgar by comparison.
For several days, Randall carried this lovely vision in his mind, until one afternoon, in a populous business neighborhood, he came suddenly upon a group of people assembled around the familiar horse and cart and the pair of musicians. He wanted to retreat, but he forced himself to stop and join the crowd, wondering what effect his presence would have upon her, if she should see and recognize him. So he took his place conspicuously, and listened with indignant protest as she sang, in popular style, with a vulgar abandon that made him positively furious, the familiar strains of “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!”
The voice was grating and unlovely as before, but again he felt amazed at the marvelous method of the singer, and the spirit with which she gave the song called forth an encore, after which she got out of the cart and passed around the basket. When she came to Randall, he purposelyfumbled several seconds with his change, hoping that she might look up at him, but when she persistently looked down, he fancied that if she saw him, she was ashamed to reveal herself to him. Well she might be, he thought, and tossing some loose coins into the basket, he was about to walk away, when he heard a man standing near say some words to the woman as she held out her basket to him, which roused such fury in Randall’s soul, that before the insult had died upon the fellow’s lips, he found himself seized by the shoulders, and hurled aside with a blow from so powerful an arm that it sent him staggering against a tree. At the same instant, Randall saw the woman, with a movement of fright, run swiftly toward the cart. Before she reached the cart, however, the man at the piano had sprung from his place, and had rushed after the fellow whose words had caused the disturbance, but who, warned by the punishment which he had already received, hadmade the best use of his time and had escaped. Seeing this, the pianist turned and, coming toward Randall, said in a voice of controlled agitation, “I am very much obliged to you, sir, for what you did.”
Randall, who was in a state of disgust at the whole performance, waved aside the man’s thanks, and rapidly walked away.
During the weeks that followed, Randall was a prey to conflicting impressions, that kept him in a continual state of excitement and restlessness. He had got up an interest in the working of the mission chapel, and the evident help which it gave to those poor working people, and it pleased him to find a really satisfactory object for the expenditure of some of his spare cash, so he went to church every Sunday there, and contributed liberally to the work. He did not deceive himself as to the prime object of his attendance. He knew it was because his beautiful neighbor went there, but his interest in the workwas sincere. He had more than once encountered the young girl in coming and going from the church, and upon these occasions it was his habit to lift his hat and to bow respectfully, just as it was her habit to return this greeting by a brilliant and beautifying blush. It made her adorably lovely, and as she now habitually removed her veil before entering the church, and did not replace it until after leaving, he had the full benefit of it. If he chanced to meet her on the street away from the church, she was always closely veiled, but usually he managed to bow to her, as she was entering or leaving.
But if the experiences of his Sundays gave him pleasure, it was more than counterbalanced by the pain he felt in the experiences of his week days. Try as he might to avoid the humiliating spectacle (and he did make a great effort) he was liable at any turn to run against that rusty cart, sleepy old pony, and the pair of musicians. He had had a sort of hope that theexperience with the brute who had insulted the girl would stop these performances for the future, but he found that they went on just the same as ever. He could only conclude from this, that the man who performed with her was oblivious of, or indifferent to, her need of protection.
Randall did not always sit near her in church. Sometimes he even forced himself to take a seat where he could not look at her at all, but it was something to him to feel her nearness. One Sunday, however, he thought he had won the right to treat himself to an unusual indulgence of proximity, so on entering the church, after she had taken her usual place, he quietly walked into the seat on a line with her, and took his place near the end, where he was only separated from her by the partition dividing the pews. Never in his life had his manner been more quiet and composed, than as he sat there, profoundly still, with his eyes fixed attentively upon the preacher. He knew that she had recognizedhim, and he was perfectly confident that she blushed, but no one observing him would have seen in his manner anything but the coldest composure. It was, none the less, a very sweet consciousness to sit there quietly, close by her side, and he half fancied it was also pleasure to her. During the sermon he was acutely aware of her, and of every slightest movement that she had made in shifting her position, or moving her feet upon the footstool. And once, only once, he heard her breathe a little sigh, the sound of which stirred him to tenderness.
After the sermon the hymn was given out, and it proved to be the one that had been sung on the occasion of his first coming here. When the young girl rose with the open book in her hand, she observed that he had no book, and with a movement at once frank and timid she offered him hers, glancing up at him as she did so. He shook his head, declining to deprive her of it, but at the same time hecaught hold of its extreme corner nearest him and continued to hold it so, until she saw his meaning, and took hold of the opposite corner. Then in a carefully modulated and sympathetic voice, which had great sweetness and charm without remarkable power, he began to sing. Admiring women had been touched by his voice before to-day, and it was no wonder if it touched with power the woman standing at his side. He hoped it did, at least, but he could divine nothing, as her little shabby thumb supported the book unwaveringly until the hymn was ended.
