THE RULING PASSION.
Amongthe crowd in the top gallery at St. James’s Hall was one very remarkable figure who was an object of speculation to most of his fellow-listeners at the Monday Popular Concerts. He was a regular and unfailing attendant for many, many years, but not very long ago he disappeared suddenly in the middle of the season, and his place knew him no more.
He was an old man, apparently between seventy and eighty, very tall, thin almost to emaciation, with a magnificent head, white hair that was still thick and rather long, a short white beard and moustache, a fine straight nose, and very sad, kindly grey eyes. His hands, though old and shrunken, with their veins standing out in relief, were well shaped, and still had the trained, capable look that only those people possess who, having been taught to use and develop the muscles of their hands while young, keep them in constant use and practice afterwards.
That he was very poor was certain, for year by year he appeared in the same clothes. A very old, threadbare, but well-brushed Inverness cape, a white woollen comforter, and a soft felt hat that had once been black, but was now of the indescribable greenish-brown tint that black hats assume in their last stages of existence. He also wore grey cloth gloves and carried a thick blackthorn walking-stick with a knob handle.
He came alone to the concerts and sat on the extreme right-hand of the gallery, close against the wall, in the third row from the front. Sometimes he was joined by a young man, who was the only person he was ever seen to converse with at length, though he would answer politely any chance question about the music or the artists, on both of which subjects he appeared to have considerable knowledge.
His English was perfect and fluent, but the impression prevailed in the gallery that he was foreign.
One Monday evening a few years ago he came to the gallery at seven o’clock and took his usual place. It happened to be the first appearance of Joachim that season, and it was not unreasonable to suppose that there might be a crowd. The old gentleman looked round anxiously as each new-comer opened the door, fearing evidently that some stranger would take the seat next him. His fears, however, were vain ones on that night, and at about twenty minutes before eight, looking round as the door opened, his face lighted up with joy as his friend, a rather good-looking, dark young man, pushed his way across the gallery to his side.
“Dear Professor Crowitzski,” he said affectionately, “I am sorry to be so late. I knew you would be anxious, but I have come straight from Grignoletti’s house in the Avenue Road.”
“My dear boy—my dear boy,” returned the old man tremulously, “I have been anxious about you for several reasons. I have thought much about your interview with Grignoletti and its possible result, and I also began to fear you would not get here in time to hear the Brahms Sextett, which is placed first upon the programme to-night. I would not have you miss it if you could possibly help it; you should hear Brahms as often as you can. Do not neglect the other masters of course. Hear and study the works of all; but especially those of that great trinity, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms. Now, however, tell me about yourself. Did Grignoletti hold out any hope to you?”
“Indeed he did,” said the young man, “almost too much, for I do not quite see how the hope is to be realised. He spoke in high terms of my voice, said I had a career beforeme, and advised my entering the Royal Academy at once, saying he should not let me study with anyone but himself.”
“That is a high compliment,” said the Professor. “Grignoletti is the finest teacher of singing in London. Moreover, he is a true artist and an honest man. He will say nothing to you he does not mean. But tell me what difficulties stand in your way.”
Herbert Maxwell sighed. It was so hard to see the bright pathway of his highest wishes shining in the distance, and to realise that between him and the beginning of it lay a dark stream that could only be crossed by means of golden stepping-stones.
“I’m afraid money is the chief difficulty,” he said rather sadly. “The Academy fees are ten pounds a term. The half-term examination is next Monday, and I have not the means of raising five pounds. You know my mother and I depend entirely on my weekly wage, and it is not a very large one.”
“I know—I know,” replied the old man; “but supposing this amount could be found, how would you support your mother and yourself when you give up your present work? If you mean to adopt singing as your profession, you must give your whole time to the study of music.”