Walking homeward that day, Randall looked his present condition in the face more boldly and honestly than he had ever done before, and the result of it was that he owned that he was in love.
Having made this acknowledgment to himself, that he was really in love, he faced the possible consequences squarely also, and he came to the conclusion that his only safety was in flight. As for marryinga street singer, whom he had seen insulted by a common rough, and who had a voice as rasping to him as a peacock’s, he might be more or less of a fool in his love of having his own way, but he was not such a fool as that!
The contradicting facts, that she was as beautiful as a dream, and had, as he believed, a nature both exalted and refined—did not by any means seem to him a sufficient compensation, and he made up his mind to go abroad for several months, and to come back with this little episode quite eradicated from his mind.
He carried out his plan so far as the trip was concerned, and even as to its results he felt that he had been fairly successful. Certainly the absurdity of having fallen in love with a street singer with an abominable voice was sufficiently clear to him, and change of scene and absence had done their work in weakening the spell which this girl had laid upon him. In spite of all this, however,he was not sufficiently self-secure to run any risks. He would not have dared to go to church, and he had made up his mind to look out for new lodgings immediately, and until these should be secured, not to go to the front windows.
These resolutions he religiously kept. He had taken no vow, however, not to look toward the opposite house in going up and down the street, and this he always did, half hoping and half fearing to see that lovely vision in rose-color, who still remained the most beautiful picture in the world to his mind. He never caught a glimpse of her, however, and so far had seen and heard nothing of the street singers, a thing which, of course, might be accounted for by the fact that the cool weather of autumn had set in, and there was no chance of drawing a crowd in the streets to listen to singing of that sort.
During his trip abroad Randall had given himself a perfect feast of music. Convinced more strongly than ever that“love’s young dream” was not for him, he was determined to make the most of the next best thing, and to fill his soul with music. To lose the opportunities which Europe offered him for this had been his greatest regret in coming home, and after indulgence in the very richest forms of musical delight he felt more or less impatient of the concerts and recitals of which he read in the columns of the home newspapers.
One afternoon at his club, he heard some men discussing a concert which was to take place that evening, and they suggested to him to go. It seemed that Mensenn, a well-known manager, had discovered a wonderful new voice, possessed by a young girl living in the city. Only the name of Mensenn would have drawn Randall into a thing like this, and even with that important recommendation of the new singer he felt dubious and half-reluctant, but that evening, having nothing better to do, and having within him a great thirst for music,he went to the great concert hall to see what he could do, to satisfy it.
It was rather a surprise to him that Mensenn had ventured on the biggest hall in the city for the launching of thisdébutanteand yet he reflected that Mensenn was a man who generally knew what he was about.
Randall was a somewhat erratic and unaccountable fellow, careful and economical about money on certain lines, and recklessly prodigal in others. Where the indulgence of his love for music was concerned, he never counted it, and this evening, after reading the programme and seeing several favorites among the selections, he felt inclined to do his very utmost to get pleasure out of this concert by hearing it under the best conditions that he could secure. The chief of these was either sympathetic companionship, or solitude, and as he could not command the first, he would the latter, so he got a small curtained box in good sight andsound of the stage, and took his place in it alone.
The concert opened with a very good performance of violin and violoncello, with piano accompaniment. The players were not great artists, but Randall got enough out of it to stir the deep, emotional feelings within, that made him simply yearn and hunger for more—more music and sweeter, more life and fuller! The next performance was to introduce the new singer, Miss Bianca May.
He sat quite screened from view behind his curtain, and waited with mingled hope and doubting for her to come out. And now she appeared, Mensenn leading her. She was tall, she was dressed in white, she was supremely beautiful. His heart gave a great leap; the blood seemed to surge forward in his veins, and then to rush back in a way that gave him a sense of suffocation. She was walking forward with a step and a carriage that he recognized. She was looking around the house withgreat, pure, innocent and timid eyes that he had looked into before! She was his opposite neighbor—Tommy’s little mistress!
Her beauty was positively enthralling, but oh, her voice! At the thought of that, he turned cold with dread, and then hot with angry protest. WhatdidMensenn mean? Howcouldhe let her adorn her loveliness like this, to be led as a victim to the sacrifice? He knew the character of the audience assembled, and he knew that they were not people to be inveigled into the toleration of such a voice by mere beauty. The very fact that she had such a beautiful and correct method would make the thing all the more an insult to their intelligence. He was almost beside himself with anger and mortification. He longed passionately to rush upon the stage and drag her away, and to hide her beautiful, unconscious face against his heart, before she had come to feel the contempt and indignation which the audience, now spellboundby her beauty, would very soon have ready for her.
Across the wild confusion of these frantic, angry thoughts a sound fell, a sound so sweet, so powerful, so exquisite, that it was like the voice of peace, speaking with a strong, commanding influence to his soul. It was a voice that satisfied, for the first time in his life, the utmost ideal of Randall’s soul! Not only was it the perfect method that he knew, but the voice, itself, was so gloriously exquisite, so fine, so clear, so passionately sweet, that his soul was wrapt in ecstacy. It was almost too cruelly sweet. Randall shuddered, and, when the song ended, he dropped his face in his hands and gave a sort of sob.
Then there came from the audience an absolute storm of applause. So tempestuous and excited was it, that the girl was evidently divided between pleasure and fright, and when Mensenn came to her and led her from the stage, she was sovisibly shaken that she could not, at once, respond to the encore. It seemed to Randall cruel—it made him madly indignant that they should make this demand upon her, and while the clapping and calling was at its height, he left his box, and made his way into the street.
For an hour or more he walked about trying to secure some degree of calmness, and to solve this inscrutable mystery. What was the secret of this miraculous change of voice? Had it all been a clever imitation of inferiority and discordant sound that she had practiced behind her mask? How could it be possible to so disguise the voice of a lark or of an angel such as this? And what could have been the object? Whatever it was, the creature who had long ago won his love, and who had now by the possession of this voice deepened that love to adoration, was the woman he must have for his wife, if work of man and prayers to heaven could accomplish it! The fact that shehad been a masked street singer, the uncertain quantity of her relation toward the man who had played with her in that character,—all these things vanished, and Randall was possessed by the headlong wish, which dominated everything else, of getting access to her immediately, and begging her to become his wife.
He made his way back at last to the concert hall, and found the audience just dispersing. He had not wished to hear her sing again; he felt that it would be more than he could bear, but he had a definite purpose in view as he made his way to the rear of the stage. Here he met several men whom he knew, coming away.
“It’s no use, my boy!” said one of these. “Old Mensenn is immovable. He not only will not introduce us, but he refuses, for the present, to answer any questions. Perhaps he’s wise, for after such an ovation as this, if she showed up, she’d run the risk of being eaten alive.The women are as mad over her as the men.” Randall hurried on, however, and catching sight of the well-known face of old Mensenn, approached him with a certain confidence. The man had known him long, and, as Randall hoped, in a way that had made him trust him. Every effort which he made was perfectly useless, however. It was evident that no exception to his decision was to be made.
Randall was turning away half-resentfully when a man, small and unremarkable in appearance, came from a long, dark passage and, seeing him, stopped a second, and then, as if recognizing him, approached rapidly and said:
“You do not know me, but you rendered me and mine a service once, which I can never forget. You are the man who punished the brute who offered an insult to the being dearest to me in the world. I saw you from behind my mask, and have often wished that I could thank you properly for what you did. Will you call tosee me to-morrow afternoon at four, and let me introduce you to my daughter that she may thank you, too?” And while Randall stood astonished and delighted, the man gave the address of the house opposite his own, and then walked away.
Randall, on his way home, felt, in spite of his joy at this stroke of fortune, as puzzled and confused in mind as ever. It was an untold relief to learn that the man with whom the woman he loved had sung in the public streets was her father, but oh, how could he have let her do it? What sort of a father could he be? And yet his somewhat pathetic face had beamed with tenderness during the few seconds in which he had spoken to him. Well, one great burden had been rolled away from his heart by the discovery of this relationship between the street singer and her companion; another had gone with the discovery that that awful sound of discord was not her natural voice; and the one that still remained, the fact that shehad been a masked street singer, lay heavy on his heart still, but contrasted with the love he had for this woman, that burden he was more than ready to carry.