“It was in that matter that Grignoletti showed himself so very kind,” said Herbert. “He asked me how I lived, and promised, if I were admitted to the Academy, he would find work for me by which I could earn at least as much as I do now, and which would also increase my musical knowledge. He——”
A sudden storm of applause interrupted him, in which he joined vigorously, as Joachim, followed by the other artists, emerged from the curious little well at the end of the platform, where those of the players and singers who are not performing assemble to listen to those who are, sitting on the stairs or on the settee just inside.
Nothing more was said by the old Professor or Herbert himself on the subject of his musical education. The concert absorbed them both entirely, and in the intervals between each item on the programme no other subject was discussed by them but the music and the performers.
It was a shorter concert than usual, and as they were slowly making for the door with the rest of the crowd, the old man said to his young friend, “Can you come home with me to-night, my dear boy? I have something more to say to you, and I cannot say it here. I do not think it will make you very late.”
“I shall be very glad to,” replied Herbert, “and very glad to hear anything from you. You are the only person in the world to whom I can go for advice about music. It is very good of you to take so much interest in me.”
At Piccadilly Circus they got into that red omnibus which is affectionately called by those who use it constantly “The Kennington Lobster,” and travelled over Westminster Bridge some little distance down the wide Kennington Road.
“Green Street,” said the Professor after a time, and the conductor stopped the omnibus almost immediately.
They got down and turned into a little street on the right-hand of the main road; one of those streets still to be found here and there in some of the older parts of London, though they are fast being swept away by the remorseless builder to make room for the huge piles of model dwellings that are springing up on every side.
It was a narrow street of small but still respectable-looking houses, not detached. Each had a tiny square of garden in front of its one window, and a path of flagstones led from the gate to the front door.
The old man stopped at No. 9, opened the door with a latch-key, and led the way up a narrow staircase to the second floor.
“Wait a moment till we have a light,” he said; “you may fall over something in my tiny room.”
It was a tiny room indeed that Herbert found himself in when the Professor had lighted the lamp, and, as might have been expected, not a luxurious one; but it was as neatly arranged as a ship’s cabin, and everything was scrupulously clean.
On one side of the room stood a very narrow bed covered with a patchwork quilt, at its foot a tiny square washstand of painted deal. An old-fashioned mahogany chest of drawers piled high with books, a small deal table in the middle of the room, an old stuffed chair by the fireplace, and a low wooden one by the head of the bed completed the tale of furniture, with the exception of—a piano!
It was of the small, old-fashioned, cottage kind, with a square lid and faded green silk fluting for its front. It looked thin and worn like its master; but there it was. It proved, too, that its owner must be a musician, for there was nothing on the top of it. There was not much room anywhere, save on the little table, to put anything down; but the Professor would have been horrified at the idea of using the piano as a resting-place for anything. He would not even let Herbert put his hat on it.
“I should like to hear you sing,” he said, going to a large square pile of something by the piano covered with an old cloth. “Do you know the ‘Elijah’?” He lifted the cloth as he spoke and disclosed a quantity of music; sheet music, loose and bound, and scores of many famous works—all old, all worn, but still his treasures. He picked out a vocal score of the “Elijah” and put it on the piano desk.
“Yes,” said Herbert. “Shall I try ‘If with all your hearts’?”
The old man nodded with a smile, and, sitting down on the crazy music stool, laid his aged hands upon the aged keys.
It needed but two bars to show Herbert that his old friend was a real artist. The piano’s tone was like a tone ghost; but it was in perfect tune. The Professor saw to that himself. And his touch seemed so to caress the yellow keys that they gave him the very best they still had in them.
As the song proceeded, the old gentleman smiled and nodded gently to himself, as if he, too, were pleased and satisfied with what he heard. He had good reason. Herbert’s voice was of that rare delicious quality given perhaps to one singer in a generation. Full, rich, intensely sympathetic, without a trace of that metallic hardness in the upper notes so often found in tenor voices. He sang the great solo with the utmost simplicity, but with a beauty of expression that would have gone straight to the heart of any audience, musical or unmusical.