The next afternoon at precisely four, he rang at the door of the opposite house, and asked for Mr. May. The servant led him up several flights of stairs to the very top of the house, and then along a dark passage leading to the back building, and here she knocked at a door, and then turned and left him. A man’s voice called “Come in!” and Randall opened the door and saw his new acquaintance sitting at a table writing, and at his side his old acquaintance seated on a low chair engaged in stroking Tommy, who was greatly grown. He did not see the kitten at first, because of the fact that the young girl was dressed in deep, intense black, which swathed her to her throat and wrists. It made the brilliant loveliness of her face, however, all the more startling, as she rose to her feet, still holding Tommy, and recognized himwith her usual tribute of a rosy blush. His appearance was evidently a surprise to her, though it soon became evident that her father had prepared her for the reception of a stranger, and had told her to what cause the visit was due.
The father, himself, a somewhat feeble and timid man, explained that they were in the shadow of a recent bereavement, his wife, and the girl’s mother, having died only a month or so ago. He alluded to it in a low and sorrowful voice, and ended with the words:
“You can understand, therefore, all the more, why I should have wished for the opportunity of thanking you for resenting the affront that was offered to her, by that brute, when she was exposing herself, for the sake of our child, to the dangers which such a position made inevitable. It was all that our dear daughter might be nurtured in refined and wholesome conditions, for the preservation of her health and her innocence, and the development of her voice,which has fulfilled, at last, all our hopes concerning it, when the dear mother, who so passionately loved her has passed beyond the knowledge of it.”
“Don’t say so, Father,” said the young girl, gently. “I felt her very near to me, last night. It was that thought which kept me up and enabled me to sing my best.”
As she spoke, she drew a little nearer to him, and putting Tommy on the floor, she took her father’s hand in hers and held it, while he talked to their visitor, and told his story, in a simple, frank, unworldly way that very soon put Randall in possession of the whole situation. It was made very clear to him that the mother had been the master spirit of this trio, and that this mild and ineffectual little man was very helpless without her. His lack of worldly prudence showed plainly enough in the fact that he took this stranger so fully into his confidence on the sole ground that he had once defended his dead wife from an insult. The girl, herself, too, seemedto find nothing strange in the situation, as she sat by and listened to her father’s recital of his wife’s labor of love and sacrifices.
She had once possessed a superb voice, herself, it seemed, and had received the most perfect and thorough training in a great Europeanconservatoire, being herself an Italian, but before she had sung in public at all, a severe attack of throat trouble had ruined her voice forever, and she had come to America to give lessons, and in a southern town had met and married her husband. Then had begun a long life of vicissitudes of various kinds, culminating in the street-singing performances, a necessity to which they had been reduced, at last, by positive want. In this way she had eked out the little that she could make by taking pupils at a small price, and by the little jobs of writing and bookkeeping which the man himself could get, until the time should be ripe for her daughter’sdébut.
All this was told to Randall with the utmost simplicity, and Bianca, herself, sitting by, seemed pleased that he should know it. When at last he rose to go, it was like the parting of friends, and he asked and received permission to come again. He longed almost intolerably to ask her now, to-day, to be his wife, and he chafed under the necessity of delay.
And the delay, in point of fact, was not very long. When hearts are young and trusting, why should it be? And Bianca had had an instinct of blind trust in him from the first. He got Mensenn to say a good word for him; he cultivated the father and took pains to make him acquainted with the details of his life, position and circumstances; and then, at last, he felt that he had only Bianca’s consent to win.
How would she answer him? How did she feel toward him? He asked himself these questions with agitated hope and fear. Her very friendliness and frankness half frightened him at times.
One afternoon when he went to call, as he did almost daily now, he found Bianca in the little sitting-room alone. It was the first time it had happened so, and she explained her father’s absence, and that he might be in at any moment. The situation was a little constrained for her, and Randall saw it, and to reassure her he asked her to sing. She had done this frequently before, but always with her father to play her accompaniments. He volunteered to do this now, himself, and sitting down to the piano he struck the opening chords of the song he had first heard her sing. The song which had been the consummation of her revelation to him. She began to sing it. They were alone together. The song was more than speech. He turned his head and looked upward at her. His look agitated her, and her voice faltered. At this he smiled, and the voice grew more unsteady. Then suddenly he stopped playing, and without the support of the accompaniment, she broke down utterly.
But the hands that were lifted from the keys suddenly took both of hers in an imperious grasp. The gaze that she tried desperately to avoid, compelled her to look at him, and after the confession of that look she knew no more, but that she was in his arms, and was glad and satisfied.