“My boy, you have a gift—a great gift,” said the Professor solemnly at the end. “See that you use it well. You may, if you choose, be one of the singers of the world; but it will mean more than three years at the Academy, and then to sing at ballad concerts. Aim at the highest, and make up your mind that it must be your life work. You must let me help you put your foot on the lowest rung of the ladder. You can climb yourself afterwards.”
He went to the bed and drew from underneath it a small old-fashioned box covered with skin with the hair on and studded with brass nails. This he unlocked, and took from it a small yellow canvas bag.
“I have here,” he said, “a kind of nest egg which I have managed to put by from time to time out of my little income. It is the exact sum you need just now, and you must pay your first fees with it.”
“My dear Professor,” stammered Herbert, completely taken aback, “indeed, I cannot! I should never forgive myself for taking money that you might possibly want for all sorts of things before I had a chance of paying it back again!”
“Nonsense!” replied the old man, rather sternly. “You must take it! I will have it so. I should never forgivemyselfif I allowed your young life and precious talent to be wasted because you were in want of what I had lying idle! You can repay me some day when you can spare it.”
“But what will you do in the meantime?” asked the young man rather diffidently, for he felt a delicacy about inquiring too closely into the old man’s circumstances.
“My dividend falls due to-morrow,” was the reply. “There is not the smallest reason for your refusing to take this. Go home to your mother, tell her everything is decided, and take care of your voice for the next week. Shall you be at the concert next Monday? Perhaps not, if you are kept late at your work. If I do not see you there, will you come here the next day and tell me about it all?”
His young friend promised this gladly; and in order to cut short his expressions of thanks, the Professor took up the lamp and lighted him downstairs, giving him a last warning against taking cold or overtiring his throat as he let him out.
“He is a good boy,” he said to himself as he went back to his little room. “I am very glad I was able to do it. It is for the young ones to carry on the world. We old ones who have served our time must stand by and encourage the others.”
He set about preparing his frugal supper—a small loaf and a pennyworth of milk, which he took from a cupboard in one corner of the room. He put the milk into a tiny tin saucepan, and, as of course there was no fire in the grate, he lighted a little spirit lamp, set the saucepan over the flame, and sat down to watch till it boiled.
His mind was still running on Herbert Maxwell and his probable career, and from that it wandered back to his own young days. Gradually he seemed to live through the whole of his past life. He recalled the early home life in the comfortable house at Clapham; his kind Polish parents who had been driven like so many others from their own country; his childish passion for music which had caused him so often to be laughed at by his English schoolfellows, and the decision of his parents that he should adopt it as a profession. Then came those happy student days at Leipzig, with the growing consciousness of his own powers and the encouragement of his teachers and fellow students, hisdébutat the Gewandhaus, with the applause and laurel wreaths, succeeded by his first concert tour in Germany. He remembered his return home, to his parents’ joy, and his success in London as a player and teacher, with constant tours on the Continent, during one of which he met that lovely girl he afterwards wooed and won, to spend those few happy years with him till her sudden death abroad.
Then followed a ghastly blank, with isolated memories of being in some great building with many other people, who were all waited on by kindly men and sweet-faced women, and he could remember the feeling of having been ill and not knowing how. Till one day, when he had grown stronger, the knowledge came to him that, for a time, his mind had left him.
He vividly recalled his return to England, to find himself forgotten and eclipsed byothers who had sprung to fame during his long absence, his failure to obtain either engagements or pupils, and, finally, the collapse of the bank in which almost all his savings had been placed.
At this point, as if in sympathy with his thoughts, the spirit-lamp went out with a little “fuff,” and the milk, which was on the verge of boiling over, collapsed too.
This recalled him from his sad memories, and he tried, as he ate his bread and milk, to put them out of his mind and to think of the pleasanter events of the evening—of the fine concert, how splendidly Joachim played, and of his young friend, whose mother would be so glad at her boy’s good fortune.
But he could not rid himself of them, and even through the night his broken sleep was haunted by harassing dreams and vague feelings of some impending evil.
(To be concluded.)